FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0810.PDF
818 FLIGHT, 17 June 1960 BIG-LEAGUE GLIDING OPENING WEEK OF THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS From KENNETH OWEN Butzweiler, nr Cologne ARRAYED before the line of 23 national flags prior to theA\ official opening of the World Gliding Championships on •L JL Saturday, June 4, the vari-coloured sailplanes were ahandsome sight. The Polish Zefirs and Foka, pencil-slim and stylish (fins are worn swept this year) competed for interest withthe three new American types, whose fins formed a "You name it, we have it" trio of vee, tee and conventional. The 1958champion's 1960 aircraft, a dark horse with an all-white paint scheme; the elegant Elfe, back again in world contest flying aftermissing Leszno—yet seeming hardly to have been away, so familiar had its swept fin become at St Yan four years ago. The capableZugvogels and Ka-6s, deceptively ordinary in appearance yet formidable in performance; and the sturdy, no-nonsense Britishbrigade—middle-aged relatives from Yorkshire and Berkshire who seemed to have strayed into a real mean rave of the coolest cats.Elegant, modern or square, however, all were thoroughbreds. The championships were officially declared open by DrSeiermann, State Secretary of the German Ministry of Transport, and appropriate words were added from the dais by German AeroClub president Harald Quandt, FAI vice-president Jacques Allez, championships organizer Seff Kunz and FAI gliding-commissionchairman "Pirat" Gehriger. M Allez recalled the flights of the first German glider pioneer, Otto Lilienthal; prewar French andGerman gliding contests; and the first international gliding com- petition at the Wasserkuppe in 1937, at which seven countries hadbeen represented. The speeches, flag-raising and hand-shaking had been precededby what the English version of the programme called "Flurish of trumpets. Musik band takes position"; and were now followedby a perfectionist display of glider aerobatics—or Kunstfiug, as the commentator put it—by Albert Falderbaum and HerbertTilling in two Lo-lOOs. Their audience, an assembly of the world's best glider pilots, was impressed. Early that morning, before even the flurish of trumpets, a con-test briefing had been held, the organizers obviously believing in wasting no time in getting down to the real business of the meet-ing. The task for both open and standard classes was to be an OUt-and-return race to Koblenz, a total distance of 172km. Muchthought had clearly gone into planning the presentation of the daily briefing: along one wall of the hangar were mounted notonly area maps showing all the planned triangular courses, but also larger-scale maps and aerial photographs of every turningpoint which might be used. From Lasham Gliding Centre and the 1959 British Nationals the idea had been taken of pilot-selectedlaunch times in a pre-decided order of choice. Thus after every briefing numbers are called, pilots hang their numbered discson the hook opposite their chosen time on the launching board, and the board is later moved to the launch-point. The briefing was conducted by Dr Ernst Frowein, head of thepanel of judges. "You are invited to note," the English interpreter intoned, "that in the Rhine valley itself the landing possibilitiesare extremely bad." But not as bad, it seemed, as they might be on the pilots' final glide: coming back from the south-east, they wouldhave to pass directly across the city of Cologne to reach Butzweiler. I now realized why the British pilots—and indeed almost all thepilots—were using 1:200,000 road maps for navigation. On the maps provided for competitors were six prominent redblotches marking prohibited airspace near Butzweiler—just one of several major difficulties involved in this year's contest. Thesewere areas around Koln-Bonn Airport, Dusseldorf, Briiggen and Wildenrath, Spangdahlen and Bitburg, Hahn, and (largest of all)a 30-mile radius around Frankfurt. Although the civil air authorities were co-operating by holding commercial air traffic at1,800 metres or above on nearby routes ("as far as traffic conditions permit"), pilots were warned to keep clear of certain airfields andto take care when crossing the airways. Launching the sailplanes was the job of 25 Dornier Do27 air-craft belonging to the Luftwaffe and the German Army, and speci- ally fitted with towing hooks for the occasion. At 12.30 preciselythe first Do27 was flagged off along the main 040 runway, the lanky young Dutchman Willem Toutenhhoofd lifted his Ka-6up into the high-tow position behind it, and the 1960 World Glid- ing Championships were in business. The weather gave a reasonable chance for most pilots to com-plete the course, although with winds at 1,000m averaging 120°/ 20kt the outward run to Koblenz would be a slow one. The sail-planes were released at a height of 800 metres and crossed the starting line not higher than 1,000 metres. By 12.55 a steadystream was crossing the line. Over-enthusiasm by a few of the tug pilots caused a number of towline-breaks on initial accelerationalong the runway, but no damage was caused and second attempts were rapidly organized. Last away, at 1.20 p.m., was Joze Mrakin the Jugoslav Meteor 60. Last-minute withdrawals had abbreviated the original entrylist, as given in Flight of June 3, to a new total of 20 in the open class and 35 in the standard class. The Czechs, Russians andHungarians had failed to arrive, as had Gordon Oates of Canada; the Jugoslav Meteor entry in the open class was reduced fromtwo to one and the standard-class Ilindenka was withdrawn. Other alterations from the published list were that Isamu Oda of Japan ILLUSTRATED WITH "FLIGHT" PHOTOGRAPHS had transferred from the open class to the standard in a Ka-6;and the Israeli pilots Arber and Jardeny had transferred from Breguet Fauvettes to a Ka-6 and a Skylark 2 respectively. During the afternoon the base crew in the British team's opera-tions tent, led by team captain Ann Welch, kept track of the pro- gress of their open-class pilots, and of all three retrieving cars,by VHF radio. A new design of Pye Gliderphone was used, in conjunction with additional 30ft aerials carried along the side ofeach trailer and raised when required. For normal use the small roof-rack aerials would suffice. But these were not the only radio facilities available to theBritish team. One could hardly fail to notice, for instance, the two British Army lorries, aerials and equipment which happenedto be parked next to the base tent. These vehicles, plus six others parked at strategic points between Butzweiler and Koblenz,belonged to 244 Signals Squadron, an air support signals unit based at Lippstadt. The job of the six mobile units was to set upshop at an appropriate site, watch out for gliders, listen-out on VHF for the British pilots, and pass weather information and pos-sibly radio messages back to base by means of HF morse signals. Altogether an excellent exercise for the troops, some 40 of whomwere involved. In charge of the operation at Butzweiler was 2nd Lt Paul Webb, who confirmed that gliders made an interestingchange from Hunters, with whom No 244 were accustomed to work. Moving over to the finishing line just outside the airfield, Ifound I had left die British Army and joined the German Navy, whose square-rigged, eagle-eyed boys had been voted-in as thefinishing-line observers most likely to succeed. The sight of sailors mixed up in gliding—this was of of course somehow differ-ent from the Goodhart brothers—added a pleasantly bizarre touch to the finishing-line scene. Baking at about Regulo 7 under the fierce sun, we watched, andwaited. It was 3.50 when the first two gliders were sighted. The Richard Johnson, USA, is designer, builder and pilot of the RHJ-6 sailplane, No 24 in this picture. Right, Johann Fritz brings his Standard Austria over the finishing line on the first day of the championships, Saturday, June 4. The sailor is one of the look-outs from the German Nary JL
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
