Gifted wings fly Peter again

BY ELISE VOLLWEILER

The wind was buffeting Peter Assaf as he walked towards the small plane at the Motueka Aerodome, but the 93-year-old was elated rather than anxious.

An aeronautical thrill was right up his alley (or down his runway, perhaps). The retired pilot was getting back in the cockpit last week, but this time he was ceding the controls to a special pilot. Ten years ago, Nari Casley was given a scholarship funded by Peter to pursue flying.

Aeroclub traffic was just part of the background of Nari’s childhood, being a Motueka local.

She began flying at 14 as a hobby, but decided to pursue it more seriously a couple of years later. The expense, however, was prohibitive – she would have one lesson, and then need to step away from her training to work and earn the money for the next.

Peter’s $2000 scholarship was one of about five the former pilot offered to new trainees.

“You don’t know if… they’re good for it, but I tell you, she’s fantastic, Nari is. You should be proud of yourself,” he told her fondly. “I’m proud of you, anyway.”

For Nari, the scholarship meant that she was able to progress a lot faster, rather than training “flight-to-flight”.

“Flying is a big investment. It meant that I could be much more efficient with training.”

Nari, 26, is now a flight instructor at the Nelson Aviation College, based in Motueka, and was delighted to be able to sit next to Peter in the cockpit of a Cessna 172.

Peter’s good friend John Carleton, another former pilot, joined them on the flight, and they took to the skies over Kaiteriteri and Motueka.

Peter celebrates his 94th birthday this month, and it has been a few years since he has held his pilot’s licence. With Nari at his side, he was able to take back the controls and do some of the flying himself.

Peter began training at about the same age as Nari, answering the call of the New Zealand Airforce in the 1960s. He is a life member of the Motueka aeroclub and is also a former club patron. Many decades of muscle memory kept him in good stead during last week’s flight.

“It was cool to be able to do something for him,” Nari says. “He’s still so capable, it’s crazy, at 94 years old.”

Peter certainly has a wealth of engaging stories to tell about his flying days, which perhaps explains why he wasn’t fazed by a bit of wind.

He recalled one incident where he took chemist Jim Fry up for a flight, only to have the engine fail.

“[We] lifted up to nearly 800 (feet), levelled up and poof, nothing happened.”

He informed his passenger of the situation and after he’d managed to convince Jim that it was not a joke, he got on with the job of getting the plane safely onto the ground.

“The first thing they teach you [is] forget about the engine. Either way, you’re going to land.”

He came in a little high and at 100 feet eyed up a nearby paddock, where the sheep were invisible against the parched summer landscape. Jim didn’t utter a single word as Peter cleared the fence and completed the forced landing to get them safely on the ground.

“I’ll tell you another thing,” he said. “The sheep never stopped grazing.”