Below is a report written by Warrant Officer Alex Asbery, who also attended the National Navigation Course earlier in the 2012:-
“During January I attended the National Navigation Course held at RNZAF Base Woodbourne. Over the course of 11 days there was a lot of content to cover for the final course exam as well as the ASL exam (which is one of the exams needed for a private pilot’s license). I was placed in the “Rainbow Warrior” syndicate, named after our plane (the only piper plane on the navigation course) with the only Army pilot of the course.
The first chunk of the course involved going through lots of lessons on every aspect of navigation and flight planning as well as having plenty of homework to keep us all busy each night. There was enough time each night to socialise with all 53 students on the two courses (Navigation and Aviation courses) and use some of the base facilities (especially the pool). After the main bulk of the lessons we were tasked with planning flights around the area as far south as Kaikoura.
During all of the flights we saw some amazing scenery and also experienced some pretty cool aerobatics in our plane (zero g being one of the favourites with pens and even ourselves lifting up during some of the manoeuvres). One of the flights went up to 9500 feet and flew alongside the second highest mountain in the South Island, Taepe-u-nouku.
Near the end of the course we all sat both of the navigation exams with nearly all of us passing at least one of the exams with myself getting a perfect score in the course exam. The last formal part of the course was the prize giving where all of the navigation brevets were handed out as well as solo wings and awards for performance. I was awarded top of syndicate and given my navigation brevet to add to my brassard. With the course finishing everybody had to say a lot of goodbyes and then head home on our respective transports with plenty of memories and over 500 photos to take with us.”
Pictured:- 1)W/O’s Asbery’s (in blue overalls – they ran out of green!) syndicate, 2) At the controls, 3) Impressive sunset, 4) Rooms on base
