WHERE SEAGULLS DARE BY STEVE WALLACE A SHORT HISTORY OF FLYING ON THE WEST COAST

SUPPLIED

This essay was written for the Aviation Sports Club’s 50 Year Celebration in 2016.

I’m not sure exactly when, but I do clearly remember how the seeds of possibility, containing amazing and thrilling flying on the West Coast, were first sown in the fertile soils of my imagination. Pat Dreissen, one of NZ’s most talented glider pilots, wrote an excellent article for Gliding Kiwi recounting, what was to me, a wondrous flight. Towing out from Drury he described a day of fun, daring and excitement flying the coastal cliffs of Kariotahi before deftly negotiating with Air Traffic Control to facilitate a safe glide home. At the time, to me it was too far-fetched to even contemplate that I could ever do something as amazing as this. The seeds had however been planted and as my skills and confidence grew with time, what was once out of reach was all of a sudden just a small leap of faith away.

My first tentative step into the lifting joys of the West Coast cliffs was on the 24th April 2000. I towed out from Hobsonville in my Mosquito (KT) into a 20 knot South West wind and was released somewhere a few bays south of Muriwai. I then spent just over an hour timidly picking my way a little north and a little south of my release point, carefully exploring the wonders of this new environment.

All too soon though the feeling of being rather alone and out of contact with those back at Hobby had me looking for a way home. Connecting with a thermal off the black dunes below, I drifted up the long valley behind Bethells Beach, popped over the ridge at the head of the valley and was greeted with the relieving sight of Hobsonville airfield, just a short 15 km downwind glide away. Four months later to check out the coast further south and emulate Pat’s flight, I towed out to the coast from Drury and flew the straight and friendly coastline between the Manukau Harbour and the Waikato River Mouth. The coastal flying was fun and easy but getting home to Drury not so. Drury is 35 km from Kariotahi and the airspace drops to 1,500’. I tried thermalling under it and did get a credible 20 km inland before having to plonk KT down in the school fields of Patumahoe Primary. You have to walk before you can run and step two was a nice eye opener to a coastline with expanding horizons.

Thanks to John O’Hara the next flight was to be the big step. John, who was CFI at the time, was looking to incentivise crosscountry flying. John was the first and only ASC club member to have flown a 300 km Gold distance flight from Hobsonville. Kaikohe and back was the goal and many years had since passed; it was time for another ASC member to earn a Gold distance badge. So as an incentive John very generously put up a return trip for two to Sydney for the first person in the club to repeat his feat and fly a 300 km flight from Hobby (soon to be Whenuapai). This was all I needed to focus my efforts and hatch a cunning plan to snare the prize. For three months I studied topographical maps of the West Coast, measured distances with a ruler and calculator, drove and walked to locations, plotted GPS points and studied the Sporting Code until I had come up with task that I felt sure could be flown and would get me my Gold distance. With the plan hatched, all I then had to do was wait for the weather.

The weather did its thing on the 29th December 2001 and using my planned Sporting Code compliant turn points I flew 306 km at 145 kph to claim my Gold distance and the John O’Hara prize.

One week later the weather again turned it on and I flew the same 306 km course but this time at 165 kph. These flights attracted the interest of serial entrepreneur, NZGA president and editor of Gliding Kiwi, John Roake who decided it would be a good idea to make and market a DVD to the world wide gliding community about flying on NZ’s West Coast. I teamed up with Bernie Massey and Murray Wardell from the Auckland Gliding Club along with a film crew and various others and we set about attaching mini cameras (before the days of Go Pros) all over the inside and outside of our gliders as well as hanging a big camera out the door of Drury’s second tow plane. We did six flights all up over an 11 month period, with two launches

each from Whenuapai, Drury and Raglan (three of which were dual aero tows). The footage was then left with the editors and several months later ‘Blacks Sands, White Wings’ hit the shelves. I have no idea how many copies John sold but knowing John he would have more than got back the money he put in. During this period, I also did a lot of extra flying and exploring of the coast with Bernie and Murray including one memorable Friday 13th of August 2002, when along with John Bayliss, we all skipped work for the day and towed our gliders up to Ruawai airfield. We met the ASC tow plane there and were aero towed out to the coast where we first flew south to the North Kaipara head and then north to the beginning of 90 Mile beach before returning home to Ruawai. What a great fun, exciting and scenic flight of exploration that was.

Another memorable flight around this time was when I winched launched out of Drury and flew out to the coast at Port Waikato in a light South-Wester. I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could fly from Drury to Whenuapai. How cool would that be if I turned up at Whenuapai and was able to casually hop out of my glider and say “Yeah, I just winchlaunched from Drury and flew up here to see what you guys were up to”. Anyway, dreams are free and to cut a long story short I got as far as Karekare before light winds saw me landing on the beach. I then had to take the far less cool path of ringing my wife, asking her to pack our one year old son into her car, drive to Drury and pick up my car with glider trailer, drive to Karekare, help me derig, drive back to Drury to pick up her car and then drive home to West Auckland. Big time brownie point deficit that day! To stamp home that distance badge flying was possible from Whenuapai, next on the agenda was a 500 km diamond distance. My first attempt saw me cover 430 km before a wind change had me once again landing on the beach south of Karekare. This time at least my car and glider trailer were at the right end of Auckland and a most entertaining retrieve involving John Restall, Bob Cridland, Lionel Page and Ivor Woodfield nicely rounded off the day’s fun and games.

Flying wise my second attempt was a success and on December 30th 2009 I completed the club’s first 500 km diamond distance flight from Whenuapai, covering 507 km at an average speed of 125 kph. While the flight was very well planned and executed, the retrieve from Muriwai Beach was far from it. Drifts of light sand pushed up by the strong South West winds made beach access with a trailer impossible and while it took just over 4 hours to fly the 500 km it took 4.5 hours to transport my glider the 200 m from the beach to the trailer. Kris Pillai and Murray Wardell were my saviours on this also very entertaining retrieve.

With 25 successful flights in KT to the coast and more often than not back, the ASC committee saw fit to grant me permission to take club members out to the coast in Mike Whiskey. Roy Whitby was to be the first brave victim in May of 2010 and following on from this successful flight, I have had the pleasure of introducing a further 15 of our club members to the joys of coastal flying. Most pleasing of all has been seeing a number of our members move on to independent operations on the coast. The cultural change in our club from a training only club to now, a training and an active cross-country flying

club has been a pleasure to have been part of. Last year (2015) the ASC was New Zealand’s most active cross-country flying club on the OLC. 111 flights covering over 25,000 kilometres is something to be proud of. If I had relayed these figures to somebody in our club 10 years ago and said this is what our club will be doing 10 years from now I would not have been believed. How about 752 km in a Twin Astir at 115 kph? Most of the OLC world was impressed by that one. I can only assume 1,000 km OLC is the next goal.

The ASC now has a great core of active cross-country flyers who are racking up not only coast flights but cross-country thermal and convergence flights to the north of Whenuapai. 50 km and 300 km badge flights are now regular and I’m sure more 500 km badge flights are not too far away. Land outs and retrieves are now common place and these are great fun for all involved. If nothing else land outs are an excellent club morale booster and bonding exercise. People always come back buzzing with stories of short paddocks, electric fences and farm girls in bikinis and gum boots. The number of privately owned gliders is ever growing and ASC pilots are turning up at competitions and events all around New Zealand and the world. If we had a trophy cabinet it would be full! The best thing about all of this is we now have a group of pilots that the club’s newer pilots can look up to; be coached, mentored and inspired by. These pilots may not realise it but they will be planting the seeds of possibility in the fertile imaginations of the club’s next generation of pilots who themselves will one day fly, where seagulls dare.