Airplane Adventure Hawaiian Style...

Hawaiian Style Airplane Adventure!

Meet at the Kona Airport (KOA, PHKO) at 7:00 for a preflight briefing and a review of weather, NOTAMS etc... along the route of flight. 

Today we will be flying across the Hawaiian Island chain for a self guided air tour/cross country that includes:
  • Kona KOA, departure
  • North east along the Waikoloa coast, major hotels, white sand beaches, lava desert, and coral reefs.  upwind to the north east towers 13,796' Mauna Kea and her smaller sister Kohala disturbing the trade wind flow and giving us a few choppy bumps, clear skies, and great views!
  • Over head left downwind entry for a touch and go on runway 7 at Upolu Point airport UPP, PHUP.  Windy as usual, right down the runway 20kts gusting 30+.  Great for short field practice and wind correction technique.  Watch for fast moving rain showers coming down the hamakua coast from Hilo, the wettest zip code in the nation!
  • Left downwind departure and climb to the northwest next stop Maui.  Climb high across the channel to avoid using the raft belted to the back seat and pick up flight following from HCF (Honolulu Center Frequency) just in case!  Does the engine sound funny over the water or is it just me? ;)
  • Hanna airport arrival is another overhead and left downwind runway 8. the terrain rising precipitously towards the haleakala summit tends to put us high and hot on final, corrections made, stabilized approach by 500 feet and slight crosswind 100/10 kts, no problem.  Watch for ultralights, and no comm operations here!  ...to be continued!