Spectacular Start of Season Flights

Pat Driessen

Another soaring season starts in Auckland after a long and gloomy winter watching the Europeans dashing across the countryside with incredible flights everywhere....how depressing.

Anyway, last weekend we were blessed with a dryish airfield, lovely weather and a hopeful Skysight forecast....let's go!

Saturday looked promising on Skysight down the west coast, but as happens sometimes, there was a nice looking cloud street going 90 degrees off track, towards Thames....why not.

There was a 15 knot NE at Thames, so not ideal for continuing north up the Coromandel Peninsula, so it was downwind, southbound, taking advantage of the juicy looking cloud streets going my way. On arriving at the northern boundary of the Hamilton airpsace, I was relieved to find all systems on the glider working...with my radio clear, transponder transponding and me remembering how they worked....YES!

I have to say we are spoilt with Auckland approach and Bay approach. They are so accommodating with us slow moving, squirrelly targets....as long as you call them before you enter airspace (5km +/-) and they know hwat you are doing, all is sweet.

The further south I went, the higher the cloud base, which is pretty normal. The clouds kept beckoning, and the visibility improved. the km's continued ticking by.....Maungatautari, Wharepapa South, west of Titiraupenga and, eventually, abeam Chateau Tongariro at about 7,000ft, the high point of the flight. Time for home! The trip north was fairly uneventful until east of Te Kuiti. The satellite image showed what looked like a convergence along the west coast....so that's the way I went, getting a climb on the northern slopes of Mt Pirongia. The convergence, however, was past it's best and turning to rain. I struggled to within 30km of Drury before using the engine to climb 1,000ft, on to final glide.

And then there was Monday!

I didn't think it was going to be anything special...but...you just never know, and most times it turns out better than you think.

I was the only launch....thanks Fletcher! There was lift locally but it looked like a long glide to the next climb....so I called up Auckland approach for a clearance to 4,500ft....and just as well, as the next climb wasn't until south of Mercer.

I staggered south taking small climbs until the southern end of the Cambridge Hills where there was 7.5 knot beauty with my name on it.

We are lucky in Auckland because the day starts about an hour ahead of Matamata. Tim Bromhead has launched as I approached the Matamata area and I was ahead at Maungatautari mountain....I must start using Pure Track!

The cloud base was ticking up as expected but, so far, nothing special. By the time we got to the hills west of Lake Taupo, cloud base was about 6,000ft and promised to be higher a little further south. So, I called Auckland Area radar, who look after that airspace, for a pre-emptive clearance to 7,500ft. The controller was obviously not used to talking to gliders and got completely confused, so I was happy to vacate his airspace west of Turangi...phew!

It looked difficult to get to the mountains again (ah la Saturday) but a big, slightly overdeveloped convergence to the east in the direction of the Boyd airstrip looked possible. To be honest, if Tim wasn't there, I would have turned for home here...but...you know how it goes... A big glide across the Desert road followed, with a bit of scratching around the foothills on the other side. It took a while to get to a safe height to continue east but eventually got to around 6,500ft. Right....push on. Well, initially, it didn't go so well and then it started to rain, and it actually got quite heavy...but the sink wasn't too bad, so we pressed on...AND...it looked fabulous further on. I had flown off my map about now, but there was limited information on my LX device indicating Napier controlled airspace coming up. Calling them, they were most helpful, clearing us up to 9,000ft and on track, now towards the northeast to the Te Pohue Saddle ...just east of the Mohaka River. Fabulous country with steep escarpments and, today, a beautiful looking convergence right over the top, taking us to the highest point of the flight. King of the world!

What to do now? Well, Tim, initially had the idea to carry on to Lake Waikaremoana, but it was just after 3pm and we aren't even into summer yet....timing was crucial so, hard left turn and set the LX to Drury.....only it said 270km...oh shit!

I have to say I had a pretty good trip north bound, changing lanes (cloud streets) when the need arose, until about the Cambridge hills when it became apparent I would need to go well west of track towards the convergence, to stay airborne.

Here we go again...it was starting to look like my previous flight...same track...same convergence....and maybe the same rain! My luck was in however and the rain held off...getting my last weak climb just north of Glen Murray, for an easy glide home.

"Happy Days"....as Tony Timmermans would say.

Beginners Course

What has V.K. been up to?

A phone conversation, during November, between our president, Roger Brown and David Hirst on one matter, led to another very welcome one. David delighted Roger by asking if we (Vintage Kiwi) would like some spare parts from either of the Papawai resident non-flying K-13s GFL and GFN for our airworthy K-13 GFX? If so, we would need to grab them very quickly as the hangar, formerly used by Jim Bicknell, is soon going to have a major tidy up and a lot of junk will be going. Included would probably be those two remaining K-13s, certainly the Bocian GEB and possibly the two resident Olympia 460/463s (GDF and GDJ) as the Wellington Wairarapa Gliding Club requires the hangar to make it available for glider rental spaces.

We quickly organised a small team comprising V.K members, Chris Money, Paul Castle and Derry Belcher. Armed with an extensive K-13 “shopping list”, they drove down to Papawai on a “grab and run” raid. They did well in procuring most of the sought items. Well done guys!

Our thanks also go to David Hirst for allowing us first pickings and also for helping with information to include in our club’s section of this newsletter.

ZK-GFJ update

As reported last month, initial steps are underway to save Doug Yarrall’s altitude record breaking SHK-1 GFJ. November saw the next stage take place. Another small V.K group (Roger Brown, Phil Rees and David Cleverly went to Tauranga and met up with member Peter Layne and also John Pheasant and Colin Alexander (Solo Wings). The exercise was to remove the accident damaged glider from its trailer for temporary storage and stow it carefully in John’s hangar.

During December, GFJ will be assessed for possible restoration to museum display standard. Initial thought is it’s definitely doable. We will have a better idea in December when a thorough inspection will be made.

Saving any glider is always great but to save Doug Yarrall’s altitude breaking glider is a real bonus.

Our thanks go to Colin for making the glider, spare canopy and manual available and to John for making space available prior to the assessment.

Peter Layne

https://vintagekiwi.gliding.co.nz/