KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

SOME FLIGHTS OF MY OWN
I
MY RIDE WITH THE THUNDERSTORM
THERE was no specially good flying on the morning
of that third day of the Rhon Soaring Olympiad of
1929. In spite of the unfavourable south-east wind
everyone started for the altitude prize, which was the chief
competition for the day. We had a lot of trouble on the
south-east slope of the Eube ; often we found ourselves
rising up, and then came a downward gust of wind from
the Feldberg which flung us about wildly. The conditions
were anything but pleasant, in fact, I found them so little
to my liking that I landed after a comparatively short
time.
Shortly before midday I was sitting in my machine,
ready to try again, when a cry of horror went up. One of
our friends had gone down in a spin and crashed into the
Eube forest before the eyes of all the spectators. To get
out of another man's way he had gone into a steep turn, but
at that very moment a violent gust caught his wings, and
he was not high enough up to get his machine under
control again.
That sort of thing gets on one's nerves. I spent several
hours with my friend who had fortunately escaped without
injury. But the whole affair came as a shock to me and
more or less spoilt my mood for the day. I had no intention
of flying again, but shortly after three o'clock I went out
to see what was going on. Some competitors came rushing
up to tell me that Hirth was hanging more than three
thousand feet above us, right in front of a splendid wall of
thunder clouds. " It will be too late for me," I said to
myself ; but nevertheless I wandered on to the summit,
thinking that there would perhaps be time for me to have