INSTRUCTORS COLUMN MARK WILSON
Mark Wilson, CFI of Wellington Gliding Club is a firm believer in bar-room tales as a valid form of training. It is far, far better, he says, to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than make your own. So grab your beer as you read his story and learn about the mistakes he made. Approaching 1000 hours in gliders, with many competitions and many more field landings under my belt, I made a classic. Phynns strip, near Kawhatau, Mangaweka is a fairly big, slightly sloping ‘farm strip’ which is an ideal site to explore the Eastern side of the Ruahine Ranges. The strip is in the form of a bench halfway up the northern side of a small hill and slopes down to the West. The Fielding and Wellington clubs tend to meet up there once a year. This was my second visit to the site. It started as these things often do, at about 2000 feet AGL working a gentle, weak evening with a very small amount of northward drift. I was flying my Libelle, watching the cloud starting to hug the downwind slopes of the ranges to the East. There had been a bit of weak south-easterly wave ‘organising’ (more sort of abusing) the thermals earlier. Time for a beer. I joined a high, wide left-hand circuit, for an uphill landing towards the east. A K6 had stopped close to the bottom end of the airfield but was being cleared. Great, I could land short and stop by my trailer. I chose to approach at 55kts. The air was smooth with no perceptible drift from the cross wind so I elected to use the bound-
was rapidly becoming a serious problem! Keeping the nose down,
ary fence as the reference point to land as short as possible.
with my speed creeping back up to 55 knots I was now lower than
The next bit happened in rather less time than it takes to
the strip. Rather than spud into the side of the hill I banked hard left
read it.
& tried for the paddock below the airstrip.
I was overshooting slightly so a few seconds of full brake sorted
With not enough time or space to turn along the length of the
that out – I was nicely set up, 55kts, half brake. It looked good. Bit
paddock and with a only a short patch of grass ahead I pulled full air
of sink, I closed the brakes. More sink and starting to drop below
brake, jammed the wheel brake on hard and forced the glider onto
glide slope - 50kts, brakes firmly shut. The vario was indicating 7-8
the ground smack in the middle of a herd of surprised sheep and a
down. I realised with horror that even just clearing the wire fence
big clump of thistles. The sheep did what sheep do, bunched up and
The strip is a bench half way up a small hill 34
February 2008
Kawhatau strip
