Gliding 1950 - Lakes Gliding Club

FIt. Lt. A. W. Bedford, whose fljght broke tbe Britisb and U.K. records for absolute altitude
and gain of height.
At 3,500 ft. I came out through the side
of the cloud, but turning on a reciprocal
course I headed for the mo~t likely looking
area in the middle. I was not disappointed
and lift at 15 fr./sec. rocketed me up to
8,000 ft., at which height I first noticed a
rapid ice build-up on the canopy. A peep
through the clear vision panel revealed th.at
the wings were plastered with ice roughly
I inch thick, falling back and thinning Qut
to a distance approximately 6 ins. aft of the
leading.edge. At this stage I kept operating
the spoilers and moving the controls to
prevent their obstruction by ice. The
handling characteristics appeared to be
qu.ite unaffected by ice, and as fa r as
performance went the overall lift was so
!=,owerful that the effect on the rate of climb
was negligible.
Oddly enough the A.S.l. did not freeze
up until 12,000 ft., when the needle
flickered and gave a last dying gasp and
then remained motionless and useless.
Prom time to time it was necessary to
make small corrections to the orbiting
circle to remain in the maximum lift area.
However, at 13,500 ft. I temporarily lost the
lift, but it took only a minute or SO to get
back into the best area.
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I was thoroughly enjoying this unique
experience of absorbing so much usefuI
energy from the elements, when a sharp
bombardment of hail made me snap out of
it and face the fact that the oxygen bottle
was on the ground some 14,000 ft. below.
With this well to the fote in my mind, and
taking every precaution to check up on my
reactions. T steadily left 15,000 ft. beneath
me, praying that the barograph was still
working.
Nestling down in the seat,I suddenly felt
the pricking of static electricity jumping
from the locking pin of the Sulton harness
to my neck and from the inverter to my
backside. Thus spurted on, I saw the
British altitude record in sight and, making
some rather haywire calculations, I decided
to err on the right side and go straight up to
20,000 ft. The green ball was now stuck
hard at the top of the tube, and the altimeter
was winding up at a remarkable rate,
and what with a busy session of instrument
flying in turbulent cloud, and 110 oxygen,
the whole situation seemed to me like a
sailplane pilot's nightmare.
At 20,000 ft. I realised tlmt it would be
foolish to carry on more, but. being foolish