KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

SOARING PILOTS REPORT 123
living arrow that has been shot from a taut bow out and
up into endless space ! It is an unforgettable moment
for me of incomparable significance for those able to
appreciate it. For one brief instant our aircraft seems to
be a rocket that shoots up from the earth by its own force
a harbinger of forthcoming developments ! And from
now onward we must depend entirely upon ourselves, for
already, one moment after the start, we see one thousand
three hundred feet beneath us in the valley, a forest and
jagged rocks . . . not a very attractive prospect.
At first we sail straight on in the direction of the Eube,
but my trusty pilot turns suddenly against the wind above
the Gersfeld Valley, and just as suddenly my heart is in
my boots. I feel quite distinctly the thin wires rubbing
against my coat ; they run right and left along the sides to
the elevator and the rudder at the end of the fuselage.
I therefore exhale strongly so as to make myself as thin as
possible and avoid hindering the steering. Am I not with
my thirteen odd stone too stout a passenger ?
Now we are canting over in a turn, and a shiver runs
down my back to my knees and thence to the extremities
of my long legs which I have twisted into an inextricable
knot. Anyone who knows only the flight of enginedriven
machines always feels that a soarer is side-slipping
over the inner wing when it goes into a turn, even though
he may have been previously warned, because he misses
the mechanical forces that right the machine.
Now we have turned, and the wings with their fifty
foot span, delicate as cobwebs, moan and groan under the
strong head wind. For a brief moment I ask myself :
" Will the ' birdlime' hold that connects the thinly
varnished slips of wood ? " I began to wish I had listened to
the friends who warned me and pointed out the mad folly
of expecting a machine weighing about two hundredweight,
which weight is diffused over a considerable surface, to
bear the additional three hundredweight which the two
people seated in it must weigh. But I trust myself to my
lucky star, to the efficiency of the constructors, and call
upon Coue for help, repeating again and again, " It will
stand it, it will stand it." But soon these anxieties and