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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 1470.PDF
711FLIGHT, 22 May 1959 Three of the new Slingsby Swallows were entered in this year's championships. This one, "Bel Ami," belongs to the Crown Agents' Gliding Club conditions along the route to the north-west just had not happened. Exactly how marginal were the conditions was learned thatevening when, on the final League 1 count, we heard that only two pilots had made the Mynd. Two others had arrived on thesouth-east slope there, but about 200ft too low to reach their goal, and had been forced to land in a field at the foot of theslope, two miles short. It had been a day for the wily old birds rather than for the pilots of the highest-performance machines,for the two to arrive were grand-old-man Philip Wills, and another Dunstable veteran, Geoffrey Stephenson, both flyingSkylark 3s. And the two who fell short by such an agonizingly small margin were Tony Deane-Drummond, the 1937 champion,and David Ince, both flying Olympia 419s. Wills' time was 4 hr 25 min (a speed of 27.6 m.pJi.) and Stephenson's was 4 hr 34 min(26.7 m.pJi.). The farthest distance achieved by the other League 1 pilotswas to Ludlow, about 12 miles short, where a large cluster of landings occurred. Included in the "Ludlow group" on the mapwere the Goodhart brothers and most of the other pundits. As for League 2, top marks went to Brian Masters, who landed hissyndicate's Skylark 3b 96.6 miles away on his brother's farm at Wellington, as intended. Second was Sutcliffe in Bristol's Sky-lark 2, who had declared Yeovil as goal and came down at Upottery (95 miles); and Ken Blake in his syndicate's new Skylark3b came third by landing at Chard (91 miles) after declaring Dunkeswell. Only six pilots in this league achieved their declared On total points, top placings were now: League 1.1,G. Stephen-son, 232 pts; 2, N. Goodhart, 222; 3, P. Wills, 213; 4, D. Ince, 199; 5, Irving/Tonkyn and Burns/Martlew, 171. League 2, 1, Mrs.Harwood/Masters/Mettam, 296; 2, Sutcliffe/Jones, 195; 3, Croshaw, 194; 4, Coatesworth, 192; 5, Brett-Knowles/Holding,155. Separate briefings for the two leagues were held on Thursday,May 14. At 9 a.m. a 51-mile dog-leg race to Tarrant Rushton via Thruxton was declared for League 2; and at 11 a.m. the first-league pilots were told that they were to fly a 100 km triangle with turning points at Thruxton and Welford. "No landings on Wel-ford aerodrome," pilots were warned, "it's full of bombs." The ridge of high pressure lying across Ireland and Scotland,which was helping to give most of Britain the hottest week of the year, was still there, and thermals were expected to extend onlyto about 3,500ft, with haze all the way. The earliest time of take- off was announced as 10.30, but few pilots chose launch timesbefore 1 pjn. During the afternoon the only clouds to appear in the bluesky over Lasham were the condensation trails from aircraft rather higher and faster than those in the contest. Just after 4 o'clockcame the surprising news that Tony Deane-Drummond was down near Newbury, but at 4.20 the first aircraft to complete thetriangle was seen approaching Lasham from the north-west. Numbers 6 and 67, the Skylark 3s of Nicholas Goodhart andGeorge Burton, were first across the finishing line, followed by John Williamson in the Olympia 401. The next group to glide in from their final shared thermalincluded two T.42 Eagle two-seaters, flown respectively by Lome Welch and Mick Kay. As the sailplanes continue to arrive, some Two views of the attractive Bregvet 905 Fouvette flown in League J at Lasham by Cdr. Tony Goodhart, R.N. were seen to be just scraping in over the trees while others hadheight to spare for a fast dive and a fancy pull-up. At one stage Wally Kahn in his T.42 Regal Eagle was seen to be working hardsome miles in the distance in an attempt—a successful one—to raise enough height for his final glide. Twenty-five League 1 pilots succeeded in completing thetriangle, and the winner of the race was Lome Welch with a time of 2 hr 17 min—equivalent to a speed of 30.7 m.p.h. Second wasGeoffrey Stephenson who took two minutes longer; third was Charles Ellis, fourth was George Burton and fifth was DavidInce. This further good performance by Stephenson ensured his continued League 1 lead on overall points. Philip Wills had nowretired from the competition to attend the Netherlands Gliding Championship at Terlet. In the League 2 race to Tarrant Rushton nine pilots completedthe course. The best times were set up by Bryan Jefferson (Sky- lark 3b, 2 hr 11 min), John Westhorpe (Skylark 2) and M. Fairman(Meise). With no cumulus in the day's blue sky, pilots in bom leagues had to depend on the invisible "dry thermals" throughout.These had often been strong but narrow, and separated by many regions of strong sink. After five contest days for League 2 and four for League 1, theleaders were now: League 1: 1, Stephenson, 331 pts; 2, N. Good- hart, 307; 3, Ince, 292; 4, Burton and Burns/Martlew, 258.League 2: 1, Harwood/Masters/Mettam, 333; 2, Sutcliffe /Jones, 233; 3, Coatesworth, 232; 4, Phillips/Neumann/Whitfield, 225;5, Marshall, 211. The overall organisation of the Championships had experiencedsurprisingly few snags during the week's flying. The Tiger Moth and Chipmunk tugs had proved themselves well able to copewith the required rate of launching for the 80 sailplanes. Weather forecasting by Q E. Wallington and J. Findlater had combinedwith appropriate task-setting by Mrs. Ann Welch to provide a varied selection of difficult yet satisfying flying tasks. The helpersin the control tent had dealt efficiently with the incoming tele- phone calls giving news of pilots' landings, and the complicatedjob of calculating the day's marks and positions was in the hands of a trio comprising Peter Brooks of B.E.A., Robin Harper ofR.A.E. and Mrs. Jill Adair. To be concluded) KENNETH OWEN.
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