Download - Vintage Glider Club

A Ka 4 in the elderly home
The members of the Dutch Vereniging
Historische Zweefvliegtuigen, VHZ,
(Vintage Glider Club) try to bring our
old gliders in an airworthy state and to let
them fly. But unfortunately! In our country
nobody is interest in an old Ka 4. The
Rhönlerche, PH-242 serial number 160,
is a part of the Aviodrome collection.
This collection of twelve gliders was
donated by Raymond van Loosbroek.
Herewith he saved a very precious collection
that included two winches and
trailers. You may say that Raymond
donated two complete glider clubs. In the
last number of the "Spandraad", the official
magazine of the VHZ I asked the
members to adopt this Ka 4 or a Skylark
II or Skylark III, all nice gliders. I got no
response. So, what to do with these
magnificent gliders? They are in stock in
an old farmhouse, but this is not the
ideal situation: think about damp, dust,
rotting and rusting.
My profession is inspector of health
care. When I visited a brand new elderly
home, the director told me that the so
called atrium was great enough for
exposing a glider on the roof. Immediately
my thoughts went to the Ka 4.
After a short period of counselling the
architect, the fire-brigade, Raymond and
Arno van der Holst, the director of the
Aviodrome museum, everybody was
enthusiast. Raymond helped to get the
Ka 4 out of the farmhouse and we
SNIPPETS
brought it to my home to bring the glider
in an exposition state.
On January the 17th the glider was
hoisted on the roof and hanging about
ten meters high on the right place, the
glider was attached with three strong
cables to the balustrades. This complicated
way of hanging is necessary
because of a future construction to clean
the roof and the windows and to check
the safety in case of fire. The hoisting
specialist made breath taking acrobatics
to connect the cables on the special
bracket on the Ka 4, laying on the ten
meters high scaffolding and the glider.
The Ka 4 has nearly 30.000 launches
in the logbook and 2.600 hours. The
place for this old glider in the elderly
home is well deserved.
Raymond, thank you very much for
your help in this unusual operation.
Neelco
Above: Ka 4 suspended in the atrium of an old peoples home in Holland. Photo: Harm Wassink
Below: this small hole at the nose of Kranich was used for winch rope parachute
Enigma 1,
VGC News No.122
Karel Mann from Czech airfield Rana
(VGC Randezvous 2007) is answering
the first question “Enigma“ of Neelco
Osinga (49 page VGC News 122):
Karel Mann has flown gliders since
1951-1952 at airfield Melnik, northly of
Prague. He performed couple of his first
winch flights with instructor at Kranich
behind the front releaser. In this case the
glider performed launch smoothly not so
quickly and the pilot students didnt have
feelings that their feet are higher than
their head.
During this winch launches behind the
front releaser, this small hole at the nose
of Kranich was used for winch rope parachute.
The purpose was that this launch
angle of attack was lower than normal
winch launch and in this case the rope
parachute can cover the view forward
from canopy. So for better safety, this
parachute was given to this nose hole
during winch launch.
We don‘t know that this speciality was
used at Czechoslovakia only or if it originated
from Germany. Best regards all
VGC friends. Josef Mezera. POTK
Dear Josef,
Thank you very much for this answer
you gave me. Do you want to thank also
Karel Mann from me? In Rana you
already helped me in the research for
Kranichs, as everybody was very kind
for me. I think that the enigma has been
solved. The Fallschirmhuelse was not
only in Czechoslovakia but also in Germany
as it was an official NSFK part.
VGC News No. 123 Spring 2008 23