KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

208 KRONFELD ON GLIDING & SOARING
when she can fly no longer she will settle down of her
own accord, after we have succeeded in squeezing the last
ounce of energy out of her. But it is a different matter
when we are flying over a stretch of country which offers
fewer good landing opportunities. Here is a splendid
landing place perhaps, but the next one is two miles farther
on. We try to make up our minds whether we are high
enough up to fly over the tree tops of a neighbouring wood
to the more distant field or whether it would be wiser to
come down now. These are the most difficult moments for
a pilot who is out for a record. The greatest and most
successful exploit and the worst failure are often separated
only by a hair's breadth. A man with three or four feet of
height over his competitor may succeed in flying over a
rocky ridge into the next valley, and beat a world record.
The other man makes a mistake and smashes up his bird.
While we are floating in these final minutes and moments
of a flight, two thoughts are always in our minds : A little
farther, just a little farther ; but no accident! You are
weary, you have a long and daring flight behind you ;
even though you do not realize it, you are tired out. Everything
depends upon the next few seconds ; pull yourself
together, sharpen your wits. The fairest crown of such a
proud flight is a smooth and faultless landing.
All such experience is useful to us in long distance flying.
And there are other things, too a thousand little
experiences that steady practice brings. A sharp observation
of details or a correct identification of some phenomenon
we had never before seen from the air may often turn the
scale. A wisp of smoke from a chimney, blowing along a
hillside and then suddenly rising straight into the air
shows us an updraught where normally none might be
expected. A carefully planned flight has frequently been
altered on account of smoke when it so happened that the
housewives of the district were cooking their dinners at the
time when the airman passed. It is well to time your
flight so as to reach the most difficult country at an hour
when you may expect the greatest number of smoking
chimneys as wind-pointers, and it is therefore unwise to
make long distance flights through industrial territory on