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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 2172.PDF
(Above) August Wietuchter, who took the lead in the single-seater class, talks with Mrs. Hampton, of the Surrey Gliding Club. (Upper right) The Air 100 entered by Helli Lasch of South Africa. (Lower right) The 15-year- old Spyr 5A which, flown by Nietlispach and Miiller, took the two-seater lead with an 80-mile flight to Friskney. WORLD GLIDING . . . (world champion, 1948), who flew 97 miles in his Weihe to March, Cambridge. Gerard Pierre, the young Frenchman who came second to Wills in 1952, achieved 93 miles to a point near King's Lynn in his Breguet 901; and America's Paul MacCready in the 1-23E came third with an 84-mile flieht, landing 15 miles S.S.E. of Spalding. Wietuchter, Wills and Relander scored equal points for Germany, Great Britain and Finland, each with a flight of 81 miles. Fifteen of the 21 machines to get away scored points: among these who failed to make the 15-mile minimum, we regret fully record, was Sel Owen of Australia, with the dubious distinc tion of the day's shortest flight—three miles to Eyam. Thursday, July 22nd.—Today it was the turn of the two- seaters to begin the Championship, and the task set was free distance—one mark per mile in any,direction, with the winner's score scaled up to 1,000 and the others proportionally. The wind was again strong and Just north of westerly, so that hill-soaring was possible. The clouds continued heavy but convection was occasionally stronger than yesterday, and seven of the nine two- seaters had set off downwind before the single-seater class launch ing began at 12.30. The retrieving of Relander's Weihe, which had landed seven miles the other side of Boston, Lines, had been an all-night job for the Finnish ground crew. Arriving back at Great Hucklow just before Thursday's single-seater briefing session, thev were in time to hear the class task announced as a goal race to Boston— which they accepted with commendable calm. Marks for the race would be proportional to speed to the goal, with consolation points for distance for those landing short. During the early part of the afternoon, the solo pilots began to leave the site, and soon news of landings began to come in very quickly, for eight two-seaters and many single-seaters had landed within 50 miles of Camihill. At about 3.15, however, a group :omprising MacCready. Wietuchter and Rousselet crossed the line md went away within five minutes of each other, with subsequent success. Wills and Stephenson were both down in under 30 miles, sut Wills arrived back, Sky in trailer, at 4.30, and was flying again whin 15 minutes. The slightly increased convection together with an inversion iad caused a spreading-out of the hieh cloud over a large area. •Nevertheless, four pilots were successful in reaching the goal, the •astest being Wietuchter, who covered the 73 miles to Boston in I hr 39; min (average speed 44 m.p.h.). Rousselet had taken 1 hr » min and his colleague Pierre, who had left at 2.40, had taken Uir 52^ min. MacCready, who had gone away together with wietuchter but who had found good conditions north of the direct lack, logged a time of 1 hr 54 min. A late-afternoon surprise was provided by the Swiss Spvr 5A, oe remaining two-seater, after an earlier 16-mile flight. Picking ^good time for his second attempt, as conditions brightened, Nietlispach took the machine away in an 80-mile dash to Frisk- ^Th1631 ^amfleet' Aus capturing 1,000 useful points. yie placings of the leading contestants at the end of the second a fs flying were as follows: < .„, . Single-seater Class in "Renter (Germany). 1,835 ooints; 2. Pierre (France), 1,784; ™Ta'Seady (U.S.A.). 1,664; 4. Persson (Sweden), 1,254; 5, Fed-^seJL.,Penmark), 1,173; 6, Ara (Spain), 1,136; 7, Relander (Finland) ?a Wtfh (Qt. Britain), ried with 1,037; 9, Ortner (Argentine), 996; >> Schweizer (U.S.A.), 992. l XT- i. Two-seater Class (First pilot named) «T; , p:,ch (Switzerland). 1,000 points: 2, Rain (Tugoslavia), 556: Wyl 407 Britain)' 506; 4> Juez (SPain>' 4575 5> Mantelli Friday, July 23rd.—This was declared to be a rest day because mow avoHrabfe weather conditions"—i.e., low grey cloud and nor fl °.ntmuous rain- A glance inside the hangar showed that :ver^: m? .day could be well used by some of the teams, for ju^f,ma- nes nad been damaged the previous day. Panics had been working all night on Cartigny's Sohaj, the elevators and tailplane of which had been damaged on landing in a cornfield. A broken skid on number 30, the Fokker-built Olympia, had been repaired; and repairs had also been completed on the wing trailing-edges, rudder and skid of the Kranich 3. Another all-night job had been on the nose, tailplane and elevators of the Italian Spillo, work on which was continuing. Minor ad justments were being made to Philip Wills' Sky, and the Swiss WLM-2 was being modified and tested to remedy the apparently insufficient control surfaces. Most serious damage, however, had been that to the massive HKS-1, which was taken to Slingsby's works at Kirbymoorside. Following damage to port and starboard leading-edges, it was estimated that three days and nights of work would be necessary to complete the repairs. During the day, a number of pilots and ground crews drove to Buxton, to look in on the proceedings of the conference organ ized by OSTIV, the international gliding research organiza tion (a full report of which will appear shortly). They heard Dr. J. P. Kiittner talking on cloud streets, watched a series of beauti ful time-lapse films of jet-stream clouds and cumulus formations (described by Dr. R. S. Scorer and Paul MacCready), and were told that a library of these films was being formed by the American Munitalp Foundation. What was Munitalp? It was Platinum spelt backwards, disclosed Mr. MacCready. Saturday, July 24.—Today's weather did not improve. At the early-morning meeting it was announced that the single-seaters would not fly: at the lunch-time meeting it was announced that the two-seaters would not fly, either. That is, they would not do any competition flying; as the wind was westerly, a number did ridge-soar during the day, in company with various club machines, thereby giving the hardy hundreds of spectators who had ascended from Hathersage and points north, south, east and west, at least something more than the sight of 19 flags of all nations. Among the non-championship machines flying were the trim Skylark 2, the Cambridge University Club's blue Kranich, and the Surrey Club's enclosed T.21B. (To be continued) THE ENTRY LIST Single Seaters 1. Israel (Olympia), M. Bar 2. Italy (Canguro), G. Ferrari 3. Spain (Sky), F. Vicent 4. Argentine (Sky), J. Cuadrado 5. Gt. Britain (Sky), P. A. Wills 6. S. Africa (Skylark 1), P. Beatty 7. Jugoslavia (Orao 2c), M. Arbajter 8. Austria (Superspatz), M. Linher 9. Finland (Weihe), S. Relander 10. Sweden (Weihe), P. A. Persson 11. Switzerland (Sky), A. Kuhn 12. Australia (Olympia). S. V. Owen 13. Holland (Sky), I. de Boer 14. Belgium (Sohai), M. Cartiany 15. Germany (HKS-1), E. G. Haase 16. Canada (Olvmpia), A. Pow 17. Denmark (Olympta), H. W. Jensen 18. U.S.A. (Schweizer 1-23E), P. B MacCready Two 19. France (Breguet 901), G. Roussel e 20. Italy (Soillo), R. Brigliadori 21. Spain (Sky), M. Ara 22. Argentine (Sky). J. S. Ortner 23. Gt. Britain (Olympia 4), G. H. Stephenson 24. S. Africa (Air 100), H. R. Lasch 25. Jugoslavia (Orao 2c), F. Mordej 27. Finland (PIK-13), A. V. J. Koskinen 28. Sweden (Weihe), T. Loef 29. Switzerland (WLM-2), A. Gehriger 30. Holland (Olympic), O. P. Koch 31. Belgium (Sohai), W. Witter 32. Germanv (Weihe 50), A. Wietii-hter 33. Denmark (Olympia), A. Feddersen 34. U.S.A. (Schweizer 1-23D), P. A. Schweizer 35. France (Breguet 901), G. Pierre -seaters 36. 37. 38, 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 45. Argentine Italy Spain U.S.A. Gt. Britain ... France Jugoslavia Austria Switzerland ... Condor 4 Canguro Kranich 3 ... Schweizer 2-25 Slinasby T-42 CM-71 Kosava MusgerMg-19 Spyr.5A J. Ompre, C. J. Dori A. Mantelli, L. Braghini L. V. Juez, R. B. de Castro S. W. Smith, R. Kidder L. Welch, Mrs. A. Welch M. Gasnier, L. Trubert Z. Rain, B. Komac W. Hesse, E. Neuman H. Nietlispach, B. Miiller
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