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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0630.PDF
628 FLIGHT International, 19 April 1962 B U S I N ESS BY January 4 my cold was on the mend, but one's ears do not like rapid altitude-changes with a thick head, so I decided against going to the gliding camp, and instead motored down to Oamaru to see Matthew. He was coming along well, nursed by his wife Jan, and in excellent spirit. The day did not look anything special from the gliding point of view (not, at any rate, to my eye, unversed in the extraordinary atmospheric pheno mena of New Zealand), and when I got back in the evening to my cousin's homestead at Irishman Creek I was astounded to hear the news that Dick Georgeson had broken the world out-and-retum record with a flight in his Skylark 3f of 400 miles, from Omarama north along the famous North-west Arch to Hanmer and back again. God moves in a mysterious way—thank heavens for my New Zealand Visit BY PHILIP WILLS Part 2*—World Record cold, which kept me away, for if I had been there Dick would quite certainly have put me in his aircraft for a local flight, and the record would never have been achieved. The glider site at Omarama is a huge flat, brown grassy plain, near the head of a valley running out of the south-west corner of the Mackenzie country. High mountains hedge it in to the west, south and east, while to the north the valley runs round a spur of Mount Benmore into the oval Mackenzie basin, surrounded in its turn by a ring of mountains, snow-capped to the west and north west. But round Omarama itself the adjacent mountains are not quite high enough for snow in midsummer, and seem to be made of crinkled brown velvet. In the evening the setting sun lights the sunward slopes to a living golden colour, and the shadowed sides become a true deep purple. Along the eastern side of the field a small, straight brook of clear sweet water has been cut, and along the back of this is a single line of trees perhaps a mile long. The caravans and tents of the gliding folk are pitched in their shade. At their back the brown mountain springs steeply up into the sky. On the morning of January 4, 1962, the pilots were preparing for the day's flying. The conditions did not seem unusual, and Dick Georgeson was planning his flight, when—a few minutes before take-off—a telegram arrived for him from Fred Dunn in Christ- church reading "Arch to Mt Torlesse occasional but increasing lenticulars northwards . . ." For long Dick had planned a record out-and-return flight from Omarama along the front edge of this vast wave cloud to its known northern edge at Hanmer, 200 miles away and back again. Fred's telegram provided the clue to possible success. Dick leaped into action. His Skylark 3f was a machine specially built for the British team at the 1960 World Gliding Championships in Germany. After this, I was due to buy it, but just then Dick wanted one and I transferred my option to him. I have not regretted this, because in January, 1961, he achieved the world gain-of-height record with a climb of 34,300ft near Christchurch, and in January 1962 this *Part 1 of this article appeared in "Flight International" for April 5 further world record fell to this formidable combination of man and machine. His aircraft was ready, with two separate oxygen installations and all the equipment needed for a long flight of great altitudes. In fortunate New Zealand, the ether is not overcrowded as else where and an HF radio frequency is reserved for glider pilots. This gives a range of several hundred miles, and so it was possible for the pilot on this flight to remain in contact with his base throughout, though at one point a second glider, airborne over Omarama, was used as an intermediate re-transmitter. The most important preparatory task was to arrange for photo graphic evidence of his declared turning-point at Hanmer. Dick put a new film in his camera, which was then sealed. He then took a photograph of a blackboard having the message "Jan 4, 1962, pilot S. H. Georgeson, Skylark 3f, course Omarama - Hanmer - Omarama." In his haste, he failed to wind on the film correctly, and only a small fraction of the right-hand side of this photograph materialized—but just enough to fulfil the requirements. On such small mishaps may a world record hang! The subsequent photo graphs included three taken of the turning point at Hanmer and two final ones of the same blackboard taken that evening, thus locking the film within the time-space of that day. Dick was eventually towed off at 11.05hr, and released five miles away at 3,000ft. The main first problem on these wave flights is usually to get up through the weak, mixed thermal and wave lift to the critical altitude above which the wave takes firm hold of the air. This proved so difficult that on this day Dick alone succeeded, and then only after nearly an hour's struggle. Finally, helped by radio advice from Bruce Gillies, who was also struggling in a Sky lark 2, he found himself quite suddenly in the typically smooth lift of a wave at 6,500ft west of Benmore mountain, climbed rapidly to 14,000ft and set off northwards. The three beautiful lakes of the Mackenzie Basin, Ohau, Pukaki and Tekapo, showed up well between the formations of cloud, but all the New Zealand alps to the west were completely blanked out. In these conditions it was hard to locate lift but, if it became weak, he first turned and flew into wind for a time and, if this failed, he would circle and be
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