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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 2448.PDF
FLIGHT BRITISH AIRCRAFT 1932 sailplanes and gliders Slingsby MOST important and heartening news in British gliding this year has been the suc cess of the Slingsby Sky high-performance sailplanes at the World Gliding Championships at Madrid in July. After a gale on the first day had forced the elimination of one machine, the remaining seven set up consistently good performances throughout the contests, and finished within the first 14 places, four of these going to this country. Philip Wills won the single-seat championship, with F/L. Jack Forbes a close runner-up to the Frenchman Pierre for second place. These successes for the Sky follow those of last year, when first and second places in the 1951 National Contests were secured, Slingsby Sky against competition from the German Weihes. The Sky is an 18-metre development of the 15-metre Gull IV, which was itself designed for the 1948 International Contests. An 18-metre machine was found to be essential for successful competition against the larger foreign types. Aerodynamic- ally, it is similar to the Gull, but is stronger structurally, to conform with the requirements of the A.R.B. semi-aerobatic category. Other single-seat machines produced by the Slingsby firm are the Primary, the Cadet and the Tutor—all in widespread use in this country—and the semi-aerobatic Prefect, possessing a full set of blind-flying instruments. In the two-seat, medium-performance category are the T.21B (Sedbergh), with side-by-side seating, and the T31 Tandem Tutor, which has the same wings and tail unit as the original Tutor. Elliotts of Xewbltry THIS company continues to produce the three well- known Eon types, catering for all stages of gliding. The sturdy Primary Eon, if ungainly in appearance, copes admir ably with the clumsiest of ab initio pupils, whose training may conveniently be continued on the Baby Eon, an inter mediate type. The successful record of Elliott's high-perfor mance machine, the Olympia Eon, need not be re-told here. A recent improvement in training technique, pioneered by Elliotts, is the use of primary types as static trainers. The method, now employed by both Elliotts and Slingsby, involves ball-jointed suspension of the aircraft from a tubular frame. Slingsby Prefect Slingsby Cadet Mk 1 Slingsby Tandem Tutor Baby Eon Olympia Eon
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