PILOT PROFICIENCY DAY

This is an opportunity to brush up on flying skills with a coach/mentor in the right hand seat.
Points are awarded but the emphasis is on proficient flying by all participants.

The HDFC runs a monthly pilot proficiency day over 11 months of the year plus a navigation trial over December and January. The proficiency days are an excellent way to maintain and improve flying skills. Most sessions are of 20-30 minutes duration and participants fly with an Check Pilot.

Both GA and RA aircraft participate in the same routine
Pilots may fly their own aircraft provided the check pilots are happy
Aircraft hire rate for the proficiency exercise will be reduced to $100/ hour. A sequence is usually between 0.4 and 0.5 hours.
Student pilots are encouraged to participate and will not be asked to perform a sequence that they have not already undertaken in a lesson
Each proficiency day will have a 1st, 2nd and 3rd point system which will be used to determine annual awards
Air judges will have a 10 point handicap before any other handicap is applied. Monthly winners have a 10 point handicap for each time they win.
There are three main annual awards
- Most Proficient Pilot
- Forced Landing Proficiency
- Spot Landing Proficiency
A countback system will be used so that a different pilot is successful in each category

A BBQ lunch is held on the day

These are some of the sequences undertaken:

INSTRUMENT CLIMB: After take-off, the instrument hood goes on at 400 feet and an under-the-hood sequence is followed depending on the weather and cloud height. The most common sequence involves a climb to 3000' with climbing and descending turns and straight climbs and descents.

FORCED LANDING: An instrument climb is followed by a forced landing glide approach, usually from either 2500' of 1500'. Points are awarded for emergency calls and checks, accurate flying and an accurate landing on a designated spot.

SPOT LANDING: This sequence tests landing accuracy.

STEEP TURNS: Two complete turns, one to the right and one to the left, are required with points awarded for balance, angle of bank, height and roll out.

COMPASS TURN: Turning onto a heading using the compass

BLIND CIRCUIT: Competitors fly a circuit with some or all the flight instruments covered. Points are awarded for accuracy of speed, height and the 'quality' of the landing.

STUCK THROTTLE: In a normal circuit, the throttle sticks at 1400 revs half way along the downwind leg. Points are awarded for a spot landing.

RIVER BASH: This sequence follows a length of river with points awarded for keeping the aircraft in the centre of the river, and for maintaining height, usually 500', and balance.

Download the competition score sheet | Download the Instrument Climb score sheet

2014 Tri Club Competition

The Tri Club Event is traditionally held between HDFC, RNAC and MRAC. This time we welcomed KFC to join in as well. KFC did a superb job of catering for the hungry pilots as well as hosting the competition for the day.

We had a remarkable number of 20 pilots fly in the event which is the most we’ve had for a long time. The weather was perfect for flying so there was no indecision concerning being able to fly to and from the event either. The flying events were:

BLIND CIRCUIT / GLIDE
1st Paul Stubbs (KFC) 82pts, 2nd Caleb Butterfield (HDFC) 77 pts, 3rd Ed Godschalk (HDFC) 74 pts

RIVER BASH
The River Bash had 3 pilots all on the same score to take out the win and they were all from KFC.
1st Paul Stubbs, Hilton McLeod, Toni Bonhomme (62)

SPOT LANDING / FLAPLESS
1ST Jon Maguire (HDFC) 75, 2nd Rod Davison (HDFC) 70, 3rd Bob Doran (RNAC), Bruce Harrison (MRAC)),Ed Godschalk(HDFC) all on 65pts.

OVERALL
The winning teams for the 2014 Tri Club were:
1st HDFC 649, 2nd KFC 605, 3rd RNAC 521 4th MRAC 495

The Tri Club also took the place of our normal monthly Pilot Proficiency Day. So HDFC results were:

BLIND CIRCUIT/GLIDE
1st Caleb Butterfield 77pts, 2nd Ed Godschalk 74pts, 3rd Craig Whiting 49pts

SPOT LANDING/FLAPLESS
1st Jon Maguire 75, 2nd Rod Davison 70, 3rd Ed Godschalk 65pts

RIVER BASH
1st Ed Godschalk, Caleb Butterfield 54, 2nd Rod Davison 53

OVERALL
OUR PPD winners were:
1st Ed Godschalk 193, 2nd Rod Davison 161, 3rd Caleb Butterfield 156.

October Proficiency Day

Proficiency Day pilots continue to pay only $100 an hour in the Foxbat while participating in the PPD. This would definitely be the cheapest flying available anywhere. Also, what better way is there to keep currency!

Pilots continue to earn up to 20 bonus points for the landing on each exercise, regardless of the scoring box position. This makes the obsession with scoring boxes less important than the landing itself. To score the 20 points, the pilot must have the column fully back and be exactly in the middle of the runway. Not many pilots are gaining these bonus points; an area where we hope for much improvement with longer use of the system.

For our October PPD (Pilot Proficiency Day) we had four (4) pilots participate. A disappointing number but lots of our regular pilots were away. The conditions were calm earlier in the day but got quite rough and gusty towards lunchtime. One pilot missed out on flying because it just became too uncomfortable and risky to fly. We again welcomed our early solo student, Caleb Butterfield to his second PPD and once again he acquitted himself very well considering the low number of flying hours he has flown.

Our first event was the Stuck Throttle at 3000RPM simulating a partial engine failure so the pilot has to treat the exercise exactly like a total engine failure. The pilot then has to complete the exercise with a spot landing on the big touchdown markers while landing perfectly to gain extra points.

1st Ed Godschalk 20pts, 2nd Glenn Cleary 10pts

The next event was the popular River Bash where each pilot has to fly along the Maria River at 600’ following all of the twists and turns while keeping the aircraft in the middle and balanced at all times. The results were:

River Bash
1st Glenn Cleary 46pts, 2nd Ed Godschalk, Jon Maguire 40pts, 3rd Caleb Butterfield 37pts.

Our final proficiency check event was the Forced Landing.
Forced Landing (A020)
1st Caleb Butterfield 76pts, 2nd Ed Godschalk 50pts. In very gusty conditions Caleb managed to touch his main undercarriage exactly in the middle of the large touchdown marker and earning the maximum 50 points. Caleb has only just completed his Forced Landing training as part of his training so it proves that currency does indeed pay off.

Bonus Point Winners (Perfect Landing)
Bonus point winners included Glenn Cleary who earned an extra 20pts on his Forced Landing event and Ed Godschalk who earned an extra 10pts on his Forced Landing.

Overall Winners for the PPD
1st Caleb Butterfield 113pts, 2nd Ed Godschalk 110pts, 3rd Glenn Cleary 76pts.

August 2014 Proficiency Day

Proficiency pilots continue to pay only $100 an hour in the Foxbat while participating in the PPD. This would definitely be the cheapest flying available anywhere. Also, what better way is there to keep currency!

Pilots are earning up to 20 bonus points for the landing on each exercise, regardless of the scoring box position. This makes the obsession with scoring boxes less important than the landing itself. To score the 20 points, the pilot must have the column fully back and be exactly in the middle of the runway. Not many pilots are gaining these bonus points, an area where we hope for much improvement with longer use of the system.

For our August PPD (Pilot Proficiency Day) we had seven (7) pilots participate. The conditions were calm for most of our flying with minimal traffic to contend with but after lunch the wind definitely picked up and made it a bit more exciting and challenging with quite turbulent conditions and a brisk crosswind to contend with. We also welcomed our brand new solo student, Caleb Butterfield to his first PPD and he acquitted himself very well considering the low number of flying hours he has flown.

Our first event was the Blind Circuit/Spot Landing where the instruments are totally covered simulating an instrument failure so the pilot has to rely totally on the natural horizon to do his takeoff and flying. The pilot then has to try and fly a perfect circuit while completing the exercise with a spot landing.

1st Bill Coote 102pts, 2nd Caleb Butterfield 99pts, 3rd Ed Godschalk 88pts

The next event was the popular River Bash where each pilot has to fly along the Maria River at 600’ following all of the twists and turns while keeping the aircraft in the middle and balanced at all times. The results were:

River Bash
1st Bruce Dunlop 59pts,2nd Ed Godschalk 56pts, 3rd Mark Whatson 53pts

Forced Landing (A020)
1st Bill Coote 72pts, 2nd Ray Lind 70pts.

Bonus Point Winners (Perfect Landing)
Bonus point winners were a bit light on today. We want to see this turned around as pilots realise a perfect landing can gain them more points than struggling to land in a particular box area.

Overall Winners for the PPD
1st Bill Coote 213pts, 2nd Ray Lind 161pts, 3rd Caleb Butterfield 147pts.

July 2014 Proficiency Day

Proficiency pilots are now paying only $100 an hour in the Foxbat while participating in the PPD. This would definitely be the cheapest flying available anywhere. Also, what better way is there to keep currency!

We have continued with our landing score system where the pilot can earn 20 bonus points for the landing on each exercise, regardless of the scoring box position. This makes the obsession with scoring boxes less important than the landing itself. To score the 20 points, the pilot must have the column fully back and be exactly in the middle of the runway. Not many pilots are gaining these bonus points; an area where we hope for much improvement with longer use of the system.

For our July PPD (Pilot Proficiency Day) we had an impressive number of eight (8) pilots participate. The conditions were very calm for most of our flying with minimal traffic to contend with. Our pilots, as well as gaining a beautiful lunch had the added bonus of witnessing Anson Needham doing his maiden flight in his beautiful RV8. For those who missed the exciting event, the action has been recorded on HDFC website Facebook Page.

Our first event was the very popular River Bash where each pilot has to fly along the Maria River at 600’ following all of the twists and turns while keeping the aircraft in the middle and balanced at all times. The results were:

River Bash
1st Clyde Stubbs, John Hayler 56pts, 2nd Bill Coote 54 pts

Forced Landing (A020)
1st John Hayler 75pts. John, in his RV6 was the only pilot to actually touchdown in the scoring boxes
Our final event was the Low Level 500’ bad weather circuit finishing with a Spot Landing.

Spot Landing (A005)
1st Bruce Dunlop 90pts, 2nd Clyde Stubbs, Glenn Cleary 80pts

Bonus Point Winners (Perfect Landing)
Bill Coote, Clyde Stubbs and Glenn Cleary had perfect landings.

Overall Winners for the PPD
1st John Hayler 196pts, 2nd Clyde Stubbs 156pts, 3rd Glenn Cleary 150pts.

June 2014 Proficiency Day

Proficiency pilots are now paying only $100 an hour in the Foxbat for these flying days. This would have to be the cheapest flying available anywhere.

Our Proficiency Days are all about maintaining currency and improving our flying skills overall. To improve the quality of the landings we have now introduced an additional landing score system where the pilot can earn 20 bonus points for the landing on each exercise regardless of the scoring box position. This makes the obsession with scoring boxes less important than the landing itself. To score the 20 points, the pilot must have the column fully back and be exactly in the middle of the runway.

For our May PPD (Pilot Proficiency Day) we had a very disappointing four (4) pilots participate. The conditions up until lunch time were very calm with minimal traffic to contend with. After a maintenance issue with the brakes and another beautiful club lunch for everyone, the conditions had deteriorated and the last few pilots were unable to fly.

Our first event was the River Bash where each pilot has to fly along the Maria River at 600’ following all of the twists and turns keeping the aircraft in the middle and balanced at all times. The results were:

River Bash
1st Rod Davison 57pts, 2nd Ed Godschalk, Bill Coote 56 pts, 3rd Jon Maguire 50pts.

Steep Turns
We then did steep turns where the pilot performs turns up to 45o while maintaining altitude and balance during the whole sequence. The results were:
1st Rod Davison 75pts, 2nd Bill Coote 70pts, 3rd Jon Maguire 65pts.
Our final event was the Forced Landing back onto the airstrip from 2000’.

Forced Landing (A020)
1st Rod Davison 60pts
Rod was the only pilot scoring points on the very difficult forced landing event

Overall for the PPD
1st Rod Davison 192pts, 2nd Bill Coote 126pts, 3rd Jon Maguire 115pts.

May 2014 Proficiency Day

Proficiency pilots are now paying only $100 an hour in the Foxbat for these flying days. This would have to be the cheapest flying available anywhere. For our May PPD (Pilot Proficiency Day) we had seven (7) pilots participate on a lovely, calm day weatherwise and surprisingly quiet with aircraft traffic.

The first event was the Blind/Spot Circuit where the instruments are covered and the pilot has to fly a circuit with a simulated, total instrument failure while judging his altitude for 1000’ as well as airspeed. This check finishes with a spot landing on the runway where the pilot has to touchdown on the large airstrip markers. The results were:

Blind/Spot Circuit
1st Bruce Dunlop, Ray Lind 112pts, 2nd Ed Godschalk 100 pts, 3rd Jack Terp 98pts.

Our second event was the River Bash where each pilot has to fly along the Maria River at 600’ following all of the twists and turns keeping the aircraft in the middle and balanced at all times. The results were:

River Bash
1st Bruce Dunlop, Jack Terp, Ray Lind 59pts, 2nd Jon Maguire 46pts, 3rd Ed Godschalk 44pts.

Our final event was the Forced Landing back onto the airstrip from 2000’.

Forced Landing (A020)
1st Bruce Dunlop 76pts, 2nd Mark Whatson 63pts.

Overall for the PPD
1st Bruce Dunlop 247pts, 2nd Mark Whatson 171pts, 3rd Ray Lind 161pts.

March 2014 Proficiency Day

We had seven(7)pilots participate in a great day of flying. The morning saw the weather lovely and calm but after lunch the pilots had to work quite hard in lots of turbulence. These conditions of course add to the value of the Pilot Proficiency Day where pilots who are out of currency or simply not feeling confident, can fly with an instructor in conditions they don't usually experience when doing a casual flight. We also welcomed John Hayler flying expertly in his very fast RV6.

Flying activities were:
River Bash
1st Bruce Dunlop 59, 2nd Ray Lind 56, 3rd Rod Davison 54pts

Forced Landing (A020)
1st John Hayler 96, 2nd Bruce Dunlop 56

Spot Landing (A005)
1st Bruce Dunlop 75, 2nd John Hayler 70, 3rd Ray Lind, Rod Davison 65

Overall
1ST John Hayler 217, 2nd Bruce Dunlop 190, 3rd Rod Davison 119.

HDFC Navigation Trial 2013/14

We recently completed our Navigation Trial for 2013/14. We had six (6) pilots fly in this challenging little navigation exercise where no GPS equipment was allowed to be used so it was back to the old tried and proven methods. The course was from YPMQ – Mt Comboyne- Pappinbarra Saw Mill with a diversion to the Oxley HWY / Byabarra Road- YPMQ. The exercise finished with a forced landing back onto the runway at YPMQ.

Ed Godschalk flew very accurately with very few errors in his navigation to earn the highest points score. Four (4) pilots flew the Foxbat 24-7395 while two (2) flew the C182 VH-DUZ.

1st Ed Godschalk 333, 2nd Rod Davison 300, 3rd David Mitchell 290

February 2014

Proficiency pilots are now paying only $100 an hour in the Foxbat for these flying days.
Our February Proficiency Day was postponed due suspect weather on Feb 16 so we decided to have an abbreviated flying sequence on Feb 23. We squeezed it into the afternoon session amongst flying lessons by having pilots book a half hour slot to fly which actually worked ok. The weather however brought with it the normal afternoon gusty cross winds which were very challenging. We flew a Stuck Throttle activity followed by a Circuit Glide approach while in the C182 we included a 500’Spot Circuit which had to be abandoned by the Foxbat pilots due to the gusts.

Forced Landing:             1st Ed Godschalk 88pts. Ed managed a perfect score of 50 pts on the ground.
Spot Landing:                   1st David Mitchell   80pts. David scored a bonus 10pts for a perfect landing.
Overall :                            1st   Ed Godschalk , 2nd David Mitchell, 3rd Bill Coote

January 2014

Our January Proficiency Day introduced the new format of our days where we don’t differentiate between GA and RA. Both aircraft types fly exactly the same sequence. This was also the first time where each pilot flew at the greatly reduced cost of $100 an hour in the Foxbat which we are doing now for each Proficiency Day and also the annual Nav Trial.

We had ten (10) pilots participate in a great day of flying. We welcomed Matt Connors in his Pioneer aircraft for the first time and also Randy Bable in his Cirrus aircraft. Also Graham Smith joined us flying the Foxbat for the first time. It was the perfect day for proficiency checks with challenging gusts of wind and a slight cross wind to contend with. This type of flying regains the pilot’s currency very quickly.

Flying activities were:
River Bash 1st Jon Maguire 58, 2nd Ray Lind 56, 3rd Bruce Dunlop 54pts
Forced Landing (A020) 1st Jon Maguire 88, 2nd Glenn Cleary 74, 3rd Bruce Dunlop 53pts
Spot Landing (A005) 1st Bruce Dunlop 95, 2nd Randy Bable, Ray Lind 80, 3rd Jon Maguire 65
Overall 1ST Jon Maguire 211, (easily with the highest points) 2nd Ray Lind 193, 3rd Bruce Dunlop 192pts