KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

124 KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
fruitless thoughts vanish, and then comes the great miracle.
We are rising steadily as we sail along parallel with the
celebrated Pelzner slope, sometimes slowly and steeply, as
in a lift, sometimes more quickly and with shorter steps,
as if on an invisible staircase in space. I see no force, I
hear none, I only divine : and I revel in a boundless
intoxication of the senses in this incredible fairy tale !
And henceforth when the wires sing softly and the wings
groan, they sound in my ears like the tender chords of a
harp or, when we face a strong and rising head wind, as
if someone were playing Scarlatti on a spinet! Now I
can fully understand why men will starve themselves and
work their fingers to the bone for months, so that they may
save enough for a few weeks' soaring in the Rhon country.
It is a return to romance from the days when 500 h.p.
engines propel comfortable flying ships through the air
like taxis.
And now we find ourselves in the best of good company.
The unbelievable becomes the event, and we climb up till
we join the masters of soaring flight who have been circling
above us for hours in the remote silence. Earthbound, I
had watched them longingly from the Wasserkuppe for the
whole morning prior to my start. All the " experts " had
declared it sheer madness for us to contemplate attaining
such a height in our heavily laden craft.
Nearly all the high-grade one-seaters have to-day undertaken
an attack upon the endurance record, but a favourable
upward breeze and my pilot's fabulous skill have raised
us up to the same height as the big guns of this year's
" Rhongeist " competition and kept us there.
To-day is a world record day of the first importance :
Kronfeld of Vienna has been sailing in his " Spirit of the
Rhon " over the Upper Rhon for four hours and a half,
and before he comes down he is destined to prolong his
flight to eight hours, and so break all previous records of
duration flights from the Wasserkuppe. Also Nehring of
Darmstadt, Kegel of Cassel, Wolf Hirth the Swabian,
Schulz from West Prussia, and the dainty " Hessenland "
are circling with ever-changing luck, over the summits of
the Rhon mountains in competition with Kronfeld ; they