Fleet
Southern Wings Fleet
Southern Wings operate a modern, superbly equipped, well-maintained and diversified fleet, suitable for all training purposes.
Primary fixed wing training is carried out in the two seat Alpha 160A aerobatic aircraft. The aircraft are recent model aircraft maintained to air transport standards. They offer superb handling, unimpeded visibility from a bubble canopy, the opportunity for aerobatic training and will contribute to well honed “stick and rudder” skills. The avionics and instrument suites installed include Garmin radios and GPS.
Primary helicopter training is carried out in the two seat Robinson R22 aircraft. These aircraft are also recent models and maintained to air transport standards. They are a reliable and proven training aircraft and perform admirably as trainers producing pilots with excellent handling skills.
As students progress to cross country and advanced aspects of flight training they can expect to transition to the Piper Archer PA 28 – 181 aircraft. These aircraft offer very predictable handling and cope very well with the variable weather conditions encountered in Southern New Zealand. They are high performance single engine aircraft with a good cruise speed and are appropriate for a wide variety of applications from local training to beach and strip operations and mountain flying. They are also the aircraft in which students are introduced to instrument flying. The instrument equipped aircraft also have Garmin 430 GPS suites fitted.
For multi engine conversion training and advanced instrument training our students can expect to transition to the Piper Seneca aircraft. These aircraft have proven to be sound multi engine instrument trainers and Southern Wings has fitted the aircraft with Garmin 530 GPS suites, while retaining VOR / ILS and ADF / RMI capability.
All instrument training aircraft are subject to ongoing assessment and upgrade as the transition to glass cockpit technology progresses.
Helicopter students can expect to transition to heavy turbine powered aircraft for type training at the completion of CPL training.
Simulator
Southern Wings operates an iGate S623 fixed base simulator. It has a CAA approval for up to 20 hours of the required 40 hours of instrument time required to be completed prior to the instrument flight test. It is also approved for use in providing IFR currency and for parts of some instrument renewal assessments. Students may also log 2 hours of instrument flight in the simulator towards their PPL licence and 4 hours towards their CPL licence.
iGate S623 Flight Simulator
The simulator is digital and is designed to closely simulate the Twin Engine Seneca III and features full synchronous thrust and engine sounds on stereo, high resolution instrument panels and precise aerodynamic flight modeling.
The simulator allows a student in multi-engine training to practice everything from start up to shutdown, all aspects of flight including VOR, NDB and ILS training as well as engine out procedures which are highly detailed and REAL. An additional feature is the 210° visuals which surround the cockpit with real view imagery.
This simulator allows us to fly any IFR approach in New Zealand and Australia which uses radio navigation aids. As with other parts of our fleet the simulator is subject to ongoing assessment and upgrade and upgrades for graphics, GPS instrumentation and glass cockpit technology componentry is currently under way.
We’ve had numerous airline pilots “have a go” in our simulator and all have commented that it’s the best fixed base simulator out there.
