KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

72 KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
We looked forward hopefully to 1924. Early in the
spring things began to liven up. The Rossitten Meeting
revealed the ardent enthusiasm and desire for new achievements
that had developed during the winter.
The finest feat of this Rossitten Meeting was the duration
feat made by Schulz, a man who has fought his way
to the front in spite of all the obstacles attendant on his
lack of technical knowledge and all the various resources
which were at the service of the academic flying groups.
His planes were so weak and primitive that they had been
condemned at the technical tests applied to machines that
were entered for the competitions of the Wasserkuppe the
previous year. But here in East Prussia, his home land,
Schulz was bent upon showing what he could do. He
could not bear the thought that Germany had lost the
record for duration flying, and so he flew for eight hours
forty-two minutes and nine seconds in his old " Broomstick,"
thus breaking Maneyrol's world record. But the
important factor of his feat was his demonstration of
the possibility of great achievements with the very simplest
resources.
His victory was not attained without a struggle, for he
had formidable rivals in Martens, Hackmack, and Spiess,
all of whom flew machines that were recognized as the best
of their kind.
Once when Martens had flown over six miles he was
compelled to descend in order to avoid crossing the
Lithuanian frontier and thus creating official complications.
At this Rossitten Meeting experiments were also carried
out with soaring planes provided with small auxiliary
engines. Martens mounted a light engine, of five h.p.
on his " Max/' which proved sufficiently powerful to
sustain the machine in an horizontal flight.
Still more notable was Budig's experimental plane, a
small biplane on which various novelties were tried out.
For example, Budig attempted to obtain automatic
stability by utilizing the pressure on the wings (which varies
with differing flight conditions) to create stabilizing
surfaces. Budig employed engines of various h.p.'s, and
though his flights were short, they were particularly