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Aviation History
1958
1958 - 0793.PDF
13 June 1958 809 GLIDING IN POUND By J. B. CYNK THE World Gliding Championships which begin at Lesznonext week have once again focused attention on inter-national gliding progress. Poland, host and organizing nation for this year's championships, has in recent years succeeded in re-establishing her place as one of the world's leading gliding countries. Gliding in Poland began in 1896 when practical experiments were carried out by Czeslaw Tanski in a field near Janow Podiaski (see Flight, July 27, 1956). Tanski built a man-carrying glider which he called Lotnia. In June of that year, holding Lotnia in his arms, he succeeded in becoming airborne after running quickly along the flat ground. Tanski's work inspired subsequent aero- nautical efforts in Poland and between 1909 and 1914 many gliders were built, mainly by young people with enthusiasm but little money to undertake the construction of powered aircraft. Upon regaining her independence in November 1918, Poland had neither an aircraft industry nor any qualified technical per- sonnel. With little chance of powered sporting aircraft being built, aviation enthusiasts turned their attention to sailplanes. In the late summer of 1923 the first gliding contest was organized by the students of Warsaw Polytechnic at the Czarna Gora (Black Mountain), Biala. Nine amateur-designed aircraft took part, but the performances achieved were poor—the longest flight being of only three minutes' duration. Nevertheless the contest aroused wide public interest and marked the beginning of the gliding movement in independent Poland. The second gliding contest, arranged in 1925 by the Polish Airmen's Association, was held at a coastal hill-site at Oksywie, near Gdynia. Fifteen machines were completed in time for the meeting but again results were disappointing. A group of Lwow Polytechnic students led by Szczepan Grzeszczyk began an extensive search for better soaring sites. During their first expedition, the first soaring flight in Poland was made on May 26, 1928 by Grzeszczyk, flying Czerwinski's CW.l sailplane and remaining airborne for 4 min 13 sec. In the autumn of 1929 the same group discovered the soaring site at Bezmiechowa, and on this occasion Grzeszczyk, flying the CW.2, soared for two hours, eleven minutes—a turning point in the history of Polish gliding. It was at Bezmiechowa that the first gliding centre in Poland was established. Regular training began in the spring of 1930 and the first B and C certificates were achieved in the following year. Gliding was soon officially recognized as an important primary training for powered aircraft pilots, and the sport enjoyed whole- hearted government support. The movement ex- panded rapidly and by 1939 there were 21 gliding schools and 36 gliding clubs and the total number of trained glider pilots exceeded 15,000. At this time all equipment used was entirely of Polish design and manufacture. Polish gliders were licence-produced in Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland and Yugoslavia and were exported to a number of other countries. Polish teams flew in the international gliding competitions at Rhon in Germany in 1932 and 1937 and, particularly at the latter meeting, set up excellent performances. Wanda Modlibowska remained airborne in a Komar sailplane for 24 hr 14 min, establishing a world duration record for women. Tadeusz Gora, flying a PWS.101, made a spectacular cross-country flight of 360 miles from Bezmiechowa to Wilno. This flight, recognized by the F.A.I. as the outstanding gliding event in 1938, brought Gora the award of the Federation's Lilienthal medal. Poland became the second most active gliding nation of the world—with Germany in the leading position—and the last pre-war statistics published showed Poland to have no fewer than 159 Silver C pilots up to the end of March 1939. This map of Poland shows the main centres of sporting aviation. A key to the symbols is given below World War 2 resulted in the complete destruction of the Polish gliding industry and severe losses in personnel. Several outstand- ing designers and pilots lost their lives in German concentration camps or while flying with the Polish Air Force from Britain, and when the war ended gliding as a sport had to be rebuilt prac- tically from scratch. The initial basis of the movement consisted of some 400 sailplanes, mainly SG.38s, Grunau Babies, Weihes, Olympias and Kranichs, left in the country by the Germans. In spite of extremejy primitive conditions, gliding began in May 1945 at Zar and in Fordon. A disused furniture workshop with no equipment, located at Bielsko-Biala, near Zar, was made available to the gliding enthusiasts and it first task was the overhaul of eight ex-German SG.38 primary gliders. In October 1945 prominent members of the pre-war gliding movement decided to combine their efforts to rebuild Polish gliding and resolved that Polish designs should be developed immediately to replace the German equipment. In the circumstances this seemed to be wish- ful thinking, for not even a drawing board was available at the Bielsko-Biala "design office." Work began immediately on the reconstruction of the pre-war Salamandra trainer, one example of which had survived the war. By the end of March 1946 all drawings were completed, and this glider subsequently went into production. In April 1946 the Gliding Institute (Instytut Szybownictwa) was officially created at Bielsko-Biala and two months later J. Niespal and W. Nowakowski conceived the first post-war Polish sailplane. All the drawings for this aircraft—the IS.l Sep (Vulture)—were prepared on a kitchen table in an unheated room. The Sep sailplane took the air for the first time on June 2, 1947 and only one month later represented Poland at the first post- war world championships at Samaden in Switzerland. Flown by Zientek, it was placed eighth in the final results. The Sep entered production in the autumn of 1947. The difficult start had been made, and gliding in Poland began to spread rapidly once more. On April 29, 1948 a new inter- mediate sailplane, the IS.2 Mucha (Fly), designed by F. Kotowski and I. Kaniewska, was successfully test-flown. It was manufac- tured in large numbers as the Mucha-bis and Mucha-ter, and an improved version known as SZD.12 Mucha-100 reached the gliding schools in 1954. The development of the basic Mucha design still continues and, for this year's world championships, a special version known as the SZD.22 Mucha Standard is being produced for the new 15-metre class. [Continued overleaf • Regional aero clubs ) Advanced gliding centres Gliding schools Disused gliding centres II a Parachute towers (65 and 165ft) Training centres Aero club branches and airfields
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