VGC News/Newsletters - Lakes Gliding Club

Objectives of the 

Vintage Glider Club 

To promote the international preservaHon, 

restoration and flying of historical and vintage 

gliders; to colllect. preserve al1d publish il1formation 

about the above; to locate and preserve documents 

and artifacts connected with gliding; to co-operate 

and negotiate with government bodies and othe~ 

interested organisations to ensure that members' 

best interests are protected; and generally to do all 

such acts as may be conducive to the objectives. of 

the Vintage Glider Club being met. 

Diary Dates in 1997 

• Aventoft Gliding Festival 

Aventoft, 4-13 July 

• Vintage Weekend 

Shrivenham, 5-6 July 

• Towing with Microlites 

Husbands Bosworth, 5-11 July 

• Oldies but Goldies 

Finland, 13-20 July 

• Rendez Vous Rally 

Pont St Vincent, 26 July-3 August 

• 25th VGC International Rally 

Bar sur Seine, 2 August-10 August. 

NOTICE TO ALL MEMBERS: 

The Rally Secretary is Graham Saw. 

Please forward details of any 1997 VGC Rallies you may be 

planning to: G. Saw, 16 Prince Andrew Close, Maidenhead, 

Berks SL6 80H. Tel: +44 (0)1628 776173 

We welcome contributions and photos but we cannol be held responsible for lbe 

loss of unsolicited material. To help ensure their return, material should be clearly 

identified and accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. We take great care 

to ensure lbat what we publish is accurate. but cannot accept liability for misprints 

or mistakes. 

The views expressed in this Newsletter are those of lbe contributors and do not 

necessarily representlbe views of the Editor or the Vintage Glider Club. 

Officers of the 

Vintage Glider Club 

President: Chris Wills, Wings, The Street, Ewelme, Nr 

Wallingford, Oxon OX10 6HQ, UK 

Vice President: Willie Schwarzenbach, 52 Rte de 

Cossonay, 1008 Prilly, Switzerland 

Vice President: Hans Dijkstra, Melis B1ecklaan 61 

4634 VX Woensdrecht, Netherlands 

Vice President: Paul Serries, Agnes Miegl Strasse I, 

Munster, St Maurits, Germany 

International Council 

Chairman: David Shrimpton, Fairfields, Fosse Road, 

Oakhill, Somerset BA3 5HU, UK. Tel: 01225 

472253 or 01749 841084. E-mail 101233.1036 

@compllserve.com 

Secretary: Nel Dijkstra, Melis BleckJaan 61, 4634 VX 

Woensdrecht, Netherlands 

Firmin Hemard, Rue Porcheresse, B-5361 Mohiville 

Hamois, Belgium 

.or Jorg Ziller, 71065 Sindelfingen, Brucknerst:-asse 20, 

Germany 

Didier Fulcniron, 333 rue Louis Blanc, 38420 Le 

Versoud, France 

Imre Mitter, Budapest, Rath Gyorgy utca 17/B.H-1122, 

Hungary 

Jan Scott, Scott Airpark, Rt 3 Box 239, Lovettsvil1e, 

VA 22080-9406, USA 

Antonio Carlo Zorzoli, via 4 Gnombre 9, Inverigo, 

22044 Como, Italy 

Joseph Ott, Panska dolina 2, Nitra, Slovakia (for 

Slovakia & Czech Republic) 

Committee 

David Shrimpton - Chairman 

Austen Wood - Treasurer 

Graham Saw - Rally Secretary 

Colin Anson - Sales Officer 

Mike Birch - Technical Officer 

Graham Ferrier - News Editor 

Brian Headon - Publicity 

lan DunkJey - Secretary c/o Derby & Lancs G.c. 

Great Hucklow, Tideswell, Nr Buxton SK17 8RQ, UK

VGCNews 

No. 91 Summer 1997 

Contents 

From the Chairman 1 

From the President 2 

Club News 2 

Corrections 3 

Flying in France - Technical Note 3 

Rally report 4 

Features 

A classic among gliders 7 

The Chilton Olympia 8 

Popular Glider in Brazil.. 12 

Restoration of Grunau Baby 14 

History 14 

International News 

Australia 15 

BraziL 17 

British 22 

Dutch 24 

Finland 25 

France 26 

Germany 26 

Italy 31 

Polish 31 

Japan 31 

USA 32 

International Rallies 32 

Obitury Wolfgang Spate 32 

Obituary Erno Rubik 34 

Book Review 35 

Letters 35 

For Sale & Wanted 48 

3-view drawings, Periquito 13 

S-25 16 

Flamingo 18 

CVV6 Canguro 30 

Araponga 46 

Dittmar Mowe 47 

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 

The summer season is now well under way and I have 

received reports of many successful rallies. Despite the 

ongoing difficult,ies which beset sport aviation generally, the 

VGC is in demand, judging by the number of invitations we 

receive from gliding clubs all over Europe. However, we 

cannot be complacent and more members are needed if we are 

to maintain our momentum. So encourage your friends, colleagues 

and club members to join our prestigious group; only 

then can we continue to look for and offer benefits to all 

vintage glider enthusiasts. 

Once more, in the name of European harmony, ordinary 

folk like you and I are caught up in bureaucracy. This time 

there appears to be a conflict between the French and British 

glider licensing requirements and, as a result, many British 

VGC members will not be attending this year's Rally at Barsur-Seine. 

I am in close contact with the BGA on this matter 

and we are all hoping that this matter resolves itself before 

long. 

Graham Saw and his team of volunteers are busy cataloguing 

our drawings, so please be patient as we are unable to 

supply drawings until this task is completed, which may be 

some months yet. 

The Annual Dinner and AGM will now be held in September 

at Lasham; please read the announcement in this issue of 

the magazine. 

I look forward to seeing you all sometime throughout the 

year. 

David Shrimpton

President's Corner 

We are very honoured to have among our members Air Chief 

Marshal Sir John Allison who clearly loves vintage gliders as 

he owns three of them. One of them is the Slingsby Prefect 

that he flew his first solo on at the Coventry Gliding Club, 

Husbands Bosworth. 

We are also very honoured to have with us Eugen Wagner 

who is the World's pre No. 1 Gold C pilot (as Robert Kronfeld 

was the pre No. I Silver C pilot). Eugen Wagner flew the 

Rhonbussard, D-Hesselberg, during the 1935 Rhon Contest 

over 300kms three times during the week of staggeringly 

good weather. He also gained the 3000 metre height climb at 

Grunau in wave, also in a Rhonbussard. A replica of his 

Rhonbussard, D-Hesselberg, can be seen in the German 

Gliding Museum on the Wasserkuppe. The Gold C was only 

created in 1938 and so officially Gold C No. I was flown by 

Heini Dittmar, No. 2 was flown by Hermann Zitter, No.3 by 

Philip Wills and No. 4 by Eric Nessler. It was as well that they 

gained the Gold C when they did for after the 1938 Rhon 

Contest, there were many more Gold C holders. 

In 1931 Eugen tells us, he went to England and was gliding 

with the Imperial College Gliding Club at Gore Farm, near 

Shaftesbury. 

(In VGC News No 89 we showed a picture of Peter Saun.der's 

model ofEugens RhOnbussard posed against a replica ofthe 

Wasserkuppe Monument and asked if anyone could send in a 

photo of a full size glider in a similar position. Eugen has 

done just that, but the quality of the picture is not good 

enough to reproduce. Ed) 

With such men as Sir John Allison and Eugen Wagner 

among us, our VGC should be a very well respected club. We 

are glad to have them with us. 

Club News 

at this time. If anyone would like to take this job on, with 

someone else doing the recruiting from the list 

generated,would they please contact me. The VGC use Office 

97, in the main, but all known files can be obtained in Dbase 3 

form. 

Similar work could be done overseas, in conjunction with 

the International Representative for the country concerned. 

Not all representatives have computers or access to email etc, 

but provided they agree to the work I could provide membership 

files for those countries. 

Finally there are still members who have not paid for 

1997. If you have not paid by the time the next issue of VGC 

News is ready you will not receive it. We will then have to 

spend money sending you a reminder, which costs quite a lot, 

last year the equivalent of nearly 10 annual membership fees. 

So please check that you have paid. The address sheet gives 

both your membership number and when you are paid up to as 

we consider this to be a much cheaper way of giving you the 

information, rather than a card which most people seemed to 

lose! 

lan Dunkley 

VGC Accounts for 1995 

All the paperwork associated with the accounts are now with 

the auditors and will be published in the next issue. 

VGC Sales 

Martin Simon's book "Slingsby Sailplanes" is now available 

through the Vintage Glider Club. Please see the VGC Sales 

Order List page in this issue for details. 

Please note that any orders for Goods or Technical Articles 

received by VGC Sales after July 5th will not be sent out until 

the end of August, due to our absence abroard, and at the 

International Rendezvous and Rally. 

Membership Secretary's Report 

I am looking into ways in which the VGC could use email and 

Internet to make our operations more efficient and to provide 

information to members and others about VGC activities. 

Robin Willgoss has designed the VGC Web pages for me and 

preliminary versions of these can be seen at http://www. 

tally.co.uk/guests/vgc and this URL has been given to 

"Yahoo". More information will be given in the next issue but 

in the meantime Robin, who can be contacted at RWillgoss@ 

tally.co.uk would like to hear of other gliding sites, vintage or 

otherwise, we should link to. Robin can accept email information 

for possible inclusion in our pages as either text files, MS 

Word, Excell, PowerPoint, or .GIFI.JPG image files. Please 

copy your message to me, Ian Dunkley at vgc@datron.co.uk . 

I would like to compile a list of members who can be reached 

by email and also have your ideas on how we should use the 

Internet to best advantage. If any member has access to a large 

server that could be used by the VGC then please let Robin or 

I know as we do not have a large budget for this work. In fact, 

we have no budget! 

I am looking for someone in the UK who could do some 

work identifying potential VGC members from data held by 

the VGC in non computer form, integrating this with VGC 

data files and other files obtainable elsewhere, to enable us to 

contact all owners of vintage aircraft who are not in the VGC 

2

VGC Annual General Meeting 

This will now take place during the weekend of the Annual 

Dinner and Prizegiving. 

CORRECTIONS to the VGC News No. 90. 

Chris Wills has the impression that the name for the LO 100 is 

"Zwergreiher" which means "Dwarf Heron". This was given 

as "Little Bittem" on Page 20 of VGC News No.90 by Cliff 

Charlesworth in his fine article on the LO 100. CW hopes that 

"Little Bittern" and "Dwarf Reiher" are not one and the same 

bird? 

In the list of gliders at Wycombe Air Park on Page 24 in VGC 

News No. 90, Chris Wills was dreadfully inaccurate. 

The List should be: 

KRAJANEK BGA 655 & LUNAK OK-0927 belonging to 

Syd Davis and Graham Saw 

HOtter H.17A BGA 490 which belongs to Nick Newton 

Slingsby SKY which belongs to John Tournier and Syd Davis, 

TUTOR BGA 485, PREFECT BGA 701, 2 T.2lbs, EoN 

OLYMPIA BGA 603 Derek Staff, 

Slingsby PETREL BGA 651 which belongs to Graham Saw, 

CONDOR 4 BGA 2292 - Mike Birch, 

Ka-2 D-6173 owned by Nicky Mills, Robin Willgoss, 

Malcolm Wilton-Jones and Danny Lamb. 

KITE 2; BGA? owned by group? 

This is a total of 13 vintage gliders, of which 11 are airworthy. 

ie the SKY is still being restored and the KITE 2's 

restoration has not yet been begun. 

From this, one can envisage that the entire Booker Group 

will be so busy rigging and derigging their own gliders during 

the "Whispering Wardrobes" Rally at Booker on the 21-22 

June, that visiting vintage glider owners might be well 

advised to bring their own rigging and groundhandling crews. 

In the list of vintage gliders at Lasham, we very much 

regret having missed out the Frank Irving, Bill Tonkyn and 

Ralph Hooper KITE 2 BGA? and this brings the total of 

vintage gliders at Lasham to:- 

SKY BGA 685, 

the 1950 built Swedish JS WEIHE BGA 1092, 

CADET, 

TUTOR, 

T.21b s, 

EoN OLYMPIAS. 

Even worse, Geoff Moore, from Dunstable, has reminded 

Chris that as well as the gliders he listed, there are the following 

vintage gliders: 

EoN SG 38 

Mu 13 

Oly2b 

Minimoa 

Sky 

Kranich 3 

T21 

Tutor 

Tutor 

Grunau 2b 

T31 

T31 

Prefect 

Fauvel36 

BGA 3214 

2267 

795 

1639 

? 

2814 

3901 

442 

? 

2433 

1376 

3487 

1152 

2932 

and also the following "classic" gliders:- 

Skylark 2 BGA 724 

Oly 463 BGA 1244 

Grasshopper 3741 

Capstan 1133 

ASK 7 2 off 

K6CR 

K6CR 

K6E 2 off 

4099 

3815 

Fauvette 2679 

There may be more lurking hidden in trailers. 

We are very sorry about the above errors. 

Please don't shoot the pianist, he is only trying to do his 

best! 

Latest news on the problems of flying in France as of 

3 June '97 

If/you wish tofty in France at the Rally you will need validation 

of your BGA Gliding Certificate. This can be done by 

sending or faxing to Maurice Renard, BP N024, 10152 Pont 

Sainte-Marie Cedex, France. (Fax No 00 33 325 81 31 33): 

a photocopy of your British Gliding Certificate 

a photocopy of the last page of your Pilot's Logbook on which 

appears the total number of hours and the total number of 

hours flown as pilot in command. 

a photocopy of your passport showing the civil status. 

On Thursday 3lst July, Maurice Renard wil1 organise a 

medical check for all pilots who have sent him the details 

above in advance. The cost for this medical will be 150 

Francs. Those pilots who possess a Private Pilots Licence are 

not required to have a medical check. 

2 Ifyou wish to take a glider to France then in addition to the 

above, you will need to apply for "Authorisation Exceptionel" 

for your glider's C of A by attaching a photocopy of your C of 

A document to the application proforma. These documents 

should be sent to the address on the form, not to Maurice 

Renard. 

If you have changed your mind and are no longer going to 

the rallies in France please inform Maurice Renard. 

Meanwhile, we will continue to pursue organising an alternative 

venue, should members decide to go elsewhere this 

year. 

S\l\~W~~' 

THE JOURNAL OF ~ 

THE AIRPlAtlE 1920·1940 

Leo Opdycke. Eai lor 

THE JOURNAL Of' 

TH E EARLY AEROPLANE 

Kenn Rust. Editor 

W.W.1 AERO (1900·1919), and SKYWAYS (1920·1940): 

our .two Journals, which contain: 

• information on current projects • historical research 

• news of museums and airshows • workshop notes 

• technical drawings, data 

• information on paint -and color 

• photographs 

• aeroplanes, engines. parts lor sale 

• scale modelling material 

• PLUS: your wants and disposals 

• news of current publications of all kinds • PLUS more ... 

Sample copies $4 each. 

Published by WORLD WAR 1 ~~, INe. 

15 CrcSCCIlII\o

TECHNICAL NOTE Further to the problem confronting 

OLYMPIA 460, 463 and 465 owners, we report that a scheme 

to add additional bolts to the Redux Bonded (Aluminium! 

Wood) main wing spars, has been brought out by our technical 

members at Lasham. We are very sorry that owners of 

these aircraft have been given such worry and Keith Green at 

Lasham has already started rebuilding the wings of his almost 

unique EoN465 (the other one is in South Africa). Both were 

in the British team at the 1965 World Gliding Championships 

at RAF South Cerney. 

As of the 6th MAY 1997, we have heard that the CAA has 

approved the above modification but has not yet (JUNE 3rd) 

lifted the grounding directive. It should be noted that this 

modification is only applicable to those gliders exhibiting no 

corrosion. Details of this modification scheme can be 

obtained from our technical members: lan Smith, "Glenvale", 

20 King's Mede, Hordean, Hants P08 ITN. Tel: 01705 

592839; or Keith Green, 25 Halfpenny Close, Chilworth, 

Guildford, Surrey, Tel: 01483 68008. 

We congratulate lan and Keith on their work in saving 

these aircraft for the future. 

It must be mentioned that the EoN 463 that came to grief 

with its pilot, and Keith Green's EoN 465, had both been kept 

during many winters, in their trailers, in the open on Mountain 

top hill sites and had been exposed to severe changes of 

humidity and temperature, which their trailers had not been 

able to entirely protect them from. Therefore we urge all our 

owner members to think again about whether the winter 

storage of their precious sailplanes is entirely adequate. 

Copy Date 

The last date for articles & 

photographs to be sent to the editor 

for the next issue which will go out 

in mid November will be 18th 

September. 

Rally Report 

The 7th Kirby Kite Rally during the weekend of 3rd - 5th 

May 1997. 

Traditionally, we have been holding our first British Rally 

of the year at Haddenham AirfieJdl near Thame, the home of 

the Upward Bound Trust. This was founded by members of 

the Glider Pilots' Regiment which started its training there in 

1941 using mainly Kite Is, which was the only type of reasonable 

performance built by Slingsby Sailplanes in a small 

quantity before the war. The Trust has, as its aim, to give 

gliding training to young people at a reasonable cost. It is one 

of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, civilian gliding operation 

in Britain and has recently been able to reequip itself with two 

Ka-13s, to replace its aged T.21bs with the help of money 

from the National Lottery. As usual, our winch launches were 

free and the Trust hoped for financial donations which usually 

more than cover the cost of the winch launches during the 

three days. 

Peter Chamberlain (left) with Bob Boyd and his Kite I. 

During the previous week, CW had the impression that the 

Trust had a direct line to the weather God as every day had 

been warm and sunny, which until now, we had taken to be 

our normal Haddenham weather. With also the very friendly 

atmosphere created by the Trust's members, this has always 

been a very popular rally for us with many of our gliders 

besides Kite Is, taking part. 

This year was no exception, except that the weather 

changed to a Westerly frontal flow for the weekend. The wind 

blew down the runway with varying strength during the whole 

weekend and this aided the winch launching, except that it 

was too strong for any flying during the Sunday. 

Gliders entered were: 

Kite I BGA 251 owned by Bob Boyd. 

Kite I BGA 310 owned by Tony Maufe. 

Kite I BGA 400 owned by Peter Underwood. 

Scud 3 BGA 684 owned by Ted Hull. 

T.31 BGA 3272 owned by Neil Scully and David Ormerod. 

Slingsby SKY BGA 685 owned by Richard Moyse. 

Zlin 24 Krajanek, BGA 655. owned by Mike Birch. 

Slingsby Petrel BGA 651 owned by Graham Saw. 

T.21b BGA 1360 owned by a Haddenham Flying Syndicate. 

T.21b BGA 2351 owned by Mike Powell. 

L-Spatz BGA 2276 owned by Vernon Jennings. 

Ka-2 BGA 4336 (formerly D-6173) owned by Danny Lamb, 

Malcolm Wilton-Jones, Nicky Mills and Robin Willgoss. 

Slingsby Cadet BGA 731 owned by Richard Moyse. 

4

We were very glad to have had the T.21 b BGA 2351, the Ka-2 

and the Slingsby Cadet with us at one of our Rallies for the 

first time. 

Mike Powell had restored (repaired) the T.21 b, with the 

help of Slingsby drawings, in the covered driveway of his 

house. Among other things that he had to do was to renew the 

T.2lb's nose which had gone in, a crash. His restoration was so 

good that Chris Wills thought that he was looking at a T.21 

which had come direct from the Air Cadets, it had been so 

perfectly blended in to the rest of the aircraft. Mike Powell 

then distinguished himself by flying an inunaculate first 

winch solo in it. 'He related how he had a system to rig and 

derig the T.21 alone... but "it was easier with two other 

people helping." 

The Ka-2 and its trailer are a new arrival at Wycombe Air 

Park from North Germany. Its new owners are delighted with 

it. 

The Cadet's restoration by Richard Moyse has just been 

finished, at Lasham. It is immaculate and has no landing 

wiJeel, like the first "Cadets" that were built before the war. 

The Cadet was designed by our sadly missed late member 

John Sproule, who designed the Cadet on his own at Slingsby 

Sailplanes in 1936. Fred Slingsby had given him a free hand 

to design it as he himself was ill in bed with 'flu. John Sproule 

designed it taking much notice of the Lippisch designed 

Zogling, Priifling and Hols del' Teufel wings and tailplanes 

which he mounted on a simple-to-build fuselage which was 

also influenced by contemporary secondary German training 

sailplanes of the late 1920s. 

Indeed, British Glider Pilots only had Priiflings and Hols 

der Teufels in which to fly their C Certificates and both were 

unsuitable. So the Cadet was designed in 1936 as a glider, for 

the first time in Britain, suitable for flying 'C' Certificates in. 

The type achieved large scale production during the war for 

the Air Training Corps, the name at that time for the Air 

Cadets. 

One other airworthy Cadet is known to exist, syndicate 

owned, at the RAFGSA Bannerdown Club. No less than 431 

of the Slingsby Type 7 Cadet had been built but many of these 

were later modified to Slingsby Type 8 Tutors which had 

improved wings for better performance. The Type 8 had been 

originally designed in 1937, also by John Sproule. 

Neil Scully, who came to Haddenham with his T.31 BGA 

3272, was able to give a progress report on his British built 

Grunau Baby 2. Apparently the German built Grunau Baby 

2b's wings do now fit the British built fuselage. He means to 

repair the British wings also later. He has now discovered that 

his British built Grunau Baby is far older than he thought. It 

was one of two Grunau Baby 2s that were finished to fly at the 

Derbyshire & Lancashire Gliding Club at Camphill in 1936!! 

The other one was "Black Diamond" which Fred Coleman 

had built in his Leeds bedroom with each wing in two pieces 

because of lack of workspace. This machine, now much 

altered, renewed and restored by John Smoker, is still airworthy 

as BGA 270. Neil Scully's aircraft is BGA 370!! So soon, 

it looks as if there will be two prewar British built Grunau 

Baby 2s airworthy in Britain. (See also the feature article in 

this issue Ed) 

SATURDAY 3rd May. There were signs of the front 

coming in during the previous evening. However, its approach 

was so slow that there were weak thermals on the Saturday 

over Haddenham village. C.WiUs. was greeted on arrival by 

the spectacle of a Kite 1 and the Cadet doing lazy turns in lift 

over the village. 

Other soaring flights were had by Petrel, Scud 3, T.21 bs, 

and o~her Kite Is. Other gliders may have also had short duration 

flights but we believe that none of them lasted more than 

IS minutes, 

Because of the bad weather forecast, some of the vintage 

gliders were derigged and trailered home during the evening. 

A front passed over during the night. 

SUNDAY 4th May. There were post frontal conditions 

with a wind in excess of 30 knots which stopped all flying. 

MONDAY 5th May. On this day, there was less wind but 

little sun. 

There were many good winch launches and weak thermal 

lift was found under clouds. This could not be stayed with for 

very long because the fresh wind drifted the gliders away 

from the site. The cloudbase was low and so it was never possible 

to remain with the lift for long. 

The Ka-2 had many winch launches and gave its pilots 

experience of winch launches, soaring at low height, and of 

flying the aircraft. It should be mentioned that this aircraft is 

based at Wycombe Air Park (Booker), where winch launching 

is not allowed. So perhaps its pilots were having their first 

winch launches? 

Another vintage glider which remained to the end, through 

rain and wind, was the Kite I BGA 400. This has parts of the 

famous Kite I that was used for the 1940 radar trials (in the 

Special Duties Flight) and had a minimum of metal parts so 

that it could be discovered whether the first British Radar 

could pick up wooden aircraft. The panic at the time was that 

the Germans had successfully out-flanked the Maginot Line 

by landing DFS 230 gliders on, and near, the Belgian Fort of 

Eben Emael, which was considered to be the strongest fort in 

the World. The British thought that the DFS 230s were 

entirely built of wood and fabric. Their fuselages were, in 

fact, very considerable steel tubular structures. 

A distinguished visitor on this day was Brigadier (retired) 

Mike Dauncey DSO, DL, who is President of the Glider 

Pilots' Regimental Association. He enjoyed every minute of 

his flight in a T.21b which was soared for a short time in 

thermal lift. 

During the afternoon, an ASH 25 was landed by Bob 

Bickers who had made the flight with a passenger upwind 

from Dunstable. This was a shattering comparis.:m with the 

vintage gliders. The Brigadier was able to admire it and was 

able to realize that gliding is no longer a poor man's sport. 

Even its GPS computers cost £5,000, Bob Bickel's and his 

passenger were given a warm reception by members of the 

trust and a Piper Cub towplane came to tow them back. And 

so it was that the 7th Haddenham Rally came to its end. There 

had been a good VGC entry but only two of the visiting 

gliders stayed for the last day. The weather before the Rallly 

had been clear and very warm ... as if summer had really 

arrived. The transition to a much colder airstream occurred 

during the three day weekend. On Tuesday the 6th May, the 

airstream from the arctic was cold and unstable with beautiful 

cumuli, in streets, discharging curtains of snow and hail. 

Had the Rally taken place three days before, or three days 

after the weekend, we would really have had some weather to 

remember. However, for the past six Haddenham Rallies, we 

have experienced wonderfUl weather and so we· could not 

have expected our luck to have held for ever. As it was, we 

enjoyed ouselves amid the warm comradeship of the Trust's 

members, who we hope to see more often and soon. 13 

vintage gliders had taken part in the Rally and it was an excellent 

start for our 1997 flying season. 

5

Mike Powell and Genny with Mikes 

T21which he has expertly repaired. 

Peter Underwood and Brigadier 

(Retired) Mike Dauncey reminiscing 

about the Kite 1 

The newly imported Ka2b and 

Malcolm Wilton-Jones, Mike Birch, 

Dann)' Lamb and Robin Willgoss all 

standing 

recently restored 

Pictures from Haddenham, May 1997 

6

A Classic among Vintage Gliders 

by lochen Ewald 

The Minimoa '36 

An ever growing number of people interested in aviation find 

it worthwhile to pay a visit to the new gliding museum on the 

Wasserkuppe. For most of them, it offers an excellent survey 

of the history of gliding and the wide variety and beauty of the 

designs. But for some of the visitors, seeing one or the other 

exhibits. selected with much love and expertise, recalls very 

personall memories of flights on a particular type, or even in 

the very machine on exhibit. This also happens to me: the 

Minimoa '36 with registration markings HB-282 hanging 

below 'file cupola of the roomy, but already too small, new 

museum building provides its focal point. At the end of July 

1988. when I was allowed to fly it at the Vintage Glider Rally 

at Bourges, 1 had no idea that my one-hour-Iong delight in 

splendid French thermals was to be one of the last flights of 

this unique Swiss example of German gliding history. 

The Minimoa - official designation "Goppingen Go-3", 

was first designed by Wolf Hirth and Wolfgang Hiitter in 1935 

as a shoulder-wing glider, of which three prototypes were 

built. It represented a smaller, cantilever wing variant of the 

famous "Moazagotl", conceived for series production. For 

this series, commencing production in 1936, the wings were 

mounted lower on the fuselage, and the all-moving elevator 

was replaced with a tailplane-plus-elevator. The suspended 

control stick of the prototype, hanging from a control linkage 

connection in the fuselage top, also gave way to a conventional 

control column. After several of this production series 

of gliders had been built, the dihedral angle of the wings was 

increased in 1936 in order to increase roll stability for the 

cloud flying customary at the time. While the outboard section 

of the wings of the original version are angled downwards a 

little, for the main production series of Minimoa they are 

aligned parallel to the ground. 

The initial production drawings with the small dihedral 

were obtained in 1937 by Flugzeugbau Saegesser in Switzerland. 

HB-282 was built there in accordance with these drawings, 

and had its maiden flight in 1939. In J943 it was 

severely damaged after a bungee launch in the Swiss Alps, 

which ended with entering a cloud and contact with the 

ground. When it was restored after the war, it received the 

effective Schempp-Hirth brake paddles, and may have been 

the first glider to have a Mecaplex full-view canopy. During 

the seventies and early eighties its owner, Werner von Arx, 

from Basel, together with his team of "The Swiss Oldtimer 

Flyers h , demonstrated the beauty of the Minimoa, then still in 

silver paint, in formation flights with four Bucker biplanes in 

front of thousands of visitors at open flying days. In the 

middle eighties it was completely restored, and the colour 

scheme for its attractive livery was supplied by an artist's 

painting featured in an old Minimoa publicity brochure. 

When I took my seat in the Minimoa I instantly felt comfortable 

with it. The large cockpit cutout saves the pilot from 

having to "threadle" himself laboriously into place. Comfort 

and safety - these were the first impressions this, probably the 

most famous, vintage glider made on me. Thanks to the large 

Mecaplex canopy the visibility is superb. Under the original 

canopy, head movement was somewhat restricted due to the 

wooden frame. The midwing arrangement gives the pilot the 

impression that the gull wings are sprouting from his own 

shoulders. The view to the side is a bit unusual, as the relatively 

marked aft position of the wingtips and the swept-back 

outboard wing render them invisible. One should keep the 17 

metre span in mind, if elbow room should ever get a bit tight! 

During aerotow take-off the Minimoa's good first impression 

is confirmed: the controls immediately become effective, 

and after a few metres of ground run on the large main wheel 

the elegant bird is airborne. Control loads are high, but thanks 

to the large control stick they can be handled quite well even 

at higher tow speeds in gusty weather. After release I operate 

a small lever on the right-hand cockpit wall which operates a 

little shutter, closing the aerotow coupling opening in the 

nose. Now the vintage machine becomes almost as silent as a 

modern plastic glider! The rudder of this primal Minimoa 

seems rather ineffective; for the German production series its 

size was increased. If you do not fight the negative yaw 

caused by the large ailerons. but make it serve your purpose 

by an appropriate application of opposite aileron at the right 

moment, you wil'l quickly succeed in centering in the thermal. 

While the Minimoa is trimmed to circle calmly in the centre 

of the thermal I can relax to enjoy the view, and keep a good 

look-out: it continues to circle smoothly due to its positive 

stability, and is not easily upset even by gusts. Small wonder 

that in its prime it was one of the most popular gliders for 

cloud flying. 

Its performance can be roughly compared with that of the 

Ka 8, which of course does not make it one of the best performance 

gliders of all time. However, various records and 

flights of over 400 and 500 km demonstrate the fact, confirmed 

again and again even to-day, tbat it is not merely flight 

peJformance which makes a good glider. It also needs good 

handling characteristics and comfort to enable the pilot to get 

the best out of his machine in the course of a long flight. So 

also during my flights in HB-282 I enjoyed letting the 

Minirnoa "fly me" while I could totally relax. 

Before landing I have to fulfil a small duty: there is hardly 

ever a flight When the Minimoa pilot is not asked by spectators 

and fellow gliding enthusiasts to fly overhead before 

landing, in such a way as to allow them to take a few nice pictures 

of the famous silhouette against the sky One is always 

glad to comply with such a request. The landing is as agreeable 

as the other aspects of the flight: thanks to the Schempp 

Hirth brake paddles, which prove effective brakes while not 

spoiling the lift too much, the Swiss Minimoa can be flown 

slowly down a steep approach for a short landing. The large 

wheel has an effective wheelbrake, and damage under the 

front fuselage due to violent braking is prevented by the skid. 

I am sure that anyone who was able to experience this 

M~nimoa in flight finds that it hurts a little to see it now in its 

place of honour in the German Gliding Museum on the 

Wasserkuppe. There remains, however, a glimmer of hope 

that it may yet be possible again to experience a Minimoa '36 

in flight: Werner von Arx has saved the complete set of production 

drawings which was sent to Switzerland at the time, 

throughout these years. Already there is a move in the Vintage 

Glider Club to start building replicas in accordance with these 

plans. So it may be possible that the total fleet of fOUF airworthy 

Minimoas with increased dihedral and enlarged rudder. 

built between 1937 and '39, still flying throughout the world, 

could again be augmented. The efforts of the Oldtimerclub 

Munster in preserving the Minimoa fleet have been especially 

meritorious - they not only restored their own Minimoa '38 

which could often be seen at flying displays, but also the 

machine which Wolf Hirth used to fly on the Hornberg in past 

times, now belonging to the American Jan Scott, bringing 

them back to peak condition which will ensure that they may 

7

continue to fly safely for many years to come. At Munster, 

however, there is meanwhile great sadness- - the Munster 

club's Minimoa (the only one still flying in Germany) was 

sold to Mr. Honda in Japan by a member of their group. Its 

presence there as a historic glider is justified, to be sure, since 

it was, after all, Wolf Hirth himself who introduced Minimoas 

to Japan to popularise the sport of gliding there. It's a pity, 

nonetheless. In Europe, Hans Disma's Minimoa '38 flying in 

Holland is at present the only remaining airworthy specimen, 

while the Mini at Dunstable is still waiting for its restoration 

to be completed. 

(Since Jochen wrote this article we have heard that Hans 

Dykstra has sold his Go 3, and AV36, to a buyer in Japan. Ed) 

Minimoa - Specifications 

Design 

Design purpose 

Construction 

Span 

Length 

Wing area 

Aspect ratio 

Rigged weight 

Wing section 

mid span and 

Max. all-up weight 

Max. wing loading 

Min. sink at 60 kph 

Best glide ratio at 85kph 

Wolf Hirth J Wolfgang HUtter 

performance glider 

cantilever midwing, wood 

l7m 

6.90 m 

19 m 2 

15.21 

228.5 kg 

Go 681 at the root, Go 693 at 

symmetrical at the tips. 

353.5 kg 

18.6 kg/m 2 

0.65 mls 

1:26 

The Minimoa that lochendescribes in his article. when it 

was at Amlikon in 1985. PhotoG. Ferrier 

(1997 is the 50th Anniversary ofthe first flight ofthe Elliott's 

Olympia and we are glad that Hamld Holdsworth has wrillen 

a definitive history ofthe start ofthis enterprise Ed) 

The origin of the Chilton Olympia Meise by Harold 

Holsworth 

Chilton Aircraft was owned by two partners, the Honourable 

Andrew Dalrymple and A.E.Ward both of whom had studied 

at the De Havilland Technical School, and employed two men 

and a boy, Fred Luscombe, Herbert Ross and Waiter Hart 

when I joined them after Easter 1939. They had had some 

success designing and building several light planes, including 

the DWl and DW2. The workplace was a tiny shed concealed 

by trees in the grounds of Chilton Lodge, one of four houses 

owned by the Ward family. It was a large mansion in extensive 

grounds near Hungerford, Berks, where royalty were 

entertained in secret during WW2. On the outbreak of war the 

Army took over the grounds and a part of the mansion, but left 

.the shed alone, probably because we had started on war work 

making spares for the RAF. The shed and the workforce were 

steadily expanded during the war with me installing the shaft 

.ing to drive the ancient lathes and other machines. In spite of 

the war time regulations I did not keep a helper for very long 

as they were either called up or found a better job. An early 

foreman was trusted with some money to buy tools which 

were in short supp1ly. The tools arrived. 'cash on delivery', but 

the foreman joined a ship bound for South America; he was 

later arrested and given 9 months jail. 

When the US joined the war, their Parachute Regiment 

used the grounds for part of their training, taking off from 

Membury and Rudd, and landing back onto a field near the 

mansion. At the same time, large numbers of Waco gliders 

were brougl1,t over in large packing cases made from very 

good son wood with very few nails, and we made good use of 

this to extend our shed. The supply of this timber dried up in 

1944 after D Day and the huge pile of useable timber disappeared. 

It was only long after the war that I found out that the 

wood had all been burned on orders of the Timber Control 

people-the ways of bureaucrats are really odd! 

Somewhere was needed to build a mockup of a 4 seat light 

plane to be built after the war. We found a disused chicken 

shed in the grounds, dismantled it and re-erected it on a low 

brick base which ,gave sufficient height for working. It was 

there in 1944-45 the mockup was made and drawings produced 

but it never got any further. Amongst other things tried 

during this period were model helicopter blades, a number of 

primitive electrical heaters which were later made in quantity 

and the first stage in making the Tempest radiator bullet resistant. 

Af,ter I left I heard that the latter really did work, but by 

then the war was over. Last, but not least, a lot of work was 

done on the Olympia Meise ordered by Dudley Hiscox mixed 

up with tile war work. 

A draughtsman named Forester Lindsay turned out a vast 

amount of paper, most of which was never used so what 

became of it I don't know as Mr Ward is not known to have 

ever willingly thrown anything away. Lindsay was responsible 

for the mockup drawings, the proposed helicopter (abandoned), 

a glider named the Chilton Cavalier (not built) 

another tiny glider (useless) and a lot of the new drawings for 

the Olympia, assisted by a Mr Philips, an ex RAF Defiant 

pilot discharged with war wounds. Lindsay and Philips, 

together with an elderly lady tracer, worked in the mansion. 

Officially, I waS supposed to be working on ditching models, 

ie large models which were going to be catapulted on to the 

8

surface of a lake to be observed and to measure the reaction to 

provide data for new types. It is a fact that some types of aircraft 

could not be ditched successfully at all. 

The Meise drawings were mainly not dimensioned and 

were full size, with a German instruction to use as templates. 

This was not good enough for Dalrymple who mdered 

Lilildsay to redraw everything and dimension the new drawings 

in metric units and to draw the lines by means of the full 

size lofting system, which is where Philips came to help. 

(Later, after the death of Dalrymple and Philips in the Storch, 

EIliotts took over and redrew the lot, this time dimensioning 

them in Imperial units, so the two sets of drawililgscan be 

identified by their dimensioning.) 

Before work actually started there was much discussion on 

how, where, what modifications, who did what and where 

were the materials to come from. Pre-war, EllioHs had been 

high class furniture makers and had evolved a method of 

glueing long lengths of wood to a former under pressure; 

when the glue had se't. ~he shapes were cut out with a fine saw 

in a spindle moulder to an exact size and shape. This method 

was proposed for ~he frames and ribs of the Meise but we 

thought it was not practicable to do this as ,the frames are 

pierced by the longerons. Elliott's man was very persuasive 

and discussions went on for a long time but I finaJIy caught 

Dalrymple's eye and suggested that Dudley Hiscox should 

decide, as he was going to be paying for the glider. And so it 

was that the anginal German method was retained. Hiscox 

also rejected the idea of a retracting wneel, a working model 

of which had been made. He did, however, allow us to use 

edging strips on one side only of the ply frames, instead of on 

both sides as the original drawings showed. These drawings 

required a great number of small parts which were carefully 

listed for the use of non German builders. At the time, it was 

reputed that a book had been produced in Germany on how to 

build the Meise in time for the 1940 Olympics, which, of 

course, never 11appened. I have never seen a copy, although I 

did have a glimpse of a book on Dalrymple's desk showing 

pictures of gliders under construction. 

The only two Olympia fuselages that Chiltons made were 

made "right way up" which was a mistake, as fuses are much 

stiffer to turn over when made "keel up". 

From tbe start, the heads of tbe two firms realised that they 

were contemplating something very difficult; not only the 

actual constructional work but the great shortage of materials 

made by legal impositions on what a firm could or could not 

make. All maflner of strange timber was pressed into use, 

some from Malaya and Nigeria, in exchange for pounds sterling, 

other countries not being willing to accept our money. 

But the worst was the use of wood substitute (for cladding the 

walls of the temporary buildings) which I am convinced was 

largely white asbestos, and which caused me a lot of ill health 

after the war. 

The two Olympia fuselages and tail surfaces made by 

Chiltons were eventually finished by Elliotts of Newbury who 

built details for 100, from which 50 complete gliders were 

built initially, followed later by the rest. 

(I had always thought that Elliotts only became involved in 

Olympia production after the tragic death ofthe Hon Andrew 

Dall)'mple, but Harolcl's first-hand account reveals that there 

was collaboration from the start between these two firms, nevertheless, 

he started work on the fuselage frames long before 

Elliotts started on the wings. Ed) 

In 1945, neither Dalrymple nor Ward, nor anyone else 

employed there, had seen a Club sport sailplane Or a winch 

launch. When I ,tried to describe such a :Iaunch to Dalrymple 

he accused me of being a liar and a show-off. He a:lso could 

not or would not allow sufficient space in the workshop f()r 

safe working conditions and after three accidents, luckily not 

to me, the firm was prosecuted. To even contemplate building 

a sailplane in a chicken shed! was foolish with just space for 

the fuselage and two ordinary benches alongside. Although 

we had a band saw and a planer, to work on a 15ft long plank 

we needed 30ft and this was onlly possible with the doors 

open, (and in daylight, because of the wartime blackout rules) 

After much discussion it was agreed that Chiltons would 

make the fuselages, tail surfaces and all the metal fittings, 

with Elliotts making the wings, doing the final assembly and 

supplying the spruce in bulk for the aircraft, but no wood for 

jigs. 

Two pieces of spruce, about 15ft by Sins by 4ins arrived 

from Elliotts with some suitable ply and I was told to start on 

the fuselage bulkheads. The blade for the band saw was much 

too coarse and produced a very rough finish but I found that 

two small diameter milling cutters and a spacer used at a slow 

rate were ideal. 

Aerolite 300 hardener came in three colours, Green, Red or 

Purple to indicate the rate of hardening. On a painted aircraft 

that would not matter, but Hiscox wanted an old fashioned 

varnished finish in natural colours, so someone, maybe 

Hiscox himself, persuaded Aero Research to make some clear 

hardener for "Research Purposes" but it was only to be used 

ini the presence of an Inspector. Coloured hardener was used 

Dudley Hiscox's Chi/ton Olympia at Dunstable 

in 1950-52, showing the varnished wood and 

clear doped fabric. Photo Les Moulster. 

9

Another picture ofthe first British buift Olympia built by Chiftons and Elliotts in 1945. 

internally and clear for the skinning with Fred Luscombe 

watching to see r did not leave any gaps. In practice, it did 

stain a little, so one had to be very careful. Some years later, a 

clear hardener came on the market for furniture use which did 

not stain at all. 

Some items such as the skid shock absorbers (tennis balls), 

the metal nose cone and the Perspex canopy just could not be 

obtained and with these parts missing and the tail surfaces and 

metal fittings was as far as Chiltons went with Hiscox's 

Olympia. But it was still a long way ahead of Elliott's wings. 

Then we started on the second fuselage which went together 

much quicker because of the jigs we had made for the first 

one. 

Then, on Christmas Day 1945, tragedy struck when both 

Dalrymple and Phillips were killed when the Fieseler Starch 

they were flying failed in the air. The Starch was totally unairworthy 

at the time. Luckily for me, I was on holiday then 

and so avoided the unpleasant "grilling" by the Special 

Branch investigating the crash. Fred Luscombe proved that he 

had done his best to stop them flying but had been ignored. I 

read about the crash when on a train returning from my 

holiday and realised that my life was probably at a turning 

point with Chiltons being in chaos after the crash. I was righ 

and Ward would not continue with gliders or powered aircraft 

after that. 

(After a brief spell at Martin Hearn's I moved back to 

Bradford and got a job at Sharp and Law where I stayed until I 

retired 28 years later.) 

Expecting to build the Meise in quantity, the directors had 

surprisingly installed drawing office printing equipment to 

take the tracings and photograph them then develop and fix 

them as blue prints which they hoped to sell at £14 a set, a 

considerable sum in 1945. They did not sell one! And one 

hopeful asked "did that include the wood?" What really happened 

to the Chilton master drawings? We know that a set of 

prints went to Australia and were used to make the Yellow 

Witch, and it is still flying. 

Hiscox's Olympia went to Eire where it was damaged, 

brought over to Slingsby's for repair and found to be partially 

water-logged due to a damaged, canvas topped trailer and was 

dumped behind a hangar. After nearly three years exposed to 

the weather at Kirbymoorside it was finally burnt in January 

1970, Slingsby never being willing to repair other people's 

gliders. Note, it has been previously stated that it was burned 

at Sutton Bank,. this is incorrect. 

(Now we have, for the first time, the full story of those 

eventful days in 1945 which started off, for Chittons, full of 

hope and ended in disaster. But Elliotts finished the job and 

we seW have many ofthese wondeiful Olympias today. Ed) 

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11

Introduction to the Article 'The Popular Glider in Brazil' 

by Frederico Fioi 

In the last years, we have read a lot about the 'new world class 

glider'. It is a good idea, to have a low cost, simple, safe and 

with reasonable performance, one design glider. Other designers 

have tried this, one time or anolher, with more or less 

success. 

Here in Brazil, we had a very nice glider, with all of these 

propositions in mind, designed by VGC member, Mr Josepn 

Kovacs. It was designed and produced in sman numbers in the 

fifties, and has several good ideas incorporated in ,its project. 

The first one that I saw was flying at Nova Iguaca Aeroclub, 

in Rio de Janeiro, a few decades ago. When the small 

glider landed, I went to see it. It was a wonderful sight. 

In 1995, I was at Mr. Kovacs house, in Sao Jose dos 

Campos, when we had the chance to talk about the Periquilo. 

He gave me the idea about his project, in simple words. A 

small glider that could be stored in any car garage. The wings 

fold backwards, so it occupies a very small space. This mechanism 

was so simple, that one perSOIl could do it in one 

minute, alone. With a small trailer, the pilot could tow the 

glider near any hill, and soar to the thermals easily. At the 

cost. .. minimal. The flight good enough, and cheap! 

And, above all, it was easy to build. Anyone with modest 

know-how could build one cheaply. 

Today, we still have some flying in BraZil, and I hope that 

you like to learn about the history about this glider, and its 

conception, in the words of the Designer. 

(Although the Periquito is not strictly a vintage glider, it 

was thought useful to include this description because it is an 

interesting project which the majority ofEuropeans have not 

yet heard of; the aim was to produce a modem Grunau Baby, 

and, ofcourse, it is made ofwood and fabric. Ed) 

The Popular Glider in Brazil 

by Joseph Kovacs 

All over the world, people ,interested in the problem of providing 

an inexpensive and practical glider are working on solutions 

peculiar to their own local conditions. 

This was clearly evidenced during the OSTIV meetings in 

St Yan in 1956, where over twenty renowned designers were 

unable to come to an agreement in a debate over the 

"restricted Class" glider, despite the fact that everyone present 

accepted the main idea of cutting World Championship costs 

through the use of cheaper sailplanes. 

In Brazil, soaring is still in its infancy, struggling with 

inadequate resources which compel us to look at the problem 

from a very practical angle. 

The main purpose of the "popular glider", from our point 

of view, is to popularise soaring throughout the world, and in 

particular, in our own country. We feel that the World Championship 

should provide one of the means of encouragement 

towards the creation of a truly popular machine. In these tournaments 

the "open class" is still very important, allowing for 

competition among the expensive, high efficiency sailplanes 

that are valuable when a maximum of performance is desired, 

either for sport or research purposes. We advocate the desirability 

of having two classes - one for high performance 

machines, and one for the restricted performance ones. The 

last class may be able to meet during the Olympic Games as 

was originally proposed in 1936. This would bring better publicity 

and more local support for soaring because of the well 

known contrast between the financial resources available for 

the Olympics and for the Soaring championships. 

The Periquito I developed at the Aeronautical Research 

and Development Institute, Sao Jose dos Campos, Sao Paulo, 

was designed to fulfill the following requirements as indicated 

in order of priority - 

1- Low fabrication cost 

1.1- Small size 

1.2· Use of unskilled labour 

1.3- Common and ,inexp(?nsive construction materials 

1.4- Design demanding a minimum number of parts and manufacturing 

operations 

2- Reasonable performance (comparable to the Grunau Baby) 

2.1- Low wing loading 

2.2- Clean and favourable external configuration 

2.3- Reduced profife thickness 

3- Good flight qualities 

3.1- Good general stability 

3.2- Best possible visibility 

3.3- Good quality in emergency landings 

4- Practical operation 

4.1- Easy and quick disassembling (for storage) 

4.2- Easy launching aimed at the practice of 'individual flight' 

4.3- Safety and resistance to handling over long periods of 

utilisation 

4.4- Simplicity on retrieving and .easy transport.ation (on top 

of automobile or in trailer towed by motorcycle) 

Main characteristics of the Periquito I 

Span 9.00m 

Length 5.45m 

Height 1.05m 

Aspect ratio 8 

Wing area 10m 2 

Sweepback -2° 

Wing taper 0.48 

Aileron area 1.90 m 2 

Elevator area 1.20 m 2 

Vertical tail area 0.70 m 2 

Wing dihedral 3.5° 

Empty weight 

Pilot + parachute 

All up weight 

Wing loading 

Rupture loading factor 

design actual 

85.00 kg 76.00 kg 

(I871bs) (I 671bs) 

85.00 kg 79.00 kg 

170.00 kg 155.00kg 

(374Ibs) (3411bs) 

17.00 kg/m 2 15.50 kg/m 2 

(3.48Ibs/sqft) (3.18Ibs/sqft) 

8g 

The Periquito I incorporates a number of non-conventional 

solutions. 

The wings can be folded easily in a penknife fashion The 

balanced type elevator (in one single piece) disconnects itself, 

requiring only one bolt to be loosened by hand. All this 

enables a single person to de-rig the glider in less than one 

minute. 

The folded glider occupies an area of only 5.8m x 0.9 m 

(19' x 3'). 

The construction of the first prototype took a total of 1450 

man hours, including the jigs. 

The cost of the construction material is approximately one 

12

== __=-c::J--c:r-.. 

----/:' 

Periquito 1 

30 Grunau Babies were built in Brazil in the 1940s with a wheel, wooden struts, rounded nose alld 

modified ailerons. Photo Frederico Fiori. 

13

third of that of the Olympia Meise. 

The performance data given here is calculated only, since 

we have yet not been able to make more precise flight tests. 

Comparative flights have been carried out with a Grunau 

Baby 11, with closed cockpit, which served to check approximately 

these calculated curves. 

In the low speed range, the two gliders are similar, but over 

65 km/h, approximately 40 mph, the Periquito starts to push 

forward more markedly. 

The construction of the glider was completed shortly 

before the 4th Brazilian Soaring Championship in 1957, so 

that the pilot had the chance to perform only two short familiarisation 

flights, before the beginning of the championship, 

having been classified in the second place against Grunaus, 

flying in a restricted category. 

Using the first prototype as basis, we came to the conclusion 

that the weight is not as critical as first thought, and thus, 

the proposed modifications for the second prototype will 

mainly be aimed at greater simplicity and greater safety, at the 

expense of a small weight increase. It win be designed not 

only for spruce, hut also for the Brazilian wood 'Freijo', 

which is easier to procure in our Country. 

Apparently trifling, but numerous modifications, will cut 

construction work of the Periquito II to 1000/II 00 man-hours. 

Our work schedule, which is being carried out by a very 

small group (three persons) calls fOF the preparation of the 

complete construction plans, construction of a flew prototype 

and detailed tests of the same, preparation of the construction 

manual and finally, the type certification according to local 

and USA Regulations. 

A local manufacturer has been awarded a contract for the 

manufacture of a few kits of this sailplane, that will be distributed 

among some clubs, as part of the evolution program. 

The Restoration of Grunau Baby BGA 370 by Neil Scully 

Part 2 

Progress has been rather limited due to more urgent work 

being required on the Piper Cub's engine, prior to its permit 

renewal and on the Pilatus rebuild which I am doing at the 

same time. However, I have now obtained sufficient timber to 

complete the work on the Grunau and have spent some time 

on the fuselage frames and rebuilding the elevator spar and 

ribs. 

Quite a bit of progress has been made on researching the 

glider's history where I have to thank Tony Maufe and Bill 

Morecroft for access to their pre-war Sailplane and Gliding 

magazines. 

The first mention of the Hobson Grunauis in April 1936 

when it was entered for the £25 prize offered by the Daily 

Dispatch newspaper for the best performance by an ownerconstructor 

at the 1936 National Soaring Comp. Also entered 

was Fred Coleman's Grunau, 'Black Diamond', both being 

based at Camphill. Fred was listed as having his first soaring 

flight in 'Black Diamond' on 16 April, while Basil Meads 

flew the Hobson Grunau for its first flight on 10 May. The 

June 1936 Sailplane reports that 'The Hobson Brothers 

brought out a beautiful new varnished Grunall and this was 

successfully tested by Basil Meads. It is distinguishable by a 

slightly different shaped nose, which is rather pleasing in 

appearance" The Hobson Grunau seems to have flown far less 

than 'Black Diamond' with only 3 more flights by the brothers 

in 1936 and although it was entered in the 1936 Nationals 

it only flew on the last day when it was flown by two members 

of the London Club, Bergel and Godson. 

Stanley Hobson obtained a German 'A' certificate at 

Rossitten in June 1930 but it was only recognised in Britain in 

April 1937 and he was the second British ab initio to obtain a 

g:Jiding certificate. Dennis got his 'A' in July 1936 with 

Stanley getting his 'B' in September 1936. 

The above information poses nearly as many questions as 

it answers and still leaves a gap from 1937 to 1953. All the 

post-war listings give the constructor as J Hobson and the 

issue of its BGA C of A as October 1938. I am sure there 

could not be two Gruaus built by two different Hobsons and 

the nose profile of mine is not to drawing so this ties up with 

the comments in S & G. I suspect that it only gained a BGA C 

of A when it passed to a new owner and the incorrect initial 

was recorded at that time. We know that 'Black Diamond' 

flew for some time without a C of A so it is likely that the 

Hobsons never registered it with the BGA. 

HISTORY 

In our VGC News No.73 Summer 1991, we published a list of 

the number of German Gliders that fell into the hands of the 

British Military in May 1945. The list is repeated below in 

abreviated form with recently discovered information added. 

(See also the letterfrom Don Minterne in this issue Ed) 

These were: 

Grunau Baby 2B ... 

Hannover AFH 10 

Olympia Meise 

Total. 

110 etc. 

I ... never flown. 

10 

108-43. I never flown 

The 108-43 above should have been 108-53 Stummelhabicht 

but one wing had been damaged beyond repair when a bees' 

nest was hacked out of its root. 

Kranich 2 20 

SG 38 99 

Two of these were used in Britain by the RAE Farnborough 

Gliding Club. 

RhOnsperber 

Jacobs Schweyer 8 

We think that this means "Weihes" and that a name plate 

showing only Jacobs Schweyer and probably the RLM's type 

number 108- 68 was found on them. Jacobs Schweyer was 

certainly the firm that built them. (270 of them) 

Minimoa 2 

RhOnbussard 

I 

Schmidt Blaus 

I 

We think that this means the Sportflugzeugbau Weimar, 

Schmidt & Klaus that built the Condor 2 from 1935. BAFO 

certainly had a Condor 2. The finn Bley-Flugzeugbau 

G.M.B.H. built the Condor Is before that, and Schleichers 

built the Condor 2a and Condor 3 and later after the war, in 

1952, the two seater Condor 4s. We don't have the Condor 

production figures for the firms of Schmidt & Klaus and Bley. 

Weihe 6 

Rhonadler 2 

Wolf Hirth 2 

Perhaps this refers to Wolfs? 

Mu 13 3 

Reiher 

I 

It was never flown due to glue failure. 

Unidentified. 

Perhaps this refers to a Berlin E.8, the two Horten 4a s LA 

AC, LA-AD and the "Rheinland" among others. 

A Berliner certainly took part in a BAFO contest after the 

14

war. We believe that it was the B.8., which was the Akaflieg 

Berlin's Olympic sailplane candidate, but it did not go to the 

trials for the Olympic sailplane at Sezze near Rome, in February 

1939. 

The grand total was 291 gliders of which 269 were used by 

BAFO in Germany. 16 went to the RAE Farnborough and the 

military in Britain. 6 of the latter (2 Grunau Baby 2bs, I 

Kranich 2, I Meise and 2 Weihes went to the BGA in mid 

1946. These had been received after Farnborough had finished 

with them and they required lOOs of hours of work to make 

them airworthy.) 

AUSTRALIAN NEWS 

A VINTAGE GLIDER REGATTA was held at RAYWOOD, 

home of the Bendigo Gliding Club, during January 1997. The 

Rally was at first beset with problems, due to lack of communication 

between the VGA and the Bendigo Club, but these 

were ironed out. We apologize to anyone who was aggrieved 

because of this. 

The Regatta was not a National event but was to be an 

oportuni,ty for members who could not go to the Rally at 

Gympie, to get together to enjoy some vintage flying. To this 

end, regular attendees came with and without gliders.As 

usual, Ralph (feathers) Crompton consistently flew some 

excellent flights in his Ka-6 GLH. His longest distance flown 

was 240 kms on the Saturday and he stayed up for four hours 

on two of his flights. 

The Chilton Olympia "Yellow Witch" was shared by Keith 

Nolan, Paul Johnston and Ged Terry, who all enjoyed soaring 

flights. The "Witch" was also flown by other pilots who had 

varied successes. Bob McDicken had his first flight in her but 

could not comment on the quietness of it. Bob brought his 

GB-4 and was at the top of the pack on many occasions. John 

Viney, CFI of the Bendigo Club, renewed his acquaintance 

with the GB which he had flown many years ago when it was 

owned by the RAAF Club at Laverton. Other gliders which 

were enjoyed at Bendigo were a Ka-7, a long winged Kookaburra, 

Bocian ID and Sparrow. As the site was close to Melbourne, 

other members came for one or two days to fly the 

club's gliders and to renew their winch ratings. 

We thank the Bendigo members, some of whom were 

VGA members, who winch launched us. Chlis Cullinen was 

one of these, but he was unable to fly his Olympia as it was 

out of form. He did however fly other gliders. John Viney 

looked after operations, helped by John Sergant and their dedication 

to the task was much appreciated. 

The social entertainment was not neglected. There were 

meals at the Raywood pub and, on most nights, video films 

were shown from all over the world. I am sure that one of the 

main attractions was ,the swopping of stories and ideas, and 

the many "hangar flying" chats were just as much fun. On Saturday 

night, Cl meeting was held to discuss locations for the 

next Rally and there were reports from the VGA President 

and Secretary. Possible sites for the next Rally include 

Mildura, Corowa, Bordertown, Temora, and an invitation had 

been received fi'om Nagambie, Victoria. The Meeting 

resolved that the Secretary should approach the named clubs 

to find out whether they could accomodate us. 

GAWLER. VGA Patron; Kevin Sedgman has suggested 

that Gawler be proposed for the site of the 1997/98 National 

Rally as ~998 was the 50th Anniversary of the site. The resi 

€lent Adelaide Soaring Club is planning a programme of 

remembrance and a National Vintage ~any would be an exciting 

event to st31t the year. Kevin said that "Most of the glass 

sailplanes are gone from Gawler and the site can offer winch 

and aerotow launches, accommodation, catering and 

hangarage for vintage gliders.". Kevin would be prepared to 

coordinate the Rally in conjunction with members of the 

ASCIVGA. Members were asked about what they thought of 

this. It would be a long way for the NSW members to come 

but the regulars at the Rallies have traditionally come from 

Southern States (apart from Bob McDicken) and it is now 

over 6 years since a rally has been held in South Australia. 

With the ASC and its members' histories of building gliders, 

the homebuilt group may want to come to Gawler as well! 

Kevin could think of ES 49, Ka-7s, GB-2 and 4, BG 12a and, 

of course, the Altair. 

In finishing tbe report, the Home Build Association was 

almost forgotten. A few of its members joined us at Raywood, 

Their numbers were down but some of them had some good 

flights. Mick Smith brought over his Citabria to provide aerotows 

for those who wanted them. The combining of the 

Rallies seems to be good way to look after the needs of our 

particular type of member. Many VGA members are involved 

in home building, and vice versa. Mike was interested in the 

Cherokee 2 and that aircraft would satisfy both groups' aims. 

All in all, it had been an excellent Rally notwithstanding 

the few problems. There had been lots of flying, lots of hangar 

talk, lots of renewing of friendships and meeting new people. 

That is what it is all about. 

THE PRESIDENTS REPORT to the AGM for the period 

October 1995 to October 1996, as presented at Raywood, Victoria 

in January 1997. The last year has been a relatively quiet 

one for members of the association especially as the national 

VGA Rally did not take place as scheduled at Gympie. The 

organizers felt that the number of participants would be too 

few for a viable operation. No doubt our relaxed method of 

notifying our intentions did not help. 

Despite this, there was continuous flying, restoration and 

repair of existing gliders, and what is noticable is the strong 

move to keep them airworthy and to fly them at every opportunity. 

In March 1996, Ted de Kuyper organized a gathering at 

Everidge for pilots who flew there pre-1939, together with 

some other senior pilots. 

Members of VARMS brought and flew scale ,models of the 

gliders flown during those early years. To climb up the mountain 

brought back some early memories... A new development 

has been the inclusion of Gliding by NASMA in to their 

school programme on the Internet. Discussions are taking 

place for the Vintage Glider activities to be part of the project. 

Volunteers are required to provide ideas and material. 

NASMA are soon to be in a position to receive photos and 

archival material, and gliders, for inclusion in the National 

Aviation Museum at Point Cook. 

"Once again, no pilot has claimed either of our Trophies, 

which are available for the best flightfi by members in vintage 

gliders, submitted to the Decentralized Competition and 

reported in "Australian Gliding". 

Pinally the President, Alan Patching, thanked all members 

for their support in not only preserving Australian Gliding's 

Heritage, but for making it possible for recent pilots to experience 

the thrill and challenge of flying these machines. 

THE SECRETARY'S REPORT. "This year has been an 

interesting one with plenty of positives and some negatives. 

Interest in the preservation of older gliders is increasing with 

many clubs selling their older fleet to private owners. 

On the flying side, our Rally at Ararat in January 1996 was 

15

---_S:AOO -~~--- 

\ 

-'-- -_ ..---J ' 

••S 25"' (OupjJcI'Sil zcr) '942:43 I 

It 

I\ 

i I 

Spalinger S.25. 

High performance 

Two Seater. 1942/43. 

Wingspan :-17.7 m. 

Length : - 8.4 r.J. 

This was the· final 

Spalinger design to 

be built. 

-525 

One Spalinger S.25 

came to Britain and 

took part in the 1947 

British National Contest 

~t Bramcote. Its pilot 

was Hans .Urth. It competed 

together with a Moswey 3 

frolL Switzerland Hors Concours. 

An unsuccessful attempt was 

~ade to sell it in Britain 

notably at Camphill. 

,I 

I 

I I 

f 

I : 

\i ----l 

16

an enjoyable affair. With operations combined with the 

Homebu,imt Association, the tarmac was full of gliders on the 

first flyable days and all took advantage of some pleasant 

flying. Many thanks to the members of the Grampians Club 

for their help and support. Let us not forget the ladies of the 

Grampians Club who kept us (very well) fed during the week, 

At the AGM held during the rally at Ararat, Alan Patching 

was aga,in re-elected President of the Association and, after 

many years, AlIan Ash handed the role of Secretary/ Treasurer 

to lan Patching. An appreciation of Alan's time in the above 

roU, and as editor of Vintage Times, was printed in the March 

edition of Vintage Times. The only problem was that soon 

after returning to Melbourne, the new secretarylTreasurer 

found himself back at work and with less time on his hands. 

The first year of production of Vintage Times has been up 

and down. Only three editions were produced but the feedback 

from members has been good. Small changes to the 

layout took place and the material has been coming in at a 

steady rate. I have enough for the next two editions plus the 

summer's report as well. Costs were kept lower due to the 

availabi~ity of a photocopier, but with a change of job, a new 

source will have to be found. We have also built up good relationships 

with other supporting bodies and some exchanging 

of material is taking place. 

A National Rally was scheduled for Gympie, Queensland 

In October 1996. The organisers put in a large amount of work 

in planning the event. However, I understand that they were 

unable to attract enough interest and cancelled the event. This 

was very disappointing as the main reason for holding the 

rally in Queensland was to get the Northern vintage movement 

happening. For some time yet, I think that the main 

activity of the VGA will be based in the Southern States. 

Membership has again shown a slight increase with 

members returning their subs in the usual way. Two gliders 

have been put on to the reduced rate for airworthiness with the 

GFA. Pat Kedge, at the Secretariat, has been most helpful 

over the year and was always ready to assist at any time. If 

you think that your glider may be eligable, send me the information. 

Even if you think that it may not be, drop me a line 

and we can try. 

In conclusion, the year has been one of learning, and with 

any luck,will auger well for the coming 12 months. Ian Patching. 

RESTORATION NEWS from Wally Wolf. He had spun in 

his GnlOau 4 trying to stretch a low circuit during one of our 

Rallies. Since then, he has been putting it together again. 

"Coul'd not help a smile about the Grunau sporting 

wingletsand retractable wheel. I sure have enough to do 

without such wOlTies, but I am progressing. Yes, it was trial 

rigged and the tolerances in airframe, symmetries and geometry 

were quite small. .. small enough to satisfy my T.O., 

Eugene Blunt who accepted it. 

The fuselage is now virtually complete but no instruments 

have been fitted yet. Instead, I installed myself in the cockpit 

recently to see if I would still fit. I did, and it felt GOOD. It 

was quite a moment for me. The last contact I had had with 

the cockpit was to throw me out- literally. Except for straightening 

the tFailing edges of both wings, (not the result of the 

crash), the airframe is actually complete but without fabric 

and paint. Eugene has taught me a bit about this, and I am 

most grateful to him. I don't want to mess it up during the 

final stage of the repair. 

FOR SALE. ES-57 "Kingfisher"VH-GKN. Two piece 

wings, basic instruments, enclosed trailer without roll in-out 

trailer. Very good condition. Price negotiable. Offers to Garry 

Dunne (071 )253 608 a/h. 

Ka-2B and "Olympia" POA Mike Valentine, (03) 9379 

7411. 

Ka-6 CR VH-XOP. Built in Germany during 1961. Basic 

instruments. Ground handling gear, open trailer with tarpaulin 

cover. Price negotiable. Offers to Waiter Hermann (056)552 

688 a/h. 

ES 52B (long wing) Kookaburra VH-GRC. v.g.c. Enclosed 

trailer with roll in-out fittings. Glider is currently at Tucumwal 

NSW. Price Negotiable. Mike Burns (058) 742 914. 

Cherokee 2. VH-GLV, Completely restored to as new condition. 

Enclosed trailer. Ready to fly. Price very negotiable. 

(02) 525 4352, 018 253 466. 

LETTERS From Keith Nolan (of the 500 km triangle in his 

Chilton Olympia "Yellow Witch"). 

Dear Ian. Enjoyed the magazine... keep up the good work. 

The "Yellow Witch" is due for its 50 hour yearly inspection in 

1998 and so we had better do some flying soon. In the old 

days, we did more than 100 hours every yeaI'... but not lately. 

A note to the maintenance people. 

I have found a lot of corroded bolts in the wind (wing? 

CW) and control fittings recently. Cadmium plating bolts do 

not resist wood acid for very long and especially pine timbers 

seem to cause most corrosion. Epoxy lining inside the holes 

with a greased bolt (to prevent adhesion) seems to be the 

answer. Twenty years from now, we wiill know for sure. Some 

bolts had swollen so much that they had to be hammered out 

and the timber is oversized as a result. Ged Terry has sent me 

a lot of infonnation on restoring European gliders and it is 

available to VGA members, regards K. Nolan. 

NO MORE COPIES OF THE BOOK "GLIDING IN 

AUSTRALIA" AlIan Ash writes that the publisher has no 

more copies of this book due to a break-in a.t the warehouse 

where a number of cartons of books were stolen. Unfortunately, 

it seems that the last few cartons of the book "Gliding 

in Australia" were among the books stolen. The publisher has 

said that he did not think that prospective sales volume warranted 

a reprint of the book. 

The only small comfort in the situation is that the nonavailability 

of the book may cause existing copies to go up 

slightly in value. 

As C.J. Dennis put it "Cruel fortune's dir y left has smote 

my soul." A.Ash. 

Should any of our members like to have "Vintage Times", 

they should write to: "Vintage times", Newsletter of the 

Vintage Glider Association of Australia. The editor is: Ian 

Patching, II Sunnyside Crescent, Wattle Glen, Victoria 3096, 

Australia. 

BRAZILIAN NEWS 

Our member Frederico Fiori suggested in VGC News No 89 

that he would like to see a balance ofarticles between what is 

happening now and descriptions ofrare gliders from the past. 

He has contributed a great amount of information on both 

these two topics for this issue which readers will find in the 

feature pages and here. We thank Frederico greatly for this 

hard work. Ed. 

A curious thing is happening in Brazil at present and that is 

the renewed interest in old gliders. For a long time, only 

Bauru had this tradition, but now I am in touch with a number 

of other clubs and trying to dig out information on old gliders 

and I am very happy to find that we are almost ready to start 

our own Vintage Glider Club. 

17

-- 

ONLY NOW CAN IT 

BE TOLD. 

The HW-4 

"Flamengo" 

was later 

named "Flamingo" 

THE BRAZILIAN WONDER SAILPLANE. 

Span .. 1B m. 

A/R •• 1B. 

Max.L/D.1-30. 

Min.Sink. 0.56 m/sec. 

Empty weight 205 

Kgs (451 lbs) 

; '". _IIl!L, ----:t 

-- _.~. 

- - - _.__. 

The "Flamingo" 

was created 

by two SWiss 

emigrants to 

Brazil. 

The used 

Brazilian 

timbers. 

Hans Widmer 

designed it 

and Kurt 

He'ndrich 

built it from 

1944-1946. 

Both were 

much influenced 

by the 

Mosweys and 

Spalingers. 

· .i 

...., , 

....., 

.~: ,f ,- _. .. ~~ 

... 1 

, 

.... . 

····t . .. ..- 

._.J . 

...: ...... ".~ 

··_-t .. , 

·:l 

• ---.of ,"•••• '0' 

· ., 

.. -,~;: ' 

~:f==5_~·===.. :rf:.~ 

Colours - 

Yellow - beneath. 

Red-above .. 

Red/yellow 

dividing 

line-dark 

brown or black. 

~---_._..-_. 

Normal speed. 56 

Empty weight 205 

(450 lbs) 

Penetration speed 

110 kph. 

VNE 220 kph. 

Designed to 

strengh 

coefficient 10. 

DADOS 

H.W. -4 

ESCAl" 

, 

TECN~OS 

EHVERGADJRA 

SUPERFICIE 

ALON GAMEN TO 

PlANE to 

AFUNOAMENTO 

PESO VAZIO 

VELOC I OAOE: t-()RMAl. 

VEI..OClDAOE: REBOOUE 

VEl...ClClOAOE: MAXI MA 

COEFICIEMTE SEGURAN~ 

\'2' 

--''"'-'.- 

kph. 

kgs 

Tail surfaces 

are similar 

to those on 

Mosweys and 

Spalingers. 

., 

· ···f _. _... , 

..... " 

•.•.• "1-' ••••", 

.... 11 • 

.. ..::... , .... I 

;.~ :::: : i 

...~.. ~.:=. 

...~.~..'":": ..::-:-: ...-:: 

....=.._:-: 

-=...-=-: 

...=..-::= ...=:::- 

··==:· ..:=· 

" I 

ISm 

18 m 

18 m 

I~ 

•.56m 

20Skg 

S6 km/h 

1I0km/h 

220km/h 

10 

" FLAMENGO" 

Mo P"UlO. AHII. 

1')4~ 

H. WIOMER - O[SE:,.HO ! c.w:o..o 

K.HENDRICH - ~ 

The "Flamingo" is 

at present being 

r.estored. 

T 

..··dk&'--J···--- 

-::~T-=-.-.-' 11 

.:~:.::: . -.--. ! 

: '.~': :.: j 

.• ,I ! 

...... , -_. 

.. I , I 

..... ( 

• '-"1"'" • 

· ····'1 

-". ' ... 

::~j} .. 

· ..•., 

....." J•• 

.... I .". 

I 

· •.,,' I' 

,-:'::.: ::'.- :;,?~ 

·::::...rll:~. )~ 

· .. .. ~ 

. 

· _. I . 

..• .1 

"1 ,~. 

"-'1 • 

.~ .:.- -,:: 

'··f·· ,.,' 

"1 '. 

• '1' ....', 

.. , 

.• ,I 

... 1 "'• 

.• -I .••, 

...-1 ,/ 

....., - - 

•__ J .'. 

, '. 

:~~:. >- 

--I ... 

· -·1 "'~ 

,_ J . ,_ " 

:.:! ~( 

- ~ .', 

-1 '.' . 

.,', .' 

It had a 

sensational 

climbing 

capability. 

It was still 

being flown 

in contests 

during the 

1960 s . 

18

The Laister-Kauffman LK-IOa PT-PAZ, has been completely 

overhauled last year and is now fiying again in a new 

paint scheme. Paulo Francisco da Sitva, whose work on this 

glider was outstanding, sent a photo to Mr Jack Laister who 

was very pleased to see one of his creations flying again. His 

memory is fantastic and he could remember the name of the 

first owner of this craft in Brazil and even the name of his son, 

who was only 12 years old at the ,time, in 1946. (Owner 

Edwardo Hill and the son is Roberto) 

The Spalinger S 25a PT-PBR. This beautiful glider, probably 

the last one of its type in the world, has been completely 

overhauled including changing the wing struts and many 

more things. At Oberschleissheim in 1995 Frederico promised 

a photo of this glider to Martin Simons whose first glider 

flight was in a S25. The photo will be on its way soon, Martin. 

The Olympia Meise PP-ZQB. This was one of three 

Olympias built by Kurt Hendrich, at Bauru, the others being 

PP-ZQC and PP-ZQD. It was sold to the well-known glider 

pilot Andre Maffini, and Sergio Benediti who made a series of 

good flights in it, including a 300km flight, and after that, it 

was sold to Emerson Burnico, who was making a cross 

country flight and had to land out, near Bauru. Unfortunately 

there was a colliSIon with a tree and one wing was severely 

damaged and also some parts of the tailplane.This was the 

ship that was painted yellow. Frederico has not been able to 

ascertain whether a repair is going to be carried out. 

From Joao Ale~andre Widmer note, Mr Joao Atexandre 

is not a VGC Member (yet!) but is one of the best Brazilian 

pilots having won several National Championships and also 

participated in the World Champs. He is the son of the late 

Hans Widmer, who designed the Flamingo HW 4, one of the 

most beautifut Brazilian gliders, and who constructed many 

others. Frederico has spoken to loao Alexandre for some time 

on the phone and was given the following news from Bauru: 

Olympia Meise, he could not remember which one, PP 

ZQC or PP-ZQD, but one of them is going to fly again, being 

overhauled at present and with some modifications to the airbrakes. 

The Horten Wing. Frederico Fiori starts the story: About 

three years ago he was making some photos to send to Peter 

Selinger in Gennany and in the top of a hangar at Bauru, 

under ten inches of dust, he found two curious wings. He 

asked, but no-one seemed to know what they were, except 

that they had been there for a long time. He phoned Joseph 

Kovacs, and with Josepb's usual patience he was told that 

they were two parts of a Horten wing, probably the one built 

by Kurt Hendrich and Hans Widmer. He couldn't remember 

the type or why they were not finished. 

The next day, Doris, the widow of Kurt Hendrich, lent 

Frederico about 70 photos from her husband's collection and 

he copied them all. Lo and behold, one of the pictures was of 

the Horten Wing almost complete, but not yet covered. 

At the vac rally at Oberschleissheim he asked many 

people about the photographs but no-one could identify the 

type of Horten. 

Now back to lOaD Alexandre who was quite sure it was a 

Horten 4 because his father had obtained the blue prints from 

Reimar Horten in Argentina and after buiMing so far, they 

found some of the drawings were missing and were unable to 

get any further drawings from Argentina. Slowly, the project 

was abandoned, because they were building other gliders at 

the time, so what was left of the wing was what Frederico had 

found in the hangar. Sadly, he tried to buy the wings with the 

intention 0f renovating them to the state they were in when 

the original work was stopped, and then to donate them to a 

museum, but he was unable to get any replies to his etters. 

The big question remaining is: where are the original blue 

prints used by Mr Widmer and Mr Kurt Hendrich? 

The Colibrl. Frederico sent some pictures of this little, old 

glider, which was built by Mr Widmer, to Peter Selinger, in 

Germany, who told him that it could be a design of Prof. Pfenninger, 

(ie an Elfe 1 CW). 

Of course Mr Selinger was right, and Joao Alexandre told 

me some more about it: when Mr Hendrich and Mr Widmer 

emigrated to Brazil from Switzerland, they knew many glider 

pilots and builders. So in the 1940s ,they asked Prof Pfenninger 

to send drawings of the little glider which they quickly 

built and it is still in good conditioll now at Bauru. Another 

one was built, with modified wings, but suffered an accident 

later. 

From Ms Claudia de Figuiredo Marques (Via F. Fiori) 

The Habicht. When Claudia and Frederico visited the 

Wasserkuppe musem for the first time, Claudia was most 

impressed with the Habicht which had been built by the Oldtimers 

club. It was the first time she talked about any glider 

other than the Grunau Baby. 

When we got back to Rio, we went to see Mr and Mrs 

Kovacs. Claudia talked a lot about the Habicht and Mr 

Kovacs laughed and went to his office and came back with a 

full set of drawings. asking if we wished to build one. He and a 

friend had bought them from Wolf Hirth. The curious thing 

was that when they wanted to build the German Habicht, iliey 

couldn't get the blue prints from Germany, at least, not all of 

them. When Mr Kovacs visited the Wasserkuppe some years 

later and saw the German Habicht he told the Oldtimer club 

that he had had the drawings for a long time. They found this 

difficult to believe, as it was so hard to get the drawings in 

Germany, so where did they obtain the drawings eventually? 

Could some kind person in Germany find out about this for 

Frederico, please? (From Turkey? CW) 

Also from Frederico Fiori: 

The Olympia Meise PP-ZVK, ex PP·PCL, unfortunately, 

in 1996, because of work, I couldn't set my feet in Sao Jose 

dos Campos, at the Clube de Vao aVela do CTA, where my 

Olympia is. Seeing my problems (and certainly my grief) 

Claudia went to Sao Jose several times in the beginning of the 

year. With the help of Mr Kovaks (always Mr Kovacs!) she 

talked with loao Alves, the very skilful carpenter from the 

club, and the work progressed. Later on, she had problems 

too, because of her work and could not go there again. In 

December I received a Christmas card from Mr Kovacs in 

which he wrote that the work on the Olympia is nearly finished. 

The Olympia Meise PT.PBS; this is the Meise known as 

the "Black Witch" because of its colour. The people down 

under had the "Yellow Witch" and we have the black one 

here. One night, Mr Joao from the Club in Sao Jose, called to 

say he knew of an Olympia for sale; it was the "Black Witch". 

It is in Rio Grande do SuI state and according to the information, 

suffered some extensive damage on the nose. We don't 

know what caused it or the condition of the rest of the glider. 

The price required was something around US$ 4000.00. 

The Periquito PP-ZTB; my cousin Leslie gave me a call 

the other day, from Sao Paulo. His infonnation is a little 

vague, but he knows I fly gliders although he knows nothing 

about the subject. He told me that "someone" was selling 

"some glider" that had been stored in "some car garage" for 

some time and was for sale "at some price". I tried to make 

19

him speak some sense, but it was useless. I asked him to ask 

"someone" certain questions and to call me back. After a few 

days I got the whole story. This was the first Periquito that I 

ever saw, back in the '70s, at the Aeroclub de Nova Iguac;u in 

Rio de Janeiro. Later, the club was trying to buy a Jantar 11, 

and was in need of money so they raft1ed the Periquito and the 

winner took the glider away. Ms Claudia Figueiredo, at the 

time only a teenager leaning to fly at the club, was mad at this. 

Even today, more than 15 or so years later, she is still mad 

about it. (The 15 or so years is inexact in deference to Ms 

Claudia's age, because, after all, it is not polite or safe, to 

reveal the age of a beautiful woman) To mention this subject 

near her means serious trouble! So this is the glider for sale. It 

needs some work, but according to its owner, it is in reasonable 

shape, whatever that means. The price is US$3500,00 but 

offers can be made. 

The Baby Grunau llb PP-ZQI; When the then teenager, 

Claudia, was learning to fly, the glider she liked the most was 

the Baby Grunau, PP-PAK, from the club. Some years ago, 

she sold her YW van and started to search for a Grunau. 

Finally, after many years of searching, she found one and 

bought it. I went to pick it up, because she was in Rothenburg, 

Germany, at the time. The glider is now at the CYY-CTA club 

hangar in Ipua, Silo Paulo. 

I tried to find the history of this glider and learned that it 

was rebuilt in the '60s at the Pm'ana club and recertified as an 

experimental glider. It was later sold to someone who, later, 

sold it to the Rio Clara club, but I am still trying to find its full 

history. 

Grunau Baby llb PP·ZTJ. My friend Mr Andre Maffini, 

talking to me one day, told me about a Grunau for sale at the 

Birigui club, Silo Paulo. I went to see it and found it was in 

good condition so I bought it. Since there was no space at 

home to keep it I was saved by Mr and Mrs Kovacs, who let 

me garage it at their home. 

This glider WiIS built in 1941 at the Laminacilo Nacional de 

Metais, in Utinga, Sao Paulo. It was the first series ofgliders 

produced in Brazil. They changed the name from Grunau 

Baby to "Alcatraz" which is the name of a Brazilian bird. 

Thirty of these gliders were made in this year and this fact is 

not often known outside of our country. 

I couldn't find much information on the history of this 

glider between the forties and the fifties, but in the sixties it 

appeared at the Parana club, was rebuilt and recertified as PP 

ZTJ. Later, it was sold again and then sold to the Birigui club, 

where I found it. 

The Grunau Baby PP-PCF. According to Mr Armando 

Pucci, from the Aeroclube Politecnico de Planadores (from 

1975 the name was changed from Clube Paulista de 

Planadores (1934) then Clube Politecnico de Planadores 

(1941» from the city of Silo Paulo, this is really the original 

Grunau Baby used by the German Expedition from 1934. 

Hanna Reitsch set the world altitude record in this Baby in 

February 1934, at the Campos dos Afonsos, Rio de Janiero. 

At the same meeting Heini Dittmar also broke another world 

record with the Condor. The Baby was soId to the CPP club 

and is still well maintained. (For some time I was in doubt 

which was, the Hanna Reitsch's Grunau, because Bauru have 

another original German Grunau Baby also.) 

The Grunau Baby PT-PBP This is the other original 

German-made Grunau. It was donated by the German Government 

to a group of enthusiasts from Ponta Grossa, Parana, 

at the end of the thirties. After the beginning of the second 

world war, it was confiscated by the authorities (What a 

menace, a dangerous Grunau Baby flying in the skies!!) In 

J942 it was sent to the Bauru Aeroclub, where it remains. It is 

in good condition, painted blue and cream. 

The Kookaburra PP-ZPC. This glider belongs to the Sao 

Miguel do Oeste club and is now for sale. It was built by Mr 

Ebehard Gabler, a German pilot who emigrated to Brazil. I 

made a mistake in the YGC News No 81 because I was 

informed that this glider was designed by Mr GableI'. Mr Peter 

Selinger corrected this and wrote to me that it was probably 

the Australian design. He was right, of course. The information 

that I have is that the glider is in good shape and is for 

sale. 

The Cumulus PP·ZTK. This glider is at the club in 

Brazilia and is also for sale. It was constructed by Mr GableI' 

too and I made the same mistake again, which was also corrected 

by Peter Selinger. (Is this is not the German Cumulus? 

CW) 

The 8B·5 pp·ZPG Maybe not yet a vintage glider, but 

almost. This belongs to the APP club, from Jundiai, Sao 

Paulo. Mr Rogerio Kahn, from Rio de Janeiro is negotiating 

to buy it at present. 

Further note. Unfortunately, some good classics have been 

lost in recent years. One during the 36th Brazilian Nationals 

in October 1994, when one of the Brazilian classic designs of 

the sixties, the EMB-400, Urupema, was destroyed in an accident, 

fortunately without harming the pilot. The Urupema was 

designed at the CTA and about a dozen were built by 

EMBRAER, in the sixties. A few remain flying today. If my 

memory is right, this glider was entered in the two World 

Championships, in Marfa and Lezno. 

The other was an SB-5, lost at a contest held at Palmeira 

das Missoes, also in 1994, this time with the loss of the pilot. 

This was one of the four SB-5 gliders built in Brazil following 

the original German blueprints. 

FLAMINGO. This is a strong Brazilian entry for the most 

beautiful glider in the world contest. (CW) It was designed by 

Kurt Hendrich and built by Hans Widmer from 1944-1946, 

using Brazilian woods. These two Swiss emigrants really did 

a tremendous amount for Brazilian gliding. They also built a 

Spalinger S.25 h, which was the final Spalinger design that 

flew. Evidence of the S.25 h's influence can be seen in the 

"Flamingo's" tailplane, elevateI', fin and rudder. 

The "Flamingo" was originally called "Flamengo" for 

some reason. The 3-view drawing has Spanish written on it. 

and not Portugese, which is the language spoken in Brazil. 

The "Flamingo" was painted red and yellow with a brown (or 

black? CW) cheat line between them. It flew well and had a 

fantastic slow speed performance and climbing ability. It was 

still taking part in contests in the late 1960s and had hs 

cockpit canopy much modified from the original, It also had 

its skid removed and replaced by a landing wheel. We understand 

that it is now being restored to airworthy condition and 

we hope that its canopy can be brought back to something of 

its original form. 

The "Flamingo's" original registration was PP-24. Later, 

gliders received only registration letters, like aeroplanes, so 

the "Flamingo's" registration was changed to PT-PAY. It had 

no serial number because only one "Flamingo" was built. To 

certificate the glider, it received an 'official' serial number 

from the authorities. 

Every glider at that time had to have such a number. The 

number for the "Flamingo" is CTA-02A-123. The letters 

CTA, came from the branch that was supposed to certify 

everything that was flying at the time. ie. CTA means the 

20

The beautiful Brazilian Flamingo showing its elegant lines Photo D. Hunsaker. 

A close-up ofthe Flamingo with its designer Kart Hendrich standing on the left with Sr Luiz Bevilliasquea, the Director of the 

Aero Club. Photo D. Hunsaker. 

21

Aeronautical Technical Centre. 

A book about the Grunau Baby I received a letter from 

Mr Ben B. Schenk, from the Nether,lands, explaining that he is 

gathering material from all sources and countries, in order to 

write a book about the Grunau Baby. If anyone can help, his 

address is Mr Ben Schenk, Eise Eisingastr.50, 9035 BR Dronrijp, 

NL. Phone 0517-231662, Fax 0513-419672. Email 

bbschenk@pi.net. 

The photos from the German Expedition to Brazil 

About three years ago Martin Simons asked me to try to 

find some pictures of the German expedition of 1934. [ tried 

several sources including the Museu Aerospacial, and some 

newspapers but I could not find anything. Only Mr Kovacs 

gave me the first pages from a journal with some text and 

photos; a very fine piece of glider history, well preserved by 

Mr Kovacs. Finally, in 1995, a few days before my trip to the 

VGC Rally at Oberschleissheim, I found some interesting 

photos. 

My uncle who lives in Sao Paulo, was showing me some 

photos that a relative took in the '30s with a German camera. 

This camera had two lenses, and used two negatives that were 

shot at the same time. After the film is developed both negatives 

are bound together between plates of glass and viewed in 

a special device which gives Q 3D image. 

To my complete surprize, I found some photos of the ZeppeHn 

passing over my gr.andfather's house in Sao Paulo. Then 

some Junkers 52s from the Condor Sindikat parked at the 

Congonhas airport, Then I saw a familiar face; a tittle blond 

lady smiling to the camera, seated in a Grunau Baby. It was 

Hanna Reitsch. The next photo of a young man in another 

glider--Heini Dittmar. The next, two gliders over some grass 

airstrip with German markings, could it be a Condor? Yes it 

was a Condor. No mistake. Other photos passed before my 

eyes and I couldn"t believe what I was seeing. My uncle told 

me the photos had been in the box since 1934 and I was the 

first to have the curiosity to see them. A lot of photos from the 

aviation world in Brazil in the '30s and '405, with a few from 

the German expedition. Sixty one years inside that box, and 

still in good shape! 

Since that date, I am trying to find some professional to 

transform the original negatives into positives without damaging 

the glass, or the negatives. (they are 120 size, I think) So 

far, no-one has accepted the chanenge as it's difficult and they 

are afraid to do some damage. It is a pity, because these 

photos have never been seen for 60 years. But I am still 

trying. 

I have just received 25 photos of ,the gliders from Bauru, 

from Mr Paulo da Silva. They are from the archives of the late 

Mr Kurt Hendrich, kindly lent by his widow, Doris. I am 

going to copy them, and then we reach the marl!: of 100 photos 

of the old times and gliders in the club. 

In one of the last VGC News there were Some details about 

Japan, sent by one of our members from here. I would like to 

ask if he knows anything about the National Glider Contests 

that were held before the Second WQdd War. One of the contests 

was described in a book written by a fighter pilot who 

later fought in the WM. I don't remember if the book was 

"Samurai" written by Mr S,aburo Sakai, the second highest 

ace from Japan, or was from the book written by another pilot. 

Mr Y. Kuahara. 

It would be interesting to see photos from that time and 

also to learn about the contests in this era. Any information or 

pic-tures about the subject, would be very interesting to me, 

and I hope, to everyone. 

The Fauvel AV 36 built at the CTA. 

Not many people know that during the 1950's a Fauvel 36 

was built by a team at the CTA (at the time, The Aeronautical 

Technologic Centre) 

In 1954, Col. Aldo Weber Vieira da Rosa, who was responsible 

for design and building gliders at the CTA, received a 

favourable report on the Fauvel, comparing its flying characteristics 

with the Olympia Meise. The report stated that the 

Fauvel had some interesting aspects and was simple and 

cheap to build. It was decided to ,construct one at the CTA in 

Sao Jose dos Campos, Sao Paula, with the help of Mr George 

Munch and Mr Joseph Kovacs. 

The first wood was cut at the end of 1955 and the glider 

was finished by the time of the 3rd Brazilian National Championship 

in 1956, in the city of Bauru, Sao Paulo. With MI' 

Kovacs flying, the Fauvel PT-PCM, came 8th. 

Mr Kovacs who was the first pilot to fly the AV 36, remembers 

the different flying characteristics of this glider and being 

used to flying conventional gliders; it was easy to recognize 

the differences in handling the flying wing, in order to get the 

best performance out of it. The "Little Wing", as the Fauvel 

was known, had a low wing loading, so it was at its best flying 

in thermals of 3/4 meters per second. In these conditions, the 

Fauvel was excellent, 'but in weak thermals it wasn't so good. 

compared with other gliders of the time. 

In the following years the Fauvel continued to fly with 

several pilots and with different results. It suffered small accidents 

and the damage was not bad and easily repaired. On one 

ocasion, it made a flight of 215 km, from Bauru to the city of 

Americana, both in Sao Paulo state, receiving a letter of congratulation 

from the Fauvel factory on the occasion. 

The colours changed from the original white and grey wing 

and yellow and green rudders to cream and red. Finally. in 

1974, during a National Championship at Pirassununga,it 

suffered an accident and was severely damaged. It was sent to 

Curitiba in Parana state, where it was supposed to be repaired. 

Up to 1991 it was still there, but not repaired, and its present 

fate is unknown. 

It competed in a number of Brazilian Nationals and finished 

as below: 

1956 Joseph Kovacs 8th place 

]957 Hiroshi Karneyama 6th 

1964 Francisco Leme Galvao 7th 

1966 Celio Cardoso Ouimaraes 8th 

1974 Vizaco 5th 

Sources: 

A constructao aeromiutica no Brazil - R. P. de Andrade, cd 

Braziliense 1976. 

Interview with Joseph Kovacs 

Papers from the ABVV - Brazilian Gliding Association 

Personal archives Frederice Fiori. 

BRITISH NEWS 

First a Little History... Just before the outbreak of war in 

1939, British designers, Fred Slingsby and Ray Scott each 

managed to design and build high perfonnance side by side 

two seaters at least compararable with any sailplanes of the 

same class abroad. These were the Slingsby Type 14 Gull 2 

and the Scott Viking 2. 

Whereas the former had its first test flight ill April 1940, 

the latter ,first flew on 27.8.1939 at Dunstable. 

We have already in a previous VGC News mentioned how, 

22

after breaking a National record, the "Gull 2" came to grief at 

Lasham in 1957 due to severe Ground Loops in both directions 

at the beginning of a launch. 

The cause was stalled aileron control due to the high angle 

attack of ~he wings with the tail skid on the ground (although 

it had a long, sprung tail skid to bring the tail up).CW thinks 

that the NACA 4418 Wing profile might have had something 

to do with it as experience has shown CW that its stall is not 

so docile as that of Gottingen profiles. 

However, not so much is known about the fate of the Scott 

"Viking 2". 

The "Aeroplane Monthly" of March 1997 has shed light on 

it. 

After the successful German glider-borne assaults to outflank 

the Maginot Line in 1940, Sir WinstoIl Churchill 

delTlanded the formation of a Britil>h airborne army. As the 

military had no glider pilots or gliders, it was decided to initiate 

their training at Haddenham Thame and then at RAF 

Ringway. In order to obtain gliders. the military impressed 

almost all civilian gliders, many civilian glider pilots and 

equipment including winches, from the slender resources of 

the prewar British Gliding Movement. Thus the Glider Development 

Unit operated a nux of British and German civilian 

sailplanes until the products of the (military) specifications 

came on line. Training was started with a leaning towards mJIitary 

application. Sailplanes at Ringway included: Condor 2, 

Minimoa, Rhonbussanl, Kite Is, Viking Is etc. The Unit was 

under the command of Grp.Cptn Mungo Buxton and, among 

its per

thy), 3 Hiitter H.17s, a Hiitter H.28-3.and a Scud 1. So our 

almost indefatigable British members have done all they can 

to rectify the situation. 

Gliders being worked on at present at Booker are: 

Slingsby SKY RAF No.876. flown by Lorne Welch in the 

1952 Spanish World Gliding Championships and then owned 

by the Empire Test Pilots' School at Farnborough. One wing, 

tailplane and fuselage are almost repaired. Just the second 

wing remains to be done but it has not much wrong with it. 

Slingsby PREFECT BGA 2333. This was damaged on the 

ground in its trailer with many other gliders during the 1987 

hurricane that swept across England. It was at the Peterborough 

and Spalding Gliding Club (Crowlands) and is owned 

by Bob Sharman. Its repair and painting has just been carried 

out by Mike Birch to his usual high standards. 

The LUNAK OK-0927 has just received the latest state of 

the art Schofield trailer with a galvanized chassis and white 

painted aluminium covering. Trailer fittings are being made 

for it at the moment. 

At LASHAM, Richard Moyse has just finished an immaculate 

Slingsby CADET which was designed as Slingsby's 

Type 7 in 1936 by the, then young, John Sproule for Slingsby 

sailplanes. It is one of only two that are still airworthy out of 

431 that were built. Richard's Cadet has no built-in landing 

wheel, as was the fashion with the prewar built Cadets. (or 

Kadets). He has finished a trailer for it. 

Keith Green is working on extensively rebuilding the 

wings of his EoN 465 which have some aluminium corrosion 

in their redux bonded main spars. It had for years been kept in 

its trailer on a northern mountain top (Carlton Moor). 

Peter Underwood, at Eaton Bray near Dunstable, is 

working on Air Chief Marshal Sir John Allison's Prefect 

which is having new fabric. His ongoing projects include the 

Willow Wren's wings. This is BGA 162 (ie the 62nd glider 

registered by the BGA since its foundation in 1930. It 

received its first C of A in September 1934 and, when it is airworthy, 

it will be Britain's oldest airworthy glider. It belongs 

to Mike Beach. Other projects for Peter are the last Dagling 

(Zogling) BGA 493 which was the standard ab initio training 

glider for all British clubs before the war. Its building plans 

came to Britain via America from Germany. BGA 493 was 

built by the Hawkridge Glider Co, and received its first BGA 

C of A in June 1947. Another on-going project is a German 

Grunau Baby 2b, BGA?, which he intends to finish in WL 

colours and markings to go with his Kite I BGA 400 which 

took part in the training of Britain's troop carrying glider 

pilots. The GB 2b is to represent a glider that took part in the 

training of Germany's troop

Pr~ident: 

Chris Wills 

Wings, The Street, Ewelme 

Oxford OXlO 6HQ 

SecretarylMembership Secretary: 

lan Dunkley 

c/o Derby and Lanes Gliding Club 

Camphill, Gt HuckJow, Tideswell 

Derbyshire SK17 8RQ 

Tel: 01298871270. email vgc@datron.co.uk 

of the club 

New Members 

Please send the Application Form to either lan DunkJey in the UK with your payment in £ Sterling as set out below 

or contact your local Secretary (Names and addresses overleaf) for details of payment in your local currency. 

Existing Members 

Please send your renewal fee to your local Secretary as directed by them, or direct to lan Dunkley, as shown below. 

--~------------------------------------------------- ----------------_. 

------------ 

I Membership No. 

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORM (1997) 

(please include your membership 

number when renewing) 

I renew/apply for Owner/As ociate membership of the Vintage Glider 

Club, and enclo e remittance for: 

Initial Membership fee 

£ 

3.00 

(payable only once on joining) 

o 

o 

o 

oo 

Annual subscription 



Donation 

Total 

12.00 

14.00 

16.00 

(Great Britain) 

(Europe) 

(Rest of the world to cover 

airmail postage) 

Cheques should be made payable to the VINTAGE GLIDER CLUB. Overseas members are requested to pay by Eurocheque or in 

sterling drawn on a British Bank 

For all members (block capitals or typewritten please) 

Surname Christian Name Title _ 

Address 

_ 

____________________ Telephone 

_ 

Gliding or soaring club (or other aero club) 

_ 

Your gliding and/or PPL qualification IExperiencelModeller 

Trade or profession 

_ 

please turn over

OVERSEAS MEMBERSHIP SECRETARIES 

Australia lan Patching, 11 Sunnyside Crescent, Wattle Glen, Victoria 3096, Australia 

Belgium Firmin Henrard, Rue de Porcheresse, 5361 Mohiville-Hamois, Belgium 

Brazil Frederico Fiori, PCA Eugenio Jardim, 34 apto 102, Copacabana, Rio de Janiero CEP 22061, 

Eire 

Finland 

France 

Germany 

Brazil 

David Mongey, 15 Ormeau Street, South Lotts Road, Dublin 4, Eire 

Risto PykaUi, Riskarink, 4A13, 15170 Lahti, Finland 

Didier Fulchiron, 333 rue Louis Blanc, 38420 Le Versoud, France 

Jorg Ziller vac, Kreissparkasse Boblingen, Kto.: 42856937, BLZ 603 SOl 30, Deutches vac 

Konto (Bitte zahlen Sie Ihnren jahrlichen Beitrag von 35 -- OM auf das vac Konto) 

Hungary Laszlo Meszaros, Erkel utca, H-I092 Budapest, Hungary 

Japan 

Hiroshi Yoneda, 97-6 Tsuruta-machi, Utsunomiya, Tochigi 320, Japan 

Netherlands Nell Dijkstra, Melis Blecklaan 61, 4634 XV Woensdrecht, Netherlands 

Norway Petter Lindberg, Edvard Munchs GT 10,1511 Moss, Norway 

Slovakia and the Czech Republic Josepf Ott, Panska dolina 2, Nitra, Slovakia 

Switzerland Willi Schwarzenbach, Rte de Cossonay 52, CH-I008 Prilly, Norway 

USA 

Mai Scott, 12582 Lutheran Church Rd, Lovettsville, VA 20180, USA 

Zimbabw.e Mike O'Donnell, 21 Quom Avenue, Mount Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe 

PLEASE NOTE: 

a) Membership is Individual (not by syndicate). 

b) Owner membership is either sole ownership or 

ownership in a syndicate. 

c) Club owned aircraft are accepted as though the 

club were a single owner. 

d) Unless b) or c) apply, associate membership is 

applicable. 

e) The club reserves the right through the 

committee to accept or decline any particular 

glider for owner membership. 

The club would be pleased to have fuller details of your glider(s) on a separate sheet, enclosed with this form 

•• 

For owner members (block capitals or typewritten please) 

Type of glider 

Maker and date 

Registration 

_ 

-:-_ 

_ 

Other numbers 

Colour scheme 

_ 

Where normally flown 

Other owner(s) 

_ 

Condition (airworthy/under repair/refurbishing/museum exhibit) (delete where applicable) 

Note: 

The club records are on computer file. So that we 

keep within the British Law (Data Protection Act 

1984) please sign opposite: 

I have no objection to my VGCmembership record 

being held on a computer file: 

Signed 

_ 

ii 

Please post with your remittance to: 

lan Dunkley, c/o Derby and Lancs Gliding Club, Camphill, Gt Hucklow, Tideswell, Derbyshire SKI? 8RQ

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Adhesive badges @ £0.40 each. 

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:~r::~~l~= :~~~.~.~~.~~~~ 

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@ £0.20 each, or £0.60 per set of 4 0 

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:i;~~~~.~.~~.~.~~.~.~~.~:~..I.~~~ O 

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iii 

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~~~~o:c~.:.i.~~.~~~.~..~~.~~ 

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3.97

fJhe

FINNISH NEWS 

The first report from the latest country to have its own membership 

secretary - Finland. 

The "Oldies but Goldies" event started in 1991 with the 

same intentions as the VGC, ie to keep old gliders alive and 

flying. Since then it has been an annual event in July, always 

after the Finnish Championships and other gliding competitions. 

(This year from 4th to 13th July) 

In Finland old gliders are rather young, most being only 30 

to 40 years old. (Ka 2, Ka 6, Ka 7 Ka 8 etc) But we also have 

some rare Finnish planes such as the Harakka, PIK-5, Kajava 

all from 1940 to 1950. and the PIK 16c "Vasama" which came 

third in the 1963 World Championship in Argentina. Most of 

the old planes, such as the Kranich, Olympia Meise, Weihe, 

Salamandra, Grunau Baby etc have been destroyed but a few 

are in the museum at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. 

Maybe our event is different to the VGC Rallies in that the 

main fhing is to fly cross-country. The tasks are triangles and 

out and returns from 60 km to 150 km. The task area is always 

small to make coming back possible almost when ever you 

want to, and to avoid outlandings.When we set tasks our main 

concem is to make them fair to every glider so that glide ratio 

is not that important (of course, we do also have handicaps) 

Aerotow is the main method of launching, but we also have 

winches and auto towing. 

Some of the pilots in "Oldies but Goldies" are very experienced 

in flying cross-country (top ten pilots in Finnish championships) 

but others only fly cross-country during this event. 

Sua:eeding in the competitions hasn't ever been importan:t for 

anyone (maybe always for some) Risto says this is a Finnish 

joke! Ed. Most of the pilots have taken part in other competitions, 

then come to Jamj to relax and have fun. 

The weather in July is warm and suitable for gliding with 

average temperature in July some 20 degrees C, cloud bases 

are from 1500 to 2300m with excellent visibility. Thermals 

are rather good, from 1.5 to 5 mls. In Finland, Jilmj airfield is 

famous for its thermals and there is no problem with other air 

traffic and w.ilh II hours of soaring per day and 1000 lakes to 

give differential heating, conditions are wonderful. (See the 

photo in this issue Ed) 

Jami airfield was founded ill E935 and is the cradle of 

Finnish glidililg. It is located 7Skm north west from Tampere) 

247km north west ~rom Helsinki. lami ridge was the first 

place to do fuungee launching and hiH soarif\g in Finland but 

that is nowadays only done by the m.odeUers. Maybe we 

should start 'hill soaring again when we have suitable gliders. 

Chris says "We hope that our dear Finnish comrades will 

remember the two 1938/39 built DFS Weihes.., the last two in 

the World, which were the ancient flagships of the Jami Jarv,i 

Gliding School, not to speak of one having come 5tb, flown 

by Seppo Relander, in the 1954 World Gliding Championships 

at Camphill. These are derigged, and not on display, 

at two Finnish Museums.These are the Suomen Hmailumuseo 

at PL 42, Tietotie 3, SF-O 1531 Helsinki-Vantaa 53, telephone 

90-821870 and the Keski-Suomen Ilmajlumuseo at Kulkantie 

I, SF 41160 Tikakoskit, telephone 941-725125 or 941-753162. 

These aircraft may have been Casein glued and at least one 

of them has been eXfensively modified with landing wheel 

andblowfil canopy. We wonder if, in return for putting them 

back into original condition and making them airworthy, 

Finnish vintage glider enthusiasts could fly them as reward, in 

the same way as ,the GPPA at Angers is entrusted to do by the 

Musee se I'Air et de I'Espace at le Bourget? At least, they 

should be rescued from their shameful confinement and the 

Finnish Vintage glider movement would become the envy of 

the world." 

(This information concerning the location of the Weihes 

has come from "Aircraft Museums and Collections of the 

World, No 3, Benelux, Germany and the Nordic Countries" 

by Bob OgQen.) 

I fly with the Flyingclub of Padasjoki, which is a member 

of the Firmish Aeronautical Association, and I am also a 

member of the FAA Cenlral Board of Gliding. Our club also 

organises the annual Vesivehmaa Open in May, which is a 

comp for modern gliders at our home field at Vesivehmaa, 

120km north of Helsinki. There is plenty of hotel accomodation 

ne31'by. 

Maybe someone from the vac could join us at "Oldies but 

Goldies" soon? 

Rislo Pykiilii. 

Risto :did not exagerate about the thernlals in Finland. Ka6 

ready for take-off. Photo Taisto Saarinen 

25

An unfamiliar glider from Finland. A Pik-5 which is now 50 

years old. The wing was originally designed by Waclaw 

Czerwinski for the Polish Salamandra. Photo Taisro 

Saarinen 

FRENCH NEWS 

ONLY NOW CAN IT BE TOLD... OR CAN IT? THE 

SECOND BIRTH OF FRENCH GLIDING IN 1941 and 1942 

and the FRENCH GLIDERS OF THAT TIME. 

As this has so much bearing on French vintage gliders today 

(most of them were conceived then), we thought that at least 

the gliders of that time should be described. A Technical 

Brochure on them, which includes 3-view drawings, which 

are sometimes not of best quality, can soon be obtained from 

VGC Sales (CoHn Anson) as VGC News has not enough 

space to publish so many 3-views·. 

Other G.P.P:A. News. The Duroble RD 02 "Edelweiss" 

No.OI F-PKVE Work is proceeding on its fuselage. 

Fauvel AV 22 No.1 F-CCGK. The fuselage ,is finished. 

Fabric covering of the wings and elevol1s etc is in progress. 

A.60 "Fauconet" No.78K F-CDBF, is awaiting restoration. 

SA 103 " Emouchd' No.94 F-CROF. Structure is finished. 

It is awaiting fabricing which has been delayed awaiting the 

finishing of the painting of the AV.22. No less than 9 aeroplanes 

are being worked On. 

Because of insurance costs, the Breguet 904 "Ville 

d'Avrille" F-CCFN, the Welhe No.3 F-CRMX, the Breguet 

901 No.13 F-CCCP, the "Foka" No. 177 F-AZKA, the Air 102 

No.26 F-CAGQ, will not be reactivated this year. 

GERMAN NEWS 

CROSS COUNTRY WITH THE RJ-tOENBUSSARD; FROM 

ZIEGENHEIM to the WASSERKUPPE (75 kms). by 

MARKUS LEMMER. 

The following goal flight counted as points for the German 

Cross Country Championships (DMST) 1996 and ended in 

the Hesse Championship - not in the last place. Therefore 

Markus lemrner and the ROSC were in the points list for 

1996. We heartily congratulate Markus Lemmer and hope that 

his cross country flight will make other pilots in the ROSe 

enthusiastic to try cross countries themselves with out oldtimer 

sailplanes. This Rhonbussard came from England where 

it was BOA 3'95. It was owned by the Passold brothers who 

flew it in the 1938 British National Contest at Dunstable. The 

Passold brothers came from the Sudetenland, so one of them 

(lngo), could take part in, and win the Junior Class of the 

J9>9 Rhon Contest, flying a Mu ]3d. Their RhOnbussard 

stayed in England until comparatjvely recently. It was part of 

the Rodi Morgan collection but it had been severely damaged 

before he acquired it and was never repaired before his death. 

(BGA 395 was repaired by the ROse Wasserkuppe. CW) 

Anyone who has rigged and derigged a Rhonbussard will 

understand my feelings towards the matter on the 14th July 

1996. We had to get it from Ziegenheim to the Wasserkuppe. 

In a direct line, the distance w.as about 75 krns and an aerotow 

for the distance would have cost about 300 DM, so I decided 

at 1300 hours to telepbone the Flying Control on the 

Wasserkuppe to discover the weather conditions there. 

I heard that up to that time, the~e had been no useable thermals 

and it was recommended that a retracting engine would 

be an advantage after they had learnt about the glider type in 

which I had planned to make the flight! Also in Ziegenheim, 

,they said that the flight was not possible with the cloudbase at 

I,(x)() metres above ground and a Max.UD of 1:20. However, 

by 1500 hours, I had got as far as getting the glider to the 

winch launch point with the barograph ticking, the DMST 

Form filled out and tlhe winch launch cable attached. At 300 m 

height above site, the cable snapped out of the release and I 

found myself turning in 11h metres lift. At 900 metres height, 

the lift faded and I decided to depart at once. NaturaHy, I 

could not maintain my course of 135 degrees. My first course 

line led to the Autobahn No. 5 exacdy ha f way between 

Alsfeld East and the Hattenbacher Triangle. It seemed that the 

Bussard and I were clearly going towards Alsfeld. The first 

20kms took half an hour. In the meantime, I had left the 

Herzberg Mountain behind me and flew now, somewhat left 

of my course,to the Schlitzer Forest Yet, no sooner had I 

arrived at the edge of the wood than my altimeter made it 

clear to me that, with only 500 metFes above ground, I had no 

chance of crossing this huge wood. Above me were a few 

very promising looking clouds but it was only after I had 

chosen a landing field that I found weak Mt... it was hardly 1/2 

metre per second and it took me a long time until the vario 

showed a better climb rate. It seemed like an eternity before I 

had enough height to cross the wood. Now, things went 

quicker. The distances between the clouds were less than they 

were .at the start of the flight, so that I fairly quickly flew the 

distance between Hunfeld to Dipperz. Over Dipperz, I 

"tanked up" with height and informed. my retriever by radio 

that he should start for the Wasserkuppe. During the last few 

kilometres, I was extremely happy that I had had the luck to 

I'each the Wasserkuppe. A~ter arrival, it took 10 minuteS to 

lose height and I landed after 2 hours 12 minutes above the 

"Weltensegler Slope". At take-off, I myself had not believed 

that I could do the flight, and now; there was the Ilussard, 

without hav,il1g to be derigged, back on the Wasserkuppe". 

Me 163B. A Special Flying Wing Glider built by Josef 

Kurz. The Me l63b is a type from the list of aircraft designed 

by Alexander Lippisch. On the 2nd of January 1939. Lippisch 

came with his co-workers to Messerschmitt at Augsburg 

Haunstetten. Here would the experimental aircraft, of which 

the aerodynamics had already been worked out by DFS at 

D.arrnstadt, be built and tested. Developed from the Delta IVd 

and DFS 39d, the project received the number Me 163 B. Previously, 

in 1927, Lippisch had started designing flying wing 

.aircraft on the Wasserkuppe. Tested as a gl,ider, then powered 

with a WaIter Rocket, the Me 163b went forward in to flying 

history.As a young man, I was trained to fly this type and flew 

the 6 metre span STUMMELHABlCHT. 

26

In 1974, after a discussion with Alexander Lippisch on the 

Wasserkuppe, I decided to build this aircraft out of wood. 20 

years passed before I could begin to realize the project. From 

1982, I started to build, with the support of the Oldtimer 

Gliding Oub Wasserkuppe's members, a replica of the first 

fully aerobatic sailplane, the HABICHT. Further old 

sailplanes, a Klemm 25d and an Udet FLAMINGO U2 were 

restored or built new. In 1994, I had got as far as to have all 

building imformation, drawings and plans, with the help of 

Willi Radinger from Augsburg, available for the project. The 

wing rib PROFILE PLAN was drawn by Dip.Ing Siegfried 

Lorenz and stressing and testing was done by Dr.Ing, Bernhard 

Hint thankfully at no cost. Herr Hinz made the first 

dossier of his work available to the Oskar Ursinus Vereinigung. 

(This is an organization, apart from the LBA, which 

was formed to look after experimental aircraft. CW). The 

LBA sanctioned this replica. The workshop of the OSC, and 

that ofClaus Buchold in Assenheim, offered help, as did some 

club comrades, for the new Me 163 B. The best part of the aircraft, 

the control column, was built for me by a member of the 

OUV (Oscar Ursinus Vereinigung) Dipl. Ing Rudolf Siegfried, 

from original drawings. 

In early 1996, after the second inspection, C of A 

(Verkehrszulassung i.e. VVZ) was allocated. 

In 1997, I wj,J) carry out its Test Flying to discover its flying 

characteristics as a glider. 

TECHNICAL DATA FOR THE NEW Me 163 B. 

Week NI', I (replica) 

LBA Equipment Nr.1788. 

Construction Year: 1996. 

Type: Me 163 B.r 

Designer: Alexander Lippisch. 

Builder: losef Kurz. 

Airworthiness group: Useful Aircraft. 

BUILDING DETAILS. DESCRIPTION OF AIRCRAFT. 

Cantilever, Tailless, single seater, midwing with a fixed 

landing wheel .and fixed landing skid and tailwheel. Rudder is 

built into the rear fuselage. AILERONS act simultaneously as 

Elevators. The wings are equipped with built in leading edge, 

wing-tip slots and trim flaps. 

FUSELAGE consists of ribs and bulkheads made from 

laminated pine and is covered with 1.5 mm 5 ply birch 

plywood. 

WING. Two Box Spars, each wing is attached to the centre 

section at four points with fittings. Fixed Leading edge wing 

tip slots. At the trailing edges are ailerons and trimflaps. Drive 

for the Trim Flaps is by hand through a crank. 

'fAlL SURFACE is a Fin fixed to the rear fuselage with 

glue and bofts. 

CONTROLS Hand controls are worked through a control 

column, the yaw control.through foot pedals. Drive for the 

flaps is through a hand wheel. Further drive is through a 

torsion shaft, ball bearings and a spindle. Installation of a 

power unit is foreseen. 

DATA: Span ... 9.30 metres. Length:.5.92 metres. Height.. 

2.80 metres. Wing Area .. 19,60 square metres. 

Joseph Kurz 

The above has all been translated and abridged (sometimes) 

by C. Wills. 

A MRAZ built 1943 KRANICH 2 A-2 has been discovered in 

good condition by Jochen Kruse, in a small, almost unknown 

collection in a hangar on the Cologne/ Butzweilerhof airfield 

(where the World Gliding Championships were held in 1960). 

Jochen has bought the aircraft which was registered 1680 and 

he is now restoring it up to LBA C of A standard. Photographs 

reveal that this 1943 Mraz (Bohemia) built Kranich is in good 

condition and should not have much wrong with it, but it 

might take 2 1 h years to restore. Jochen has decided to overhaul 

it at Uetersen together with Otto-Ernst Hatje who led the 

team which built the non flying replica of the DFS 230 troopcarrier 

which is now a static exhibit in the Flugwerft Oberschleissheim... 

ie the main aeronautical collection of the 

German Museum in Munich. Jochen has bought the Mg 19a 

OE-5539 from Innsbruck, but he has sold this on to the American 

William Lumley, who has entered it in the US Southwest 

Antique and Vintage Soaring Rally from 15-21. June 1997 at 

Moriarty, New Mexico where the thermals are 15-20 knots 

and cloudbase is at 14-20,000 ft!!! 35 gliders have been 

entered in the event. 

PAUL SERRIES, our VGC Vice President and a Founder 

member, is reported to be flying a Fw WElHE 50 from 

Mtinsterffelgte Airfield. For many years Paul was our 

German VGC representative. 

NEWS OF HORTEN SAILPLANES IN GERMANY. 

Since the last VGC News we have it confirmed by Dr Uden 

that the HORTEN 2 D-IO-125, is almost finished, the 

HORTEN 3h two-seater does have new wings built for it but 

that they are not yet covered. The prone piloted HORTEN 3f 

does not have new wings for it yet and the HORTEN 6 has not 

yet been started. 

Because the HORTEN 3h now has new wings, it is clearly 

possible that the HORTEN 3f could have some built for it as 

well. 

Two completely wrecked wings (one for each Horten 3) 

were received from the USA. We wonder if these, and new 

drawings, have enabled new plans to be drawn for the new Ho 

3 wings to be built? The Hortens are to be restored for static 

exhibition only, two of the them in the Smithsonian and two 

of them in the Museum for Traffic {Verkehr) and Technik in 

Berlin. PETER HANICKEL has been making excellent 

progress restoring the HORTEN 4A LA-AD at Oberschleissheim. 

The new Centre Section is almost complete, with the 

control system. The wings are not yet fabric covered but its 

elevons are. LA-AD is also being restored for static exhibition 

at the Oberschleissheim Flugwerft. We have no news from 

UWE SCHMIDT who with others, was to build a new 

HORTEN 4 a to fly. 

GERMAN HISTORY. Wolfgang Frohlich of I Berlin 49, 

reports how he took part in a course at Trebbin (a Reichsegelflugschule, 

North of Berlin) in August 1943. "We flew 

the Kranich and then were confronted with the Habicht. One 

of the Kranichs was different to the others. The well known 

two seater had no front seat. The pilot lay on a breast parachute 

so that he could move his arms. The instructor sat 

behind. One speaks of a special course. One had from three to 

six imstructional flights and then a new Habicht came into the 

picture. The pilot lay alone in the machine in similar fashion 

to the above mentioned prone front piloted Kranich, and there 

was the installation of a machine pistol (MP) for target practice 

during approaches. This Habicht had a 10 metre wingspan 

but its gull wings were normal for a Habicht. For the first 

time, the name Stummelhabicht came to my attention. Altogether 

there were three of these. They had neither registra- 

27

tions or numbers. Their colour was "Elfenbein" (Cream) and 

the upper surfaces of the wings and tailplanes had red sunburst 

(aerobatic) stripes like a normal Habicht. A Stummelkranich 

was unknown to me. Concerning the Govier 2s 

with long fuselages, which had one metre longer fuselages 

than the Govier 3s. They were mass produced like this during 

the war and their C of Gs are 1 metre aft of where they sbould 

be for normal use today. It is incomprehensible that Wolfgang 

Hutter would have done this by mistake. He was Wolf Hirth's 

designer at that time. The Govier 2s were mass produced like 

this for a military purpose, sucb as carrying a maohine gun 

during the famous Operation "SeelOwe" (Sealion), the projected 

invasion of England for 1941. All Gt>vier 2s fly,ing now 

have to carry considerable nose ballast to maintain their 

correct Cof Gs when flown by either one, or two, pilots.The 

above information was difficult to discover, but we think t1~at 

it is correct. As far as we know, only three Gt>vier 2s are still 

flying. One in Britain at Husbands Bosworth, one at Munster 

Telgt and one in Zimbabwe. 

HORTEN UPDATE. fmm "Bungee Cord" No.23 No.1 

Spring 1997. 

"According to the Aeroplane Monthly of January 1997, the 

nearly completed Horten 3L D- 10-125 (s/n 6) was unveiled at 

the Deutsches Technik Museum (is this the new name for the 

Museum fUr Technik und Verkehr? CW) in Berlin, on the 9th 

of September 1996. Maintaining about 70% of the original 

structure, when the restoration is completed, the glider will be 

displayed in the new DTM exhibition hall which is set to open 

in the year 2000 or 200I. 

This is believed to be the 1937 Horten 2 that has recently 

been restored by the Berlin Museum fur Traffic und Technic. 

It is one of the two Horten sailplanes brought back from the 

USA for exhibition. Official Photo. Note the more refiexed 

profile 0/1 the centre ofthe span and the less refiexed section 

at the tips. This is to acheive Hortens principle ofa "Bell" 

shaped lift distribution over the span. 

Built in 1937 and flown in that year's German National 

Rhon Contest, D-I 0-125 was later used for aerobatic training 

(What does that say about those rumours that Hortens were 

unstable?) and was painted rather distinctively with a red and 

white paint job. Evidence of this paint scheme was discovered 

during the restoration. Still later, the glider was modified to 

simulate a jet engine installation in order to determine how 

the flying characteristics were affected. 

By the time it was taken as the spoils of war by the Allies, 

it had been returned to its original glider configuration. 

Hortens yet to be restored by the DTM are a -IllF, a -Illh 

and a -6. While it is still uncertain as to how much of the original 

structure will remain of the -3F, only the centre section of 

the -Ill H will be restored as the outer wing panels no longer 

exist. (ie. its wooden wings no longer exist CW). It is 

expected that about 70% of the Horten -6 will be retained. 

Taken as the spoils of war, these gliders, which belong to 

the Air & Space Smithsonian, were returned to Germany in 

1994 to be restored by the DTM. In return for doing the work, 

the DTM gets to keep the - I IL and the Germans also hope to 

retain one of the -Ills on loan when the restorations are finished. 

The Horten- 6 will be returned to the US and displayed 

in the new NASM Exhibition Hall at Dulles International 

Airport, outside of Washington, DC. 

The only pre-WW2 Horten flying wing in captivity which 

was not returned to Germany for restoration is the Horten- 4, 

which is owned by and cun-ently hangs at the Planes of Fame 

Museum in Chino, CA. USA. As it currently sports a pilot's 

nacelle, which little resembles the original, when shown a 

picture of it, as it appears today, former Horten test pilot Rudi 

Opitz could not recognise it." 

ILA (Internationale Luftfahrt Aufstellung... International 

Air Travel Exhibition i.e. AERO 97) took place from 

23rd-27th April at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. The 

Piece de Resistance of this huge exhibition was the new Zeppelin 

NT (the NT standing for new technology). It was filled 

for the first time with uninflamable Helium gas during the 

week before the exhibition and was to have had its first flights 

during May. First reports suggest that the new Zeppelin is 

heavier than air. ie. not large enough to carry its own weight 

unless it is driven forward and upwards by its three engines to 

create lift under its envelope. Another exhibit was the bright 

red new ME 163B "Komet" replica which was built by Sef 

Kurz and others of the Oldtimer Gliding Club Wasserkuppe. 

This is so far without a projected installation of a piston 

engine. It has a wooden fuselage replacing the original 

version's metal one and thus it is lighter than the old ones. 

There was also a pavilion in which there was displayed a 

beautiful collection of old gliders. These included: Rheinland, 

Rht>nbussard, Rhonsperber from the German Gliding 

Museum on the Wasserkuppe, Minimoa and Weihe 50 from 

Aventoft, Kranich 2 A-2 (Spanish built) from WilIi 

Bergmann, Meise from Jorg Ziller? Hutter H.28, Spyr 5 and 

Spalinger S.19. 

The H.28-2 is owned by Herr Datwyler in Switzerland, the 

Spyr 5 is owned by Werner and Hugo Roth. and the S.19 is 

owned by Fipps Rothenbiiler, the last two being from 

Amlikon in Switzerland. It was only a question of putting 

them 011 the ferry at Romanshorn which would take them 

direct to Friedrichshafen. Also among the historic gliders 

were Slingsby T.21 b, a Geier and a Lilienthal glider. 

AERO 97 was a tremendous exhibition and was the best 

yet but, as far as we know, nothing flew.There were about 400 

exhibitors from 23 countries and among them were about 50 

from the USA. 

Such is the interest in Germany for recreating their historic 

aircraft, that it has been resolved to recreate a full size Dornier 

X. 

This was a 1929 flying boat with 12 engines which was 

also built on Lake Constance at the Dornier works. However, 

it will only be approved for taxying in the water. More than 

one was originally built and two were sold to Italy. The or,igi· 

28

oal Ge~"ffian Do X was destroyed by bombing in the Berlin 

Museum in 1941. Some parts of the original Do X may still be 

Seen there. Almost certainly, the Fafnir I was destroyed in the 

same Museum at that time, although why it was not evacuated 

to Krakow with some of the other aeronautical exhibits before 

the bombing, is still unclear to us. It would have been easier to 

mOve the Fafnir than the other aircraft. 

BUILDING PLANS for the Moazagotl and Reiher are now 

complete and so, as far as we know, one each of both types are 

now being built new. 

Completion of the building plans was certainly due to the 

efforts of the blilliant Siegfried Lorenz of Frechen, near 

Cologne. The original Moazagotl was built at Grunau (now 

Jesow in Poland). It had been designed in 1931/32 by Or 

Wenk, who had also designed the flying wing Weltensegler of 

1921. The aircraft was built by Edmund Schneider's works 

and it made its sensational debut during the 1933 RhOn 

Contest Moazagotl was the name of the lenticular cloud 

which forms in the lee of the "Giant Mountains" (Riesengebirge) 

which are up-wind of Grunau. The cloud had been 

named after the farmer Moaz. As he sat on his plough, he 

always looked upwards at the cloud and it was said that he 

was looking for God, which in Silesian dialect means 

"Moazagotl". The sailplane was the first to befitted with a 

ballast tank, for 50 kgs of water, for jettisoning should the 

thermals become weak. It had a 20 metre wingspan and struts 

which could be turned through 12 degrees to assist its performance. 

It made its debut in the 1933 Rhon Contest, in which 

Wolf Hirth flew it the longest distance... 176 kms on the I l.th 

August. In 1934, the Moazagotl was among the gliders that 

the German expedition took to South America. In the 1934 

Rhon Contest, Hirth flew the Moazagotl on the 26th of July, 

352 bns to Gorlitz and this was the first flight of more than 

300 kms carried out in a glider. In the first World Gliding 

Champi0nships in 1937, Ludwig Hofmann came second in 

the Moazagotl. In February 1945, the Hornberg had been 

attacked twice by fighter bombers and some splinters had 

damaged slightly the hangar roof. This had let rain through on 

to the Moazagotl's wingtips causing slight glue failure which 

could have been easily repaired. However, the Homberg's 

NSFK Fiihrer ordered the Moazagotl to be taken outside, 

stacked up, and burnt. It was certainly a sacred machine and 

its short fuselage, compared with its great wingspan, gives the 

impression that it could have been developed from a flying 

wing. The Minimoa (Mini Moazagotl), which was the child of 

the Moazagotl, had the same parentage. The Moazagod was 

the Grunau 7. Its 20 m.span wings had a modified Gottillgen 

535 profile, which was that of the Grunau Baby, Rhonbussard, 

RhoAsperber and Kranich etc. 

The Reiher had its origin in 1937. It had been designed by 

Hans Jacobs at DFS to have a contest winning performance 

using GOttingen 549 profiled wings with a perfect wing surface. 

Its pilots were perplexed by its wing tips sometimes flexing 

through 3 metres. Therefore, the next of the total of 8 Reihers 

built, had very much redesigned wings to try to stop them 

flexing, and we imagine that it is one of these later Reihers 

which were built during 1938/9, that is now being recreated. 

We have heard that PETER RIEDEL, who lives with his 

wife Helen in the USA, is full of life and wants Ito get back in 

to the air. He is 92 years old. The book "German Air Attache" 

is due to be published this summer. h was com:piled and 

written by Peter Riedel and Martin Simons in English and 

should be very interesting. Peter Riedel was in Washington, 

DC, and then in Stockolm, Sweden during the war. Peter 

Riedel has also written the wonderful trilogy of self-experienced 

Rhon soaring history, which is of such magnitude that 

regrettably it has not yet been translated in to English. 

NEWS FROM ACHMER. Parts of the Kranich 2 wings, 

that once belonged to BGA 1258, have now arrived at Achmer 

from Bielefeld. No sign of its red fuselage with white fin and 

rudder, has ever been found in Britain or Germany. Sascha 

Hauser has built new spars for it and has completed the jigs for 

new wing ribs, which Hermann Hackmann is going to build at 

Achmer. The almost completed fuselage, which once belonged 

to the Swedish-built Kranich 2 BGA 1092, will soon arrive at 

Achmer from near the Wasserkuppe, where Markus Lemmer 

has almost finished it. It is forseen that one almost new 

Kranich 2 will stand complete, except for covering, in the 

Achmer workshop by the end of 1997, restored wi th the components 

of BGA 1258 and BGA 1092. The GRUNAU BABY 

3, which was very kindly donated to the Achmer Club by Peter 

Underwood, has been taken in (0 the WOrkshop in preparation 

for restoration. This aircraft had been built by Hermann Hackmann 

during the early 1950s. Hermanll Hackmann had also 

built the Meise which is now ready to fly. On 23-5-97 the first 

flight of the now overhauled Meise, 0-6046, was carried out 

by Hermann Hackman, who built it in 1962. The pilot, who is 

72 years of age, last flew this Meise in 1973! It had formerly 

fueen BOA 2080, which was owned by Thoby Fisher, in 

England, having obtained its first BGA CofA in Sept.1975 and 

had prior to this been registered 0-6220. 

Hermann HackmQlut in the cockpit ofthe Meise that he built 

in 1962. /t came to England in 1973 where it was owned by 

Thoby Fishel: Standing on the left is Uwe PetUerman and on 

the right is Hamld Kiimpel: 

Giinther BRODERSEN (Hamburg) has bought an L-Spatz 

55 so that he should have something to fly until his home built 

H.28-2 is ready. He first tried to obtain a still older A-Spatz, 

but this would have required so much work that he would 

have had no time to work on his H.28-2. 

The above news is from Frits Ruth, who we thank very 

much for sending us so much information and so many 

photos. 

29

Wing span •. 19.2 m. 

Length of fuselage .. 8.0 m. 

Width of fuselage .. 0. 62 m. 

Empty weight .. 280 kgs. 

616 lbs. 

Load •. 180 kgs. 

396 lbs. 

Flying weight .. 460 kgs. 

1012 lbs. 

Wing Loading •. 21.3 kgs/sq.m. 

(4.37 lbs/sq.ft.) 

I i 

_______---l!OO=o 

-- ::U- -- \- Wi ng i nei denee on 

I~_~ fus~lage.3 degrees_. 

:l~__ ' 

_ 

"I 

: : / 

: : 

'~I 

I 

i 

1 

I 

I 

I ! 

0' 

0' 

",I 

0" 

-: 

U.-----1--,.- 

I 

I 

I 

Wing Profiles 

Inner .. Goettingen 549 

modified by CVV 

Tip •. Goettingen 676. 

Wing tip washout .. 4 degrees. 

Max. L/D.. 1/30 

at 75 kph. 

Min.Sink .• 0.60 m/sec 

at 62 kph. 

C.V.V. 6 « Canguro» (Itali~) \: 

\ I 

\ Ii 

\ 

The information 

on this page 

was mainly 

taken from the 

book "L'Alianti" 

by S.Frati. 

It had its first flight 

in 1942 and it was one 

of the best two seater 

designs of the time. 

30

ITALIAN NEWS 

One of our reasons for holding Rallies in different countries is 

to encourage the restoration of vintage gliders ill them. We 

hope that our Italian members will not mind us publishing a List 

of "CANGURO" two seaters and where they could be found 

some years ago. (See the 3-view drawing in this issue Ed) 

Regn. Type c/n. 

1/.I-ADGG. SAl "CANGURO" 104. 

2/.1-AECC. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100003) 

3/.I-AECG. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100007) 

41. I-AECl. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100022) 125. 

51. I-AEIB. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100024) 127 

6/.I-AEIC. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100026) 129 

7/.I-AEID. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100027} 130 

8/.I-AHF. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100030) 133 

9L I-AI/FA. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100009} 113 

10/.I-AVMD. CW6 "CANGURO" 002 

11/.I-AVMO. ACVM "CANGURO" rebuilt. 01,0 

12/. i-lULl. SAl "CANGURO" (ex.MM100002) 1953 

13/.I-NANI "CANGURO" rebuilt. 0010 

Probable Base. 

Rieti. 

Lucca. 

Parma. 

Bolzano. 

Guidonia. 

Gorizia. 

flieti. 

Guidonia. 

IRieti. 

Bresso. 

Bresso. 

Rieti. 

Vicenza. 

The locations are where the aircraft were in 1972. It would 

be interesting to learn if they are still there. Otherwise 

someone there might know of their fates or where they went. 

We would expect that some of them are still at the above 

locations. The "CANGURO" is a high performance tandem 

seated 2-seater in form like a "WElHE". It was designed by 

Engineer E.Preti of CVV at the Milan Polytechnical School. 

It first flew in 1942 and equipped some of th~ .'talian Gliding 

Schools. Its wingspan was 19.2 metres, and its wing profiles 

were Gottingen 549 (modi-Red) at the root and Gottingen 675 

at the tip. 

Its max. L:D was (is) I:30 which made it the highest performance 

two seater in production in the World at that time. 

Its empty weight was 280 kgs (616Ibs), its load was 180 kgs 

(3961bs) which gives a loaded weight of 460 kgs (1012 Ibs) 

and its wing loading 21.3 kgs Isq.m. (4.32 Ibs Isq.ft). It was 

¥ight for so large a two seater. The second pilot is seated 

below the wings and could only see out sideways through two 

large windows either side of the fuselage and upwards 

through a large window above the wings. It would be a large 

sailplane to handle on the ground and for hangarage. Under 

the fuselage, built-in, is a small landjng wheel which greatly 

assists groundhandling. 

We hope that at least one "CANGURO" can be saved to fly 

with uS at our rallies and then ITALY would be well represented 

by a truly vintage sailplane. 

Details and locations of further Italian vintage gliders can 

be provided by C.Wills, if wished for. However, he would like 

finally to mention that the Italian Htitter H.17a ie C.A.T.20 1 

ZAGO (rebuilt) c/n 0 I DC was at Bolzano in 1972. This illrcraft 

does still exist. 

POLISH NEWS 

JOCHEN KRUSE has been to Poland quite often to try to 

start a Vintage Glider Movement in that country and has made 

great efforts to introduce young Poles to young Germans, and 

also to get old German gliders restored in the hopefully, relatively 

cheaper, labour costs of the Polish wood and fabric 

glider workshops which have been often engaged in working 

on fibre glass sailplanes. He is especially familiar with the 

workshop at Leszno and Jesow Sudeyski, (formerly Grunau). 

Last Summer, he took a group of young Germans, together 

with his Grunau Baby 2b, Mg 19, and Weihe 50, to Jesow, to 

introduce Poles to Bungee, winch and auto towed launches. 

The Poles enjoyed the bungee launches from Jesow, but the 

airfield below (Jelenia Gora - Hirschbergl Hartau?) was rather 

short and launches to 500 ft only were possible. However, a 

Polish Instructor made aerotows available to them with a Jak 

12 (Gavron?). The launch and hangarage rates were expensive 

for foreigners who are all supposed to be rich, but the Poles 

are allowed much cheaper rates; however, the Germans were 

able to negotiate for cheaper prices. 

Whereas formerly, it had been possible for the Swedes, 

Germans and the Americans to have their old gliders restored 

relatively cheaper than in the West, because of cheaper labour 

C

USA NEWS 

We have heard that the Schweizer 1-26, formerly known as 

"Blackbird" because it was painted black when it was owned 

by Lynn Buel, is now owned by a syndicate and is painted in 

the original factory livery. It is coming over here to be stored 

somewhere in England, so that it can be flown by American 

entrants in our National and International Rallies. 

For those who can understand technical German print, the 

Hans Jacob's book WERKSTATTPRAXIS has been an excellent 

source for learning construction techniques of older 

German gliders. Last year the Jacobs family and the publisher 

in Germany granted permission for the Vintage Sailplane 

Association to translate and make available this wonderful 

handbook. It will take a while, but it will be coming. 

Bob Gaines, Atlanta. USA. 

INTERNATIONAL RALLIES 

International Gliding Festival at Aventoft from 4th - 13th July 

1997. Contact: Luftsportverein Siidtondern, Adalbert Schulz, 

Vikingerstrasse 7, 25971 Leek, Germany. Tel. and Fax: 

(0)4662-2524. Jochen Ewald writes that "Aventoft is the most 

northerly of all German Gliding Clubs but despite it being 

between the Baltic and the North seas there are thermals, and 

many pilots have started their Silver C distance flights from 

there. and have acheived rather more than 50kms. The Mayoress 

of Aventoft has offered a prize for any pilot of a glider 

built before 1955 which can be kept up for more than 5 

hours." 

During the 5th - 11th July 97, the Vintage Group at Husbands 

Bosworth (Coventry GC) is organizing a Vintage Rally at 

Husbands Bosworth. InitiaUy i,t was to be a vintage event with 

competitive tasks between vintage gliders from Hus 

Bosworth and Dunstable. Now it Seems it is to be a vintage 

event thrown open to vintage gliders frolll all clubs to evaluate 

the use of microligl1t towplanes. Contact for information 

concerning the event is Kei,th Nurcombe, Middle Moor 

House, Kites Hardwick, Rugby, Warcs.Te : 01788 81040 I. 

FINLAND. 13th-20th July 1997. "Oldies but Goldies" 

Meeting and Competition for Old Gliders at hmi-Hirvi 

Finland, tile cradle of Finnish Soaring. Gliders should be ovel' 

30 years old but tbe pilots need not be. Gasthaus type hotel 

accomodations are available in the middle of ,two runways 

and offer comfortable accomodation for whole families. Other 

hotels and campgrounds for tents and trailers (caravans) are 

located nearby. 

For information, contact Risto Pykala, RistkarynkA, 4 A 

13, 15170 Lahti, Finland. fax. 358-03-814422J OF the Finnish 

Aeronautical Association, Kai Monlckonen, SIL Maimin 

Lentoasema, 00700 Helsinki, Finland. Td: 358-(0)9-3509 

340, fax 358(0)9-3509-3440. 

JULY 26th - 3rd August 97. International VGC Rendez Vous 

Rally at Pont Saint Vincent, near Nancy, France. Contact 

Christian Mathieu, Aero-Club Albert Mangeot, BP. No.7, 

54550 Pont Saint Vincent, France. Tel: 03.83.47.33.54. 

AUGUST 2nd - 10th 1997. 25eme RASSEMBLEMENT 

INTERNATIONAL DE PLANEURS ANCIENS (The 25th 

VGC International Vintage Glider Rally) at: Bar-sur-Seine, 

Celles-sur-Ource, France. Contact is Maurice Renard, B.P. 

No. 24, 10150 CRENEY, FRANCE. Tel: 03. 25. 81,17,18. 

Fax:03.25.81.31.33. 

The 3rd INTERNATIONAL RALLY dedicated to LUIGI 

TEICHFUSS, is scheduled to run from June 26th to July 5th 

1998 on the airfield of PAVULLO in Italy. Details can be 

obtained from Vincenzo Pedrielli, 7 Via Tintoretto, 20033 

DESIO (M),Italy. Tel: (0362) 630293. 

SUMMER 1998. Suggested VGC International Rally in 

Southern Slovakia (Nitra). Contact: Josef Fecko, Okruzna 

796/69, Poprad 0580 I, Slovakia. 

This has yet to be confirnled by the International Rally 

Committee, which should meet during the 25th International 

VGC Rally at Bar-sur-Seine, France, during August 1997. 

SUMMER 1999 International Rendez Vous or International 

Rally at Aventoft, Schleswig- Holstein, Germany. For information, 

please contact: Aldalbert Schultz, Wikingerstrasse 7, 

25917 Leek, Germany. This, also, has to be confirmed by the 

International Committee. 

The Year 2000 International Vintage Sailplane Meet (IVSM 

2000) to be held at HalTis Hill. This will be the second IVSM 

to be held in the USA. The first took place in 1995. For information, 

please contact: The National Soaring Museum, Harris 

Hill, 51 Soaring Hill Drive, Elmira, New York, 14903 USA. 

or via email at nsm@soaringmuseum.org. 

OBITUARIES 

Wolfgang Spate 

Very regrettably, we have to report the death of Wolfgang 

Spate on Monday the 5th of May. He started his flying career 

at the age of 10 when he tried to stay aloft on the end of a 

huge umbrella. He came to grief after stepping forth over the 

edge of a slope. Unfortunately, it was the down wind side of 

the slope. However, his bruises were soon forgotten. When he 

was 15 years old, he was getting up at 3 am and going to a 

hangar with 6 to 8 others to work on a Pelzner Hang glider 

with a spar of ash. With this, they could hardly stay up. For 

two to three years they were occupied with this, flying near 

Dessau, where there were some sand dunes. They also had a 

steel framed Zogling. After these years of ground slides Spate 

took up aeromodeling, as Heini Dittmar had dOlle. In 1929, 

the economic situation in Germany was so miserable and with 

his business doing so badly, his fatner could not keep his four 

children at school. So Spate found employment in a publishing 

company and he wrote many articles on sport, a few lines 

on the first growing of chestnuts in the Schlosse's park, and on 

an indoor political battle which he himself experienced. He 

had not forgotten flying. He spent his 6 day first holiday at a 

primary gliding course at the DLV (Deutscher Luftsport 

Verband) flying school at Schwarzenberg in the Erz mountains 

where there was a nice little slope. During the next year, 

1931, he took part in a course at Grunau run by the instructor 

Pit van Husen and gained his C certificate. He watched Hanna 

Reitsch fly, in spite of the cold, in an open cockpit for over 

five hours, which was a feminine World record. They celebrated 

it with her but Wolfgang was also happy because he 

had just received his official Gliding Licence. In 1932, he 

went to the Wasserkuppe and also to Griesheim. At the latter, 

he met Heini Dittrnar and bought from him, for 50 RM, a set 

of building plans for a Condor I and he decided to build it, 

after his publisher, Hugo Issenburg had given him 500 RM. 

At this time of depression, to spend the money on such a 

project was unbelievable. However, he created a workshop in 

32

During the first days of the contest. he could not keep the 

Reiher up in the weak thermals. However, the weather 

became better and better and the Reiher went faster and faster. 

His longest flights were 415 kIns to Rotterdam airport, over 

which he arrived still with 800 metres height, and to Stettin on 

the Baltic, 445 kms away. The German frontiers, except the 

Dutch frontier, were closed because of the political situation. 

Otherwise, he might have gone further. He won the contest, 

but as Kurt Schmidt came second in a Mu 13d, the slowest 

glider in lhe contest, speed was not everything. 

In 1939, Spate accompanied the DFS expedition to Libya 

to explore sea breeze fronts and desert thermal conditions. 

During the war, he became a distinguished fighter pilot and 

later became the Commodore of the first, and the last, rocket 

fighter squadron, the legendary Jg 400. We believe that OSC 

Wasserkuppe member Sef KuTZ has created a flying replica of 

his red ME 1.63B "Komet". After 195 t, Spate test flew the 

Rnein Flugzeugbau Company's AerofoH boat X 113A. This 

ail1craft was to 'take full advantage of ground effect by skimming 

over water and land, but Spate took it up to 800 metres 

altitude. 

We were very honoured to make his acquaintance when he 

and his wife visited our 11 th International VGC RaUy at 

Farkashegy in 1983. He and his wife had come to say farew.ell 

to Lajos Rotter senior. the Father of Hungarian Gliding, who 

was lying very ill in a BUdapest hospital. 

We send our deep sympathy to Wolfgang Spate's wife, 

familyaod friends and to the German Gliding Movement. 

Enno Rubik at 80 years ofage. Photo: Aero Archiv, Budapest 

a long·dead furniture factory and started work. Schorsch Jahn 

came to join him .. He was an unemployed cabinet maker who 

understood something of aircraft building. In 1932, there were 

5 million unemployed in Germany. Alone in Chemni,tz, there 

were 200,000 people lying in the streets. He promised Jahn 

money shouicl he win any contest prizes on the Wasserkuppe, 

and that he should come with him to the contests. Schorsch 

came and started work every morning at 8 o'clock and went 

home at 1700 hours. Spate came to the workshop after his 

work at the publishing house, and brought sausage, milk and 

fruit for Schorsch and worked himself often to midnight or 

later. Then a second man came to help. Walter Bahme. an 

unemployed cabinet maker. Then came five more men. All 

were enthusiastic about tile beautiful sailplane and Ithey 

admired its drawings. It gave the unemployed a goal to work 

for, but feeding them was a probfem and money was running 

out. He managed .to earn more money by giving lectures on 

gliding at various gliding clubs. A·t last, in June 1934, the 

Condor 1 stood finished in the workshop and with it, Spate 

managed to win tine prizes for gliding at ,the Rhan and in 

Middle Germany during 1934 and 1935. In 1937, Spate flew a 

Minimoa in the first Wo1'ld Gliding Championships at the 

Wasserkuppe in to 3rd place. At that time, he was using the 

first Optimum Speed lo fly between tbermals calculator. In the 

1938 RhOn Contest. he hoped to be able to fly one of the laterbuilt 

Reihers, but he had to settle for the very heavy Riiher 1. 

It had been made heavier in an attempt to make the wings flex 

less and it later revealed what a highly loaded Gottingen 549 

wing profile was capable of in good weather conditions. 

Wolfgang Spiite on the left with lmre Mitter; at Farkashegy. 

Wolfgang Spates Condor named after his employer who 

gave him the money fo start building it. Picture on a 

postcard. 

33

Erno Rubik 1910-1997 

Laszlo Revy has sent us the sad news that Erno Rubik, the 

most important Hungarian glider designer, has died ill February 

this year, aged 87 years. His funeral, which took place in 

Budapest, was attended by virtually the entire HUflg~rlan 

flying community. He survived the change from the old 

regime to Communism after 1945 and designed seven gJ;iders 

in this post-war period. In May, a marble memorial. was 

unveiled in memory of him in the House of Technology in the 

city of Esztergom, where Rubik's Aero-Ever aeroplane 

factory was located. The ceremony was held in conjunction 

with a memorial exhibition. 

The Rubik R-03 Szittya of1937. Photo from Peter Startup. 

Josef Ott from Slovakia sitting in his replica ofRubik's 1938 

Vocsok at Jongos recently. Josefalso built the Honza replica, 

Erno Rl'lbik has designed nearly aill,the gliders necessary to 

keep the Hungarian soaring movement alive. Perhaps h.is most 

successflll design waS the 1963 tandem an metal two-seater, 

the Gobe. In 1997, this two-seater ·is still in use ill Hungarian 

gliding clubs for dual instruction, and from first solo, to Silver 

C legs. It 'has a cantilever wing and is cheap to build, st~ong, 

easy to fly, with superb aileron r.esponse and effective airbrakes. 

The max VD is as good as that of the Kranich 2. His 

son was also bri'lliant, and probably better known in the West, 

fOr he was tne inventor of the Rubik cube. 

Our sincere sympathy goes out to his family, friends and to 

the entire Hungarian f1y,ing movement. 

We are grateful to Laszlo Revy for notifying us of this 

[tragic death. 

The Rubik R-22 Futar at Farkashegy in1996. Photo Peter Chamberlain. 

34

Book Review 

Tiger in the Sky by Pat Jackson. published by the Truleigh 

Press at £6.99 plus £1.50 postage (EU) and £3.00 (Rest of 

the world) (ISBN 1 87347525 X) 

Truleigh Press, The Gables, Upper Station Rd, Henfield, West 

Sussex, BN5 9PL 

Normally, the books we review here are biographies of 

famous designers or histories of the well known glider manufacturers, 

in other words, ones which would be likely to 

become reference books for the future. This book is quite different 

but is no worse for that. It is the story of an Indian boy 

who saw a Tiger Moth giving an aerobatic display near his 

home when he was about five years old and it so impressed 

him that ftom then on his whole life was devoted to finding a 

way to learn to fly. His parents were totally opposed to him 

talcing any part in such activies, especially as some tragedy 

appeared to be written in his horoscope, which he was never 

allowed to see. Eventually he escaped from the confines of his 

family on the pretext of playing in a table tennis tournament 

In Wembley in 1954 and started off with a fellow player on a 

125cc Vespa scooter to ride all the way to England, selling 

their story to newspapers and broadcasters on the way. Aftet 

many setbacks and even injuries, Toon arrived in a cold and 

dirty London and took a number of low grade jobs, just to 

eam enough to eat and sleep. However, the interest for us is in 

the title, for after being a winch driver at Lasham, he flew in 

wave at St Auban and was terrified by the rotor which to him 

was like "a tiger in the sky suddenly gone mad with fury". 

Still, he managed to reach 25002ft, do his five hours and 89 

kms, so he returned to Lasham with a Silver C, and the unofficial 

Indian height record! 

Eventua Iy he became an instructor at Shoreham flying his 

beloved Tigers again and having the opportunity to show 

other people the beauty of flying and "opening up the sky for 

people" which had become his ambition. When instructing, 

his Indian origins were aU too obvious when he asked his 

pupils "to round out at the height of an elephant!" 

The style of writing is interesting, changing from the third 

person singular initially, then to the first person, and this 

change seemed to coincide with his description of the grantiAg 

of independence to India in 1948,. There are occasional 

Indian expressions used whose meaning is evident from the 

context and the last page gives a hint that Toon goes on to 

own many planes and to carry Ollt humanitarian work in the 

foothills of Nepal, always sustained by his dreams of inspiri,ng 

others. 

This man was obsessed with flying, no matter how difficult 

it was to achieve his goal and surely all of us are obsessed, to 

a lesser degree, some would say mad, lo be involved in 

gliding. Many members would have met Toon at Lasham or 

Sutton Bank, St AlIban, Hornberg, the Long Mynd on his honeymoon, 

or even in three weeks of Fain at the Wasserkuppe, I 

have not had that privilege but the book makes me wish that I 

had met him; it is that sort of book, evell the hint about how 

the book w,as conceived in the air is ,intriguing - a thoroughly 

good read and well recommended. 

Graham Ferrier 

Letters 

From Jim Robson, 6 Ashbrook Mount, Sunderland, SR2 7SD 

Reference Mike O'DonneIl's letter in VGC 90; the photograph 

is obvi.ously of a NaceIled Dagling. (and see also the 

letterfrom Harold Holdsworth below Ed) I got my A & B certificates 

in one, operating from a flat field at the Lizard's Farm 

in July 1938, when 12 of us formed the Sunderland Branch of 

the Yorkshire Gliding Club, and Bmy Sharp of the YGC sent 

us a Dagling, and later; a Nacelled Dagling. (Subs were 3 

Guineas per year, (£3.15p), and training fees were 2/6d per 

day, (12 1I2p), irrespective of the number of launches.) I liked 

the 3-view of the SO 38; I got one up to 1500ft after a 900ft 

launch at Salzgitter in 1949 when I had a busman's holiday at 

the RAF Gliding School. There I met Wolf Hirth as the 

gliding instructor and the Ground Engineer was Adolf 

Niemuller, who had been Production Test Pilot for the MEI63 

Rocket powered fighter - interesting to me as I had been a 

Photo Reconnaisance Spitfire pilot in 1944-45. 

(Harold Holdsworth, who was the Ground Engineer at the 

Yorkshire Gliding Club from 1934 to 1939 has also written 

to Mike and sent your Editor a copy ofhis letter in which he 

gives detailed reasons for his identification. Ed) He says ..." 

The glider in the picture is definititely a Nacelled Primary, 

built by Slingsby (Works No 3lOA BGA C of A A362, 

delivered to the Salisbury Aero Club on 6 August 1938)" 

and he sent a picture of himself seated on one, ready for take 

off, in 1936 to prove it. He goes on, " there is a Slingsby 

logo on the pylon, and the bungee hook has been modified to 

be forward, clear of the nacelle nose ply, which in turn, is 

forward of the A frame in order to clear the rudder bar and 

the pilot's feet. For the latter reason the nacelle is wider than 

normal. The 5 nacelled Daglings built by Hawkridge were 

similar externally but different Internally; but as this firm 

was only started in 1945 and the Salisbury GC was wound 

up in 1942 after a crash, it could not be one of these. Around 

1938 Slingsby built some much improved nacelled primaries 

which were intended to soar, and did, whereas the earlier 

models mostly only hopped. The modifications included a 

strengthened up A frame, rounded wing tips, ply covered 

cockpit, control surface gaps covered, the wing leading edge 

ply extended on the upper surface to between the spars and 

the rudder bar was replaced by pedals. In his book "British 

Gliders 1922-1970, Norman Ellison gets these machines and 

the prototype Slingsby Kadett completely muddled up! I 

have flown both types and was the only person to soar the 

prototype Kadett which was an honour, and was quite different 

to the rest." Harold adds a brief history of the Dagling 

Primary Gliders; "the absolute origin is not known but the 

Zoglings were modified to have a different rear fuselage 

(steel tubes) and completely new tail surfaces with the 

tailplane held by the tips and were not interchangeable with 

any other type. In early 1930 a glider of this description 

arrived from the USA and an agreement was made between 

the newly formed BGA and the firm of R.F.D. of Guildford, 

Surrey, named after the owner, Reg Dagnall, a maker of 

flotation gear. The outcome of this agreement was that the 

London GC had a gift of Dagling, R.F.D. got the workshop 

drawings and the BGA could sell the drawings for a modest 

fee. 

35

In 1932 R.F.D. stopped making gliders because of the great 

depression and returned to their flotation gear and in 1934 

Fred Slingsby stopped making furniture and started making 

gliders. Meanwhile Daglings continued to be made in small 

numbers by individuals and very small enterprises leading to 

the Dagling becoming the most common British type of 

Primary. 

Although the first example of this type came from the 

USA, recently some drawings of a primary with Dagling type 

tail have turned up in Germany, signed by Lippisch, so it may 

not have been American after all!" 

From Mark Wakem, 35, The Boulevard, Broughton, Chester, 

CH40SN. 

We all know that with one or two exceptions, our surviving 

pre-war gliders have endured military service. But what about 

their involvement in clandestine operations since then? 

I was at home recovering from a cold and was enticed into 

watching daytime television, and watched an episode of "Man 

in a Suitcase" called "Night fl.ight 'to Andorra". What was the 

secret weapon to get past the electric fence and guardsetc? 

The title may have given it away; not a Lockheed Q-Star but 

the latest in stealth technology, the Slingsby Gull 1, believed 

to be the one owned by Tany Smallwood at present. If it is not 

covered by the Official Secrets Act perhaps the pilot could 

step forward and write it up for VGC News or if anyone else 

saw it and videoed it I would like a copy. (Tony Smallwood 

did not take part in this scene-stealer Ed) 

Extract from a letterfrom ROYSCOTTof29th April 1997. 

Heading: ... AUTOMATION RESEARCH (POOL). HOPING 

TO BE SCOTT LIGHT AIRCRAFT ONCE AGAIN VERY 

SOON. 

I am very interested to learn that there are, in fact, quite a 

number of sailplanes for which drawings are still available. 

YES, I SHALL BE ABLE TO REPRODUCE BOTH THE 

VIKING 1 AND THE VIKING 2 DRAWINGS, AS I HAVE 

QUITE A NUMBER OF ORIGINAL TEMPLATES AND 

OTHER DATA. 

Despite the 60 years since designing the Viking 1 and the 

Viking 2, I could, in fact, produce drawings for both machines 

with very little variation, just from memory. It only seems 

yesterday that I was at Scott Light Aircraft, in Albion Street, 

Dunstable, doing the original designs. I am hoping to build a 

Viking 2 in order to get some soaring in with an instructor or 

other qualified pilot". 

Since you mentioned it on the 'phone (prior to receiving 

your letter of the 28th) I have been giving a lot of thought to 

the question of flutter. On scrutinizing the wing in general 

and, at dle same time knowing that it was designed to a very 

high safety factor... nearly twice the requirement of those of 

the BOA at that time. (The Viking 2 had very large ailerons... 

both in tength and width.) 

The reason for this was not for the necessity of having such 

a large control surface, but, as you will recall, they could be 

lowered and raised. to the best of my recollection, and set in 

three positions UP, and in three positions DOWN while still 

operating as normal ailerons. 

Whilst your father had very little time on the Sunday he 

test flew the Viking 2 with me, soaring it along the Downs at 

Dunstable, .and tested the ailerons for up and down movement. 

He commented on the fact that they did have considerable 

effect. In studying the ailerons in particular and with, of 

course, much more experience, I consider that they should 

have been built in two pieces to take into account the out-oflineness 

of the hinge line with the flexing of the spar. 

Yes, of course, some counter balance would be most advisable 

in the light of many years' experience. 

When they brought to me the fuselage of the Viking I 

(Viking 2. CW?) in North London at GPA Ltd, Wood Green, 

where I was converting a sizeable Piano Action factory over 

to producing parts for the Albemarle towing aircraft, the 

Viking 2's fuselage, to the best of my recollection, was very 

little damaged, and they informed me that one wing was also 

very little damaged. This could have been the effect of a 

rather peculiar spin-in without pilot and passenger. 

At the time, I understood that the wing had ruptured during 

a bunt, after which it set up a considerable flutter, having a 

ruptured spar approximately where the aileron began. What a 

pity it is that a proper examination report is not available. 

In the case of a future Viking 2, I would reduce the chord 

and span of the ailerons and also fit them with counter balances. 

In any other respect, there is no necessity to strengthen the 

aircraft's structure. With regard to the Cambridge which was 

ordered from Zander and Company by the Duke of Grafton. 

He placed the order in consideration of Zander giving me a 

job. It was not overpaid at the time... £2.00 a week, and I had 

some 9 miles to do to go to work. 

When I first started work there, Keeble, Burt Pane, and 

Himmelreich were about half way through building a Grunau 

Baby for Mr and Mrs Baker and, at the same time, Yhaul was 

designing the Cambridge. 

The only difference between the Cambridge and the 

Grunau Baby 2 was two feet added to the span, and a monocoque 

fuselage. I note that there would be interest in this 

machine... BUT IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO 

WOULD COME UP FRONT WITH SOME CASH? * 

If so, I could organize a unit to produce several machines. 

I have a very comprehensive, modern, high precision 

machine shop at hand and also enough space to at least get 

started on one or two machines. 

However, I am not in a position to finance the operation. I 

would give time to training one or two staff. 

I would particularly like to give one or more youngsters, 

say a twelve month apprenticeship, on the ~tructure of 

wooden sailplanes. 

Do you happen to know of, or do you think a group could 

be formed, who would put up the necessary working capital? 

With me giving my time free and, at least during the early 

stage, supplying the workshop space for only a small consideration 

(as I have other programmes for which it would be 

used). But I would be very happy to give preferance to the 

glider venture if it could be got going quickly. 

In all probability, if you made a visit, together with any 

others interested, you could assess the potential I have at 

hand."... 

Anybody interested in the above venture should write to: 

Roy Scott, clo 10 Highfield Road, Corfe Mullen, Wimborne, 

Dorset BH 21 3PE. Tel: Broadstone 693883. 

*c. Wills, Wings, The Street, Ewelme, Oxon OXI0 6HQ: 

Tel: 01491-839245, would be very happy to co-ordinate the 

above operation but can not get otherwise involved owing to 

having so much other VGC work to do. Roy Scott would 

provide the workshop and his own services for very little cost. 

CW has heard older Cambridge University Gliding Club 

members talking very enthusiastically about their beloved 

36

Cambridge sailplane which they knew as "Pons" (Latin for 

Bridge? CW Cambridge "Pons" G-ALTJ was flown by your 

Edfor 15 mins all 25 March 1950 at the Long Mynd) Mr Scott 

says that it would be much cheaper to build, than a contemporary 

,fibre glass sailplane. CW asks Cambridge Ulliversi'ty GC 

members, who should read this, to make known to their club 

menlbers, and particularly to their older club members, the 

possibility of them owning one, if not two, new Cambridge 

sailplanes, which were so much part of their club's history. 

CW thinks that the VGC was founded six years too late to 

save the last Cambridge sailplane, which was burnt at RAF 

Dishforth in 1967, on the recommendation of a BGA inspector, 

because it was built with Casein glue which had failed. 

Roy Scott continues... "With these three major programmes, I 

am at present very heavily committed, and therefore a major 

glider production programme will require some finance.The 

success of the Cap Company will put me in a position to get 

on wilt'l the Viking 2 but the loss of a year to 18 months is a 

long while in my case. If a glider company to build two or 

three types is to be established it must virtually be at once. I 

undefstand that vintage types should fetch a high price in the 

vintage market with an the different countries invDlved which 

may bid against one another. The wooden sailplanes would t>e 

comparatively cheap compared with the fibre-glass ones 

today. I was offered a second hand two seater, with engine, for 

a mere £lOO,OOO!!". Ray Scott. Abreviated and Precied by 

CW 

Roy Scot! at Lasham for the 22nd International Rally. Photo 

C.Wills. 

Extracts from a letter to c.l¥. which arrived on October 7th 

1996 from Frits Ruth, who worked for the Segelflugzeugbau 

Schempp-Hirth at Goppingen and Kircheim from 1941, for 

the Segelflugzeugbau Wolf Hirth at Nabern from 1942 -1943, 

and for the Hiitter GmbH from 1944-1945. It will be remembered 

that the Hiilter brothers worked as designers for Wolf 

Hirth from 1938-1944 but then left to start up a firm of their 

own to try to build the all-molded, fast and high altitude Hli 

211 twin engined reconaisance aircraft or nightfighter, while 

Ludwig Karch was brought back from Prague to take over 

their positions as designer for Wolf Hirth. Ludwig Karch had 

been working for Benes Mraz in Czechoslovakia and also 

getting his 1939 designed and built MU 17 into production by 

the Flugtechnische Fertigungs Gemeinshaft Prag. (FFG 

Prague). Ludwig Karch started working for the 

Segelflugzeugbau Wolf Hirth Nabern-Teck from May - June 

1944. 

LETTER FROM FRITS RUTH. 7th October 96. 

Extracts. "First, the paint scheme (of gliders on the Teck. 

CW.) An old Teck glider pioneer told me that during the 

period (1936 to Spring 1937.CW.) the WUrtemberg gliders 

were coloured black and red. "These colours made the tem 

,peratur,es of the gliders (and in the gliders) become so high 

that people eould I10t stand them. "After switching to "Elfenbein''; 

(Elf's leg ,cream ie. RAL 1015) which became the officia'l 

NSFK colour from 22nd October 1937 until May 1945 

the only change was the registrat,ion system on the 25th of 

June 1943. As American sofdiers found a Minimoa at 

Stuttgart Echterdingen (now, Stuttgart Airport) in May 1945, 

which was still in the two colour DLV (Deutscher Luftsport 

Verband) 1936 colour scheme, one gets the impression that 

German Gliding did not always adhere to the colour and 

markings J'egulations of the time. The Americans flew, and 

quickly broke, the red and white Minimoa which still had the 

blacK,white, red. (Prussian) National colours On its rudder 

which were standard in 1936. (SAandard national rudder 

markings in 1935/36 were usually Prussian black, white, red 

on left hand sUlface ofrudder and red (until rudder's tip) with 

white circle and black Swastika on the rudder s right hand 

side, CW) 

Those gliders at the Hornberg in 1939 with light blue and 

Elfenbein colours were:the RHOENBUSSARD D-15-818, 

The KRANICH 2 D-15-878, the MIMIMOA D-15-695, the 

RHEINLAND D-15-1084, the MU 13d D-15-876 and RHOE 

NADLER 35 D-15-lot5. The RHEINLAND had only its 

wings decorated light blue and cream, GRUNAU BABIES 

were painted in f,egulation Elfelbein cream as also was 

another RHOENBUSSARD D-15-1 027 and another MU 13d, 

0-15-1054. 

"After switching to Elfenbein, a mid air collision at the 

Homberg School was the reason to add tbe grey-blue sections. 

Thank you for the .address of Rudi Opitz. I have sent him the 

photographs of us together in t942 and 1995 because he could 

!lot remember Visiting Wolf Hirth during the war. After seeing 

the photo, he did agree that he had visited Hirth then. At that 

time, he was still commanding a cargo carrying glider training 

unit at Koenigsberg-Neumark in East Prussia (perhaps this 

should be Koenigsberg-Neuhausen? Both airfields had Troop 

carrying gliders on them. CW?). 

"Your interview with him was very interesting for me and I 

was glad to see it. Concerning the Horten brothers, I was surprised 

to read that one could win a contest with a Horten 

flying wing. One never managed to do this in Germany. Con- 

37

A RhOnbussard showing the markings described by Frits 

Ruth. Photo Peter Startup. 

cerning his battle with the crazy T.28 pilots, the Americans 

must have been very impressionable to the UFO craze! I sent 

him a copy of your article from VGC News, in case he was 

not a member". (again we much apologize for getting the 

photo of him wrongly captioned CW.)."You asked me in your 

letter whether I would like to have photocopies of your 

drawing work on the K-I's wing? Of course, I would Also, I 

would be interested to see the "frightful NACA 66 series profiles". 

(I had a similar experience, when I was 15 years old 

and I was starting to build a "Plying Flea" w'th a dreadful 

Mignet aerofoil. After WW-2, I had, once again, to work on a 

"disaster", the "Ring Wing" of the still inexperienced students 

of the Aachen Technical University. After seeing a model of it 

flying, one of the professors said "Oh yes, build the thing ".As 

they had no workshop technician, they started to build it 

without much skill but with the help of a boat builder, who 

knew nothing about aircraft gluing techniques. But they 

received a lot of money which was mainly concerned with 

flying it. When I arrived there, I received a shock and started 

to push off wing rib gussets. After negative results in a wind 

tunnel, the students decided not to fly it but to finish it "optically 

presentable" as a static exhibit for some celebrations, so 

that Government officials could see it and believe that something 

had been done with their money. During two winters I 

helped them to cover its wings and worked very hard readying 

its centre section (with much plexiglass) but I had a good time 

there. Your article which included my name, was OK. I only 

wanted to wait for some more technical information on the 

H.21... but it still has not arrived. Hubert Clompe's wife 

(Hubert Clompe was a works test pilot for Wolf Hirth during 

the war CW.) visited us last month and I asked her not to 

throwaway any of her husband's papers. He passed away last 

year. Until that time, she could not bring herself to do that. So 

I hope to find some some technical information for Peter 

Selinger's HUtter book. 

Now, some answers to your questions. 

None of the sailplanes which were credited as Wolf Hirth 

designs were designed by him. (except perhaps some of the 

very early ones.) 

The D-MUSTERLE was a Dannstadt design. 

The MOAZAGOTL was designed by Dr Wenk (who had 

also designed the 1922 WELTENSEGLER flying wing.CW) 

The Goppingen 3 MINIMOA. This was also mainly 

designed by Dr Wenk. 

The Goppingen I WOLF. This was a slightly converted 

GRUNAU BABY 2, which was designed by Edmund Schneider. 

The Goppingen 4 GOEVIER was designed by Wolfgang 

HUtter. 

The Hi 20 MOSE motorized sailplane was designed by 

Ulrich HUtter. 

The wings of the Goevier were used for the Hi 20. 

The Hi 21 swing wing two-seater was designed by Wolfgang 

HUtter. 

I have only some experience with the GOEVIER 2 and I 

never saw the mass of ballast in its nose to obtain correct C of 

G position. 25 kgs ballast had to be fixed in position when the 

GOEVIER 2 was flown solo. A C of G one metre too far aft 

seems to me to be nearly incredible. I will try to do some calculations 

this winter using a GOEVIER 3. Though the handling 

in flight was good, there was, until the end of production 

(from 1938 - 1942). insufficient rudder response and experiments 

resulted in a much larger, and therefore heavier, rudder. 

With one of the last production Goeviers, HUtter experime,nted 

with a rudder that was slightly thicker than its fin. It 

had a number of test flights concerning this, but I never flew it 

and I don't know if the postwar Goever 3s had similar 

rudders? 

There is a fairy-tale concerning the "shooting Habicht" and 

the nose ballast of the Goevier, which I heard in Holland. The 

GOEVIER had to be machine gun armed and used for Hitler's 

invasion plans! Indeed, at some time, all GOEVIERS and 

KRANICH 2s were concentrated on an airfield near Braunschweig 

(Brunswick), as were fishing boats in ollr Dutch harbours. 

It waS eventually decided that K1emms should tow the, 

ghders. I can hardly believe this and the idea was quickly 

dropped. The idea of installing a machine pistol in the nose of 

a STUMMELHABICHT was born in Clompe's brain to 

obtain some more petrol for our test flying. He told me this in 

1947. After some test runs, he discovered that it was not prac 

(ical for young inexperienced pilots to try this and that ,it 

wou1ld be the best way of getting rid of alL the beautiful gliders 

in a short timel! 

I think that I did not tell you that my wife (the oldest lady 

glider pilot in Germany and a former worker during the war at 

the Schempp Hirth firm CW) blew up the club house of ber 

gliding club at Aventoft by turn'ng on the hot water tap for a 

shower. (being the first up in the mornings.) Turning the bot 

water on activated a propane gas heater! She was unhmt, but 

the building was a total loss,. It is now rebuilt and electric 

water heating is to be iflstalled!:!" 

Frits has visited his old friend "Dolphi" Janssen who lives 

on the island of SYLT. Here there was a gliding site which 

mainly offered soaring over sand dunes. The gliders were 

bungee launched t:rom a raised portion of land above ,the sand 

dunes, so that the bungee crews did not have to descend the 

sand dunes down to the beach and the sea. 

After landing on the beach, the gliders, including a 

KRANICH 2, were hauled up to the launch poim by boy and 

girl power and/or a capstan which was "manned" as if on a 

ship. The site was known as the Rote Kliff (Red Cliff). It 

38

seems to have been good fresh air exercise and the operat,ion, 

apart from the hauling up to the launch point of the gliders, 

was not unlike that which our Irish menbers carry out at 

Kerry. Whereas, at Kerry, there is wave soaring to be had (air 

waves!), the Rote Kliff seems to have offered, apart from hill 

soaring, some thermal soaring and it was formerly a famous 

German North Sea Coast gliding site. We do!"!'t know if the 

site is still used, as salt and sand are not good for gliders. 

EXTRACTS FROM A 2nd LE7TERfrom FRITS RUTH, dated 

Dec 17th 1996. 

CONCERNING WINTER STORAGE FOR GLIDERS. 

"NEVER park a wooden aircraft near to some heating device. 

At Aachen they lost a sailplane, which was parked for a long 

time in a heated basement. 

CONCERNING COMFORTABLE COCKPITS FOR 

PILOTS. "I think he gliders of the late 1930s and those used 

for instruction" (the 1939 Kranich 2) "had improved pilors' 

comfont as the Air Ministry (das Technische Amt)" (TheTechnical 

Office CW) created regulations relating to pilots' 

comfort".You can notice this improvement in an the aircraft 

of the time. (RHEINLAND, OLYMPIA MEISE, JS WElHE, 

MU 17 MERLE, 1939 KRANICH 2 etc. CW)."Thank you for 

the photograph of theGOEVIER 2 and GOEVIER:3 at Rana, 

with their different length fuselages. Next month. r win ask 

my Dutch friends about the we,ight and balance of the Fokker 

built examples. These, and also the Fokker built OLYMPIAS, 

became so heavy, that recalculations and reinforcements were 

necessary, and these made them still heavier. As I started work 

with WOLF HIRTH during the summer of 1941. the last eight 

or ten GOEVIERS had to be test f10wll before del'i ve,ry to the 

different NSFK Groups, flying schools and Luftwaffe 

(Wehrmacht Luft? CW). I think ,that it was a little 00 late for 

"Operation Seelion (Seelbwe)". The concentration of about 

100 two-seater sailplanes near Braunschweig (Brunswick) 

was nearly one year earlier. I think that the Germans gave up 

their plans after having lost nearly half their transport aeroplanes 

{luring the invasion of Holland in May 1940. Even the 

blindest "Militar" must have seen there how much transport 

capacity would be needed to support a real invasion.!" (In the 

event, in 1941 many of their Kranicb 2 B-1 s, 80 of which had 

had their rear cockpits quickly converted to carry fuel or 

munitions, were sent, together with the ME 321 Gigants, 

which were also built to support Operation Seelion (the 1941 

invasion of England), to relieve cut-off German forces in 

Russia. None of them ever came back. The Kranich 2s were 

aerotowed by Ju 87B Stukas at 150 kph and were demolished 

by explosives after accomplishing their missions CW) (As 

Hanna Reitsch also landed a Kranich 2 b-l on cables as a military 

experiment, one wQnders whether the earlier, prewar 

designed Kranich 2s were considered surplus to requirements, 

as the newer, improved, Kranich 2s were then being built b,y 

Mraz and Nitra in Czechoslovakia CW). "Did you recognize 

the two Polish gliders which visited us (at a Scout Camp) in 

Holland in 1937? One of them had the same colours as the 

ORLlK in America but it is not an ORLIK. 

(The Polish sailplanes visiting Holland in 1937 were a 

SOKOL bis, SP-857 aJ'ld a red and white (Polish National 

Colours CW) SO-7. The SOKOL (Falcon) was developed at 

the same time as the as the CW-7 contest sailplane to meet a 

,requirement ,for an aerobatic glider. The SOKOL was 

designed by Antoni Kocjan and manufactured by the Warsztaly 

Letnicze. The prototype was completed in the spring of 

1934 and encouraging flight tests resulted in small repeat 

orders from L.O.P.P. Two or three batches of five examples 

each were eventually built. The impl'Oved version was known 

as the SOKOl bis. The type was used by gliding centres and 

schools tintil the outbreak of war. The SOKOL initially had 

some structural problems but possessed responsive and well 

balanced controls. Its wing span was 11.6 metres. It was 

equipped with either an open or closed canopy. The SG-7 was 

designed by Szcepan Grzeszczyk during 1936 and 1937. Its 

wingspan was 15.8 metres and its max.LID was 1:22. SP-860 

was aerotowed in stages to the International Scout Jamboree 

in Holland (Warsaw-Breslau-Berlin, Harmover·AmSterdamthe 

Hague) from the 29th July until the 9th August 1937.As it 

was in competition with the very good ORLIK, only two prototypes 

of the SG-7 were built*.CW.) (Information was gathered 

by Cw. from "Polskie Konstrukcje Lotnicze 1893-1939" 

by Andrzej Glass,and "Polish Aircraft 1893-1939" by Jerzy 

B. Cynk. CW). While the earlier SG-3 sailplanes had won the 

Polish Nalional Contests of 1936 and 1937, they did not come 

up to new Polish airworthiness requirements introduced in 

1938 ...* "alt the SG sailplanes required strengthening. They 

were grounded until this work had been completed. By the 

time they were flying again, newer and faster sailplanes were 

in service and the SO types had lost their place at the 'tOp of 

the lists." (from Martin Simons "The World's Vintage 

Sailplanes 1908-1945") 

Registrations for the two SG-7 s were: SP-8W and SP-863. 

Grzeszezyk finished the first protolype in the late spring of 

1937. The second was ready in July 1937. The gliders were 

built at the Szybowca Wykolnaly Warsztaty Szybowcowe in 

Warsaw. Test flying was finished by July 1937 at the ITL in 

Warsaw. (CW regrets if his translation from Pofish is not adequate 

but he thinks that he bas the facts right) From the above 

information, it seems that the SG-7 in Holland in 1937 was a 

very seldom seen and rare Polish sailplane. Chris Wilts wishes 

to warmly thank Frits for sending him the two photographs of 

the SOKOL and SG-7. He thinks that Szczepan Grzesczyk 

designed some of the most beautiful wooden sailplanes that 

the World has ever seen, and he supposes that most of them 

were taken to a Soviet glider factory near Moscow for evaluation 

in 1939, by train. 

Sic transit gloria mundi. It was Antoni Kocjan who 

designed the ORLIK and Szcepan Grzesczyk who designed 

the SG sailplanes. The Poles were very lucky to have had 

three very good designers designing gliders for them in the 

1930s. The third was Waclaw Czerwinski of the great CW and 

PWS sailplanes. (and with Beverley Shenstone, of the HAR 

BINGER.) 

We thank Frits Ruth for his two very interesting letters. 

The Polish 17m span SG-3/35 designed by Grzeszyk 

originally in 1932 and refined in 1935. Photo from Peter 

Startup. 

39

The CW-J which Waclaw Czelwinski designed and' which 

first flew in 1931. Note the all-moving tail mounted 011 high 

hinges to keep tfIe tips ofthe tailplane offthe ground. Photo 

Peter Startup. 

The Hungarian M-22 ofthe mid 1930s. Photo Peter Startup. 

Chris Wills put an advertisement in the "Aypast" magazine to 

try to obtain information substantiated concerning the 

German gliders which were brought to the RAE Farnborough 

"for testing" in May/June 1945. He was lucky enough to 

receive a most valuable letter from Don Minterne who was 

there. It was dated 16th October 1996. We are publishing 

extracts from this letter. 

Dear C, "I spotted your request for help in the CUITent 

"FLYPAST" and I thought that I would drop you a line. 

I started an engineering Apprenticeship at the RAE in 

September 1943, and one of the apprentices who was two 

years ahead of me was Harry Midwood. He was trying to 

start up a gliding club, and shortly after VE Day we got 

going., equipped with a balloon Winch and a jeep, plus two 

SG 38s (which they named "Rook" and "Raven" CW.), a 

Grunau Baby and' a Kranich 2, all, of c0urse,loot from 

Germany. The first instructor was a Flight Lieutenant in the 

flights at RAE, by name of Ron Walton, assisted by 

K.G.Wilkinson. Ron went out of the RAF early on, and was 

replaced by Lorne Welch who had come back from being a 

PoW in Colditz. 

There was of course a vast amount of stuff coming back 

from Germany and there were a couple of gliders dumped 

over at the far end of the aerodrome, and I remember examin- 

ing Ihem with Lorne, who told me that one of them was a 

HABICHT. Sadly, at some time after its dismantling, a swarm 

of bees had built a nest in the root of one of the wings, which 

was open to the air, and some moron had taken it out together 

with the first foot or so of the main spar, which had been 

crudely hacked away. I never saw the HABICHT again, and I 

imagine that it was scrapped along with all the (German? 

CW) powered stuff after Groupie Hard's prang in the Do 335. 

It would have been virtually impossible to assemble the 

HA81CHT without a new wing. 

The other crated glider was, as far as I can recall, a WEIHE 

and again I don't think that it was ever assembled. There was 

a flying WEIHE at the RAE, and Lorne and "Wilky", among 

others, used to fly it with aerotows behind the STORCH, 

while we were being dragged over the ground in the SG 38s. I 

remember Lome eulogising to me about the REIHER, and 

how it was an improved WEIHE, and I feel sure that he would 

have mentioned it if there had been one on the aerodrome in 

any condition. 

And that is all I can do to help your query! I don't know if 

Lorne is still out there, but he would be your man. I well 

remember your father dropping into Farnborough, in (I think) 

an early SKY, from Cl think) Dunstable. We all stood around 

in awe at the great man, while he chatted to the instructors. 

Good Luck with your quest- if you get any replies different 

from mine, I can only plead that it was a week or two ago! 

Cheers - Don Minterne". 

Chris Wills then wrote him a reply in which he asked 

whether he noticed that the HABICHTS Crate was very 

small, hoping to substantiate Terry Beasley's claim at EImira 

in [995, that there was a STUMMELHABICHT at Farnborough, 

and whether John Sproule's naval gliders, that he 

rescued from North Germany (two KRANICH 2 s, the 

MEISE and the MU 13,) were seen, and included among 

those sailplanes which had been brought in from Germany, at 

Farnborough? From Philip Wills's Log Book No.3, CW has 

discovered that his Father carried out a flight in his WEIHE 

from an aerotow at Redhill to Farnborough on 2.6.51. The 

flight lasted 1 hour 30 minutes and was 20 miles distance. 

However, on the 2.6.52., (incredible - on tfie same date a 

year later!!!) he flew his SKY ~rom a wincb launch at Lasham 

to Farnborough ... 4 miles in 25 minutes. 

Chris then asked in his letter whether Don Minterne had 

heard of the AFH 10 HANNOVER at Farnborough? 

Back came DOll Minterne's letter dated 26th Oct. 1996. 

Extracts are published here. "And dear old Terry Beasley! 

I was surprised to learn that he had migrated - presumably 

after he had retired" (he is now living with his wife in 

Canada. CW.). "What he said was almost certainly correctthe 

HABICHT WAS in a very small crate, and I was told that 

it had been cut down to trahl the ME 163 pilots. I don't recollect 

ever hearing the name SlUMMEL. And yes, the other 

crated glider was a HANNOVER, a name which I had quite 

forgotten. To the best of my recall, it was in a closed crate 

unlike the HABICHT (you see that. while I am more thall 

happy that you should wish to quote from my letter, it should 

not be taken as gospel) I am fairly sure that "Winkle" Brown 

had an aerotow in the Farnborough ME 163 behind a Spit 

(Spitfire), although it might have been the Horten - we stood 

and watched him take off ("Winkle" Brown was aerotowed 

in the ME 163B by a Spitfire. The Horten 4A LA-AC would 

never have stood being aerotowed by a Spitfire CW). Now 

"Winkle" is still with it, and would be happy to assist your 

enquieries, although he was never a gliding man per se." "On 

40

the subject of your father's lobbing in to Farnborough, it was 

certaillly 110t later than 1950, as we were still using the 

SO.38$ for ab-initio work, and the T.21 arrived in the December 

of that year. 

"You say that you have some small photos of the RAE club 

machines" and a Ju 352 sometimes appears in them? You 

mention the Ju 352 - the loot from Germany stood on the 

North end of the airfield for many months, and it appears in 

most of the early photos of the club. I don't recall any RN 

stuff (John Sproule's 2 KRANICH 2s, the MEISE and the MU 

13 CW): we just had the two 50.38s, the GRUNAU BABY 

and the KRANICH 2. The WEIHE that "Wilkie" and Co were 

playing with 'upped and went'. quite early on. One Sunday 

evening after tbe flying (I used to scrounge trips in the back of 

the STORCH), "Wilkie" said '''I take it that we'll all be 

assembling next week?", and there were enthusiastic 

responses. By the next week it had all finished, but whether by 

the authorities at RAE,. or because the WEIHE went elsewhere, 

I can 110t remember". 

"On a sudden whim, I have dug out my Observer Log from 

the RAE and f find the (olowing: f2.5.46 ... 45 minutes in the 

STORCH VP 546- Pilot ... Lorne Welch, aerotowing al. 

GRUNAU BABY 2b and hI. an OLYMPIA. 

19.5.46... 35 minutes in the STaRCH, piloted by 

K.Y.Wilkinson aerotowing al. GRUNAU BABY 2b b/. 

WEIHE. 

And finally: 6.10.46 - 20 minutes with FIt.Lt. Walton (possible 

Walden) aerotowing the KRANICH 2. Where the 

OlYMPIA came from, or went, God only knows!" 

"And there's more! Our first day of operations, with 

ground slides, was 10.2.46. The two SG.38s were given the 

serials VP 582 and VP 559. We repaired the KRANICH 2 VP 

591 (it had some nasty holes in its wings) and Lorne tested it 

behind the STaRCH on 3.7.46. I'll swear that he rolled it, and 

I remember him saying that it would go round one way, but 

not the other. It seems bearly credible that he should do that. I 

had the second trip behind him... 30 minutes up to 3,000 ft, 

and thankfully no rolls. I also had another 3,000 ft tow with 

Lome on 6. 10. 46, when we did stalls and spins. The 

GRUNAU BABY was given the serial number VP 587, and 

my first trip in that glider was on 1.6.47". (this machine was 

formerly post 1943 Wehrmacht Luft registered LH+FT CW). 

"We still had both the KRANICH 2 and GRUNAU BABY 

2b on the strength of our last camp at Detling in July 1952, 

after which the Apprentice's gliding was stopped, so it seems 

unlikely tbat it was the same GRUNAU BABY 2B (WL registered 

LN+ST ... now in the hands of Chris Tonks being 

restored in North Wales ... CW). J did a week's instructing at 

Lasham in the summer of 1954, after which the demands of 

family, housing and what I apologetically call my career, took 

over. Then, some three or four years ago, my family gave me 

some tickets for Lasham, and I went there to have two aerotows 

in a GROB(?). What's a gap' of 40 years or so? It's probably 

a very good thing that we are all these miles removed!, 

although next year (1997 CW) I intend to look in on the new 

club which operates between Bere Regis and Wool." 

"Enough, as you say, these letters tend to run away with 

things. Best regards, Don." 

The Fi 156 STaRCH VP546's fate is easier for us to discover. 

This aircraft was often seen at Lasham during the early 

1950s towing the ETPS's SKY and EoN OLYMPIA. About 

25 years ago, an attempt was made to restore it to airworthy 

condition by an RAF Flt.Lt and helpers at RAF St Athans in 

South Wales. The wooden wings were being worked on by the 

woodwork section which normally worked on the AfR 

CADETS'S CADETS and SEDBERGHs. They were in good 

condition and were a masterpiece of light construction, more 

intricate than the wings of vintage gliders. They can not have 

been cheap to build. The RAF's engine department at St 

Athans was overhauling its ARGUS engine. Some components 

of this got lost and just before it was made airworthy, 

the FIt.Lt. was posted to London. Chris Wills, then working 

for Personal Plane Services, supplied copies of technical documents 

in French to help with the restoration. (Many Storches 

were built in France by Morane Saulnier). VP546, the RAE's 

towplane, has for years been on exhibition in the RAF 

Cosford Aerospace Museum together with many other 

German aircraft and rockets. 

Concerning the DFS REIHER, ANN WELCH says that 

she never saw it in a crate. It was falling to pieces ,through 

glue failure (Presumably it was built with 1938/9 casein glue 

CW), on an open "Queen Mary" trailer in Britain. We have as 

yet received no confirmation that the REIHER w,as ever at 

Farnborough. It had COme from an RAF Typhoon Airfield in 

North Germany and had been left in the open. 

Chris Wills thanks Don for these two letters which he 

found intensely interesting. 

From Phil Butler's book "WAR PRIZES" comes the following 

information concerning the KRANICH 2 VP591. 

Werk Nr.1 007. 

"Code unknown. This aircraft arrived at Farnborough in 

July 1945. It (or werk Nr. 828 above) may have been ex D 

12-411, although conceivably this identity may have applied 

to an otherwise untraced Kranich 2 which was at Farnborough 

at the same time. The serial number VP151 was allocated 

to this aircraft on 14th April 1946. This Kranich was 

flown at RAE for some years and possibly later by the 

Empire Test Pilots' School which had in the meantime 

moved to Farnborough from Cranfield. On 15th June 1954, it 

left Farnborough on delivery to the RAFGSA and was officially 

sold to that organization on 7th July 1954. Its final fate 

has not been traced with certainty, but it may have been the 

Kranich identified as RAFGSA No.158. This was operated 

by the RAFGSA Moonrakers Gliding Club at Waterbeach 

and was severely damaged at Lasham on 10th of May 1959 

(during the British National Contest? CW). The wreck of 

RAFGSA 158 was scrapped at Bicester in 1962". From conversations 

which CW heard at Lasham in 1953, he believes 

that the HANNOVER and KRANICH 2s were still at Farnborough 

at that time. He believes that as many as 3 

KRANICH 2s went through Farnborough in 1945 and that 

mane of them were the two RN KRANICH 2s. Certainly, one 

went to the Cambridge University Gliding CI'llbafter repair 

in 1947. This was BGA 494 (G-ALKH and lAC. 104) This 

aircraft ended its days, together with a Swedish built Kranich 

2, making a film, when they went in to the sea. Until then, 

lAC. 104 had been on the strength of the Dublin Gliding Club 

which had a German CFI. Another KRANICH 2 ended its 

days after being broken at RAF Cranwell after, we believe 

being at RAF Halton. C.WiIls believes that all these 

KRANICH 2s were Mraz built with Airbrakes al1d elevator 

trim etc. Another KRANICH 2 at Farnborough was fitted out 

for blind flying and record attempts by Bill Bedford and the 

Empire Test Pilots in as late as 1953. The JS WEIHE was of 

course BGA 448 (post June 1944 NSFK registered LO-WQ). 

As pilots who flew it at Farnborough have it in their log 

books as LO-WQ, one wonders whether it was still in original 

colours and markings when it was flown at Farnborough? 

41

When it was taken away from Farnborough, it was perhaps 

for a major overhaul by Slingsbys? It certainly became the 

Surrey Gliding Club's flagship at Redhill and Lasham until it 

went to a London Gliding Club syndicate. After being blown 

over at the VGC's Thun International Rally in 1979, we hope 

that it is being repaired by our member Derek Philips of Solihull, 

West Midlands. Concerning two of the MEISES, one of 

them BGA 449 (from June 1943 Wehrmacht Luft registered 

LF+VO) went from Farnborough's hands to the Newcastle 

GC in 1947, when it was flown by Coulson and others. From 

there, it went via Frank Foster and syndicate at the London 

GC, to Perrenporth where it is still owned but is believed to 

be unairworthy, by Pip PhiLlips of Boswens, Wheel Kitty, St 

Agnes TR5 ORH, UK. Tel: 01872 55 2430. He and his wife 

are thought to be restoring it. A second RAE Farnborough 

MEISE was at Elliotts of Newbury in 1953 stored together 

with a 1938 WEIHE tailplane. It was still German camouflaged 

and it perhaps being used as a model while Elliotts 

were building the lOO British OLYMPIA'S from 1947. 

Perhaps this was the MEISE at Farnborough which was considered 

to have glue failure, and therefore it was not to be 

released to the BGA clubs in 1947? At ElIiotts in 1953, it was 

covered with dust and without fablic. Its canopy frame had 

been squashed flat. 

The above illustrates the difficulty of tracing the fates of 

some state-owned vintage gliders in Britain. CW.) Concerning 

information from Farnborough. Those people working there, 

were sworn in under the wartime security Official Secrets 

Act. This forbade them to give any information. They were 

not even allowed to ask for information. They were given all 

the information that they had to know. This Official Secrets 

Act stopped them giving needed information for 30 years 

(ie.until 1975) and sometimes for longer. Now that they can 

do so, 1945 was a very long time ago, and much is forgotten. 

Also, at Farnborough, there were only two pilots who had 

ever seen and flown gliders before. These were Ken Wilkinson 

and Lorne Welch. The others, mostly RAE Apprentices, 

might have been unlikely to have asked then what certain 

gliders were, which were rotting in crates or otherwise? 

A LETTER FROM JOCHEN EWALD dated 7th NOV. 1996. 

Extracts ... "I flew an OLY 463 during the Lasham meeting 

a very nice competitor for the Ka-6 and very handy! I hope 

that the BGA will find out that the other gliders of the series 

are in good condition, so that they will fly again soon! As the 

reason for the accident seems to be clearly "bad storage", 

there should be no reason to stop them all flying as was 

needed to do with the AV 36's which were built from the 

Frebel Kits in Germany. - There they found mushrooms in all 

the Main Spars that were investigated. Just one or two are 

flying again after having been rebuilt with completely new 

Main Spars. (which means nearly building a new AV!) ...Even 

if VGC Projects seem to be not so many at the moment, things 

are going on and we had good success last year with projects 

like Neelco's KRANICH 2, Attila's SUPER FUTAR and AI 

Uster's WLM.2 etc. 

JAN SCOTT'S trailer is too narrow for the "RHEIN 

LAND" with its broad Centre Section and there is a lack of 

money for a new one. The German Gliding Museum on the 

Wasserkuppe has a lack of money due to a falling number of 

visitors and.also the Military is leaving the Wasserkuppe and 

so there might be a possibility of buying more land for the 

museum before other people buy it first. Thus, no money can 

be spared for other projects. But THEO RACK intends to 

bring the RHEINLAND and four other gliders to the big 

exposition at Friedrichshafen in the Spring of 1997. Maybe he 

can collect more money and sponsors for the Museum's projects 

there? 

Concerning the AEROKURIER magazine: Mr Marzinzik, 

who edits the glider section of Fliegermagazin, told me that he 

did not want me to write for other magazines.(other people, 

like Cornelius Braun who writes about American Vintage 

powered aircraft for other magazines, were not stopped). As 

Fliegermagazin is the bigger one (about 50,000 sold while 

Aerokurier sells from 35 to 40,000 copies), pays better Cl need 

some money for living) and allows me to write most of the 

(only four pages) Glider Section including a page for vintage 

gliders in nearly every issue, I decided to continue to write for 

this magazine. Maybe some people have stopped buying 

Aerokuriers and have started receiving the Fliegermagazin 

instead?" 

All the best. .. also from Sandra. Yours ever, "Cassius". 

I think that another extract of writing from Jochen mentions 

that, while Aventoft is the most Northerly of German 

Glubs, being on the Danish frontiet; and is not very far from 

the North Sea on one side, and the Baltic on the other, thermals 

do exist. A very large, they hope, Rally for old and 

newer gliders is to held there. The Schleswig-Hostein countryside 

is picturesque with hundreds ofwindmills. 

Those wishing to take part should write to, or telephone: 

Luftsport verein Siidtondern, Adelbert Schulz, Wikingerstrasse 

7, D-25971 Leek. tel and Fax: 04662-2524. Dates for 

the International Gliderfestival at Aventoft are 4th-13th July 

1997, CW 

LETTER From HEINZ BAVER dated 30.11.96. 

After the conversation that we had at Farkashegy concerning 

the CzechTechnical Reports, I am indebted to you for further 

information. There are some other items, several of which 

were stalted in the last VGC News. I would like to discuss 

them further with you. 

Topic I: The Czech Technical Reports. After the war, the 

VZLU tested aeroplanes and gliders. Among the latter were 

several German types, which had been taken over after the 

end of the war and they wou1d now be vintage gliders. The 

VZLU is the National Institute for Aeronautical Affairs of 

Czechslovakia, which was similar to the DVL in Germany 

before 1945. 

The reason for the tests was to collect performance data 

and information of their flying characteristics in order to form 

a basis for national regulations concerning design and construction 

of new gliders and light aeroplanes. 

My source is a refugee from the "Praga Fruehling" (Prague 

Spring) who is living now retired in Germany We met while 

he was visiting the 1995 International Rally at Oberschleissheim. 

He was very familiar with the Mu 13 d-3. This took 

my interest" (as Heinz now owns a Mu l3d-3 CW). "The full 

story is quite rare and full of curiosity but I think that it would 

overflow this letter, and could fill another future letter. His 

name is Mojmil Stratil. When he was young, he was attached 

to the VZLU as an engineer and voluntary test pilot for some 

of the gliders. He was the author of the Technical Reports 

mentioned above. His heart-felt kindness, and an unbroken 

contact with his former colleagues of the VZLU, led to me 

receiving copies of these reports. They are: 

VZLU 173: Zprava 0 zkouskach vetrone Mu 13. Dated 

February 1960, concerning the performance and flying characteristics 

of the Mu 13d-3, OK-8078. 

42

In 1946 the Derby & Lancs had a vintage group! Some clubs removed the fabric from the centre ofthe wings to stop the primOl)' 

leaving the ground. Standing around are, from left to right. lim Lawless. Phi! Leach. Kathleen ?, ? Levers. Photo from GOIlIon 

Porteus who noW lives in South Africa, but called in at Camphill recently. 

Hugo and Wemer Roth's Spyr 5 landing at Oberschleissheim in 1995. Photo G. Ferrier. 

43

VZLU 176: Zprava 0 skouskach vetrone RHEINLAND 

dated May/July 1960, concerning the flying characteristics of 

the FVA (Akaflieg Aachen) lOb RHEINLAND OK-8232. 

This glider was brought from Poland (Grnnau? CW) after 

the war. After the tests in Czechoslovakia, it was delivered 

back to the Institut Lotnicdwr, (Lotnictwa? CW) at the airport 

Okencia, Mr Sauer. The aerotow, which lasted five hours, was 

Mr Stratil's last flight in this glider. I thin!!.: that it is the same 

glider that is in the Krakow Polish Air Museum. 

VZLU 172: Zprava 0 skouskach vetrone OLYMPIA dated 

September 1959/January 1960. Concerning ,the flying characteristics 

of the DFS MEISE OK-8362. 

During this winter, I will try to translate the report of the 

MU 13d-3, which I am mostly interested in, into German. An 

English version depends on whether fean find a cooperator 

with better English knowledge than I have. f think that you, or 

other interested VGC members, could shorten the proceedure 

by contacting the Czech International VGC Committee 

member. Otherwise, you can contact me at my address: Wendelsteinstrasse 

3, 82223 Eichenau, Germany. Tel: 08141/ 

71340, or Mr Mojmir Stratil, Frohmundstrasse 34, 81547 

Muenchen 90, Germany. Tel: 089/6926249. 

Topic 2: A Proposal for Minimum Conditions which 

should be fulfilled when hosting an International VGC Rally: 

I must stress that is only a proposal, which could give ideas 

to the International Rally Committee. The idea is to work out 

and to define minimum criteria on the ground and in the air, 

which should lead to the probability of running a successful 

VGC RAlly. My experience comes from attending two International 

VGC Rallies (one bad ... one good), more than half a 

dozen Spatzentreffen (Rallies for SPATZS, "Sparrows" in 

English) with mixed success, and camps of rny gliding Club at 

home, which offered the same, bUI I'elatively smaller, problems. 

This should not be only a theoretical proposal and I will 

illustrate it with real life facts. 

The initial point is the following scenario.: Participants... 

30 gliders with max.LID s from I: 10 (SG.38) to 1:29 

(WEIHES). 

Assuming that only local flying is possible, the airspace 

must be free within a cone with its apex on the airfield with 

the SG.38s flying at the bottom and the WEIHES at its top. 

Minimum Criteria for Launching: a possible average flight 

duration of about half an hour from winch launches and aerotows 

and that no pilot should have to wait longer than one 

hour for a launch. 

For winch operation, only one two drum winch is necessary 

with max. length of cables ... 1000 metres which should 

be capable of launching to a minimum of 300 metre heights 

and of achieving 20 winch launches in an hour. This means 

that the winch cable retrieving vehicle must be able to make 

10 out and back sorties to the winch (bringing back two 

cables) during the period of an hour. In the air, it would be 

nice to have completely free airspace over and around the airfield. 

A "closed" sector of about 90 degrees around the airfield 

does not matter but pilots would become very angry if the one 

and only thermal source or ridge lift, is in that area. A 

"closed" sector of more than 90 degrees is not acceptable. A 

height limitation of below 1000 metres prevents any real 

chance of the lower performance gliders managing to reach 

lift, should there be none over, or near, the air,field. Landing 

facilities on the airfield should be adapted to the number of 

launches and whether the gliders are staying up in lift. This 

means two independent landing areas with the possibility of 

vacating them very quickly either by hand, or by car. 

Other criterea concerning Parking Areas for gliders, trailers 

and cars, accommodation, camping sites, hotels, traffic 

affairs etc. could be handled more liberally and with flexibility. 

The VGC should consider defining and publishing these 

minimum criterea for a successful rally in future. They would 

give double security, a real chance of success for possible 

hosts and their great endeavours and a guarantee for the participants 

that they will have sufficient and pleasant gliding 

activities without vexations. 

A Call for more Sportive Behaviour: 

Don't fear, this is not a call for more law and order!!. But I 

wish and intend to avoid critical situations. Really they are 

unnecessary and superfluous. Some pilots extend their landing 

patterns by circling on Downwind or even Base Legs and 

utilize their gliders' performances for extremely long Final 

Approaches to capture extra seconds of flight duration. They 

don't have any respect for gliders coming in behind them 

which have inferior performances to their glider. And they 

end their flights with a mid field landing, their motto being 

"Here I am"!!! 

The next point of improvement is to vacate the landing 

areas more quickly. I really think that this is the job of other 

VGC members who are not flying at the time. We should not 

use the youth of our hosts as servants. May be, this could be 

repeated at our BIiefings. 

Topic 4: How to Help our Friends in Eastern European 

Counties. 

I will not dwell on small kindnesses that VGC members 

can offer them. 

Referring to those country's glider pilots who have offered 

to host International VGC Rallies, it is not only a part of 

sportive thinkjng, it is an effective way, free of costs, for supporting 

the enthusiasts there, who wish to keep old or vintage 

gliders alive.Don't forget, formerly they used to destroy them 

when the gliders were older than ten years. The impressive 

effect on public relations in this new field for the VGC and 

for the National Vintage Glider Movements in those gliders 

more than offsets the disadvantages of the sometimes long 

distance journeys that have to be made to get there. The more 

extended airfields, the not so crowded Air Space, the less 

restrictions, the cheaper food, fuel and accom@oatjon are so 

advantageous and I am sure that new strange languages are 

no barrier. 

Topic 5. SPARE PARTS FOR VINTAGE GLIDERS. 

My Gliding Club could possibly offer: models, forms 

(Molds or jigs CW) devices etc, to build Ashen Skids for the 

following glider types designed by Egon Scheibe. 

BERGFALKE 2-55 standard and modified for a brakable 

wheel of Fa.Tost, e. 10 mm broader in this area. 

BERGFALKE Ill. 

BERGFALKE IV. 

SPECHT, 

L-SPATZ 55. standard (without wheel) and Aenderung 12 

(modification with fixed wheel). 

At the moment, there are some skids for BERGFALKE 

11/55 and for L-SPATZ 55 with fixed wheel, in stock. Maybe 

the VGC Technical Officer is interested to have this information?".So, 

that is aliI want to write. 

I'll wish you, your family and friends in the VGC a Merry 

Christmas and a Happy and Successful New Year. 

Until next time, Heinz Bauer. 

44

ADDRESSES: H.Bauer, Wendelsteinstrasse 3, 82223 

Eichenau, Germany. Tel: 08141171340. 

Michael Birch, VGC Technical Officer, 110 Hounslow Road, 

Middlesex, London TW 14 OAX. Tel:081-890-3409. 

From Geoff Kitching, Echo Lake, PO Box 47, Harrison Mills, 

BC, VOM lLO,Canada, who has recently rejoined the VGC 

thanks to Susy Mooring, to Mike Beach. (the subject of his 

letter is not really vintage but other members may want to 

write 10 him.) 

Dear Mike, 

I thought my flying days en4ed as I depaned the UK ,in 

December 1995. I left in something of a hurry, not because tile 

Collector of Taxes nor my sundry creditors were breathing 

down my neck but because a deadline imposed by the Canadian 

Government was approaching and selling up took me 

longer than expected. 

Upon arrival here my plans were to travel extensively as I 

was a stranger both to the US and Canada, so I bought a 

tough 4x4 truck with a huge VB diesel engine and mounted a 

camper body, a self contained unit, which as you probably 

know, are commonplace over here and much more luxurious 

than myoid Renault. 

So equipped with fridge, cooker, heater and toifet and 

shower with h & c, I set off to explore. I found the most 

beautiful and varied scenery, covered lots of mountains, followed 

famous rivers and met some extraordinarily friendly 

people. 

Which led to my downfall and caused me to stray from 

the paths of righteousness of unpowered flight. Having 

become lost in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, 

the lane I was travelling ran out into a grass airstrip surrounded 

by hangars. 

The only person in sight was a chap building biplanes 

with wooden wings. He directed me back onto Highway 90 

but was quite happy to let me wander around his work shop 

admiring his handiwork. In fact it was the world's smallest 

aircraft factory turning out Skybolt aerobatic aircraft and 

repairing sundry others. Just Hale Wallace, for that was his 

name, his son and one other employee. 

Mter chatting for a while he offered me a job. I thought it 

over for 5 seconds and accepted, moved my truck next to the 

hangar and started work there and then. After my period of 

probation - half an hour - I became an aircraft worker. It 

was absol'utely fascinating, from making metal fittings to 

assisting with assembly. I then graduated to building 

wooden wing ribs, both for Skybolts and Stits, for which 

Hale had many orders. 

There, it seems I made my mark, for not only was I perfectly 

happy but also the quality of my work brought forth' 

an offer which I could not refuse. I'm not allowed to work 

over here, so a sub-contracting arrangement was entered into 

and, whilst Hale wished to make it permanent, I, with the 

travel virus s·tilJ active, moved on four months later, with an 

offer to return to work any time I wished. Well, that wasn't 

the end of the matter, for having flown one of {lUT planes 

with Hale (he is one of the top stunt pilots in US.) I thell met 

an ultralite p)iot who let me have a go in his two seater. I sat 

in the back seat without instruments. and Doug sat in front. 

As we were about to take off, the batteries in our intercom 

died. No problem, we were only going local for an hour or 

so. 

At some point, Doug turned and gave me a thumbs up. I 

was enjoying myself so I returned the thumbs up and continued 

to enjoy the scenery of the Blue Ridge. Just then the 

plane went into a screaming left handed dive just like a tug 

after dropping its tow. We got pretty low until I could see the 

trout in a small lake looking up at us open mouthed. Just 

before the moment of impact the aircraft was jerked back 

into the sky and I assumed that Doug was showing off the 

ultralite's manoeuvrability. 

Upon landing the pilot said that he had to correct my spin 

as we were getting too low 'My spin' I said, "I wasn't flying 

it" 'Well' he said I gave you the thumbs up to take over and I 

thought you were flying it" I had to tell him that I thought he 

was just asking if I had enjoyed the flight up till then and 

wanted to continue. I now know that these machines require 

at least one pair of hands and feet on the controls! Next day 

we flew again and after takeoff and a few touch and goes 

(circuits and bumps) he passed me fit to solo - no licence 

required for these machines in US and only a self declaration 

in Canada - but then Oshkosh loomed. This must be the 

greatest and most varied display of aircraft ever! 

Well it was there I saw these powered parachutes for the 

first time - and it was there that I fell from grace. Pausing 

only for three months to motor down to Panama, I returned 

to B.C. in the depths of winter and bought my own Skye 

Ryder. It came in kit form and took about a week to assemble 

and then out with my instructor, Brian, and his machine 

- both single seaters - to Albert Comfort's ranch in the 

Rockies. 

Fortuitously I had bought myself an insulated skidoo suit 

and John Wayne style red longjohns, for the temperature at 

nOOft asl was -13 degrees (F?) and it colder as I climbed. 

We were flying in formation (again no intercom) amongst 

the most amazing mountain scenery, the air like crystal and 

wildlife, elk and deer, grazing unconcernedly in the brush. 

That was some of the best aerial experience I have ever had. 

Of course, the tricycle undercart had to have skis fitted, and 

that made a slight difference to the landing run, but gave me 

no problems. Four or five hours of flying later the weather 

changed, so a phone call to the makers in Washington and I 

had a contaot in South Idaho to visit. There it was differently 

idyllic. The most friendly couple - a bit younger than me 

(I'm in my seventies) but also retired, living in a log cabin 

way out on the prairie, warm sunshine and companionship, 

both in the air and on the ground. 

Ray Hansen, for that was his name and his sweet wife 

Lucille his ground crew, had many outings and both did our 

first cross country flight. Not a great distance, but in and out 

of the foothills of the Central Range dodging turbulence, 

flying over a reservation of the Shoshone nation answering 

their waves (Lucille is Shoshone so we were among friends) 

to make perfect landings on a friendly farmer's field. Later 

we celebrated with elk steaks shot by Lucille who enjoys 

wide ranging rights to hunt for food and is a crack shot. Oh! 

the joys of flying and Iravelling.! 

Now I have set up home in a cabin beside a tiny, tranquil 

lake deep in ihe heart of the Rockies. my camper sits beside 

me with my aircraft on its trailer hooked up and ready to go. 

There are plenty of small air-fields hereabouts and currently 

I am flying from an ultralight field near Vancouver, some 70 

miles down the main highway - 10 bucks a day for all the 

flying you want. 

So what more can I say? Happy and healthy, enjoying the 

life of an airborne backwoodsman and at peace with the world 

- as I hope you are too. 

45

UARAPONGA" 

o , 2 

: 

3 

i 

4m 

PI

--------= ----------. ~-----------_:::= 

~ 

Dittmar H. D. - 53 "Mowe" 

Zweisitziger Ubungssegler fUr spateren Motoreinbau. 

Konstruktc'ur: Heini Ditrmar. 

Tragwerk: gcrader Elnholmfliil;el in l-Querschnitt-Holzkonsrrukri(\n aus cinem Stiick. 

UmriB im Mittclteil Rcchrcck, auBen TrapezfC'rm. Eigenes Profil. TC'rsionsnase beplankr. 

Resr Stofibezllg. Bremskl.lppC Hol:. Fliigel fiir SrraBcntranspott abnchmbar und Ul11 

90 0 schwenkb,l[. 

Rumpf: Holzkonstruklion von viereckigcm QlIcrschnitt. zwei Sirze nebcncinandcr unrcr 

der Fliigelnasc. scitlichc Einsriegriire. 10 Spanr, mir durchgehender Beplankung; Fahrwerk 

2 Rader 260 X 80 I11m an gefederter Kufe. 

Leitwerk: freirrag. Holzkonsrrukri(\n. Hohenrllder gedampfr. Seitenruder ungedampfr. 

Tcchnische Daten: 

Spannweire 

Lange 

Hohe 

groBte Rlllllf'tbrcire 

Flii\?elflad,,: 

Flu'gelriefe an dcr Wurzel 

Leergewidll 

Herstcller: rlllg:ellgball Heini 

10.50 m 

6.20 m 

1.50111 

1,00111 

16.8 m' 

1.80 m 

225 kg 

Dirtmar. AlIgsbllrg. 

Zuladung 

Fluggewichr max. 

Flachenbelasrung 

Gleitzahl bei 58 kl11· h 

Sinkgeschw. bei 45 km/h 

M indesrfluggeschwindigkei r 

Brllchlasrvielfaches 

295 kg 

520 kg 

21.5 kg/m 2 

17 

1.10 m/sec 

38 km/h 

8 

Heini Dittmar's Move HD-53 of1953. Photo from the archives ofJochen Ewald. 

47

For Sale & Wanted 

Small advertisements are free to members and are charged at 

£/5 (or the appropriate overseas rate) for non-members, 

which includes one years membership and the joining fee. 

Send your advertisements to: Graham Ferrier, 41 Oakdale 

Rd, Downend, Bristol, BS16 6DS. Tel 01179490509. 

JOCHEN EWALD wishes to discover the whereabouts of the 

building plans for the 1953 Heini Dittmar designed and built 

HD-53 Mowe (Seagull). This aircraft was referred to as the 

"Volksflugzeug" (peoples' aeroplane). It was completed first 

as a glider and Heini was able to accomplish at least one long 

duration thermal flight in it before its engine was installed. It 

also could be towed along roads derigged. Heini Dittmar was 

killed in a Mowe in 1960. Span was 10.5 metres. Max.LID 

was 17 at 58 kph. Minimum Flying speed was 38 kph. Empty 

weight was 225 kgs (495 Ibs). Loaded: 295 kgs (649 Ibs). It 

was a 2-seater. Wing Loading was 21.5 kgs/sq.m. (4.41 lbs per 

sq.ft.). Min.Sink: 1.10 m/sec at 45 kph. 

Please send information concerning the whereabouts of its 

building plans to Jochen Ewald, Neuhauser Strasse 41, D 

52146 Wiirselen, Germany. Tel: 2405-92484 (Mon-Fri.) Tel 

and fax: 2841-62617. 

Wanted Parts for repair of badly damaged front fuselage of a 

Ka2 ie another damaged fuselage, fittings, parts or plans. This 

is the short winged version but plans of the long winged one 

would be of interest. Contact Cliff Jeffery, Tel 01302 361 381 

For Sale Schleicher Ka7 Two seater, built in 1961. Swiss 

registered with current C of A with full double control instruments 

and Dittel ATR 720 Radio. Price SFr 6,500 including 

open trailer. Contact HanskJaus Rummler, Rte du Chiitelet 9, 

CH-I 723 Marly / Switzerland. Tel & Fax +41 264363539. 

For Sale Olympia 1, 2 series main wing pin extractor tools 

£24.00 inc P&P. Only 2 available. 1/4" EN8 Plough ground 

plate and 5/16" x 2.5" 4130N Bar. Price negotiable, as 

unwanted stock. Contact Pete Wells Tel 01903 521065 or 

01293 54832. 

Information Wanted. Chris Kaminski is restoring his 

Olympia, BGA 968, and would like to spray it in its original 

colour. Does anyone remember it or have any photos of it 

when it was probably in a blue colour, or can identify the 

exact blue used by EoN? Contact Chris on 01237 428521 

(work) or 01237451043 (home) 

Wanted Port Wing for EoN 460 Must be "clean" Le. no disbonding 

and suitable for Lasham reinforcing mod. (BGA TNS 

3/4/97 Para 1.16) Contact G. Terry Tel 01642 592460. 

Front Cover: 111/J & KraTlich waiting to fiy in the wave at 

the CamphUl Rally: Photo Alan Self. 

Exchange or sale Grunau Baby 3 Refurbished and recovered 

in 1990, C of A until October '91. On its fourth flight 

it suffered a launch accident with worst damage at right tip 

and drag spar end. The machine has been modified with BGA 

approval to have full canopy and faired fuselage mid section. I 

would like to exchange it for a good sound T31 Wing and 

struts. The Grunau has been in dry storage and detailed photographs 

of the damage can be provided to anyone interested. 

Contact John Brookes Tel 01507 450555. 

For Sale Slingsby Swallow This docile, all wood, single 

seater is in excellent condition and will be sold with a new C 

of A. Complete with standard instruments, plus a turn-andslip 

and an accelerometer, a Dart canopy, and a waterproof, 

wooden trailer. Offers around £2000. 

For Sale Large trailer Metal framed, sheet glassfibre 

covered, originally built in Germany for a Blanik, but would 

suit any large vintage glider. Roadworthy, but needs a little 

tender loving care, offers around £700. Contact for both the 

qbove which are at Lasham, Ken Summers Tel 01784 458484. 

For Sale Slingsby Swallow RGA 990 Refurbished and recovered 

in 1994, new cables throughout, basic instruments. 

£ 1200. Good steel framed aluminium clad trailer to suit, £900. 

Contact Neil Scully, Tel 01522 810302. 

For Sale Two Seat Vintage Sailplane, The Harbinger, complete 

with original instruments, log book, good steel chassis 

trailer, records and plans. Cross-country pelformance in a 

gentleman's motorless carriage. Contact either Geoff 01709 

369678 or Austen 0161 407 4522 

For Sale Zugvogel 3A. This aircraft has a special history as 

Egon Scheibe's factory at Dachau had prepared it for Hanna 

Reitsch to fly in the 1958 World Gliding Championships at 

Leszno in Poland. Because of political reasons, she was 

unable to take part. It would be nice if this aircraft could be 

sold to a VGC member. It was built in 1957. It has a 17 metre 

wingspan. Its min. sink is 0.61 metres/sec at 72 kph and its 

max LID is I:35 at 86 kph. Its price can be negotiated. For 

further information please contact Stefan Scherer Tel: 

Germany: 0-7703-661. OR... Heinz or Gisela (who speaks 

English) Nierholz. Telephone and fax Germany 0-7703-681. 

Wanted Wings for the Govier 3 which is at present at Glen 

Rothes. Offers to Chris Wills, Tel 01491 839245. 

For Sale EoN Baby Prototype, BGA 608, in immaculate condition. 

C of A until August '97. £1500. Also large aluminium 

trailer, can take a Slingsby Petrel. £400. Both these are in Eire 

but delivery can be arranged. Contact Brian Douglas Tel 

00353 128 20 651. 

Rear Cover: The Rubik R-II Cimbora in the foreground with 

a Spalinger S-18landing above it. Farkashegy 1996. Photo 

Peter Chamberlain. 

Published by: 

The Vintage Glider Club 

Wings 

The Street 

Ewelme 

Oxon OX I0 6HQ 

TeI: 01491 839245 

Editorial Team: c/o Graham Ferrier 

41 Oakdale Road 

Downend 

Bristol 

BSI66DS 

Tel: 0117 9490509 

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by Roger Booth Associates, 99 Keymer Road, Hassocks, West Sussex BN6 8QL. 

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