Omarama to Stewart Island–return

By John McCaw

Photos John McCaw

Heading out over the South Coast

The family and I travelled down to Omarama for show weekend. We had no real of expectation of flying as all the club gliders were busy with Jerry’s cross country course and then the Regionals. On Saturday Terry Delore asked if I would like a flight with him in the ASH 25 Mi. It was too good an opportunity to turn down.

It was the practice day for the Regionals so we lined up behind the grid and when ready used the engine to take off to Black Peak where we climbed in a good thermal. The wave was dumping on Mt Horrible so we opted to head into wind to Aubreys Ridge. We met up with Max Stevens in XN and at 5000 feet climbed into wave. The wave looked good but was reasonably weak.

We travelled south on track and managed to catch some good wave from approximately 6000 feet, right in the lee of Thompson’s Track and climbed to 13,000 feet. This wave improved and we travelled south through the Nevis valley and passed east of Five Rivers where we climbed to 18,000 feet.

The wave looked fantastic further to the south so we tiptoed forward of a huge smooth lenticular over Winton. I managed to twist myself around to get out the oxygen mask from behind my head so we could climb in this wave which carried us up to 22,000 feet. We could see Stewart Island and Terry said maybe we could cross Foveaux Strait and soar the Stewart Island wave. He wanted to see if we could get exactly 300 km from where we started.

We could see a wave in the lee of Stewart Island so headed across the strait with Invercargill and Bluff on our left. The wind was strong, at least 80 kts once we got out over the sea and into the next wave.

We reached Stewart Island about 17,000 feet and turned over Patterson Inlet cheering. We were 300 km from Omarama. It was hard to hold our position because of the wind strength. Turning north we found the wave had jumped so we had to push forward. This was quite difficult. Over Otautau we were losing lots of height trying to penetrate with the wave moving forward in front of us. The front was near. Looking south Foveaux strait was almost 8/8ths cloud. We had got out of there just in time.

We managed to get forward of the wave at approximately 11,000 feet and started to climb again. We could see our way north to Five Rivers. There was amazing wave to the west of Wakatipu which looked to go to the stratosphere. We continued up through

Top: Crossing the Nevis heading for home. Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown to the top right. Centre L: Heading south. Fantastic smooth wave. Centre R: 8/8ths cloud back the way we’d come. R: Turning for home. Looking down on Halfmoon Bay, Stewart Island. Bottom L: Terry Delore.

the Nevis in wave that was strong and smooth and up to 16 kts climbs in places.

Terry called ATC and they asked us to fly downwind to Alexandra from where we had an easy ride back to Omarama at 12-15,000 feet in the Dunstan wave.

Mike Oakley and Karen Morgan in TF did most of the trip but turned back half way over the strait. They travelled home with us. They then went and flew the northern portion of the task set for the day. Jamie Halstead also flew a large part of the trip.

Lessons I learnt from the flight.

Keep upwind of the wave edge. Many pilots fly too close to the cloud.

Weather can change very quickly especially when a front arrives.

Wave windows can close very quickly and waves can jump and change velocity.

Always have an escape route.

Many thanks to Terry for sharing his expertise and his fantastic glider. It was a great flight, one of the best.