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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 0854.PDF
862 FLIGHT, 24 June 1960 The two Standard Austrias which, flown by Fritz and Resch, put up consistently good performances. Below, the Zugvogel 4A (in fore- ground) and 4, flown by Perszon and Jonsson, await launching "Flight" photographs E GLIDING ... of crewing duties) for Frank Irving to take over as had been hoped. The sailplanes which had been entered for the prize were theStandard Austria, Foka, E/C 39, Pik 3C, Ka-6, Skylark 2, M.100S and (not entered in the championship) the K-8. If time allowed,the panel would also examine the Fauvette, Schweizer 1-23H, Zugvogel and Mucha Standard. The evening meeting of the international jury proved incon-clusive, except that formal protests against the "distance" inter- pretation were made by Poland and West Germany, and a furthermeeting was arranged for the following day, Monday, June 13. For reasons of weather and of flight safety, as Dr Frowein phrasedit, this day also was a rest day. The jury met at 6 p.m. on Monday, and four hours later emergedto eat, having reached a decision on the thorny problem of what the rule said and what it was meant to say. By a vote of 12 toeight, with one abstention and two countries not represented at the meeting, the verdict was that "projected distance" only shouldcount. This meant that the decision that Saturday was a contest day for the Open Class was reversed, and that Nicholas Goodhanwas no longer in the lead. This decision came as a bitter disappointment to the Britishteam and, in particular, to its captain Ann Welch, whose main argument had been that the rules as written and accepted inadvance by every team should not be changed retrospectively during mid-contest. Also relevant was the increasingly widespreadfeeling among many of the teams that the organizers had in fact invited this sort of problem by their unimaginative task-setting.Although the luck element must not predominate, the reasoning behind this criticism was that the more difficult the weather themore scope the pilot should have to exercise his skill. On the narrow question of the distance rule, there was no doubtthat most pilots agreed that, as written, the rule was wrong and did not express what was intended. But this wider point wasalso clear—pilot skill was way ahead of task-setting ability at this world championship. These two factors had come together inthe most unfortunate way, and the only unanimous feeling on this was admiration for the skill of Goodhart and Huth on theirSaturday nights. On Tuesday, June 14, the set task was again open to muchcriticism. With strong cumulus building up against a blue sky at breakfast time, it was obviously going to be a good day, andpilots were surprised to hear that they were to fly a goal race to Oerlinghausen, a distance of only 162km, or almost exactly 100miles. Over a specified area en route, cloud-flying would be allowed.No fewer than 51 of the 55 pilots were successful in reaching Oerlinghausen, but among those who were not was AnthonyDeane-Drummond in the Skylark 3F. Anthony Goodhart in the Standard Class Skylark 2 set up a better time than his brother,but it was "just one of those days" in which things failed to click for the British team. On several occasions during the championships the StandardClass aircraft had shown performances equal to those of their seniors in the Open Class. Today the best time to Oerlinghausenwas set up by a Standard Class machine, and there were no prizes for guessing that it could have been—and in fact was—the PolishFoka flown by Adam Witek. His time was lhr 15min for the 100-mile journey—no less than an 80 m.p.h. average, if you please. Makula and Popiel in the Open Class Zefirs took lhr 17min, andbehind them came Schreder's Airmate HP-8 and Johnson's RHJ-6 (which by now had been dubbed "the mahogany bomber") withlhr 24min and lhr 25min respectively. At lhr 27min Huth was runner up to Witek in the Standard Class. What could one say, except that the Poles seemed to have thechampionship in their pockets? On each contest day, Makula, Popiel and Witek had picked up 1,000 points apiece. For sheerhigh-performance consistency this had not been approached in any other world championship. It was not simply a case of goodpilots flying good sailplanes; it was a high-performance soaring system, a computer into which was fed weather, pilot and aircraftand out of which came points—in batches of 1,000. The leading points totals were now : —Open Class: 1, Popiel, Poland, 3,965.2 points. 2, Makula, Poland, 3,926.2.3, Haase, West Germany, 3,630.8. 4, Marchand, France, 3,549.4.5, N. Goodhart, Britain, 3,529.1. Deane-Drummond was tenth with 3,918.1.Standard Class: 1, Witek, Poland, 3,956.9. 2, Fritz, Austria, 3,746.8.3, Huth, West Germany, 3,654.4. 4, Resch, Austria, 3,566.4.5, Juez, Spain, 3,510.5. Anthony Goodhart was 26th with 2,434.8 points. The day we learned that machines are not infallible and thatsystems can break down was Wednesday, June 15. The high- pressure area was still intensifying in France and central Germany,the air mass was unstable, winds were light from the west, and the cumulus cloudbase was expected to rise from 1,000 to 1,500 metres.In these apparently fair conditions the day's task was to be a 300km triangular race with turning points at Hamm andHirzenhaim. Cloud-flying was again permitted over a certain section of the route. For many pilots the day's flying ended near Hamm, the firstturning point, where the main trouble was a severe line thunder- storm which dominated this part of the triangle. As the landingreports came in we learned that even the mighty Poles were down somewhere along the second leg. This could be the day. It was. At eight minutes past four Huth in his Ka-6 was firstman home. Six minutes later Nicholas Goodhart's red-and-white Briefers: Dr Ernst Frowein (left), hsad of the panel of judges, and Heiner Lange, interpreter from the German into English and French . . . . and briefed. In the foreground are the British team—left to right, Anthony Deane-Drummond, C. f Wallington (team meteorologist), Ann Welch (captain), Anthony Goodhart and Nicholas Goodhart
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