Realistic VFR procedures around Auckland?

[s0cks]

Hey guys,

I've started a Neofly career and I'm trying to conduct myself as close to real world procedures as possible.

Last night I did a flight from Ardmore (NZAR) to Parakai (NZPI) - a short hop. To fly it direct would take me pretty much right over Auckland Airport (NZAA) which I figured would probably never be allowed in real life, so I skirted up the east coast to Whangaparāoa and then flew west from there to Parakai.

My questions are as follows:

1. It looks like it's Class C airspace all around Auckland but I'm reading conflicting info on what that means for VFR. Can someone clarify how I would have had to traverse this airspace IRL as a VFR pilot in a Cessna 152?
2. I flew this route @ 2500ft. What are the rules around VFR altitudes in NZ? Cloud ceiling was ~3500ft when I was flying.
3. Flying over cities like Auckland and Wellington - is this allowed in VFR and is there an altitude minimum?

I guess basically I'm asking what would a real pilot have done to fly from NZAR to NZPI with clouds @ 3500ft using VFR?

[FlyingKiwi]

You can fly over Auckland city at or below 2,500ft while being clear of controlled airspace in real life. I'm not sure what charts you have access to, the default flight sim charts don't very clearly show, in my opinion, the difference between a control zone (which is centred on an airport normally, and you can't fly under because it starts from the ground) and a control area (which has a lower limit so you can fly below it in uncontrolled airspace) If you've got an actual NZ VFR aeronautical chart you'll see the control zones are labelled CTR, are depicted in blue, and will have an upper limit but no lower limit because it's the ground. The control areas are labelled CTA, are depicted in purple, and will have something like "LL2,500" which means the lower limit is 2,500ft so if you're flying at or below that altitude you aren't in the controlled airspace. How you flew it, via Whangaparaoa, is more or less what you would normally do in real life. In theory you can get a clearance from Auckland to fly directly over the airport, but they usually only allow that in periods of low traffic such as at night. By day it's rare and in practice basically nobody actually does it. Passing Whenuapai there is a VFR transit lane which permits VFR flight through their control zone up to 1,200ft without requiring a clearance from the tower (by day only), there's also one on the west coast. These mean you don't have to go far offshore to avoid the controlled airspace.

VFR rules in NZ are for flight at or below 3,000ft above sea level or 1,000ft above terrain if that happens to be higher, you just need to be clear of any clouds, within sight of the surface, and have 5km visibility. Once you're above 3,000ftAMSL/1,000ft AGL if that's higher, you need to be 2km horizontally and 1,000ft vertically from any clouds, and once you're above 10,000ft the visibility requirement goes up to 8km. There are different minimas for aerodromes and commercial operations and so forth, but that's essentially the conditions required for a private VFR pilot in uncontrolled airspace.

Hopefully that's helpful, it's a bit hard to describe without pictures unfortunately!

[s0cks]

No that's great and mostly makes sense. I hadn't realised it was quite so strict. Are those restrictions on par with most other countries in the OECD? Maybe I just had wildly incorrect assumptions haha.

Also, would you know where I could get access to some proper NZ air charts?

[jpreou]

You can buy charts here...
https://shop.aeropath.aero/

[s0cks]

You can buy charts here...
https://shop.aeropath.aero/

Cheers!

[FlyingKiwi]

I'm not sure how they compare with other countries internationally, I think NZ's airspace is fairly open though compared to a lot of places. There are relatively few areas that are completely off limits, mostly just around military bases and areas with sensitive infrastructure or wildlife sanctuaries. Also, the AIP pages which describe the various meteorological minima in detail can be found here: https://www.aip.net.nz/assets/AIP/En-ro ... R_1.02.pdf (knowledge of these is the bane of many a student pilot... )