COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
Schneider, when approached for a replacement, were unable to oblige
for three years.
So we ordered a Kestrel 19 from Slingsbys, but even that could not
be delivered for 18 months, and I was without a glider for the
following summer. Then I got involved in performance testing on the
BG 135 and its owners invited me to demonstrate its contest flying
capabilities.
Pat Moore, the 'Windspiel' man, as I remembered him from my
first ever visit to the Mynd in 1947, was one of them. To be more
accurate he was the driving force behind it. Now a retired Air
Commodore, and dedicated as ever to the ideal of the small span
lightweight glider, he had set up a design group and they had at last
persuaded The Birmingham Guild, an experienced aerospace
subcontractor to build a prototype.
The BG 135 started life as a 12 metre - with alternative 15m and
16m variants on the drawing board - but the definitive version was
standardised at 13.5 metres span. It was of metal construction, apart
from the glassfibre cockpit shell. The parallel chord Wortmann wings
were skinned in 30 swg sheet bonded to a rigid foam core, and there
was a high aspect ratio butterfly tail.
The airbrakes, trailing edge flaps similar in principle to those on
the LS-la, but long and narrow, were almost perfectly balanced and
blew gently shut if the lever was released. They were most effective.
The cockpit was roomy and comfortable and the 'midget ship' handling
was very pleasant.
The crude performance figures, from our comparative tests,
seemed to confirm that the designer's estimates were about right.
33.5:1 at 84 kph was rather good for 13.5 metres.
During the Club Class Nationals at Dunstable it gave me one of the
most exhilarating rides of my life. A 190 kilometre race and I took a
risk, in the middle of the stubble burning season, by waiting until the
rest of the field had gone. (Leave it too late and the smoke could
achieve smog-like proportions, blotting out the sunshine and
destroying the convection.)
As it was I marked time over Dunstable until the little wisps of
cumulus firmed and flattened under the high inversion and I could
curb my impatience no longer.
The first leg was easy and fast, working a comfortable height band,
using regular, reliable, 9 knot thermals. Ideal weather to match midget
ship handling to a winder's instincts. The BG 135 could really hold its
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