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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0942.PDF
:ZECIN POSNAN .ESZNO KILOMETRES 42 FLIGHT, 13 July 1961 Tasks set during the championships comprised (I) 204km out-and-return, (2) 300km triangle, (3) 184km out-and-return, (4) 104km triangle, (5) 195km race to Lodz, (6) 204km triangle and (7) 526km race to Hrubieszow. The dotted line shows the 525km goal flight to Tyszowce which gained British national women's goal and 500km speed records for Mrs Welch on June 20 foreigners, got back, most of them having climbed to more than10,000ft and then glided the last 30-40 miles home. Starting a little earlier would have resulted in more pilots completing the task.Then the retrieving started. This is done almost entirely by aerotow, usually with Polish-built Russian Po-2 biplanes, whichmade a most distinctive noise reminiscent of a motor-boat plodding across a harbour. It is quite unbelievable what patches of ground(I won't say fields) their very competent pilots whisk the gliders from. The system is that the glider pilot acts as controller for the opera-tion. He must check that his field is at least 250 metres long, with an obstruction-clear slope thereafter at the take-off end of not lessthan 1: 30. If the field is not big enough, but there is a better one not far away, he must move the glider. This may well involve theforeigner in some complicated sign language and pidgin-anything- he-can-think-up in order to arrange for a horse to pull the glider,only to find that the farmer wishes to know the weight of the air- craft in kilograms in order to calculate the number of horsesnecessary! Having found himself a suitable field, the pilot places the glider crosswind in such a position that the tug shall touch downten metres ahead of the nose (even if this means putting the glider into the next strip or across a ditch), and parallel to the wings. Poland's National Gliding Championships BY ANN WELCH THIS year's Polish championships, held at Leszno duringJune 4-18, were the largest competitions yet in which allthe competitors were flying the same type of glider. Unlikethe aircraft, the pilots were varied. In addition to 40 Poles, there was one pilot each from France, Rumania, Britain, Bulgaria,Italy, Hungary, Switzerland, Jugoslavia and Austria, and two each from Russia, Czechoslovakia and East Germany, 55 in all. The practice days were spent in getting used to the 15-metreMucha Standard. These were production versions of the prototype with which Adam Witek became standard-class champion in the1958 World Championships. The Mutha has been improved in various ways, and is a highly serviceable and efficient productionaircraft. The foreigners who had not previously flown the aircraft soon became delighted with it, and the only complaint that camefrom some pilots was that, although the seat of the Mucha was standardized, their own was not. This problem was invariablyremedied in the usual way—by surreptitious addition of blankets. June 4, the opening-ceremony day, was also a contest day; thespeeches were made with commendable dispatch, and shortly afterwards the gliders were launched. Unlike the Britishsystem, in which the pilots can select their launch-time, the gliders are arranged in rows of eight (the positions being the result of aballot) and wait there until the organization deems it time to start. The gliders are then towed up to 700 metres just as quickly as thetugs can manage it. It is possible to get a faster launch rate than with the Britishsystem but there is the risk that, if a mistake is made in the selection of the starting time, there may be wholesale landings back on thefield, or good soaring weather may be wasted. There is something to be said for both systems, but theirs could be improved if theinitial ballot positions were advanced each day by, say, one row of gliders, instead of having a new ballot prior to each contest day.This would obviate the risk of some pilot continually drawing a dis- advantageous starting position. The task on this first day was an out-and-return of 204km to thenorth-east, with a near-headwind of 30km/hr. During the morning thunderstorms developed and for some time remained clear of thetrack, but not for long enough. Only 18 pilots, including two In due course a Po-2 waffles into the field, the glider is hooked on,and the combination clambers out and bumbles off home. If the field is very small a shorter rope is used, down to four metresif necessary. With this sort of length, the take-off is assisted because the glider is virtually blasted into the air by the slipstream.The Po-2 is a remarkable aeroplane. In order to fly one in Jugo- slavia some eight years ago, I was given the briefest briefing ever.An expressive Serbian hand indicated climb, level flight, and glide, accompanied only by the words "One hundred kilometres." 1peered at the instruments, all inscribed in the Russian alphabet, and asked "Benzine?" to be answered by "Enoff." With that I hadto be satisfied. On June 5 Josef Dankowski declared a 300km triangle, startingwith a dead beat into a rather strong wind, and anticyclonic air. Twenty-two pilots failed to reach the first turning-point althoughthey were in the air for three and four hours. For those who managed to get on to the second leg, life was rather easier, althoughnearly one-third more landed on this leg because of the lateness of the hour. Only eight pilots managed to get back to Leszno. Theeffect of this day's flying on the marks was to put all those pilots who failed to reach the first point beyond any possibility of win-ning. They included Makula, who came second in the last World Championships. On the 300km day the longest leg in time, and by far the mostdifficult, was worth only just over 100 points, the second leg some 320 points and the last and easiest leg nearly 500 points, not includ-ing speed marks. The third day, June 6. produced similar weather, and an out-and-return race to Ostrow (184km total) with the same dead beat to windward as on the previous day. Twenty-eight out of 55 pilotsgot back, but again nearly one-third of the competitors failed to reach the turning-point in spite of flying for many hours fightingagainst the wind. Again the value of marks to distance differed greatly on the twoparts of the flight. To avoid this problem in the British Nationals, we normally set out-and-returns across the wind, particularly if itis strong. The Polish reason for setting them into wind is that any cloud-street formation can be utilized to obtain a higher averagespeed. Although this is true, I do not think that, in strong winds, the effect on the marks warrants it. After such an active start to the competitions, it was quite plea-sant to have a rest day. However, the non-soaring weather con- tinued, and after three days of excursions, films, museums, andswimming, enjoyable as they were, everyone was looking forward to getting into the air again.At briefing on June 10, we were told that the task was a 100km triangle, and that it was necessary to get going quickly as a cold Ann and Lome Welch, respectively team captain and pilot on this occasion, are third and fourth from the right in the front row. The line-up includes also Italian, Austrian, East German and Polish pilots and crews
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