Waiheke Island
 

Can anyone tell me if the current Waiheke Island airstrip is on the same site as the one Rex/Dalhoff & King/Motor Holdings used to fly into on their regular passenger service back in the 70's & 80's?

It was a 'company instructor only' airstrip back then & I only flew in once as a passenger. I remember it was roughly north/south, had a hump in the middle & the 'terminal' (shack) was on the eastern side, approximately half way along. However, the memory isn't what it used to be, so that may all be incorrect.

The current one is north/south & in about the correct spot on the island, but doesn't have the hump. It also has a parking area at the southern end, so I am unsure if it is a development of the old strip or a completely new one.

I wasn't around back then (:O) but I'm reasonably certain the current one would be a different strip - I know there have been two so I'd imagine the one you're thinking of is probably the old one.

I remember going into that strip with one of the Flightline instructors in a C206 (I can understand why its use was only for company pilots) and I'am sure its not the strip used today having flown into that strip in C172 a few years ago.

I flew there a number of times. It has a pronounced upslope to the North and fancy 45 degrees final turn from the South.

The current strip has a dogleg approach as well but that's for noise abatement rather than terrain reasons.

You're thinking of Stony Ridge which I think might be closed now, I think it's now a vineyard, It is/was to the west of the one that's in use now which is Reeve.

I've been into both, Stony Ridge was interesting but not difficult, even took off a few times to the north (uphill), well the first half is up hill, If I recall correctly if you had 40 knots by the time you got to the flat top half you were good to go if not you had room to stop. All landings were to the north from memory.

Reeve has some anal neighbours at the northern end hence the dog leg approach.

Reeve appears to be the much better (safer) strip of the two but has had more mishaps that I know of than Stony Ridge ever had. Perhaps a case of Stony ridge being taken more seriously than Reeve. They both can have some particularly nasty windshear etc. Reeve probably more so than Stoney Ridge.

I used to visit what is now Stony Ridge in the 1980s to pick up my gran from the Rex Air 206 she used to fly over in the back of from Ardmore to join us for our holidays. In those days the commercial guys used it as a one way strip, I don't recall ever seeing them take off to the north.

As for Reeve, I've flown in there with a vastly experienced A Cat and we had a fairly earnest discussion later about the criteria under which he would allow me to fly there as PIC. The conditions when we were there were surprisingly benign but I can see how nasty it could get with a strong gusty wind blowing.

I've got an old road map that shows the position of the airport at what is now approx StonyRidge/Wild on Waiheke vineyards. Its hard to imagine that there used to be an airstrip in there.

I was up at Reeve last week. What happend to ZK-PRF, its upside down on the boundary. Did the tie-down rope break?, or get yanked out of the ground.

Google Earth shows an area in the middle of Stonyridge that looks like an airstrip, or what's left of one, so that makes sense. There is still a good 450 metres clear, but the northern end is surrounded by vines. The image is from 2008 though, so it could have changed a lot since then. Thanks everyone for the information.

Old waiheke airfield
 

This is now some years later however, i was one of those pilots working for Rex air charter, dalhoff & king who flew more than 1800 trips from Ardmore and Auckland international into the airfield named here on waiheke Is. during the 1970s. It was a challenging strip with major decisions resting on pilot experience at the location to determine whether to takeoff to the north or south when a strong northerly was blowing. In winter it was boggy and required full power immediately after touchdown, especially landing to the south. The Cessna 207, ZK DSE was my favourite. I made many friends on the island and have many great memories of those carefree days. Am retired now in perth after many years flying helicopters in Australia.

If only I'd bought land on the island where 'only hippies live' back in the 80s or 90s before it became fashionable there.

As an ex (and sometimes still current) hippie I can tell you that selling before such land was fashionable is definately an 'if only'... all I have left is a bus :{ Speaking of which does anyone want one, complete with chimney?

FP.