On a Thursday evening in January, along with 15 other Wairarapa LandSAR volunteers, I was lucky enough to work with the NZDF as they put a pilot through his final training assessment. Four teams of us each ran a scenario in the Tararua Forest Park, from medical emergencies to navigational problems, with an NH90 crew tasked with responding to each team and extracting all sixteen of us well after dark.
NH90 arriving at our SAR base, Masterton Airport.
We soon departed base, with my team of four getting winched into the upper Tauwharenikau Valley near Cone Hut. There we were to wait until after dark before calling in our “emergency.” With a few hours to kill, we ran ourselves a navigation exercise to pass the time.
Totara Flats on the flight in.
Hamish.
Winching in to the Tauwharenikau.
Team at Cone Hut.
Sometime after dark, on a moonless night, we called in our emergency: a patient, me, with a broken leg. The NZDF team arrived and began winching a medic down to us through the beech canopy. She played the handover well for the pilot, who had his hands full: holding the NH90 steady in a tight, heavily treed valley, recovering the five of us, and doing it all in full blackout. The helicopter roared overhead, almost invisible above the canopy, and the downdraft was phenomenal even at height, with packs needing holding down or they’d have blown off, and a real risk of branches shaking loose from the trees above us.
Once aboard we flew to Totara Flats so the crew could deal with the second emergency, then back to our SAR base at Masterton Airport while they returned to the remaining two.
The exercise was terrific training and NH90 time for our Wairarapa crew. Thanks, NZ Defence Force.
North of the Saddle 
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