KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

TEN YEARS OF COMPETITION & EXPERIENCE 59
minutes and twenty-three seconds, covering a distance of over
a mile. Three days later he made a highly interesting flight
in which he flew for forty-five seconds at a wind velocity of
from fifteen to twenty yards per second, covering a distance
of only two hundred and fifty yards, but rising thirtythree
feet above the starting place. This was real soaring.
This was, of course, only a modest beginning, but the
real success was not to be reckoned in figures. The
right people had come together ; enthusiasm had been
awakened. " Next year we will be here again with twice
as many machines, which will be very different ones from
those of to-day. And at least, we know now how to fly
them." These and many similar words were heard when
the camp broke up.
Moreover, various independent experimenters were
present who did not take part in the general competition,
among them being Herr Harth, an architect, who had been
experimenting since 1910. In 1916, starting from the
Heidelstein, a hill in the Rhon district, he had flown for
three and a half minutes without losing height, using a
machine he had planned and constructed in conjunction with
a certain Messerschmidt. He made some good flights in
the course of the meeting.
Meanwhile an interesting model was being tried out in
all secrecy in the Black Forest. Wenk had designed a plane
without a tail, which was as far as possible an imitation of
the pinions of an albatross. On August I5th, 1920, this
plane described a complete figure of eight, in the course of
which the soarer flew twice over the starting place on the
Feldberg at a height of sixty-six feet. The flight lasted
two minutes and a half and finished quite near to its start.
In 1921 there were twice as many competitors as in the
previous year. Among the newcomers was Ferdinand
Schulz, who was destined to rise to fame later, and several
interesting groups of flyers from the Universities and
Technical Colleges of Darmstadt, Hanover and Munich.
In a fortnight a hundred and twenty-eight flights were made.
One of the prizes offered this year was known as " The
Great Rhon Prize." To win it a flight of five minutes
was required, which had to finish at a landing place not