Josue Hernandez-Mago 2011

Josue’s story

I was asked to write a brief history of my first wave flying. Being really brief, it can be
described by a simple word, which is "Superb". I was hooked into gliding with a trial flight by
the complex simplicity of a thermal. Now having experienced one of the most interesting
     phenomena of Taranaki, "the wave soaring" caused by the mountain wake on moderate tohigh winds, I renewed my votes and I'll try to tell you how it feels like.


It started on Saturday the 14th of May, around 2 pm when Peter Cook taught me the proper way to
inspect my favourite machine " the Twin Astir", killing my anxiety to jump inside the cockpit
and replacing it with the anxiety of knowing how to do it by myself.
Being ready, I started to doubt if it was correct to train in a cross winds day, I even forgot the
"C-B-S-I-F-T-C-B" check list and as usual the take-off got the best of me, but Peter was able
to recover control, at the time as showing me what I was doing wrong.


After 3000 feet of towing  we farewelled the tow plane and headed straight to the mountain
wake, which I can describe as a highway of three clouds, each one delimited by two lanes,
one of lifting and another of sinking air. Being used to a "column" thermal I could not
understand what was happening, until Peter acting as a fisher caught a couple of vertical lifts
and he put us up to the wake level. Having control of the glider and a almost perfect straight
lane of lifting we managed to get around 6000 feet, I haven't felt the feeling of a +10 feet per
  second lift before that, but we hit that note a few times ascending in the area where thoselanescreated the clouds. It was a bit rough and clouds were closing the spaces so fast that

        an experienced pilot was needed.

 

Being on the mark of 7000 feet, Peter decided to stop climbing due to airspace limitations.
Having found our mark we decided to play around the area being really close to the mountain
and getting as far as Eltham. We found sinking areas of even -10 fps and I realized how fast

        you could lose height and get into troubles.

 

One of the most impressive moments was the time when the glider suddenly lost any sound,
movement or any kinetic response. It was like pausing the time, no lift, no sink, no sound, no
vibration.  I even checked the speed and we were around 60 Knots. It was simply amazing I
released all controls and everything stayed the same. A divine moment for a few seconds.
Due to time limitations we decided to came back and lost all our height in training movement,

        stalls, fast turns and landing circuits.
 

Everything was alright and my landing a bit better than my take off, but something that stayed

       was the thrill of a "wave sailing".

It is only a brief description but believe me when I say "I left a lot of short tales behind". I think
this is what gliding is all about. You just cannot describe it all. You need to be there to
understand it. Hope you like it too.

Sincerely yours

Josue Hernandez Mago.

Taranaki Gliding Club member/trainee