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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 2191.PDF
166 FLIGHT W A y* m m iwm : v\pihi 1 -! HOI ^r , ' ^g^Hfta pi 4 •""uw KHK. : ':::• • : - Seven Slingsby Skys were entered in the single-seater class—more than any other type. Here, llbert de Boer flies the Dutch Sky. Ernst-Giinther Haase, German national champion and pilot of the vee-tailed HKS-1. WORLD GLIDING . . . described events at Camphill up to Saturday, July 24th. The succession of warm and cold fronts coming across from the Atlantic, which had prevented flying on Friday and Saturday, continued on the Sunday, as related below. Sunday, July 25th. Warm, moist air from the West brought with it a continuous drizzle during the morning, but die improve ment forecast for die afternoon—and experienced—resulted in a 40-mile goal race to Sandtoft (a disused airfield between Don- caster and Scunthorpe) being set for the two-seater class. The partially cleared sky provided weak convection over the site, but none of die two-seater machines was able to leave the ridge. The all-different shapes soaring over Great Hucklow, however, provided a worthwhile sight not only for the ground crews and organizing personnel but also for the 9,000 spectators who, attracted from the depths of Manchester and Sheffield by the Derbyshire sunshine, jammed the twisting lane which leads to Camphill. Although none of the two-seaters was able to get away from die site, a fair amount of cumulus was building up to the east, Two European designs: the tandem Yugoslav Kosava (No. 42), flown by Rain and Komac; and the single-seat P/K-13 from Finland, flown by its designer, Ahtti Koskinen. and the official observers at Sandtoft reported that conditions there were especially good. Monday, July 26th, showed no change, with continuous rain all day. Repairs to the HKS-1 at Slingsby's works at Kirbyrnoor- side were completed, and the machine returned to the site for spraying and polishing. Other news was that the WLM-2, flown by Gehriger of Switzerland, had been withdrawn from the con tests. This machine had been found to lack stability and to have control faults which made it unacceptable for competition flying; it had evidently been brought to the championships while insufficiendy developed. Tuesday, July 27th brought something new, met.-wise, in the form of fresh, unstable air from the north-west. The air was so moist and so unstable, however, that too much cloud built up; in addition, there was a 20-knot wind, gusting to 50 knots at the launching point. This dangerously high wind was the main rea son for the initially suggested "free distance" task being can celled, a mutual decision between pilots and committee. The two Russian representatives to the OSTIV conference at Buxton, Victor Iltchenko and Pavel Tourchin, arrived on die Tuesday and paid a visit to Camphill. Only the previous day Iltchenko had been nominated by the gliding commission of the F.A.I, for the award of the Lilienthal Medal for his flight of 520 miles, a world two-seater record, from Moscow to Stalingrad last year. Tourchin is the vice-secretary of the Russian Central Aero Club. Also present during the week at both Buxton and Camphill was M. Charles Fauvel, designer of the lightweight Fauvel AV-36 flying-wing sailplane, one example of which has now been brought over to this country. Wednesday, July 28th, saw little change in the weather; there was too much cloud and too much rain at first, although an improvement was expected later in the day. As on previous occasions, this improvement arrived too late for competition flying to be possible, however, and the early-evening blue sky and cumulus was still punctuated by fierce showers from a procession of dark grey cu-nims. Thursday, July 29th. Once more, gales and low cloud pre vented competition flying in the morning. Later in the day, however, the nine two-seaters were launched for a free-distance task, but none was able to contact thermal lift and so get away from the ridge. After they had been on the beat for an hour and a half, conditions worsened as further storms came in, and the sailplanes were forced to land. The organization responsible for indicating just how bad the weather is going to be at Camphill is very well equipped to do this efficiently. Under Mr. C. E. Wallington, himself a glider pilor and met.-veteran of last year's Nationals forecasting, is a useful group from the Air Ministry Meteorological Office. Part of their equipment consists of two "Mufax" machines (working on ths same principle as that for transmitting and receiving Press photo graphs by radio) which print facsimile weather charts, complet: with station observations, transmitted direcdy from the centr forecasting office at Dunstable. The charts can be received on H hr after the observations have been made. In addition, a daily weather flight is made over Derbyshire by a Spitfire, which reports air temperatures, humidity readings and cloud observa tions up to 20,000ft, by radio direct to Camphill. The British habit of talking about the weather has already bee acquired, with good reason, by the foreign gliding teams a*, present in this country. It is too much to hope that they mf forgive us our weather; but it is right that they should be wel informed. As we go to press, the single-seater lead has been taken t Pierre of France, with Wills a close second and Wietuchtt (Germany) third. Jugoslavia leads in the two-seater class. (To be concluded)
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