Winston Aldworth flies aboard Strikemaster70, from Ardmore to Ardmore.
Winston Aldworth flies aboard Strikemaster70, from Ardmore to Ardmore.
The plane: A BAC 167 Strikemaster Mk88. This is a British jet-powered training and light-attack aircraft. Regular readers might notice that this week's edition of the Flight Check column is taking a radical departure.
I'm out at Ardmore Airport, you see, going for a wee ride in a fighter jet.
Well, when I say "a wee ride", I mean the most hair-raising, gut-churning, exhilarating thing I've ever done. Terrifying in parts, mind-boggling throughout.
I'll happily raise my hand and say that taking a joy ride in a fighter jet is a bona fide bucket-list item now safely ticked off. Mid-life crisis? Yeah, probably.
I enjoyed watching Top Gun in 1986, but living it - even just for half an hour - in 2015 is an experience that will never be matched.
Class: All.
Price: The Strike Mission - a 30-minute trip with low-level flying over the valleys of the Hunua Ranges followed by a spot of aerobatics - will set you back $2999. If there's a plane nerd in your family, that's $2999 of the best money you'll ever spend.
The Hot-Shot Mission, which is a little cheaper at $2499, will suit anyone who's worried they might freak out with some of the low-level valley flying and aerobatics of the Strike Mission.
On time? Yes. We're airborne for pretty much the full 30 minutes. Part of me didn't want to stop. But most of me was actually pretty grateful to get back on terra firma, exhilarated and exhausted. In the photo on the top right-hand side of this centre-spread, you can see us taxi-ing in after landing. I'm not normally that pale.
My seat: The one next to the pilot, Dean Beverley. Designed as a trainer, the plane's seating is in a side-by-side arrangement, meaning you have a superb view of what the pilot is doing. The stick and pedals in front of me dance in tune to Dean's commands as he tickles the controls on his side of the plane.
Fellow passengers: Just me. "Who comes along for flights?" I ask Dean, as we're heading back to Ardmore. "Men mainly," he tells me. "We've had two 84-year-olds. An 84-year-old guy went in the Strikemaster and an 84-year-old woman went up in the Harvard."
The North American AT-6 Harvard is a gentler vehicle, and a flight will cost you $599. They also have a P51 Mustang in the hangar - the plane that beat fascism. How cool is that?
How full: Not as full as I thought it would be. I'd been warned that there wasn't much room in the cockpit and, being larger than blokes who don't eat pies, I was a little concerned I might be wedged uncomfortably up against the side of the plane. But we were actually pretty good for space.
Entertainment: Where to begin? One minute into the flight and we're swooping over the valleys and hilltops of the Hunua Ranges, buzzing along at 250kts (470kp/h), just 500ft (150m) clear of the ground. It feels more like 5ft.
Dean quickly introduces me to the weird world of G-forces. It's not so much that the power of gravity is pulling you down to Earth, it's more like the momentum of the plane is tearing you along and, when you make a sharp adjustment, your body wants to keep going in that direction. So, over the Hunuas, where we're banking sharply to the right and left, I'm being pulled into my seat, even when the plane is pretty much at 90 degrees to the Earth. All of which happenes while we're at times a sniff over 500ft from the sides of the Hunua valleys. This is definitely not a normal Flight Check. In those early turns, we reach about 3Gs - three times the force of gravity. I was trying to get footage of my face (for your amusement, dear reader), but the camera suddenly weighed three times its normal weight. Which would be manageable, if not for the fact that my arms were also suddenly three times their normal weight.
"A bit of Gs coming on there now," says Dean, as my guts make their way down through my groin and the Earth looks up at us from its weird side-on position. How are you feeling?" "Y-e-a-h," I reply. "G-o-o-d."
Play time in the Hunuas done, we head out over the Hauraki Plains. Clear of the traffic from Auckland Airport, we're able to get more altitude and do some aerobatics. First up, a loop. It's throttle forward, stick back and up we go. Right up. You think you have some idea of what physical terror is and then you find yourself 6500ft above the Hauraki Plains, upside down in something that feels like a Land Rover with a rocket strapped to the back of it. But how can terror feel so wonderful?
The shadows of the canopy frame and the stark sunlight move steadily across us as the roller coaster goes through its course.
Next, the aileron roll. Flying dead level above the clouds, Dean takes the plane through a tight corkscrew spin. Real tight. And we finish with a barrel roll. "Nice, gentle manoeuvre, the barrel roll," he says. Yeah, I think, if you're like the Red Baron or something. But he's right - we start into a loop and roll out of it gracefully near the top. Maybe I'm getting the hang of this stuff.
At their dramatic peaks, we reach about 4G in the manoeuvres. My thighs become concrete.
Let me share a secret: I'm actually a pretty nervous flier. If I'm on a passenger jet that hits turbulence, I read something intently to distract myself from the grim thoughts of what could go wrong (this has, on occasion, been mistaken for nonchalance). But logically, I trust the airplane designers and the crew flying the thing. All of whom are smarter than me. Keep your cool, I figure, and they'll get you there.
Weirdly in this little runabout - complete with a warning notice from the Civil Aviation Authority that it hasn't passed the same stringent safety checks as a commercial airliner - I feel comfortable putting all my trust in Dean. Hell, he flies A340s for Cathay Pacific in his 9-to-5 job, so he can't be too much of a hoon.
The service: Dean is every inch a pilot. He's possessed of cool-headed certainty a reassuring supply of chit-chat, a nice line in dry humour and plenty of factoids to keep this plane nerd in hog heaven. A good bloke too; he didn't blink when I asked if I could borrow his aviator glasses for the photos.
Food and drink: I had a light breakfast before heading to Ardmore. It nearly came back up.
"If you spew, I'll make you clean the cockpit," Dean warns me. I'm not sure if that was the cool-headed certainty or the dry humour. Several times during the flight he points out that there's a sick bag in the pouch next to me. And he checks on me throughout, making sure I'm comfortable with what we're doing.
I was (surprisingly) fine during the aerobatics, but the Strikemaster is a jostly wee ride and it takes its toll. Where a Cessna would surf along waves of turbulence, we punch through them in a series of constant and almost imperceptible tiny shudders. By the time we touch down, I'm definitely feeling a touch shady.
The ex-Royal New Zealand Airforce Strikemaster Jet comes into land. Photo / Nick Reed
The toilets: I visited the little room three times at home before driving to Ardmore. You could say I was nervous.
After we landed, Herald photographer Nick Reed lined me up to get a few photos. I don't mind admitting that I looked down to make sure I hadn't wet myself or coated the flight suit in sweat during the flight.
Contact:jetfighter.co.nz or phone 021 0614 655. They're based at Ardmore Airport, on Corsair Lane, which for the purposes of this Flight Check, I'm calling the Highway to the Danger Zone.
Would I fly this again? It's no overstatement to say that I was blown away by this ride. Physically and emotionally drained, I was considering heading home for a nap. "Take a couple of concrete pills, Maverick," the deputy travel editor helpfully suggested. "And harden up."
I've flown in a lot of things, some of them pretty damn scary, some spectacular. A fighter jet? There's nothing like it on Earth - and nothing like it in the skies either.
