COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
jacket and grey flannel bags, he looked careworn and very middle
aged, with the clumsy hands and rough hewn features of a
countryman. He spoke diffidently - yet his words were marked by a
strange underlying arrogance - and I remembered where I had seen
him before. At Welford Airfield, in the autumn of 1949, when I had
flown in from Hereford to evaluate the Eon Baby for the Midland
Gliding Club.
Jim Cramp, the Luddite, as he called himself - and it was a very
apt description - chief inspector of the aircraft manufacturing
department at Elliotts of Newbury. He had come with a message from
Horace Buckingham his Managing Director. The Olympia IV was mine
to fly in the Nationals if I was interested.
Interested? I'll say I was. What if it was rumoured to be a lead sled.
I had nothing to lose, and it would be marvellous to get back into
competition flying again. But there were complications, such as a
retrieve car and crew to be organised, and only four days to go.
"No problem," said Jim - with all the uncertain authority of his
position, but for once mercifully he was right - "Elliotts will take care
of all that."
Anne was enthusiatic too, and so - though I little realised it at the
time - there began an association with Elliotts of Newbury which was
to be one of the most challenging in my gliding career.
My partnership with the Olympia IV started with a bang, straight
up to 10,500 feet off a winch launch, and back down again within the
hour. The first soaring flight in ten months and it was an absolutely
corking day, with almost no lid on the instability and a surprisingly
dry air mass.
I landed back for a quick bite - as the sky sprouted bouncing
infant cu-nims in every direction - and my head was filled with
thoughts of height diamonds for tea.
Anne had been flying dual and I rejoined her at the launch point.
We parked Virginia in her pram near the end of the runway, which
was not in use that day, and walked across onto the grass to prepare
the Olympia for its next flight. Something prompted me to look up in
the direction of the approach and there, to my utter horror, was a
Hunter, wheels and flaps down, in the final throes of an emergency
landing.
"The baby - oh my God!"
We started to run towards the pram, but it was too late, and we just
clung to each other in agony for our child. The Hunter sank out of
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