KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

ioo KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
planes were entered, there were certain exhilarating
moments when we could watch more than ten planes tacking
silently off the hillside at the same time. A duration
prize had again been offered to the young flyers out of their
apprenticeship in order to encourage them to cultivate
staying power, and there was also a prize for the greatest
elevation attained that would accustom them to cloud flying.
On principle the conditions governing the events for the
experts were left unaltered.
The standard of this year's meeting was clearly shown
by the results of the trained flyers' events. Achievements
that would formerly have constituted records were now
quite commonplace. The young flyers had one and all
mastered the technique of the cloud flying which I had
demonstrated for the first time the year before, and
consequently heights of from one thousand six hundred to
two thousand feet were frequently reached. Even Dittmar's
record height of 1928 was broken several times by newlytrained
flyers. The average achievements were so high
that it seemed entirely a matter of course that a pilot who
had passed his " C " test during the competition should
fly up to a height of over two thousand feet above the
Wasserkuppe the very next day. Here, also, we perceived
the value of soaring as schooling for flying in general. A
young pilot named Bedau got into the clouds with his plane
for a short time and was forced to " fly blind." He
emerged with credit from an ordeal which is considered
a most trying one even by pilots of engine-driven aeroplanes.
Meanwhile the planes " Darmstadt " and " M i " were
fighting for the trained flyers' duration prize. The
" Darmstadt " was piloted by Neininger, a colleague of
Nehring, who was taking part in the " Tour of Europe "
flight. Neininger set up a new Rhon duration record
with a flight of eight hours twenty-six minutes thirty
seconds, while Herr Mayer of Aachen, an engineer, piloting
a machine of his own design, was only four minutes behind
him. Although the staying powers of the pilots were still
unexhausted, this contest had to be broken off on account
of a fog that arose with nightfall and rendered further
flying dangerous.