COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER ELEVEN A TESTING TIME
perilously along the top of the parapet - while Harry encouraged me
with cries of "Keep Going!"
.....arrived at David's field at 11.30 pm and spent until 3.30 am
struggling with the trailer which was dragged at times by hand and at
times by Rover with a tractor in front down the most miserable farm
road in England..... He had landed a few yards from the coast, a
distance of 315 miles in a straight line - beating Nick Goodhart's
record of the previous day by a good margin.
Sunday the thirteenth had been a day to remember!
The 415 appeared at Lasham a couple of weeks later and presented
no problems. Yet in performance terms it was a nonsense. Like
building the Olympia IV over again and adding extra weight. Bad luck
on Tony Goodhart who would be putting his reputation on the line
with it in Poland. But he seemed happy enough with his choice.
After the World Championships we created a hybrid version -
mating a long (419) fuselage to the 15 metre wings. With the extra tail
volume it turned out to be an excellent acrobatic machine which slow
rolled beautifully. More than anything else it helped me to win the
National Acrobatic Contest that year. So the 415 was not entirely
wasted.
Five or possibly six 419s were built, all of them to Harry's basic
design. The first prototype, which Tony D2 flew in Poland, was bought
by the Army Gliding Association. One aircraft went to the RAFGSA
and another to Peter Scott. The second prototype was retained by
Elliotts and I flew it for several years. And at least one was purchased
by the Soviet Union - which acquired a Skylark III as well. Horace
showed little interest in creating a market for the 419. He refused to
discuss the subject - except to convey the impression that the first
batch was made at a loss. And in the end he pitched the price so high
that he never sold any more.
Looking back on that period I suppose that the '59 Nationals was
critical in my bid to make the British Team. It also happened to be a
fascinating and unusual contest. On the first day Nick Goodhart broke
the UK goal flight and distance records, to go far into the lead. Then
the third day's race, with only two finishers, revealed a serious
weakness in the current scoring system. In which, as it happened,
Britain was by no means alone. The lucky pair gained a huge points
advantage over the rest and the leading places were turned completely
upside down.
But to start at the beginning. Nick reached his goal, at Portmoak
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