KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

94 KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
of cloud flying immediately became so obvious to every
soarer that during the further course of the competition
all the pilots strove to gain contact with the clouds. The
large number of high flights and notable distance flights
made with help from the clouds before the end of the
meeting proved that this contact was comparatively easy
to attain and that splendid results might be expected from
this new method of soaring. Undoubtedly cloud flying
has placed soaring flight upon a completely new basis,
which opens up further great possibilities for the future."
That same year I had a further opportunity to demonstrate
another beneficial aspect of cloud flying. I was flying for
the prize offered for the exploration of a district, and
flew for twenty-four and a half miles through a stretch of
land entirely unknown to flyers. My course led me for the
most part above downwinds or over absolutely flat country
where no upwind was to be expected ; the only way of
crossing this gap was therefore to attach myself to a cloud
and drift along with it. The second in this event was
Ferdinand Schulz with a flight of twenty and a half miles,
which he made by means of slope soaring. The conditions
of this competition, I might say, demanded a minimum
distance of fifteen miles, most of which was over country
where no flyer had hitherto penetrated.
Although at this same meeting Dittmar achieved his
Rhon height record of two thousand five hundred and
seventy-five feet by the aid of cloud upwind without any
clear comprehension of the phenomenon that had aided
him, the duel between slope and cloud flying methods
had apparently not yet been fought to a finish. Nehring's
splendid distance flight, the longest hitherto made by any
soaring plane, was evoked as proof of the superiority of
slope flying by its supporters. Traversing the same
terrain as in the previous year, he succeeded in adding
twelve miles to his record, and thus established a new world
record of forty-two and three-quarter miles. He also
attained far greater heights over particular localities that
year, which proved that he had increased his capacity to
take advantage of the up winds of a given area. When he
had left his last point of support in the mountains, the front