KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

156 KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
to-day gradual practice has made seem quite natural to me."
And now the air currents become very irregular, which
is a good thing because their vagaries will give the pupils
an excellent opportunity to learn how much the school
plane can do by itself and when it is necessary for them to
intervene.
Everyone is now accustomed to the new life, and it is
delightful to witness the growth of comradeship amongst
the pupils. The formation of groups, all of which are
instructed on the same slope, has the great advantage of
rousing a healthy spirit of emulation. Each group strives
to achieve more than the others.
By the evening of this third day most of our pupils have
taken a big step forward : some can fly nine hundred to
twelve hundred feet over gently sloping ground when things
go right.
Unluckily one man shows us at the last moment how not
to do it. It is not often that anyone pulls the machine
right over, though this is about the worst mistake that a
flyer can make. The danger lies in the fact that the control
lever of a plane which has been brought almost to a standstill
by being pulled up too violently loses its motive power.
A motor boat can only be steered while it is under way, and
a motorless airplane, if pulled up too forcibly, is bound to
lose speed after a short time, just as a ball which rolled uphill
only goes a short distance, stands still for a fraction of a
second and then rolls backwards. The flying machine does
precisely the same thing.
Through carelessness a pupil had pulled the stick too
hard. Flying sense says " Push," but when a beginner
finds himself hanging in mid air, his nerves scream out
" Hold tight." This pupil afterwards said : "I only
wanted to hold on to something, and as there was nothing
else at hand I held on to and so pulled the control lever."
Bump ! There lay the plane ! while the flyer rolled over
and over on the grass.
" What ought I to have done ? " he asked quite downhearted.
" First of all you must not let the machine get into such
a dangerous position. When you are flying close the ground,