KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

THE GLIDING AND SOARING SCHOOL 157
you have not sufficient height to gain speed by pushing the
stick over and diving, because you will crash before you
can even out again."
Our dear old " Zogling " was so badly damaged that
there could be no more thought of practice at the moment.
Both main spars of one wing were broken, and the pupils
sorrowfully dismantled the machine to convey it to the
workshop. But before we departed we had a good opportunity
to observe in the work of the other two groups that
were practising on the same slope the other two great faults
which, together with over-pulling, form the trinity of
beginners' worst mistakes.
A " Zogling " started and flew quite smoothly at first,
but all of a sudden its pilot, who till then had been
calmly gazing ahead at the horizon, glanced down at the
earth beneath him, and we saw at once how it affected his
nerves. Twice, three times he pulled, then he pushed and
crashed the machine against the ground. He pushed the
stick so hard that the shock of a very rough landing burst
his safety belt, and he flew almost farther without his machine
than he had ever flown with it.
" I looked at the ground to see how my machine was
flying," he told his teacher, who was surveying the result
with a not exactly friendly expression,
" You know quite well that you were told to look steadily
at the horizon," was the answer. " To fly by your distance
from the ground is one of the very worst mistakes a beginner
can make. It can be done in an emergency over very
gently sloping ground ; it is even possible under certain
circumstances to fly down a slope at a level height of three
feet above the earth if the gradient chances to correspond
exactly to that of the angle of your flight. But it's all
up with anyone who gets into the habit of doing this sort
of thing if he suddenly finds himself over a steep drop, for
he loses all possibility of controlling his position when the
ground which he has been skimming seems to fall into an
abyss. That's the end of his flying for a very long time.
" Moreover, every flyer is frightened when he looks down
suddenly and realizes his own height for the first time. It was
the shock of this which caused you to lose control just now."