COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER FOURTEEN OLD WAR HORSES
northwards to Easingwold. It was an unusual flight, working
innumerable thermals in an 800 ft height band below 2,000 ft. A real
test of the LS-l's low speed performance, and she came through with
flying colours.
On the return leg, to the west of York, the conditions improved
with some genuine cumulus and I met a few gliders, including Alf
Warminger's with which I shared a thermal, but they were all going the
other way.
"You given up Five Three?" he said - to which I replied that on the
contrary I had already been round the turning point and he would soon
be doing likewise.
"Too late for that now - but good for you Dave! and best of luck
- you're almost home."
One more thermal, over Sherburn in Elmet, left an easy final glide
over the smoking chimney pots of Doncaster and back across the finish
line to an empty airfield.
The last task of that contest was a race to Spitalgate near
Grantham. Those who went early had the advantage of strong lift to
counter the stiff breeze. Ralph Jones in a Standard Cirrus landed out
and returned for a relight. Long after we were back at Doncaster he
was still airborne, under an overcast sky, fighting a headwind which
had become half a gale. Eventually he got there by a combination of
skill and dogged determination. Not surprisingly he was very slow and
our splendid LS-1 became the highest placed Standard Class entry.
But she was not long for this world. The following year Tony D2
moved to the Chilterns and sold his share to David Innes. That was a
recipe for confusion - David Innes and David Ince in the same
syndicate! - and my new partner took it to the World Championships
in Yugoslavia on the first of his many appearances for Guernsey.
Early one Sunday morning, while the Championships were still in
progress, the telephone rang. It was Ralph Jones:
"Your glider's had a mid air collision with a Nimbus!"
He went on to say that it had happened in a cunim, both pilots had
bailed out safely, and David was in hospital with a broken leg.
"When it arrives back in England - you get the bits over to me -
I'm going to rebuild the Nimbus as well and we might do ourselves a
bit of good!"
On this occasion Ralph was wrong. When the trailer reached
Lasham there was only the rudder inside. The souvenir hunters had
been at work. It needed a miracle, not a rebuild - and Rolladen
241