Gliding 1950 - Lakes Gliding Club

flight, while Nick, although he had got his
"C" in 1938 at Sutton Bank, had done little
gliding since and had never done a crosscountry.
The choice of sailplanes lay between a
Mu-13a and a Kranich. As the only towing
vehicle that could be produced was Tony
Goodhart's Ford 8, the choice necessarily
fell on the Mu-13 and evcn then there were
two hills that, after initial failure, had to. be
negotiated in reverse.
The Mu soon showed that it had a
remarkably low sinking speed, and as somebody
was heard, rather unkindly, to remark
after the first two days' hill soaring, "The
Mu is like scum, it always floats on top."
In the hope ofspeeding up retrieving, the
Mu had been fitted with "walkie-talkie"
radio (the fitting consisted of hanging the
set round the pilot's neck). This worked
well while soaring the ridges, but the range
was insufficient to enable it to be used
effectively on cross-country and it was later
discarded.
Rather to everybody's surprise, and
certainly to the Naval team's, the Mu
showed itself capable of very reasonable
cross-country flights and was finally placed
2nd in the competitions, winning the du
Garde Peach trophy and three of the daily
prizes. Which all goes to show that you
don't have to have been gliding for years
and years in order to put up quite a reasonable
showing when competing against the
real "Pundits"!
F
Scottish Gliding Umon
ULL development of our soaring site at
Bishopshill has again been retarded by
difficulties ofaccess, but Balado Airfield has
been most active. In the first eight months
of 1950, over 3,000 launches were made and
28 "A" and seven "B" certificates gained.
Bishopshill produced eight "Cs" in this
period.
When the Eon Baby was crashed and
written off in November, 1949, we were
faced with a considerable problem. The
Club machines at this stage were I Dagling,
2 S.G.38's, 2 Cadets and I Tutor-all
training types. As a fair percentage of the
value of the Baby had been recovered, the
committee had a relatively free choice in
the matter of a replacement, provided
Kemsley Flying Trust assistance could be
obtained.
Club pilots had !:reen almost entirely
trained by the solo method and the general
standard of flying was considered to be not
so high as was desired. While it was
realised that a high, performance machine
was neoessary, it was feared that a repetition
of the Eon Baby incident may occur. The
decision was therefore made to order a
Slingsby T-ZlB two seater. This meant
holding over lhe hopes and aspirations of a
considerable number of the Club members
for another year, but all have co-operated
to make maximum use of the existing aircraft,
despite their limited performance.
Much use has been made of auto-towing
on the runways at Balado, using 0.098 inch
diameter solid wire. Tile cost of this wire,
which is J 10 tons per square 'inch tensile
strength, is 10s. per 1,000 feet, and the life
approximately 250 launches. However,
petrol consumption on our towing vehicle
IS high, and this partly offsets the advantages
of this method of launching.
No flights worthy of special note have
been made, mainly because of the absence
of a suitable machine. Despite fine displays
of s'tanding waves on week-days, the weekends
produced nothing better than a few
ripples, barely sufficient to support a glider.
Th,eir presence, however, makes the winter
season at Balado as interesting as the
summer, especially as the waves :an be
reached by winch or auto-tow launch in all
wind directions from S. through W. to N.E.
Five seven-day Holiday Gliding Courses
for ab initios were held during July and
August and these have been most successful.
It is intended to make these a regular
feature of the Club's programme.
On the maintenance. side, we have
employed a full-time ground engineer since
January, thus solving many problems. With
the progressive reduction of aircraft maintenance
facilities in Scotland since the end
ofthe war, we would have been faced with a
most difficult transport situation in the
event of damage to gLiders.
G.H.
Short's Gliding Club
This Club was officially opened on 1st
June by Mr. E. D. A. Herbert, director of
Sh,ort Bros. and HlU'land Ltd., who referred
to the good work done by the original
Short's Gliding Group at Rochester, which
resulted in the' prodwction of the Nimbus,
the world's first high-performance low-
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