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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0940.PDF
86 FLIGHT WORLD GLIDING , Boutheon. The total number completing the course was onlyseven, the others being Goodhart and Foster, Wills, Juez of Spain, and Saradic of Yugoslavia in the all-metal Meteor.The fastest time for the 99.8 km race was that of Saradic, 1 hr 21 min 7 sec, giving a speed of 73.8 km/hr. In the single-seater class, he was followed by Ivans (1 hr 44 min 8 sec, 57.5 km/hr), Wills (1 hr 56 min 51 sec, 51.2 km/hr), Juez (2 hr 13min 34 sec, 44.8 km/hr) and MacCready (2 hr 24 min 58 sec, 41.3 km/hr). Trager and Miller took 1 hr 22 min 51 sec (72.3km/hr), while Goodhart and Foster made it in 1 hr 30 min 58 sec (65,8 km/hr). Third in the two-seater class was the FrenchBreguet 904 (Rousselet and Trubert) which achieved 75 km. Stephenson made 74 km, to be placed seventh on the day's results. Typical of the pilots' reports was that of Goodhart and Foster,who spent about 30 min over St. Yan and an hour en route. They had been in cloud all the way except for two small gaps,one of which had been conveniently over Roanne. Their first climb had been to over 16,000ft, after which they set course forBoutheon, making only one further climb en route. Wills reached 22,000ft during his flight, and Juez reported some 24,000ft. Manypilots reported heavy hail and icing inside the cu-nims. Thopositions after Monday's flying were (single-seaters): 1. MacCready(U.S.A.), 1,452 pts; 2. Ivans (U.S.A.), 1,412; 3. Juez (Spain), 1,404; 4. Saradic (Yugoslavia), 1,377; 5. Bar (Israel), 1,257; and 6. Stephenson(Great Britain), 1,215; with Pierre in 9th place (948 pts), Hanna Reitsch 11th (926) and Philip Wills 13th (841): (two-seaters) 1. Trager-Miller(U.S.A.), 1,505 pts; 2. Rousselet-Trubert (France), 1,202; 3. Goodhart- Foster (Great Britain), 1,174; 4. Nowotarski-Sandauer (Poland), 941;and 5. Yaykin-Argun (Turkey), 800. Tuesday, July 3 (Third contest day). After the rains of theprevious two days the ground was extremely wet this morning and, as the air mass covering central France was also humid, itwas decided to give the drying effect of the sun a chance to produce improved lift. An afternoon tack was accordingly set. This was for distance along a line passing from St. Yan throughCuers, an aerodrome just north-east of Toulon. The track was 165 deg (T), and the maximum distance, assuming nobody wouldventure out into the Mediterranean, was slightly over 400 km. The forecast winds were westerly, except for the Rhone valley,where die northerly mistral was to be expected. Flying began at 1 p.m. Mr. C. E. Wallington, meteorologistto the British team, had forecast wave conditions over the lower Alps and, while thermal lift was reasonable over St. Yan, crossingthe Rhone valley might be tricky due to the effect of the mistral. It promised to be another interesting day. That evening, the pins on the display map showed a wide scatterof landing sites. Of the pundits, Ivans, Wills and Saradic had landed at Cuers (389 km), while MacCready had pressed on thefinal few kilometres to the coast, landing at Hyeres. Goodhart and Foster had made 340 km, landing dead on the line, and themajority of the other machines had come down west of the specified track. Subsequent interviews with the pilots indicated just how excep-tional the day had been Along the line from St. Yan to Cuers, three distinct types of lift had been used in turn. These comprised Dumtable was never like this—Nick Goodhart's head and part of the Dauphine Alps, as seen by Frank Foster during the T.4?s 340-km flight on July X The Jura mountains were sampled later, thermals for the first half of the way (roughly as far as the Rhonevalley); slope-soaring over the Dauphine Alps; and finally lee waves caused by the northerly mistral passing over the east-westranges of the more southerly mountains such as those of Vauduse, Luberon, Ventoux and Lure. These three sections were punctuated by two broad groups oflandings, the first (near Lyon) where pilots had been unable to cross the Rhone valley and contact the ridge lift, and the second inthe region of Orange, pilots having failed to contact the wave. For many of die pilots who accepted the challenge of slope-soaring in the lower Alps, Tuesday's flying provided an unforget- table experience. "Slope" in some cases meant vertical cliff-face,and the narrowness of the lift-band demanded flying only one or two spans from die side of these "slopes." In the valleys the airwas extremely turbulent, and landing fields were few. Some pilots worked their way laboriously up individual ridges for up totwo hours before gaining sufficient height to head farther south. Main compensation for this uncomfortable type of flying lay inthe spectacular views of the snow-capped ranges of the Alps— although perhaps a somewhat academic point to a single-seaterpilot with one eye on a cliff-fanning wingtip and the other on his variometer. The mountain waves, experienced for the first time during theSt. Yan contests, had not been marked by any cloud formation. Those pilots familiar with wave-flying conditions were able tosmell them out and use them, however, although the waves met today gave relatively short beats and generally weak lift. Ivans,veteran of the famed Bishop wave in California, took the Olympia IV up to 22,000ft today—and arrived over Cuers with 10,000ftin hand. MacCready landed at the French naval air base at Hyeres at 9.15 p.m., after covering some 40 miles on slope liftand making a 75-mile final glide. It was dark as he approached the coast, but the lights on one runway at Hyeres were on.After Tuesday's flying, the single-seater list was again headed by MacCready (2,252 pts) and Ivans (2,174), while Saradic of Yugoslaviahad moved up into third place. Although the day's best two-seater flight had been one of 362 km by Haase and Heinzel in the GermanHKS-1, followed by Rain and Stepanovic (346 km) with Goodhart and Foster in third place (340 km), it was die British duo which nowled on total points (1,853). The Trager-Miller combination lay second with 1,802, and the French Breguet flown by Rousselet and Trubertwas third with 1,651. Wednesday, July 4. As many of yesterday's long-distancepilots had not yet returned to St. Yan—and as many who had were badly in need of sleep—it was decided at a conference ofteam captains that there would be no contest flying today. During the day the last of the retrieved trailers returned toSt. Yan and the pilots spoke of die varied and interesting flying conditions encountered on Tuesday. The temptation of anorganized visit to the vineyards of Beaune had to be resisted, sadly, by at least one journalist in the interests of this article. Indicative of the retrieving times achieved were those of Good-hart and Foster, whose crew of Lome Welch and Peter Flower reached the T.42 at 11 p.m. and who returned to St. Yan at 8.50this morning; and of MacCready, whose crew arrived at Hyeres at 3 a.m. and, pausing only for MacCready to take his first lookat the Mediterranean, made the return trip in 14| hr. Among the casualties of the previous day's flying were theYugoslav Orao, No. 3, which was damaged by hitting a fence on landing, and the elegant Eolo 3V.I flown by Ferrari, which ground-looped on landing in the Rhone valley, the fuselage breaking into three sections. The Orao was brought back to be repaired in theSt. Yan workshops, while the Eolo, beyond repair for the cham- pionships, was left at Lyon for later collection by the Italian team. Thursday, July 5 (Fourth contest day). Today a high-pressurearea was covering central France, there was a clear blue sky at St. Yan at breakfast time, 2nd the day's task was declared to be ashort triangular race of about 115 km. The turning-points were to be the airfields of La Palisse and Roanne, giving three roughly Work on the tailskid of the Jaskolka flown by Cortigny of Belgium. "Flight" photograph
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