KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

io8 KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
that Kegel brought off his thunderstorm flight, you
demonstrated in storm, rain, and hail squalls that you still
remained young in spite of your three years. That time
you were rewarded with a prize for special merit. In
Rossitten in 1927 we had started you with a beautiful
new gown of varnish it was your ambition to break
Schulz's endurance record. Oh, that wind! After six
hours it stole the upward current that bore you aloft.
You fought like a lioness that time for every foot of height,
long after all the other soarers had given up. Brother
Wind grudged you the triumph.
You attended your eighth Meeting. Where were all the
other champions who flew forth with you in 1923 ? You
outlived them all, and you could have wished for no better
death. In the midst of the battle for a great prize
though you were ever ready, were the prize great or small
it found you. How we shall all miss you most of all
the pupils ! You helped all our pilots in their Soaring
Flight Test. Yet, faithful as you have been to us through
four long years of life, you will not leave us without others
to take your place.
II
I had just landed the " Darmstadt " near the Flying
School in the middle of the Wasserkuppe plateau. Nothing
was impossible with this bird ; it steered as easily as a motorplane.
I slipped down over a wing that nearly touched the ground
and then flattened the machine out at the last moment
the best way to land at a goal. And then the pessimists
began : " You won't stop till you have killed the * Darmstadt/
too ! "
So I had landed beside the school behind the hut. We
rolled her up to the starting place, which to-day was close
to the hut. The wind was south-west by south, velocity
six to seven feet per second. At half-past three I said :
" Come, let's have our coffee ; there's nothing doing to-day
in this light breeze." I had no inclination to fly, In
the flight just completed I had barely attained a height of