A nice trip around the Hawaiian islands

To achieve one of my goals for this year´s flying I used our vacation in paradise to rent a C172 Skyhawk and fly around the Hawaiian islands. I wanted to visit Pearl Harbour, but since I had been there before, the real goal of the flight was to fly to a big international airport and enjoy the stunning views of the islands.

Before our trip I checked for an FBO or flight school to rent from and decided to fly with Maui Aviators again. I had done a self-flown sightseeing trip with them ten years ago. I even got to fly the same airplane again, N335SP, this time as PIC.

I did a short checkride at Kahului Airport, Maui. The airport is located in the island´s central valley, you see Haleakala, a 10.023ft volcano in the background. The trade winds can cause demanding conditions, but on the two days I was flying it was mostly calm.

ATC in the US is nothing to be afraid of, but here at PHOG the approach and tower controllers have only to modes of speaking: fast and very fast!

The Maui Aviators hangar and office. My instructor Steve was a nice and competent young guy, Terry was very responsive to my emails. I could purchase additional insurance for 14$ per flight hour, that saved me from providing a renter´s insurance and was very convenient for my short stay. I can highly recommend them!

As alway in the US, I use Foreflight on my iPad mini and an old-fahioned kneeboard. Preparation is the key of enjoying those trips at unfamiliar places. The day after my checkride I took N335SP for a flight to Honolulu International Airport on Oahu and some sightseeing on the return flight.

Departing OGG Rwy 02 for the 1hr-flight to Honolulu.

I was to fly two miles offshore at 1000ft or less until clear of Kahului´s airspace, but the low-level clouds never let me climb any higher anyway until reaching Molokai island. Here you see Elephant Rock, a reporting point for the many, many tour helicopter flying around the islands. Steve´s briefing the previous day proofed very helpful to understand the local Do´s and Don´ts!

When reaching the Molokai shoreline the low clouds dissipated and the weather remained very nice for the rest of the day. The north shore is very scenic with big cliffs and waterfalls.

After a few miles Kalaupapa National Historical Park came into view. Kalaupapa is a former leper colony and still home to a handful of former patients who, despite being free to leave the island, prefer to stay there. The colony is supplied by planes and ships, but you can only leave the airport perimeter with a permit. Touch-and go´s however are allowed…and that´s what I did of course, free practice landings are always appreciated.

Leaving Molokai it was time to climb to 2000ft and tune in the Koko Head VOR to navigate through the 25NM Kaiwi Channel over to the island of Oahu.

During the short crossing, my biggest stretch of water so far, I used the time to brief my approach into Honolulu once more. One nice thing about the US is that all pertinent information is published and easy to find. The Pacific chart supplement provided me with official textual information, but I also found a nice graphical description that I used in the cockpit. The Freeway Four VFR arrival follows a prominent freeway all the way until turning downwind for RWYs 04 and slam-dunking out of 2000ft after passing RWY 08L, staying clear of the taxiay for RWY 08R. Sounds complicated, but with preparation it was simple.

Koko Head crater comes into view.

Honolulu downtown with the airport visible in the distance.

Passing Diamond Head crater along the way….spectacular!

Waikiki…the most famous beach in Hawaii, but it can not compete with the more secluded beaches you find elsewhere.

PHNL from the east. This is when I received my landing clearance for 04L, hold short 08L. I copied it in order not to screw up, it was still a couple of minutes till touch down and there were too many other runways.

Downwind and final turn for 04L. There was a Hawaiian A330 coming opposite for 04R and due to the close proximity of the runways I delayed my base turn a little. An overshoot in the turn would have put me right in front of that big bird´s nose.

After vacating the active runways, I taxied to transient parking. On Steve´s advice I decided against using Signature….and did not pay a dime! Amazing, and this is a 300.000 movements/year airport! After closing my flight plan I took an Uber for the 15min ride to Pearl Harbour. Thanks again to NCYankee, who advised on using Foreflight for filing and amending flightplans instead of the FSS in his comment to my California trip report.

Due to the rental agreement I had to be back at Maui by 1700local which together with major construction work and associated traffic jams unexpectedly cut my visit to Pearl Harbour a bit short. But it was ok for a few impressions.

USS Bowfin

The old control tower on Ford island, known from the movies “Tora,Tora,Tora” and “Pearl Harbour”.

Early submarine-based nuclear missiles.

Kaiten – a manned Japanese suicide torpedo

Time to go back flying. A very friendly guard let me enter the security area after showing my certificate.

A nice view of the GA ramp at Honolulu. Other than the flight of four F18s departing in the background and widebody passenger jets landing behind me, it looked like any GA ramp, with loads of airplanes of all kinds, even the hangars looked like the typical pilot caves you´ll find on many small airports in the US.

I planned for the Shoreline Six Departure which would have had me fly low level along the shoreline, but Delivery cleared me for the Freeway Two departure instead, which was basically the same track as the arrival, just 500ft lower.

I had to wait in line for about ten minutes before departure, but the views made up for that little inconvenience.

Expedite crossing 4R, line up 4L and wait….time to open the flightplan via Foreflight! A flightplan was not mandatory, but I thought it was smart filing one going across the water.

Departing from RWY 4L

Hanauma Bay, an ancient volcano crater. It´s great for snorkeling, but mass tourism hasn´t done any good for the beautiful corals there.

Waimanolo Beach, we got married there ten years ago. I did not bring my wife and kids on this flight because I was afraid of a possible ditching with a five-year-old. The water was very warm, but getting out might have been difficult. We wanted to do a sightseeing trip around Maui together a couple of days later, but by then the weather had deteriorated to an extent that wouldn´t have made it a joyride.

Approaching Molokai on the way back, I could see that north of the island the trade winds had created low clouds, so I decided to amend my flightplan with FSS, make a detour to Lanai and from there back to Maui.

I did a couple of landings at Lanai airport, sharing the pattern with a Coast Guard C130 doing the same. We were both self announcing on CTAF, no problem….again, who needs a Flugleiter anyway?

On the way back to Maui I crossed the Auau Channel, one of the best places to spot Humpback whales. And indeed I spotted a whole family!

Our Airbnb-home for nine days, not fancy, but oceanfront, right at the beach, with free views of turtles and whales from your own balcony.

Black rock, our favourite snorkeling spot.

Molokini island, an even better spot to see fishes.

The result from the last lava flow off Haleakala, about 230 years ago.

It was time to go back to Kahului and I wanted to do some approaches, but it turned out to be a bad time for this. The guy in approach was super busy with a lot of passenger jets arriving and departing. RWY 05 was closed, so I had to hold outside 10NM for a while, together with a Mokulele Airlines Cessna Caravan. I made the best of it, set up a holding on the 180 radial out over the sea and practiced for my E-IR rating I´m training for at home. I finally made a nice last landing, and that concluded another great US flying adventure.