My Taupo Intensive Flying Programme

Like a young lover, my passion was hot, and I wanted to do it often. I’d tasted the thrill, I could see the goal, but I was too clumsy to consummate it. Such urgency, unbridled, can end in disaster, as many young lovers find.

By Adrian Faulkner

I’d joined the basic training week, run by Nelson Lakes Gliding Club at their Lake Station base. There were six students for the course. Two made solo flights. I didn’t – but I was hooked. And I was impatient to make progress: at age 63 one has a rather heightened awareness of how fast the years rush by, and the need to use them well.

That’s where Taupo came in. I learnt Taupo offers “7 days to solo” for $1200. I’d done my basic course, though not gone solo, so what I needed was some intensive flying and instruction.

Taupo Gliding Club’s excellent website proclaims, in red: We fly 7 days a week – weather permitting. Call to confirm. I called the Club Manager, Tom Anderson, who assured me that indeed they would fly every day, if possible, and that I could join them through reciprocal membership from my Nelson club. Yes, there was a range of accommodation on the field. Just come on up! So that’s what I did, wondering how they could so willingly offer me just what I needed.

The Taupo Club is based at the old Taupo aerodrome, redundant since the new airport opened on the other side of the city. The site, just outside town, is leased from the local council, giving the club security to build their excellent clubhouse, bunk-rooms, amenities, workshop, and hangars. Several private hangars are also built there, as well as a serviced area for caravans, and plenty of parking for private gliders in trailers. For me, this was to be home for three weeks.

I soon met the people who made it all possible – Tom, the manager, and his coalition of the willing. Instructors Tom, Bill, Gordon, Martin, and Rod – there was always one available – were so generous with their time and skill. Likewise the tow pilots: Tom again, Alan Land (aka Crash Land!), Rene, Martin and Brian – I was overwhelmed by their willingness to help me. Some are retired, and others work jobs or businesses that allow blocks of time to be free for flying at the club, much easier than at Nelson where the strip is 120 km away from town.

Such a band of brothers! Just to hang out with these aviators, and hear tales of flying machines they’d loved, planes they’d owned, and dramas they’d survived (and of others who hadn’t) – that was an adventure for me. Like Tom Curtis (from WWII bombers to DC 10s); and Rod Milne (whose excellent instruction helped me with my landings) who’d started in dodgy venison recovery, and ended with not-at-all dodgy 747s. Both Tom and Bill had their own power planes in the hangars, which they showed me with pride. It was such a privilege to ‘sit at the feet’ of these men!

And to fly with them! The club’s brand-new ASK21 was there for me, and the Pawnee tow plane took us up. We flew 14 days out of the 21 I was at Taupo, with 58 flights ranging from circuits to soaring flights on Mount Tauhara, the club’s ‘nursery ridge’. I had little trouble controlling the glider in the sky, and we practiced the required skills many times. Flying takeoffs under tow was a greater challenge, but one that was mastered with repetition and total concentration. Mastering the landing was my greatest difficulty. To land safely you must fly towards a chosen spot on the ground at about 100 km/hour, and then level off and fly just above the ground till the glider settles gently on the surface. The sense of ‘ground rush’ was just too powerful for me, and I was for a time overwhelmed by fear and adrenaline. Gradually I overcame the fear, and