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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 0709.PDF
MARCH iS, 1937- FLIGHT. weather that is composed for choice of unstable air, hail storms, line squalls, thunderstorms, and the fiercest sort of cumulus cloud. It is only in such conditions that alti tude records, for instance, can be set up. And the British altitude record of 8,300 ft. was set up in a machine much less stable than the Rhonadler by the pilot going up with out blind-flying instruments through the middle of a very big thunder cloud. The pilot, incidentally, has done many hundreds of hours in the R.A.F., but he is said afterwards to have considered it the toughest job of his life. As "Indicator" said in the article already referred to, there are occasions where sailplane experience would be valuable. As a matter of fact, I'm sure that there are far more occasions than the power pilot realises. Apart alto gether from greater accuracy and a far better understand ing of the way of the air, no sailplane pilot would ever be caught out by one of these " mysterious down-currents '' that have killed more than one pilot, and pushed many dozens of undercarriages through longerons. And there is another thing that the sailplane pilot cannot understand. Why has no King's Cup racer ever (so far as is known) used the common or garden cloud street to give him extra lift, and therefore a free bonus of 10 m.p.h. or more? Just as the argument in the Navy about the advantages of training in sail will never be •••nnBn settled, so there is no end to the dis- cussion of the worth of sailplane experience. But in Germany the Luft Hansa will not em ploy pilots who have not had sail plane instruction. In fact, the Luft Hansa pilots have clubbed together to n Aspect ratios : A picture taken at the Wasserkuppe in Germany some time ago showing the very big span and narrow chord that characterise all the hign-per- ' 0 r m a n c e machines that fve yet been "esigned. The modern trend is towards the mid- Launching Hjordis I : Although the span is 50 ft., the chord is very narrow, and the wing loading is unusually high for sail planes. On this machine Mr. Wills broke the British distance record by flying from Dunstable to Lowes toft, 105 miles. own a high-performance sail plane which Peter Riedel, tired of roaring noisily in aeroplanes between Berlin and Hamburg day in and day out, succeeded in flying to Hamburg on his day off! When, oh when, shall we see the great ones of Imperial Airways spending their leisure hours in a Hjordis II sailplane 5,000 ft. over the Surrey hills? And the Royal Air Force, when will it come off its high horse and acknowledge that there is more to flying than watching the boost-pressure gauge? I can well remember the days when Air Force pilots thought less than nothing of the private power pilot because he often did not know how to do a slow roll. That feeling is passing now, I believe, and to be fair there are quite a number of eminent Air Force pilots who have found that there is a lot to learn in a sailplane. And the light aeroplane pilot, too. Now that he may only fly on alternate Tuesdays at 6,000 ft. three miles North-North-West of Croydon provided he carries two wireless sets and a certified ground engineer in triplicate, might he not be persuaded that soaring is very easy to do safely, and extremely difficult to do competently—that the harder a sport is to master the more fascinating it is to try—and that he can, if he wants to, learn more about the art and science of flying in twenty hours in a high- efficiency sailplane than in 500 hours in the latest flapped and slotted conservatory with variable-pitch under carriage? If you don't believe it, try a visit to Dunstable and see for yourself. • • v.:; ' •:: . . rii * Mj—- * V>.
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