Aeroplane Dreaming

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be,
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;
Lord Tennyson. Locksley Hall
written 100 years before mans first flight.


Speeding down the Wanaka-Luggate highway, the little pulsar engine was fighting with itself to cruise at a steady 100 kmph. Over the sound of our whining automobile we heard a signature thump-thump getting louder by the second. Over my right shoulder I saw little specs in the sky, the unmistakeable sight of aircraft flying low in close formation. The aircraft became clearer in the distance two Hurricanes and a Spitfire, flying flat out at an estimated 250mph. The winged metal ships were over us in an instant, propellers blades cutting through the icy cold air creating a whup- whup effect as the metal tips approached and crossed the speed of sound. The warbirds majestically pealed away and disappeared over the distant peaks, freshly sugar dusted with snow. Our extended bandwidth radio hissed to life ‘Calling Bird Dog, Abort, we have friendly dogs in the kennel’. We breathed again because we knew that they were off to find another battle.

Wanaka is no kennel, this is Lord of the Rings country, Lake Wanaka (www.lakewanaka.co.nz ) is nestled in the Remarkables range in close proximity to the 3000M Mt.Aspiring in New Zealand’s Southern Alps region. The home of Middle Earth in Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy, this region is arguably one of the most picturesque locations anywhere in the world. Axl Rose must have thought of this neck of the woods when he sang ‘Take me down to paradise city, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty’

The view, skiing and rock climbing apart, Wanaka brings to the world something that is quite unique. Come Easter every alternate year, aviators, aviation buffs and assorted nutters brave the cold weather to fly or as we did stand for 3 days looking up in the sky marveling at some of the most beautiful wood and metal birds ever made – THE WAR BIRDS OVER WANAKA (www.warbirdsoverwanaka.co.nz ).

Over easter weekend 2004, it was the turn of George and Tarun, quack aviator (Typo, replace ‘quack’ with ‘crack’) and aviation buff respectively, to set foot on that hallowed tarmac, Wanaka airport. Suma, George’s wife was with us as a keen observer (I strongly suspect a result of spousal influence). Three days of biting cold, the constant mozart like symphony of aircraft – a crescendo bordering at times on acoustic mayhem akin to the famous Metallica-San Francisco Philharmonic concert, the tangy-bitter smell of rubber burn out and the sweet scent cocktail of aviation and diesel fuel was a little too much for Suma. Another visit to Wanaka Airport on the fourth day was quietly threatened to be met with dire consequences, murder of either spouse or friend or both was gently whispered at various times. Wily as we are, we did find a way to be at the airport on day 4 and were treated to an almost lap dance-esque final private exhibition, but that’s another story for another day.

Wanaka was taken back in time with bi-planes and tri-planes of a different era, poetic in flight. Aviation was a young science during World War I, little was known about how to build an aircraft that would stay up in the sky. If you closed your eyes for an instant you were reminded that aviators who flew in this age were pioneers, flying aces, real pilots. They took untested designs up among the clouds and if the flying wood, string and Irish fabric coated generously with dope stood up to the test, it survived to become a famous aeroplane - many have failed and many have died in this quest.

Replicas from the early 1900’s took to the air, as I whistled to the tune ‘Those magnificent men and their flying machines, they go up titty up up, they come down titty down, down.’ A Sopwith Camel (New Zealand Fighter Pilot’s Museum. www.nzfpm.co.nz ) and Avro 504k, powered by its original mint condition engine, engaged in a gentlemanly dogfight with a German Fokker Dr.1 tri-plane piloted by the Red Barron Manfred Von Richthofen himself.

Pistons on desperate airplane engines sputtered,
White aviator scarves from open cockpits fluttered,
Rat-a-tat-tat, Rat-a-tat-tat,
Pot shot machine guns filled the afternoon air.

Finally, true to script the Barron lay defeated,
His aircraft like a wounded canine retreated,
Trailing smokey sparks with theatrical care.

My eyes were returned to the runway by a racket of Polikarpovs wearing red army colours. Move forward to the 1930’s, the Polikarpov, I-16 Ishak (Rata) was simply the best aircraft flying in its day. Aviators who have had the privilege to fly this bird say that the experience was only slightly marred by the fact that it was tricky to fly and downright dangerous for an inexperienced pilot. The Stub-nosed polly with its racing car looks has an aviation first – the retractable undercarriage. The pilot can pull up the undercarriage with 44 turns of a lever and can lower it with a clutch plate style mechanism, in which a finger misplaced, is a finger lost. 8000 Pollys were built in all only 6 survive today. You can own a Polly for a small fortune as part of an investor syndicate. There are two planes currently on sale in Russia.

We played a game of spot the Indian in the crowd without much success until saturday evening. Wanaka has 5 restaurants in all and one of them is Bombay Palace. George and I named the resident chefs Ramu and Sundar, while they cooked our hot samosas and chicken tikka masala. The English bartender came to Wanaka for the ski season 2 years ago and never went back. He knew we needed Indian brew and brought us a couple of bottles of Kingfisher Beer– most thrilling, chilled. And that was enough to get George to orgasm on nostalgia lane. The man was in advertising and fervently believes that he designed the kingfisher bottles and accompanying beer glasses. He is my best friend, I indulge him, besides, I enjoy his trivia and use it liberally. For the record, to be fair to George, he did manage the Kingfisher account, he did meet Ritu Berri (the fashion vixen) and he also worked with that svelte, raven haired beauty, PB (he knows who I am referring too). The Bastard.

Ramu’s vindaloo and Sundar’s kebabs were culinary memories we could not forget; we ate at the Palace again the following day. This time around the food was accompanied by another Indian classic, Johnny Walker Black Label with soda. ‘Dho Patiala, bartender aur Madam ke liye chota gin aur tonic’ (Translation: 2 patiala pegs, old chap and gin and tonic for the lady). The bartender didn’t understand a word of what I said but it didn’t matter as the jolly pony tailed chap was hitting the bottle himself under the table. Later that evening the Englishman tripped over himself and sprayed the restaurant with 5 stubbies of Kingfisher. Ramu wasn’t very impressed and we left with the premonition that some tikka would fly that night.

After a good nights’ rest we awoke to a crisp sunday morning and some brisk exercise riding push bikes around the lake. Suma was the first casuality she retired to the lake front café, a café latte and cream cheese muffin. George and I soldiered on, until he lost a pedal on his push bike. After assessing the damage and finding the suspect bolt, I pulled out the Alan key to fix the bike. George decided to take matters into his own hands and vigorously bashed the pedal in with a rock. Bike fixed barring a bruised frame (the bike had already been thrashed by the last guy who used it.) we pedaled as hard as we could with sore bums and dreams of making millions by redesigning bicycle seats. We were keen to capture grandstand seats for the days’ show.

The C-130 Hercules bustled busily into the air, the centerpiece of its show was the max braking landing – max power take off routine. Designed to bring troops into and out off hostile territory using as little runway as possible the Hercules landed in less than half the length of the Wanaka runway. The aircraft then backed up and executed a max power take off heaving itself into the air on the same half runway distance. The analogy I first thought of was a Virinder Shewag cover drive late-fast-punchy-all the way to the boundary. On reflection however, it was more like an elephant with hot coal up its nether parts lumbering-powerful-Holy smoke, I can fly.

Man has worn wings and jumped to his death in pursuit of the thrill of flight it would be fair to say that we have done some extremely silly things before the Wright Brothers with Kitty Hawk got it right a little over a century ago. You would think that we would be satisfied with what we have achieved but you still hear of the odd nutcase who decides he has the Right Stuff and he can and will push the edge of envelope. At Wanaka this nutter was a Lithuanian who straps himself into an SU-31 Kaibutsu aeroplane after breakfast and constantly defies the ground rules of aviation and gravity as we know them today. Kaibutsu is japanese for Monster and nutter is english for Jurgis Kariys, Aerobatics, World Champion.

For a divine 20 minutes each day, FM Wanaka 100.5 would crackle with urgent excitement, ‘Jurgis flying upside down over Inky Tulloch's CAT powered freightliner.’ Or ‘Ahhhhhh! Jurgis drops out of the sky, hot metal, he isn’t flying right now he is tumbling, flick…..flick….flick…flick, that is his signature cork screw maneuver, I am counting off 5, 6,7,8……..20. Ladies and gentleman that is simply unbelievable, Jurgis has just completed 20 flicks literally tumbling out of the sky before leveling off. He is estimated to have close to 9Gs acting on his body through that routine’. For the uninitiated 9 Gs is 9 times your body weight – you can do the math.

Every morning on all three days, Jurgis was in the zone, flying, sideways, upside down, racing trucks and most often not flying at all – tumbling, falling and hovering. Effectively doing things that aircraft conventionally are not supposed to do. www.jkairys.com gives you the inside stuff on a mad man whose aeroplane, a commercial pilot once reported to Air Traffic Control as a large model plane doing some very strange things in the sky. Taking the risk of preaching to the converted, in Lithuania Jurgis has guided his aeroplane under a bridge flying upside down. The fact that the bridge had people standing on it gives you an idea of their faith in the pilot’s skill and to a lesser extent the advanced state of aviation safety regulations in that country.

The jet era saw a rare formation mix ranging from the 1940’s to 1970’s. The 1940’s were represented by the sleek rocket like vampire, Britain’s first single seat jet fighter, the 1960’s by the L-39 Albatross and the 1970’s by the A37 Dragonfly. The Dragonfly dived down low and dropped a few bombs on a wooden shack that exploded revealing a sign that said BUGGER! The next days repeat revealed a reinforced sign that said BUGGER! AGAIN. Australians in the crowd alluded in jest to a rumoured kiwi pastime, now exposed. Kiwis had their turn blaming a bumpy runway on Australian fuel that caused Kangaroo jumps.

A highlight of my day was the photo opportunity of a spitfire flying as fast as its propeller could push and the L-39 flying as slow as its jet engine would allow, crossing each other for a magical split second. Two very different eras of aviation in a single frame captured on film forever.

NZAF’s 757 swooped silently down low as if from nowhere, a trademark of this aircraft being its relatively silent jet engines, a result of increasingly stringent noise pollution regulations world over. The aircrew enthusiastically grabbed one of the few opportunities to take their mammoth aeroplane to the edge and provided us with a visual feast with several agressive low passes along the display line. Air Force paratroopers dotted the sky as the leapt out of an Orion in the clouds. On the radio, Air Force recruiting spread their message; ‘join us for a life of fun, danger and excitement’ and when one of the paratroopers landed hard, the commentator chimed ‘join us for a sprained ankle or two’.

The show wound down to a grand finale with the Brietling fighters, a posse of aircraft that included the Curtis P40 Kittyhawk, North American P51 Mustang, Kiwi Corsair and the Spitfire ably lead by Kiwi and RAF flying ace Ray Hanna and financially supported by the Brietling watch company. Takapuna’s favourite son leads his 3 man flying team into precision aerobatic routines predominantly with hand signals.

Along came the evening, how time has flown. George took off his gold-framed Ray Ban Aviators and I sensed the hint of a tear in his eye. I felt that same feeling in my heart, the setting sun glinted off the wings of the silver Mustang, the shadows grew long and dark. The show was over and the planes had been put away. But, we knew there was hope they would live to fly another day.