COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER NINE A KIND OF APPRENTICESHIP
heather, clearing sheep from the landing area - and caught nothing!
The day after my hill walking trip with Pat Moore we woke to a
different world. The bunkhouse felt cold and draughty. The clouds
were scudding past and the windsock tugged querulously at its mast.
The west wind had returned. Soon both Tutors were up and away.
And, for the first time on that August morning, I knew what it was
like to be bungyed over the edge and sense the power of the Mynd's
mighty soaring engine.
Hunched behind the windscreen, feeling the surge of lift as I
swung in close to the ridge and watched the rugged contours falling
away below, it was enough to be flying again. Enough just to sit back
and admire the view. But not for long. Soon, almost instinctively the
game was on.
I must find the strongest lift, gain as much height as possible,
outclimb the other Tutor. Concentration became intense, searching for
the best position on the hill, intercepting each budding cumulus as it
drifted across the site, above all coming to terms with the Cobb Slater
variometer.
The original minature ones took up almost no panel space and were
very reliable. Two transparent vertical tubes mounted side by side. In
each was the vital indicator, a hollow spherical pellet, one green and
one red. The faster you climbed the higher the green ball moved up its
tube - spinning like a dervish on its column of rising air - a crude
analogy of the glider's behaviour. Compelling stuff - but not so good
when the red ball took charge and you were struggling in heavy sink.
At Camphill - where Bert Cobb and Louis Slater flew with the
Derby and Lanes Gliding Club and the muse was strong - the members
had composed a ballad in its honour.
/ am fairy lift - and I am fairy sink
Our energy is bottled and it makes us work like stink
We're a pair of hard worked fairies
Bobbing up and down's our job
I bob up for Slater and I bob down for Cobb.
At the end of the week there was little enough to show. Just
thirteen flights and less than five hours in my logbook. But the seed
was sown. The challenge was there. In the fullness of time it would be
mine to grasp. Instructing - cross countries - competitions - I could
see it all.
For the next two summers I worked at Boulton Paul Aircraft on the
outskirts of Wolverhampton. On Friday evenings, rain or shine, I
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