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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 2102.PDF
ii4 FLIGHT. JULY 29, 1937. ZURICH The First Three Days of the Big Meeting at Dubendorf : Formation Flying Extraordinary (Illustrated with "Flight" photographs) W E who see only our own display at Hendon are inclined, in cur insular manner, to take it for granted that nobody else can do it all quite as well as we can. The depressingly few English pilots at the Zurich International Meeting must have suffered a minor shock. Ten Italian Fiat C.R. 32 fighters, led by Captains Remondino and Borzoni, and, perhaps even better, Lt, Fleurquin's Moranes of the Patrouille d'Etampes will give our four Fury pilots, led by Fit. Lt. E. M. Donaldson, something to live up to when they put on their show during the last two days of the meeting, which is continuing all this week. Admittedly, the French and Italian pilots have machines fitted with aerobatic fuel systems with the result that they think nothing of massed inversion at three hundred feet, but the crowd at Dubendorf Airport are not to know it. However, largely because the meeting has not been given official prominence in this country, Great Britain was repre sented only by one or two enthusiastic private owners, and by Mr. R. A. C. Brie, with an Autogiro, in the earlier stages of- the event, and the Furies, with the Bristot Bombay trans port which is taking out the pilots' equipment, will help to disperse the impression that we are sublimely indifferent to international affairs of this calibre. For the Zurich show, which is held every five years, is un doubtedly the most important in Europe. More than a dozen countries are represented this year, yet only one of our manu facturers saw fit to send out a demonstration machine. For the "arrival" competition we were represented by Mr. J. R. Micklethwait, the Yorkshire private owner, who came through from Heaton in his Gipsy Moth and was placed ninth. Mr. Charles Gardner sportingly entered his Mew Gull in both the climb-and-dive competition and the speed race over a short circuit. Because his 200 h.p. machine was matched against military types of 800-odd h.p. he scratched for the first, but he flew in the race against two Messerschmitt rog fighters of 950 and 640 h.p. respectively. He came in second after Udet, in one of the B.F.VV.s had withdrawn. The word '' arrival'' is quoted in this case because the com petition was run on a formula basis in which power, number of passengers, distance, number of frontiers crossed and num ber of landings made were taken into consideration. The entrants had to leave for Zurich not earlier than 6 a.m., and arrive between 5 and 5.30 p.m. Unfortunately, the formula did not work too well. M. Louis Clement won with 1,453 marks, after a flight only from Buc (Paris). He was flying the tandem-winged Taupin machine with a 32 h.p. Mengin flat twin and his effort, in the circumstances, was stout enough, but hardly matched that of Major W. Polte, who flew a B.F.W. Taifun (Me. 108) into fourth place with 867 marks. This pilot flew 1,490 miles from Belgrade, made eleven land ings, crossed ten frontiers and carried three passengers. It would be difficult to imagine a more perfect flying centre than Dubendorf, with its large, smooth area and Alpine back ground, and on the first day of the meeting (Saturday, July 24) the weather was almost perfect. The day opened with the preliminary heats of the aerobatic contest for machines with engines up to 10,000 c.c, and for ten minutes at a time we watched a succession of Biicker Jungmeisters being put through their paces. There were a few other machines, and The Dornier Do. 17 bomber, known in Germany as the " Flying Pencil," and one of the new B.F.W. Me. 109 fighters. Each won class in the Alpine circuit at respective average speeds of 233.5 an^ 240.9 m.p.h.
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