Today its Hawkes Bay.
Finally its a sunny day in the Bay. Checked Napier webcam- fine. Rang Dave Davidson and Gerrit van Asch, yep they woud be flying. Discarded my plan do do everything outside controlled airspace as that would have meant quiet a deviation from the Tauranga Hastings leg. No worries Christchurch controller quite blasee as I asked for clearance on track Hastings 6500ft. He got me to change my transponder from the glider code of 1300. Aha I thought must be other gliders appearing on his screen. Abeam Taupo the cumulus started to tower a bit higher, must be great thermals underneath. Recleared 8000ft and weaved my way onwards, changing to Napier Tower before landing after a Mustang(coming back from Wanaka??) at Hastings which is uncontrolled.
Great hospitality from the team with Dave showing me around. The Hawkes Bay & Waipukarau club have "merged" and have a handy fleet of gliders. They fly at Waipuk.. in December & January the rest of the time they are mainly at Brideg Pa. The membership of 22 has suffered from 2 years of unseasonable easterly winds which effectively "kooze" their flying activity. But while I was there an enthusiastic chap turned up to do a trial flight. Again the club doesnt see a major problem with Part 115.
Then it was time to leave. This time I took a climb to 9400ft to pass over the cloud over the mountains and a smooth flight to about 50kms(9200ft) out from Tauranga when I closed down the motor, feathered the prop and sat back to see how much fuel I would save on my way home.Flying faster than best glide(62knots) ie around 70knots I still arrived over the airfield at 1150ft. Not a bad glide angle eh(OK I had a 5 knot tail wind) but still a useful L/D.
Home again 2 hours 40 flight time.
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