Nancy and I recently returned from a trip to fly in the pre-world contest held in Matamata New Zealand. The PW-5 contest was held simultaneously with the New Zealand National Championships. There were 44 ships flying in the Nationals. The 44 ships included 10 PW-5's flying in the World Class. I was the only foreign pilot entered.

New Zealand is a beautiful, clean, and friendly country. Matamata is located on the North Island and is about a 2-hour drive south of the major city of Auckland. The airfield features two long and wide grass runways about 6000 feet long. The soil is sandy and the airfield was not muddy even in rainy weather. The climate is mild with typical morning lows in the 50's F and high temperatures seldom over 80 F. The climate reminded me of northern Michigan in the summer.

The facilities are first rate. There is a spacious clubhouse. There is plenty of space to rig and stage the gliders. Contest management was very organized. Both the competition director (Roy Edwards) and competition Manager (Pam Gore) have extensive experience running contests. They also both have been involved in international competition previously.

Matamata is an interesting place to race sailplanes. The valley where the airfield is located is 180 feet above sea level. To the east about 6 miles is a 40-mile long ridge that stands about 2500 to 3000 feet high. To the west are a series of hills that range from about 1500 to 2000 feet high. The valley is almost flat and almost all the farms are dairies. There are more fences in the valley than I have ever seen anywhere. The pastures are cross-fenced to allow the land to be intensively grazed in a managed manner. The pastures are about 200 feet wide and 400 feet long. With a little wind and a clear approach it was easy to land a PW-5 in these paddocks.

Matamata features ridge, thermal and wave lift. The Pacific Ocean is only about 20 miles to the east. The Tazaman Sea is about 50 miles to the west and a large bay is about 50 miles to the north. The air tends to be cool and dry. When the sun is on the ground there tend to be frequent thermals of moderate strength. In the valley the conditions seem to cycle between clear with little lift, to a few clouds with lots of lift, to beautiful cumulus sky that shaded out the ground (very little lift) and then back to clear again. The high ground provided better lift and seemed to be more reliable. The local pilots tend to start tasks early in the day. If the convection is strong, a lift killing sea breeze can be expected sometime that afternoon.

When the fronts pass and the wind blows from the southwest, wave and ridge lift add to the pilot's options. In my opinion, a pilot from the southwest US might want to fly at Matamata for ten to twenty days before a major contest to get a handle on the weather. A pilot from the northeast US might figure out the site faster.

There are about 24 PW-5's flying in New Zealand. When you consider that New Zealand only has about 4,500,000 people that is a large number. If the USA had as many per capita, we would have over 1400 PW-5's. I was told that most of the New Zealand PW-5 will be available for the contest.

All in all, Nancy and I had a good time and we think that the US team will enjoy the contest next February.