Auckland Aviation Sports Club went to Matamata for Labour Weekend. Member Roberta Robles was there. It was a great experience for Roberta who has been gliding for about one year and has sixteen hours under her belt. She and her boyfriend Adam Dershewitz both fly with the club. They have lived in Auckland for about a year and a half and previously lived in Costa Rica and the United States. They both went to Matamata and Roberta had the most exciting flight of her soaring career.
Roberta’s landout The Piako gliding club flies out of Waharoa Airfield just north of
upward sailing. We cruised over to the waterfall. I told Trevor that
Matamata. On Saturday there were a lot of gliders on the field and
I was pretty happy just doing turns around the waterfall. We prac-
there were some vintage aircraft pilots who were showing off.
ticed emergency turns with air brakes, useful for getting out of
For most of the day I was duty pilot, writing down the names
cloudy conditions and losing height quickly. I don’t usually practise
and times of everybody else gliding. The Kaimai ranges just to
this, as it is usually not a problem in Whenuapai, where we are typi-
the east were pumpin’ and nobody wanted to come down. I don’t
cally eking out additional height on fleeting thermals.
blame them. It was obvious that I wasn’t going to get up in our
The weather was picking up, meaning more clouds were coming
club’s Twin Astir MW, and it seemed unlikely I was going to get a
in and starting to ‘sock-in’ the range and the cloud base was start-
flight.
ing to drop. We were told that we probably should not leave the
The Piako club invited me to go up in their PW6 with one of their
range for the return flight under 3500 feet. Having reached cloud
instructors. I initially said “no” because I wanted to continue train-
level we came off the range just short of that, hoping to pick up
ing in the glider I knew with an instructor from my club. However I
height on the way back. Unfortunately the cloud base was starting
really wanted to get in the air so I thought that I might as well give
to drop clear across the valley. All the while Trevor was chuckling in
it a go.
the back, ‘The gps unit is no good when it’s in the car, haha.’
Before I knew it, I was strapped in with Trevor Atkins in the
What? It didn’t help my confidence as we were continually
back, we were attached to the tug rope and off we went. The PW6
doing ‘practice’ emergency breaking through the clouds. Trevor
has a notch trim so I set that forward. There was a heavy cross
took over and we headed back to the range to get more height and
wind but the Pawnee powered us through the wind (as opposed
travel north along the ridge, closer to the field.
to the tired old Cessna DML). I flew most of the tow. I remembered
We got some more height and our bearings. We had passed
that I had flown a PW6 before with the Taupo club. It is much easier
north across the railroad crossing and tunnel. These landmarks are
than the Twin Astir.
of course no use to me because I didn’t check out a map before
We released at, I think 2500 feet, and headed straight to the nursery hills. I’m not used to flying faster than 60 knots at Whenu-
take-off. So I just kept telling Trevor every landmark I saw in hope that he would remember how to get us back home.
apai so Trevor took over and we headed straight for the ridge at
We left the ridge the second time and headed back. I “think”
about 70-80 knots. When I say straight, I mean literally straight for
we left the ridge at 3000 feet. We quickly lost a lot of height avoid-
the range, in what felt like a crash course trajectory and at very
ing clouds. Trevor was no longer chuckling. At about 2000 feet I
high speed. I could hear the wind going much faster and the plane
started getting worried. There was no airfield in sight and the
felt ‘tighter’. About a 1000 or so meters before the ridge the wind
clouds were dropping quickly. At this point I was starting to get
picked us up and sent us up, just as Trevor had said it would.
nervous. My instructor seemed to be doing the best with the condi-
We experienced some turbulence, but overall it was smooth
tions that rolled in but I still didn’t know his skill level and if he had December 2007
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