VGC News/Newsletters - Lakes Gliding Club

Diary Dates in 1998 

LOCATION AND DATE 

8th Kirby Kite Rally 

May 2-4 Haddenham 

Camphill Vintage Rally 

24-31 May 

Cambridge G C 

June 5-6 

British National Rally 

Husbands Bosworth mid June tba 

Whispering Wardrobes 

Booker June 20-21 

Challock Kent G C 

26-28 June 

Scottish Gliding Union, Portmoak. 

27 June-5 July 60th Anniversary 

Oldies but goldies 

Jami Finland July 

Woodworm Rodeo 

Dunstable July 10-12 

3rd Luigi Teichfuss Rally 

Pavullo Italy July 

VGC Rendez-vous 

Zbralavice, Czech Republic, July 

26th VGC International Rally & AGM 

Nitra, Slovakia 29 July -7 August 

Slingsby Rally, Sutton Bank 

22-31 August 

Annual Dinner & Prize giving 

September 1998 

CONTACT 

Peter Chamberlain 

01525378901 

lan Dunkley 

clo Derby & Lancs G C 

Keith Sleigh 

01284827166 

Ron Davidson 

01455 553362 

Graham Saw 

01628776173 

George Costin 

01732 846823 

Bruce Marshall 

01416394103 

Risto Pykala 

Ted Hull 

0181 4499024 

Vincenzo Pedrielli 

(0362) 630293 

Milan Kamenik 

Tel/Fax: 420 327 92286 

Josef Ott 

42187411523 

Margaret Gomershall 

01845597237 

NOTICE TO ALL MEMBERS: 

The Rally Secretary is Graham Saw. 

Please forward details of any 1998 VGC Rallies you may be 

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

Berks SL68QH. Tel: +44 (0)1628776173 

We welco(OJ:: contributions and phOlo$ but wc c:m.nol be held responsible for the loss of unsolicited 

material. To help ensure their rc!um. material should be clearly idelltified and accompanied by a 

stamped. addressed envelope. Wc take gl'l~at

VGCNews 

No. 92 Winter 1997/8 

Contents 

From the Chairman 

I 

From the President 2 

Club News & Accounts for 1996 2 

VGC Prizegiving 5 

Rally Reports 

13th French Vintage Rally 6 

Olympia 50th Anniversary 7 

Aventoft 9 

Woodworms 10 

VGC Rendez-vous 11 

25th VGC International Rally 13 

Wachtesberg 22 

9th Swiss Vintage Rally 23 

British National Rally 24 

Shrivenham 26 

End of Season Rally 27 

Features 

I The Condor 28 

2 Dr Kiittner's Epic Flight .32 

3 Saltby to Hus Bos in a T31 .33 

4 Towing with Microlite Tugs 34 

5 The Streak 35 

6 Knights of the Popping Corks 36 

7 Restoration of Grunau Baby BGA 370 37 

International News 

Australian 37 

Belgian .,38 

British 38 

Czech 38 

Dutch 40 

French .40 

Gennan .41 

Obituary .41 

Letters .42 

Classified Adverts 44 

3 View Drawings 

Condor IV 30 

Spalinger SI5-K 39 

CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 

Firstly, having recently attended the International VGC Rally 

in France I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of 

the Vintage Glider Club, to acknowledge and thank Maurice 

and Isabelle Renard and their team for their efforts in producing 

a very successful rally and, although I was not there, I 

would also like to thank Christian Mathieu and his team at 

Pont St Vincent for a very good Rendez-vous. 

I should also like to thank the Wtichtesberg Club for their 

kind hosting of the British contingent who, unable to meet the 

pre-requirements of the French authorities, held a very successful 

rally in Germany. 

During the meeting of the International Council at Bar-sur 

Seine agreement was reached on the venues for future rallies 

as follows: 

In 1998 the Internat'ional Rally will be held at Nitra (Slovakia) 

and the Rendez-vous will be at Zbraslavice in the 

Czech RepubJ.ic.(For those who regret not buying Czech 

crystal last time this will be a welcome announcement and 

remember, prices at Nitra wiU be vcry cheap) 

In 1999, the International Rally will be held at Aventoft 

(Northern Germany) with ~he Rendez-vous at Achmer 

(Osnabmck) 

For the year 2000, the bid from the USA was seen as 

impractical due mainly to the transportation problems associated 

with getting there from Europe. It was agreed, therefore, 

that both the VGC and the IVSM will hold major rallies 

during that year, the VGC Rally to be held in the UK the 

bil1hplace of the VGC, whilst the IVSM will hold a rally at 

Elmira, USA. 

Whilst on the subject of foreign rallies, we were joined at 

Bar-sur-Seine by the President of the Federation Fran~aise de 

Voile aVoile, M. Andre Monet, who is a keen vintage glider 

supporter. He is very sympathetic towards the difficulties 

being experienced by the British members, but also confirmed 

his belief that we will all eventually have to comply with 

common EC regulations for pilot licencing. The International 

Council were impressed by his address and presence at our 

meeting and proposed that he be made an honorary member 

of the VGC for the period of his office. 

Other issues discussed by the Council included a lively 

debate on whether to officially recognise younger gliders. 

Many gliders currently entered in our rallies are not strictly 

vintage. We welcome these machines at our rallies because 

they are often interesting and their owners support us. 

We already have a definition of a vintage glider; however, 

the objectives of the Vintage Glider Club clearly state that we 

promote not only vintage but also historic gliders. This means 

that we can consider younger gliders to be within the existing 

rules. Encouraging owners of such gliders to join us will

provide a larger foundation for oUI movement and produce a 

healthier Club. I also anticipate it will result in larger attendances 

at some of our more distant International Rallies, such 

as in Slovakia. 

According to some European members, the Club retains a 

distinctly British flavour. However, following the election of a 

Dutch member to the Executjve Committee during the Annual 

General Meeting this may nO longer be justifiable criticism. 

Finally, I have had the privilege of being the Chairman of 

the VGC since 1991 and I hope I have made a modest contribution 

to the Club during that time. However, I do feel that six 

years is long enough in such an appointment and have therefore 

decided not to offer myself for re-election as Chairman. 

Nonetheless, with no nominations forthcoming and believing 

that I do still have some contribution to make, I am willing to 

continue as Chairman, until such time as the Committee elects 

a smccessor. 

(The report above was the basis of the Chaimans address to 

the Annual General Meeting at Lasham on 20 Sept 1997. Ed) 

PRESIDENT'S CORNER 

This year has been one of continued progress with our movement. 

In Britain, five GRUNAU BABIES, TWO OLYMPIAS 

and one SKY are being worked on. Still poised and trembling 

in expectation of being restored (we hope) are two KRANICH 

2s, one WEIHE, one MINIMOA, one H17A, one WREN, one 

DAGLlNG, another GRUNAU BABY, a KITE I, a KITE 2 

and a SPALINGER S.2IH, as well as probalbly other 

sailplanes. So the Show is not over yet bl!lt our members in 

Britain have already worked miracles. 

SAFETY at our International RaHies, in France. 

On one occasion, a sailplane waS seen on base leg, on final 

turn in, on its approach and landing flying very slowly, with 

its airbrakes out. Its nose was well \liP all the time and the 

landing was a dropped landing with a cushion of air beneath it 

which minimized the shock. REMEMBER... SPEED 

MEANS SECURITY with our old gliders. 

On another occasion, a glider ahead of us, did a turn into us, 

without the pilot ever looking out. REMEMBER ALWAYS 

TO KEEP A GOOD LOOK OUT. A collision would be a disaster, 

especially as some of us don't carry parachutes. 

DURING THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE 

MEETING AT BAR SUR SEINE, the votes for location of 

the RENDEZ-VOUS 98 RALLY were almost exactly equal 

for HRONOV and ZBRASLAVICE but it was decided that 

Rendez-Vous '98 would be at ZBRASLAVICE. At 

HRONOV, on the Polish Frontier, there is to be a vintage car 

and aeroplane meeting at the same time. 

Therefore, we thought that we should give people the 

choice of attending one or the other. HRONOV might be on 

the line for NITRA for the North Germans, Danes and Scandinavians, 

while ZBRASLAVICE would be on the line for 

NITRA for the Dutch, British, Swiss, Belgians, South 

Germans, French etc. Club members at Zbraslavice have been 

putting in a new hot and cold water shower system for the 

camp site. They have been working very hard to improve the 

infra-structure for us. 

In order that we should have some coherance, please 

would pilots who wish to attend either of the RENDEZ 

VOUS 98 at ZBRASLAVICE or the meeting at HRNOV 

inform C.WilIs at: "Wings", The Street, Ewelme, Oxon OX IO 

6HQ, England. Tel: (0) 149 I-839245 in order that an idea of 

numbers attending each can be ascertained. 

CLUB NEWS 

TREASURER'S REPORT 

The annual accounts are reproduced elsewhere in this issue 

and from them you will see there is a :large one-off payment 

for microfilming the plans held in the archives. This along 

with the increased posta'l, printing and paper costs for the 

magazine, insurance charges and other items all have to be set 

against a fixed subscription income. These have produced a 

deficit of income over expenditure and I expect, regrettably, 

there will again be a deficit when the 19n accounts are produced. 

Clearly, this situation, while under control, cannot be 

allowed to continue any longer and it is therefore, necessary 

to increase the subscription by £5.00 sterling per member as 

from January 1st and at the same time, the joining fee will be 

increased to £5.00 each person. Thus, 1998 subscriptions will 

be as follows: U.K £17,00, Europe £19.00, Rest of the world 

£21.00. 

There is one further material factor which will assist us considerably 

and that is for members to ensure, wherever possible 

that they pay promptly and certainly not later than 3 1st 

March. We can no longer afford to send out the magazine to 

anyone who has not paid after this date, although an exception 

may have to be made in the case of a few members living in 

remote parts of the world. If this change causes difficulty to 

any member, I hope they will let me, or the membership secretary, 

know so that we can make a suitable arrangement for 

them. 

We had to speculate that people would eventually pay when 

sending out the July issue of the VGC News and the VGC lost 

the benefit of over £2000 for some six or more months. 

To those of you who paid in advance, or made a donation, I 

am extremely grateful and I assure you that everything possible 

will be done to contain costs at all times whilst still preserving 

standards. I hope you all maintain a continued interest 

in the VGC and that you will always find it worthwhile. 

Liebe VGC Freunde: Ab 1998 soil der VGC-Beitrag auf £19 

(zur Zeit gleich 57-DM) steigen. Das wird mit den gestiegenen 

Kosten fur Post, Papier und HerstelIungskosten filr die 

VGC News begrtindet. 

Ich bin dartiber nicht gIiicklich, denn schon der Umtauschkurs 

von DM zu englischem Pfund ist letztes Jahr urn 30% 

gestiegen. Leider haben das nur wenige deutsche MitgIieder 

gemerkt. In diesem Jahr waren durch den gestiegenen 

Umtauschkurs schon 42-DM falIig gewesen. 

Das solIte bei der nachsten Oberweisung beriicksichtigt 

werden. Ich bitte Euch, die Dberweisung auf das Konto: Jorg 

ZilIer VGC, KSK Boblingen, BLZ 603 501 30, Ktnr,: 

42856937 vorzunehmen. 

In Friederichshafen sucht eine junge Dame Partner filr eine 

Ka3. Der Rumpf ist restauriert und die Flachen mit der 

HOlzarbeit fast fertig. Im NotfalI auch Verkauf, wenn sich 

keine Partner finden. Wer Interesse hat, soIlte sich bei mir 

melden. Ich wunsche Euch viele Aufstiegschancen. 

ljjrg Ziller. 

2

VINTAGE GLIDlER CLUB ACCOUNTS 1996 

Vintage Glider Club 

Balance Sheet as at 31 December 1996 

Fixed assets 

Cost 

Accumulated depreciation 

Net Book Value 

£ 

1996 

£ 

1995 

£ 

5,478 5,478 

4,491 4,005 

987 1,473 

Vintage Glider Club 

Income and Expenditure Account for the year ended 

31 December 1996 

1996 1995 

£ £ £ 

Income 

Sales 1,807 2,414 

Less: Cost of goods sold 1,059 1,298 

Gross profit on sales 748 1,116 

Current Assets 

Stock 2,641 

TSB Savings Account 0 

TSB Cl!lrrent Account 0 

Nat West Savings Account 8,303 

Nat West Current Account 2,213 

Abbey National BS (Sales Account) 664 

Cash in Hand 3 

13,824 

2,574 

11.089 

3,375 

0 

0 

576 

2 

17,616 

Subscription Income 9,224 8,561 

Technical Articles 224 453 

Donations 623 575 

Interest received 776 368 

Surplus(Deficit) from Annual Dinner 16 (124) 

Surplus from Lasham Rally 0 2,330 

Expenditure 

11,611 13,279 

Current Liabilities 

Sundry creditors 

Net Current Assets 

Represented by: 

Reserves brought forward 

(Deficit)Surplus for Year 

914 

651 

12,910 16,965 

13,897 18,438 

18,438 12,420 

(4,541) 6,018 

Magazine production 10,177 4,846 

Stationery & Postage 1,080 698 

Depreciation 486 384 

Insurance 395 282 

Engraving & Prizes 229 399 

Microfilming 3,646 0 

Miscellaneous expenses 139 652 

16,152 7,261 

(Deficit)/Surplus for the Year (4,541) 6,018 

Reserves carried forward 13,897 18,438 

I have examined the records of the Vintage Glider Club. In my 

opinion the Balance Sheet set out above and the attached 

Income and Expenditure Account give a true and fair view of 

the state of affairs of the Vintage Glider Club as at 31 December 

1996, and of its deficit for the year then ended. 

Original signed by M.G.Stringer B.Sc. A.CA. 

FROM THE MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY 

Tills is how your membership number and the year to 

which membership has been paid appear 011 the VGC 

News address sheet. If the address sheet is yeUow then 

your subscription is overdue. 

If the address is incorrect, please send your current name 

and address to the Membership Secretary, Ian Dunkley 

Membership No. 

Name & 

Address 

Post Code 

0288 99 ~ Year to which 

membership has 

Colin Ansol1 been paid 

22 Elm Avenue - 

Watford 

Herts 

WD I 4B~ Country 

UK ...---- 

FROM THE EDITOR 

When I was at the Rendez-vous and the Main Rally this year I 

took the opportunity to speak to as many members as possible 

to get their views on the VGC News and to try to find out how 

they see the future for this publication. Some wanted more 

issues per year while being doubtful of their ability to write 

more articles or reports and some were hoping for more issues 

like the last one with 48 pages. Others suggested that the 

appearance of the pages should be changed with bigger headings 

and a less rigid sticking to the two column format; in 

other words, to be more adventurous in the format. Another 

request was that Works Numbers should be given whenever a 

specific glider is mentioned so that, in time, its entire history 

can be plotted. 

For my part, I suggested that occasionally, more use could 

be made of languages other than English to reflect the international 

character of the VGc. Tllis is two-edged, of course, as 

3

those who cannot read the foreign language will be mjssing a 

page or two; a start is being made in this issue with the original 

German text of Jochen Ewald's description of the Condor 

being included along with the translation into English by 

Colin Anson. We will only do this sparingly as English is now 

the lingua franca of most of the world. 

Do members want to see a list of all the flights each day of 

a rally Mentioning only the better flights might be more 

interesting. 

As to the request for more issues, although we would all 

appreciate this, it has to be stated that the cost of producing 

the News now eats up all, or more, of our subscription 

income, and it does take up a lot of our spare time for Chris 

and myself. 

This is a members' magazine and it is up to the members to 

write pieces and take photos for it, as without tills contribution 

it will soon dry up. Perhaps the criticism that the News is too 

British is because not sufficient numbers of non-Brits send 

anything to us; I hope that my chats at Bar-sm-Seine will in 

due course bring forth more articles from the rest of the world 

and we are making a start with this issue which has 5 non 

British articles 

If you can send your articles on a disc, indicating the computer 

language, it would be greatly appreciated. 

Finally, there is no truth in the rumour that I am applying 

for the job of Editor of that other gliding magazine. 

THE INTERNET 

Despite our love of old gliders we do not reject modern things 

and our member Robin Willgoss has set up a VGC Web Site 

for us with a Conference Centre for discussion groups. Any 

country without its own Web Site is invited to write a page in 

their own language about their own vintage activities. In 

future, we hope to preview the tides of articles which will 

appear in the next VGC News and a1lso by corresponding with 

the Conference Centre it is hoped that more material will be 

posted which could be the beginning of other articles. 

The VGC Web Site can be accessed on http://www. 

tally.co.uk/guests/vgc This URL has been given to "Yahoo". 

PUBLIC RELATIONS 

One of the many striking things noticable about both the 

Rendez-vous and the International Rally was the good relations 

which the two clubs had with the local press. There were 

Ideal Christmas Present: Enamelled Glider Pin 

Elegant modern glider- white enamel in gilt outline 

with blue canopy and red rudder 

1 %" (33mm)wing span £4.00 for immediate delivery 

p&p UK & EU £0.50 - Overseas £1.50 

VGC Sales, 22 Elm Avenue, Watford, Herts, WD14BE 

New! The VGC 

Christmas/Season's 

Greetings Card 

reduced to 20 pence each 

available from VGC Sales 

see order form for address 

Qty UK&EU Overseas 

Postage 5 0.35 0.75 

and 10 0.50 1.00 

packing 20 0.75 1.50 

30 1.00 1.75 

40 1.50 2.25 

50 1.75 2.75 

Season sGreetings 

Meilleurs Voeux 

Frohe Festtage 

Prettige Feestdagen 

Boldog Unnepecket 

photos and stories in the papers almost every day at both 

events. This did not happen by accident and the club members 

responsible should be congratulated for doing a good job in 

explaining our hobby to the general public in an entertaining 

manner. 

EON 460 SERIES 

Just after we went to press with the last issue we heard the 

good news that the CAA had rescinded the grounding notices 

on all 460s not showing any signs of corrosion provided they 

had the "Lasham" modification carried out. 

CORRECTIONS TO VGC NEWS NO 91 

LETTER FROM TONY MORRIS on 21.7.97. Abridged by 

C.Wills. Tony is a specialist and a mine of information on 

Polish aircraft (especially gliders). 

Concerning VGC News No. 91. 

1I. Very impressed with this issue - the best so far! 

2/. Old photos (of Polish and Hungarian gliders) supplied by 

and credited to Peter Startup ie. those on pages 34, 38, 39, 40 

came via myself from an avid photo collecter in Budapest, 

4

Laszlo Javor, and should be credited to his collection. I'm 

making no big deal over this but am just pointing out their 

origin as far as I know it. Certainly, I've no idea of their true 

origin. 

Concerning the caption under the Brazilian sailplane 

"FLAMINGO" on page 21 of VGC News No. 91, it should 

read: "A close-up of the Flamingo with its builder Kurt Hendrich 

standing on the left with Sr Luiz Bevilliasquea, the 

Director of the Aero Club. Hans Widmer, also from Switzerland, 

designed it". Tony Morris 

Also, the caption to the upper picture on Page 25 was 

missing but should have read:- The only Swedish EoN 

Olympia, SE-SMH, formerly BGA 1422. Photo by Rolf 

Algotsen who also owns a Hiilter 17 (SE-SAP) and a Grunau 

Baby (OY-ADX) 

COpy DATE 

The last date for articles and photographs to be 

sent to the Editor for the next issue, which will go 

out in mid-March will be 15th January 1998. 

VGC ANNUAL PRIZE GIVING 

VGC PRIZES were awarded at the VGC's ANNUAL 

DINNER at Lasham on the 20th September 1997 by Ann 

Welch 

VGC RESTORATION PRIZES FOR 1997 were awarded to: 

1/. MIKE POWELL for his T.21 b BGA 2351. He managed to 

repair notably its nose (it was non existent) in the coveredover 

drive way of his home. He has had some excellent 

flying in it since. 

2/. MARK WAKEM for his Slingsby SKY BGA 694. 

3/. BERNARD WILSON who has restored his Slingsby SKY 

BGA 1053. 

4/. RICHARD GEISER, Switzerland, for the MOSWEY 3 

HB-374. It was restored at Chanis, which has an Oldtimer 

Club. 

5/. MANFRED HOFFMANN (Germany) for his beautifully 

restored T.2lb. 

6/. WILLEM de BAARS (the Netherlands) for his beautifully 

restored T.2l b 

7/. JOHN LEE for his EoN OLYMPIA, which he built up 

from the remains of olher EoN OLYMPIAS. 

8/. RICHARD KILHAM for restoring a SKYLARK 2. 

9/. PETER DEEGE: The FRANK REEKS TROPHY "for the 

lDest tumed out GRUNAU BABY during the year".This is 

an annually awarded Trophy to keep the memory of 

FRANK REEKS alive. He was working on a Grunau Baby 

20 at the time of his untimely death. This aircraft was later 

finished by ,John Edwards and was then sold to George 

Nuse in the USA. Frank was also working on a three-view 

drawing of the Rhonsperber for our vac News. He 

managed to get it io to the post just before his death but the 

VGC had a long time to wait for it, because it was 

impounded during a strike. The FRANK REEKS TROPHY 

is awarded annually. 

10/. PETER was also awarded a VGC Restoration prize for 

his 1938 Dutch built GRUNAU BABY 2, which is the only 

remaining airworthy prewar built glider in the Netherlands. 

PETER also accepted a VGC RESTORATION PRIZE for the 

T.31 "Topless", which was restored by the HILVERSUM 

SYNDICATE, of which Peter is a member. 

THE VGC's GRAND RESTORATION PRIZE 

This is usually awarded annually for the most meritorious 

restoration of a glider during the year. This year, it was 

awarded for a glider which was restored three years ago ... ie 

the KITE 2 BGA 663, which Bill Tonkin, Ralph Hooper and 

Frank lrving restored. It is now painted a brilliant red. In 

1951, this was the only glider that was privately owned and 

rigged in the hangar at Redhill. All the other gliders were 

owned by the Surrey Gliding Club. BGA 663 was then 

painted a very practical silver all over... as were many other 

Slingsby gliders during that long ago austere period after the 

war. 

VGC PERFORMANCE PRIZES FOR 1997 

THE ED. HALL TROPHY is awarded to the pilot who has 

flown the best performance in a Vintage Glider during the 

year from Lasham. 

This was awarded to NAN WORALL, who flew a wooden 

glider on a 300 krns triangle.This award was proposed by our 

Lasham members. 

A VGC PERFORMANCE PRIZE AND THE EN. 

SLINGSBY and JOHN SPROULE PRIZE for the best flight 

in a Cadet, or Tutor (Cadet Mk 3 ie T.31 s are accepted). This 

was awarded to NEfL SCULLY AND DAVID ORMEROD 

for a wave flight in their T.31 to 6,500 ft above site on the 

second day of our 1997 National Rally at Camphill during 

June. 

A VGC PERFORMANCE PRIZE was awarded to CHRIS 

HUGHES for his wave flight to 7,800 ft in his SLINGSBY 

PREFECT during the 1997 SL NGSBY WEEK at SUTTON 

BANK. The weather was bad for the whole week but, during 

one aftell1oon, he was able to take advantage of a small slot in 

the 10/10 cloud which momentarily opened up to let him 

through... and upwards. 

Chris also received the ROD! MORGAN PLATE for consistently 

achieving the best flights during our National Rally at 

Camphill in his PREFECT. He flew over 15 hours in it during 

the week of the Rally in June. The ROD! MORGAN PLATE 

is awarded annually to keep the memory of Rodi alive. Rodi 

and Fred Stickland saved the Rhonsperber BGA 260 from 

certain extinction. It had been flown by Kit Nicholson who 

had won the 1938 and 1939 British National Championships 

with it. He had owned it with three other pilots since January 

1936. BGA 260 became damaged through damp during the 

war and had not flown since Easter 1940. It had been an 

incredible restoration. Rodi had saved other vintage gliders as 

well. 

The VGC Prizes were silver plates on which were 

engraved the VGC's Logo followed with information on the 

glider's restoration or perfonnance and the owners who had 

achieved the above. The owners or pilots, who had achieved 

the above and could not be present for the Presentation occasion, 

had their prizes sent to them by post. 

These were: MANFRED HOFFMANN Germany, 

RICHARD GEISER, Switzerland, JOHN LEE, RICHARD 

KILHAM and MARK WAKEM. The latter three heros are in 

Britain. Flowers were presented to ANN WELCH, JILL 

HARMER and ALICE ANSON and bottles of spilituous 

nourishment were awarded to the Dutch group, who we were 

very glad to have with us for the occasion. 

5

Some members ofthe International Council who met at Bar sur Seine. From left to right:- Wil/i Schwarzenbach Switzerland, 

Laszlo Meszaros Hungary, Finnan Henrard Belgium, (Jose Colombo, Spain, not a council member) David Shrimpton Chairman, 

Chris Wills President. Jorg Zi/ler Germany, JosefOtt Slovakia and Czech Republic, Hans Dijkstra Holland, Didier Fulchiron 

France. 

Rally Reports 

THE 13TH FRENCH VINTAGE GLIDER RALLY 

The Club Dedale, with the support of Centre de Planeurs du 

SENONAIS (C.P.S.), organised the 13th Rassemblement 

National Planeurs Anciens (RNPA) at Pont sur Yonne from 

1st to 4th May 1997. 

Four days blessed by excellent weather which allowed all 

pilots to enjoy flying every day. (These weather conditions 

are not really typical for International Vintage glider meetings 

even ifheld in France... VP.) 

Anyway, the 13th RNPA was quite successful with a good 

attendance of 22 gliders in order of flight and 2 for display, 

one of them a real antique piece, an AVIA 10 A which had 

flown in 1930 during "Quinzaine de SENS" (the fortnight of 

SENS) at FERME D'HEURE', 10 km from PONT SUR 

YONNE. 

While hosting the 13th National Vintage Glider meeting 

the c.PS. took the opportunity to commemorate the Quinzaine 

de Vol Sans Moteur, which represents the Ist year of 

motorless flight in France. The Quinzaine was organized by 

AVIA with the participation of UNIVERSITY AERONAU 

TIC division and just happened to be held in the same beautiful 

region of SENS. So, two celebrations in one, with a lot of 

history around each. 

But let's go back to the Vintage gliders which attended the 

13th RNPA National French meeting (It really was French 

because nearly all the gliders were built in France) 

Here is the list of the participants with relevant 

"PLANEUR": 

A 60F-CDGN 

A60F-CDLC 

A 60F-CCVO 

B900SF-CABY 

B 90 I S F - CCCL 

B 90I S F - CCCP 

B 904 S F - CCFN 

B 904 S F - CCFP 

B 904 S F - CCFQ 

M 100 S F - CCSP 

M lOOS F - CDHT 

M 200F-CDHC 

M 200F-CDHO 

M 200 F -CDDU 

SA 104 F - CRRN 

KBKF-CCAS 

N 2000 F - CBFR 

MU.13EOO-ZHP 

C 30 S 3 - A.MTO 

C 30S F-CDGC 

WA 21 F-CCFE 

WA22 F-CDEE 

BOULANGERIST. DENIS TEAM 

PETER URSCHELER 

JACQUES HEYMES 

CLAUDE VISSE 

CHRISTOPHE VALANTIN 

PiERRE PLANE 

GPPA OF ANGERS 

MICHEL ROUSSEL 

GERARD JEANJEAN 

JEANFRANCOIS DUPEY 

MICHEL MOUTARD 

DIDIER PATAILLE 

LOCAL CLUB 

MARATIMENINI TEAM 

FRANCOIS LOUISHENRY 

CAB OF BEYNES 

JEAN-MICHEL GINESTET 

JEAN CLAUDE BENARD 

MICHEL FRANCHI 

JACQUES HEYMES 

AC OF GOELAJ'\J'DS 

LOCAL CLUB 

The M lOO MESANGE and the M 200 were built in 

FRANCE by the company CARMAM OF MOULINS, but 

designed by ALBERTO and PIERO MORELLI, of 

POLlTECNIC of TORINO. (I was pleased to have a bit of 

Italian Ilavour in this very French, and very successful too, 

glider meeting. VP) 

The summary of the meeting: 

1st ,ay; abollit 30 airtows with the duration record of 2 h 

and 17 min. achieved by the team BOPAPA and Boulangh 

with MU 13E -00- ZPH. 

_6 ----'------....1

2nd day: 41 airtows with duration record of 2 h 44 min. 

obtained by JACQUES BOULANGER with A 60 FAUCON 

NET F - CDGN. Unfortunately the MU.13 E reported some 

damage during landing. 

3rd day: 35 airtows with a new recor(iJ of 3 h surprisingly 

achieved by WA - 22 F - CDEE flown by one member of the 

local club. The evening was dedicated to celebrate the 25th 

anniversary of the foundation of the CENTRE de PLA 

NEURS du SENONAIS (CPS). 

4th day: The last day was mainly devoted to commemorate 

the "QUINZAINE NATIONALE de Vol Sens Moteur de 

SENS", which took place from 71il to 2i st September 1930. A 

small leaflet prepared by PIERRE COURRIER was ptesented 

illustrating the hIstory of gliding before j 930 including a 

description of the 8 gliders which participated in the "QUIN 

ZAlNE DE SENS" (six out of eight were AVIA). This leaflet 

also covered articles from newspapers of those days and a 

description of the site where this meeting took place. 

To close the rassemblement there was a "Vintage Defile": a 

MORANE 317, F - BGUZ airtowing a BREGUET 904 and a 

STORCH with the colours of the GERMAN ARMY towing a 

NORD 2000 with the colours of the French AVIATION. A 

real leap back to the past and the most tangib'le expression of 

"VINTAGE". 

In the afternoon most participants started derigging their 

gliders and starting their way back home, also considering 

some clouds that anticipated some storms coming in the following 

days. 

Nevertheless, I do believe that everybody was very happy 

about this meeting which took place in a very friendly atmosphere 

and with outstanding organization. 

Myself, specifically, besides having enjoyed taking a lot of 

nice pictures and some video, I enjoyed flying for about an 

hour and a half with Didier Pataille in his M - 200 F - CDHC. 

V/NCENZO PEDRIELLI 

Some ofthe gliders waiting to .fly at the 13th French Vintage 

Glider Rally. Vincenzo Pedrielli. 

SI\"W~~ 

THE JOUI\NAL OF " . 

THE AIRPlANE 1920-1940 

Leo Opdycke, 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 

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• PLUS: your wants and disposals 

• news of currenl publications of all kinds' PLUS more ... 

Sample copies $4 each. 

Published by WORLD WAR 1 ~~, INC. 

15 C,,:scCnl HO,l 

completed their Silver C with a 50K flight from Lasham to 

Old Sarum. Congratulations to them both, how fitting to have 

done so on the 50th Anniversary. Well done! 

Having heard tales of Mick's only previous field landing in 

a Venom jet fighter, there was some speculation about how he 

would get on if he didn't make it to Old Sarum. 

lan Smith flew to Chilborn and back! Ray Whittaker flew 

to Welford- Andover - Lasham! (in a K6) 

A Thompson flew the Wiehe, but could not get used to the 

curtains in the canopy! 

Thursday, 29 May 

Yet another sunny day, lots of local flying and glider swapping. 

Friday, 30 May 

Chrissy Thompson landed out near Rivar Hill in her Oly 2b 

(has this place got a magnet!) which was her first real field 

landing. 

7

TABLE 2 

50TH ANNIVERSARY RALLY FOR OLYMPIA I AND 2, HELD AT LASHAM FROM SATURDAY, 24 MAY TO 

SUNDAY, 01 JUNE 1997 

ATTENDEES 

Name Glider Re No Club 

B Sheffield OLY2B BOA 1554 MENDIP 

P Haxell 

CHK 

M Bridges 

2 J 01'1' OLY2B BOA 1029 LASHAM 

M Crawley 

BKL 

3 A Jarvis OLY2B BOA678AUU PARHAM 

4 A Thompson OLY2B BOA 2279 MAR HAM 

C Thompson 

DPU 

"Buster" the Cat 

5 W Williams OLY2B BOA 1974207 CHILTERN 

6 PWelIs CAPSTAN BOA 1204 BST PARHAM 

M Dunford FOKA5 BOA 1646CMF PARHAM 

C Street OLY2B BOA 860BCK LASHAM 

7 J Lee OLY2 BOA 678 AUU PARHAM 

J Light CAPSTAN BOA 1204 LASHAM 

8 J Ho kins PREFECT BOA 599 ARK LASHAM 

9 RHood ORUNAU BABY 2B BOA 578 AQN LASHAM 

10 R Moyse SKY BOA 685 AYB LASHAM 

11 I Smith T31 BOA 3229 FFQ LASHAM 

12 K Oreen WIEHE BOA 1093 BNC LASHAM 

M Wills 

13 M Mode SWALLOW BOA 1221 BTA ODlHAM 

14 R Whittaker SWALLOW BOA 3823 HBX LASHAM 

J Ben David 

15 DShe ard LIBELLE BOA 1632284 HIGHLAND 

16 L Woodage ORUNAU BABY 2B BOA 2433 DUNSTABLE 

17 BTonkyn KITE 

- 

LASHAM 

Saturday, 31 May 

Sunny weather again but the winds starting to pick up, very 

little flying was done, one or two ventured out for local flying. 

Colin Street was persuaded to fly his Oly with a camera 

mount on the wing to get some airborne footage for a video 

which was being made of the Rally. 

The now customary barbecue was held in the evening. A 

number of presentations were made, bottles to M Dunfold and 

J 01'1' for their Silver legs of 50K, Dennis Sheppard for travelling 

the longest distance (600 miles) with his car and trailer, 

Alan and Clu'issy Thompson for being good participants in 

the Rally and last but not least a bouquet of flowers to Chris 

Whittaker for organising the food for the barbecues. 

Sunday, 1 June 

The sun is still shining, is this a record for a rally, 9 days of 

sunshine! unfortunately there is still a strong gusting wind so 

no flying for the rally members. 

John Lee brought his Oly from Parham but due to various 

misfortunes it wasn't ready to fly until the Sunday when it was 

too windy for vintage gliders. 

Tom Taylor, Jim Cramp's deputy at Elliotts, was a regular 

visitor during the week and we also had a visit from Nick 

Ooodhart. 

It is time to pack up and go home, a great time was had by 

all, even 'Buster' (AI and Chrissy's cat) enjoyed his stay at 

Lasham, he had a great time chasing the birds and mice. 

Overall the week was a great success with two 50K Silver 

legs completed, numerous cross country flights completed 

with or without, field landings and looking at some of the 

faces in the mornings a few hangovers! 

Our thanks to all who attended and for making this rally a 

success. 

Robin Hood 

8

AVENTOFT, A VERY MERRY, SUNNY AFFAIR 

The rare Danish C2 two-seater primary flying at Avento!t. 

Ciinter Brodersen 

Between July 4th and 13th the soaring club at Aventoft had 

invited us for an international soaring festival. Their airfield, 

as I had imagined, had to be somewhere close to the Arctic. 

Well, actually it is close to a border, but that of Denmark. 

Instead of ice we had nothing but sunshine, an entire week of 

great soaring conditions. 

Upon our arrival we set up camp next to the airfield where 

three large meadows had been set aside for camping and 

parking. During the first two days we experienced considerable 

wind and although the cloud base ranged between 1500ft 

and 1800ft we did not have problems staying aloft in the 

excellent thermals. 

The vintage gliders present were a Minimoa, a Weihe, T21, 

Steinadler, Habicht, G2 (a Danish two seater resembling an 

SG38 with two seats), Meise, Baby III and a L0150. 

Our.ing the days that followed the wind abated, the cloud 

!base rose to over 6000ft and we enjoyed days of outstanding 

long-distance weather. Bights all over Denmark became possible. 

From an altitude of about 3000ft the North Frisian 

islands in the West and the Baltic Sea in the East were visible 

at the same time. We admired the two coast lines with all the 

beautiful islands, the ocean, the windmills; all in all a fascinatingly 

captivating landscape. 

On Friday we welcomed a visitor from Dachau, near 

Munich: Mr Hoffmann from the Scheibe Aircraft Company 

arrived with a Rotax Schleppfalke. Pilots who, for the first 

tiine came to enjoy a tow behind this motorglider, all agreed 

that this was all excellent ~owing method, not just for modern 

ships but for v,intage gliders. 

Each morning pilots were g,iven different tasks to perform. 

In the evening t'hey rece·ived awards provided by various 

sponsors. One of tnese award ceremonies was broadcast on 

local radio. This programme also included some of the local 

ci,tizens who were our regula!' guests on these occasions. 

Leisure activities in this area of the country are plentiful 

and even though we flew every day we still found enough 

time to visit the beaches and go to the museum holding the 

famous artist Nolde's work. 

This international glider meeting gave all of us the opportunity 

to fly and also socialize with the local citizens. The 

pilots even formed a soccer team which played the Aventoft 

soccer team. On Friday all the young people had the opportunity 

to attend an evening of disco dancing. 

For a long time to come I will remember the beautiful, 

wide-open landscape, the islands, the open water, the many 

windmills, but above all the hospitality of the pilots and the 

people of Aventoft. Our thanks go to Adalbert Schultz and his 

team for such fine organisation. 

j6rg Ziller with Klaus Heyn 

Weihe and MgJ9 waiting 

to fly at Avento!t. Ciinter 

Brodersen. 

9

Woodworm Rodeo, Dunstable, 11-13 July 

Poor weather delayed the start of the task meeting until the 

morning of Saturday the 12th which produced a brilliant day 

with good thermals. Fourteen gliders competed for the Woodworm 

Rodeo Trophy, a superb cup expertly turned out of 

poplar and walnut woods by Tony Danbury. 

achieve four out of five spot landings within 3 feet of the 

marker, but they alone built up their score by attempting all 

the other three tasks. Runners-up were Murray Hayes and 

Laurie Woodage in their OB I I and the T2 I of Mike Stringer 

and Tony Curtis. 

Following a spirited aerobatic display in the Lunak by 

Oraham Saw, a barbeque was held on Saturday evening, the 

proceedings being further enlivened by the arrival over the 

hedge of a hot-air balloon. Oraham has since become the 

British Intermediate Aerobatic Champion, flying his Lunak at 

Saltby. 

On Sunday a concours d'elegance was judged by ex-de 

Havillalldtest pilot Ron Clear and Oeo~frey Stephenson (in 

1939 the first to soar across the English Channel). Lofty 

Russell's RhOnsperber was ,the winner with special mention of 

,the Ka 6 gliders of Rick Morris and Costill/Bodkin and of the 

Scud Ill, so lov,ingly rebuilt by Ron Clear himself way back 

in 1937-1940. A thunderstorm caused a rapid derigging 

session and the Rally was terminated early ... but then the sun 

came out! Hopefully the event will be staged again in 1998 

but without the thunderstorm. 

Ted Hull 

See Table 3 for participants 

The Woodworm Trophy wondeifully tumed by Tony Danbury. 

Ted Hull. 

The scoring system was designed to aid the older gliders 

without airbrakes, wheel brakes and/or skids and to adjust for 

winch or aerotow launches. 

Nearly everyone had a go at the spot-landing contest; 

others trying for duration, nominated landing times or heighl 

gains. 

The Ka6CR team of Oeorge Costin and John Bodkin, new 

members of the VOC, took the honours, as not only did they 

67 years after his first glider flight Ron Clear showed he had 

lost /tone ofhis skills when he flew a nJ. He is being briefed 

by Rob Brimfield. Ted Hull. 

TABLE 3 

PARTICIPANTS 

Rhons erber BOA 260 F Russell 

_-"-SI:..:cin:Jg'Cs-"-by'---"--T-'.'-2-=-1 B--=O'---A---=-39'---0-=---1 ----,---M-=---S-,,-t:..:cri'--'.!nger -=-/-=-T-=-C:....:u-=-r.:.::..tis'------ _ 

EON Primary BOA 3214 R Brimfield / 0 Moore 

Orunau Baby 11 BOA 2433 M Ha es / L Wooda e 

Ka6CR BOA 2483 R Morris 

Ka6CR BOA 2870 0 Costin / J Bodkin 

Fauvette BOA 2679 P Parker 

Capstan BOA 1133 R Colbeck 

Lunak OK-0927 0 Saw / S Davis 

Ka 2 D-6173 R Willgoss 

HUtter HI7 BOA 490 N Newton 

Kra·anek BOA 655 M Birch 

SIin sby T31 BOA 3847 M Vowles 

Scud 111 BOA 684 T Hull 

10

RENDEZ·VOUS RALLY 1997 

This was held at the former French National Centre at PONT 

SAINT VINCENT which is close to NANCY, from the 26th 

of July until the 3rd of August. 

A great advantage of this site is its enormous hangar which 

was put up for the National Centre in the very late 1940s or 

early 1950s. However, the accomodation buildings (Les 

Casernes) For diIe National Centre, on the way up the hill, are 

now occupied iby the military. There is one bunkhouse near 

the hangar and some newer toilet and washing facilities in an 

old military fortification dating from 1870 nearby the 

bunkhouse but tIle showers only had cold water and there was 

no drinking water at all. 

See Table 4for Participants 

Air Space restrictions were Nancy Airport north of the site, 

the military airbase Toule. west of the site and a parachute 

drop zone east of the site. This allowed us only free airspace 

in theory south of the site. Heights over Nancy were 

restricted. There could be nO infr,ingement of airspace near 

and over Toule. or the Parachute Drop Zone.' In spite of all 

this, some good soaring flights were possible and hangar 

space was available for our gliders in the event of rain. 

Albert Mangeot was the Chief Pilot before 1940 at the 

Aero Club (then known as the Aero Club of the Upper 

(Haute) Moselle). It was under his direction that the first 

EMOUCHET was created using the wings,. suitably stengthened, 

of a Polish Salamandra primary and a new fuselage, in 

the style of a Caste! C.30. Avia 32 or Grunau Baby etc. 

At Pont Saint Vincent. we were given great hospitality and 

welcome by members of the Aero Club and. in particular by 

its President, Joseph Bocciarelli and by ,its Vice President, 

Christian Mathieu. A small Cafe by the side of the hangar 

looked after our appetites and provided drinking water. This 

was important because it was sometimes very hot. Still more 

entrants arrived with their gliders on Monday. These were 

Jorg Ziller, George Slot, Didier FU1chiron and Franyois Ragat. 

At Briefing we were urged to respect the controlled Air Space 

every day. There would be good weather with 5 m/sec thermals 

and no wind. 

Anention was drawn to another complete runway on the 

same hill as the Aero Club Albert Mangeot, which is never 

used .. but can be used! 

The best flights on MONDAY 28th JULY were:- 

JAN fORSTER & MARJA OSINGA - Mg 19A BGA 

2903,55 mins. CHinS WILLS. Mg 19A BGA 2903 I hour 12 

mins. PETER DEEGE Mg 19a, BGA 2903, 46 mins. 

BERTRAND, Fauconet F-CDLC. 6 hours 28 mins. WERNER 

TSCHORN. Weihe 50, D-7080 5 hours, DANIEL STEFFEN, 

Spalinger S.18-3 HB-51O 3 hours 41 mins. PETE & JILL 

HARMER Ka-2b BGA 2147. 3 hours 09 mins. 

TABLE 4 

GLIDERS TAKING PART 

M.200 F-CDKI Aero Club Albert Mangeot - France. 

KA-18 F-CEJH Aero Club Albert Man eot - France. 

AIR 102 F-CAYU Christian Mathieu - France. 

_W_E_I_H_E_5_0 D_-0_3_6_1 G_er_d_H_e_IID_.1acob - Germany. 

FAUVEL AY.22 F-CAGL Jean Claude Ne lais - France. 

FAUVEL AY.36. F-CBSM Aero Club Albert Man eot - France. 

_E_D_E_LW_E_I-'-SS-'- F_-_C_D_A_U-'----- A_e_r-'-o--'C_I~b AlbeJ'l Mangeot - France. 

_-=-T:..:::.3-=-1_'~_=_::..oPLI:..:::e=.:ss=_ 

-=B=-G=.:..:A=_4.:..::2::..::2:...:8 -=H:..::.::.i1vc-e:..:r.::..su::..:m~S_~_dicate - Netherlands. 

WEIHE 50 D-7080 Werner Tschorn - Germany. 

MEISE D-1420 Jorg ......_.:. Ziller - Germany. .....L _ 

GRUNAU BABY 2 PH-102 Peter Deege - Netherlands. 

KRANICH 2 A-2 PH-103 Neelco Osinga - Netherlands. 

T.31 BGA 3181 Jan Forster - Netherlands. 

SPALlNGER S.18-3 HB-510 Daniel Steffen - Switzerland. 

SPATZ (Fauconet) F-CDLC Peter Urscheler - France. 

KA-4 "RHONLERCHE" PH-247 Gear e Slot - Netherlands. 

JAVELOT F-CBGZ Aere Club Albert Man eat - France. 

BIJAVE F-CDJE Aere Club Albert Man eot - France. 

Ka-8 F-CEJH. Aere Club Albert Man eot - France. 

Ka-2b BGA 2147 Pete and Jill Harmer - GB. 

---------------------------.--=-.. 

Mg 19A BGA 2903 Chris Wills - GB. 

_O_RL_I_K_2 ---'O:...K_-...::.6C-92_2 E_m...::.i_I-'-SIC-iv_a_-_C~zech Rep,_. _ 

AVIA 40P BGA 680 Fran~ojs Ragat - France. 

KaA Rhonlerche BGA 4116 Didier Fulchiron. - France. 

T.21 b PH-1045 Willem de Baars - Netherlands. 

Ka-6CR PH-851 AI hons Leeuw - Netherlands. 

Ka-2 PH-ZQB Piet de Cram - Netherlands. 

Ka-6CR D-1551 Uwe Mar enstern - Germany. 

11

TUESDAY 29th JULY. 

Briefing- Weather as yesterday with the possibility of some 

high cover that could cut off thermals."Don't go West or 

North because of Military Zones. Respect limits of air space! 

Normally no vehicles should be allowed on the field .... 

Perhaps only a few to retrieve the gliders. Spiral in thermals in 

the same direction as the uppermost glider. Pay attention to 

Parachute Drop Zone East of site every day. Don't flyover 

Toule airbase (SW of site). North of Nancy is a mHitary airfield., 

don't go there either!" 00 this day there were numerous 

very long duration flights including one by GUNTHER 

BRODERSEN and CHRIS WILLS in the Mg 19a BGA 2903, 

which lasted 6 hours -10 mins and almost reached 6,000 ft 

above site. There really was no wind and it was uncanny how 

the Mg 19a came back under cloud cover from being well out 

of sight of Pont Saint Vincent, to arrive home still at great 

height. On this day, 300 km triangles in our better old gliders 

might have been achieved. 

The AVIA 40P was flown by FRANCOIS RAGOT and 

someone reported that it left the MEISE of Jorg Ziller behind, 

flying straight ahead in lift! 

On this day, there was to be a trip by powered aeroplane to 

visit a hot air balloon Rally with over 100 balloons taking part 

in no wind conditions. A brief look in the Aero Club Albert 

Mangeot's workshop revealed:- one AIR 100, 1 Emouchet, 

one M.200, I Nord 2000 (Meise), and 2 CASTEL C.301s 

awaiting restoration or being restored. 

These C.30 I s are among the oldest French gliders still in 

existence. 

In form, they are almost identical to the Castel C.30 which 

was designed in 1935. 24 were built in 1939 by Fouga at Air 

sur I' Adour and 216 + 99 by S.N.C.A. in 1940, these latter 

being called C.301Ss. So far as we know, only two of these 

are airworthy at present: one, is owned by Maurice Renard at 

Celles and one by ASPAC at Paray le Monial. So the restoration 

of C.30I s will bring Dedale back at once into the histotic 

prewar era, as also will the Emouchet. 

Two C.800s were also seen derigged awaiting restoration 

(we hope) in the Pont Saint Vincent Hangar. The first two prototypes 

of these, without tailplane dihedral, were built in 1941 

and both were taken to Germany in 1943 to be on WL 

strength in 1944. This type, with dihedralled tailplane, 

achieved large scale production after 1945 as France's principal 

training two seater glider. Some have already been 

restored by members of Dedale. 

In the evening, our members held an International Evening 

with much food, drink and music and we hope that everyone 

enjoyed it. 

ON WEDNESDAY the 30th JULY. 

Among other duration flights was one of 3 hours 15 mins 

by Jochen Kruse and C.Wills in the Mg 19a. On this day, a 

Czech Republic team arrived from Hronov with an Orlik 2, 

OK-6922 with Emil Sliva and a friend. During the evening, 

Uwe Morgenstern arrived with his Ka-6CR D- J551 from 

Germany. 

In the evening, we were received by the mayor of Nancy 

and, after some speeches and champagne, we were able to 

view the magnificent Place Stanislas from the balcony of the 

Hotel de Ville. The Polish King Stanislas was also a Duke of 

Lorraine before 17907 (the date of Poland's partition), After 

embellishing some Chateaux in Lorraine, he set himself the 

task of improving and decorating the centre of Nancy. 

He did this with the finest wrought-iron work that Chris 

Wills has ever seen. Some of this was gilded with gold. After 

dark, in winter and summer, this is spot-lit to give the impression 

of showers of gold. In each corner of the square are 

grottos also lit up with fountains from which issue forth green 

water and more showers of gold. The Hotel de Ville's classic 

pillars soar skywards, lit up from below as shafts of light. 

People just sit at tables in the square listening to music and 

just simply marvelling at what surely must be one of the manmade 

wonders of the world. During daylight, the music consisted 

of one small boy wearing a beret playing French songs 

on an accordion. We are sure that one of them would have 

been the famous "En passant par la Lorraine".The accordion 

could well have been replaced by a symphony orchestra 

during the dark hours, as the surroundings and atmosphere 

were perfect for one. We were sad to have to leave such 

enchantment but not before some of us were taken on a walk 

around the old city, guided by two members of the Aero club.. 

THURSDAY 31st JULY 1997. On this day, a strong West 

wind and rain was expected, so there was no flying. In the 

evening, we were invited to join in a celebrated French "But 

de Lard" (barbecue) proceedings. This was held outside and 

meat and sausages (of special types) were grilled. Although 

raining a little the weather was not too bad for this and then 

we repaired to the bar and celebrated the 30th year of Christian 

Mathieu's gliding career. 

ON FRIDAY 1st AUGUST 1997, there was also no flying 

because of the weather. During the evening, there waS a final 

celebration and prizes were given H) our dear French organizers. 

ON SATURDAY the 2nd AUGUST 1997, there was rain 

and the gliders wefe derigged in the hangar and their components 

had to be carried outside to ,their trailers. This was masterminded 

by a Dutch Team headed by Jan Forster, with great 

skill. The problem was tha;t there were other gliders between 

the vintage gliders and the door, that did not have to be 

derigged. The team waS rather Itired after having derigged 

seven or eight vintage gliders.Their owners thank .the team for 

their efforts. The move to Ce'lles sur Ource took place on the 

next day. 

C. Wills 

Joseph Bocciarelli and Christian Mathieu with the Air 102. 

They are President and Vice President respectively of the 

Aero Club Albert Mangeot at Pont St Vincent. Chris Wills. 

12

The Pilots who participated. 

FRANCE 16. with 

SLOVAKIAN REPUBLIC 1. 

CZECH REPUBLIC I. 

SWITZERLAND 13. 

BELGIUM 6. 

HOLLAND 14. 

GERMANY 15. 

BRITAIN 8. 

HUNGARY 2. 

10. gliders 

1. 

1. 

10. 

3. 

10. 

11. 

3. 

ITALY 1. Total: 47. 

SPAIN I. 

USA I. 

AUSTRALIA I. 

Total 80. 

The above statistics were received from Maurice Renard. 

THE ENTRANTS AND THEIR GLIDERS 

FRANCE 

DUPEY Jean Francois Mesange (Tomtit) M.100 - F-CCSP. 

RAVEL Christian Breguet 904 (Ville d'Avrille) F-CCPN. 

LAMISSE Louis Fauvel AV 22. F-CCGK. 

PLANE Pierre 

Breguet 901 F-CCCP. 

FULCHIRON Didier Ka-4 BGA 4116. 

RENAUDIN Patrick Breguet 901. F-CCCJ. 

PATAILLE Didier M.200. F-CDHC. 

NEGLAIS Jean-Claude Fauvel AV.22. F-CAGL. 

BOCCIARELLI Joseph Javelot. F-CBGZ. 

URSCHELER Peter A.60 (Spatz) F-CDLC. 

We were in no doubt that we were in Champagne country 

when we saw the sign to the air.field at Bar sur Seine. G. 

Ferrier 

SLOVAK REPUBLIC 

on Josef 

CZECH REPUBLIC. 

SLlVA Emil 

ZLI N 23 HOlilza OY-5619. 

ORLlK 2 OK-6922. 

THE 25TH INTERNATIONAL VGC RALLY 

on the AIRFIELD of BAR-SUR-SEINE, CELLES-SUR 

OURCE, in the Champagne Country. This took place from the 

2nd -10th August 1997. 

The host Gliding Club is known as "Les Ailes Barsequanaises 

Celles sur Ource en Champagne". The little village 

(with one shop) of Celles sur Ource is below the airfield and 

the little town of Bar sur Seine is 6 krns away. 

Every one of our International rallies has been different 

and each has had something special to offer us. This one was 

no exception as almost everything for the rally had to be 

imported. There was the huge briefing tent of some splendour, 

the two smaller tents for the kitchen and restaurant, the refrigerator, 

the washing and toilet facilities and the electricity generating 

engine for the camp site etc etc. All that was there 

before was a small glider hangar and a small office building. 

To cap this was a small metal arch over the entrance, upon 

which were erected the colourful flags of the nations, against a 

green backdrop of vines, from which comes the Champagne. 

This then, its origin jealously guarded, goes out to the entire 

world. There you have a miracle of creativity and organization 

which was achieved by the very hard work of our 

member Maurice Renardand his daughter Isabelle and their 

helpers, to whom we owe our sincerest gratitude. 

SWITZERLAN D. 

WALTYWilli 

ROTHENBUHLER Hans 

SCHWARZENBACH Willi 

GEISER Richard 

BEGUIN Jacques 

ROTH Hugo 

STEFFEN Daniel 

RUEGG Werner 

BELGIUM 

HENRARD Firmin 

D'HUART Roland 

MONGIN Robert 

HOLLAND 

VERMEER Evert Jan 

OSINGA Neelco 

DISMA Hans/ VERMEER 

de BAARS Willem 

PIET de CROM 

SLOT George 

FORSTER Jan 

L-Spatz 55 HB-737. 

Spalinger S.19 HB-225. 

SpalingerS.18-3. HB-411. 

Moswey 3 HB-374, 

Grunau Baby 2 HB-234. 

Spyr 5 HB- 369. 

Spalinger S.18-3 HB- 510. 

Moswey 3 Unless this aircraft is 

HB-374, we do not believe that 

it took part. 

Ka-2B OO-ZRE. 

Specht OO-SZD. 

Spatz-B OO-ZJB. 

Prefect PH-192. 

Kranich 2 A-2 PH-103. 

GOEVIER 3 PH-207. 

1.21 B PH-1045. 

Ka-200-Z0B. 

RHOENLERCHE PH-247. 

1.31 BGA 3181 

13

GERMANY 

TSCHORN Werner 

RAPP Gerhard 

KERCHER Kurt 

MUELLER Max 

HERMJACOB Gerd 

ZILLER Jorg 

HEYN Klaus 

MORGENSTERN Uwe 

ALLEROISSEN Gerhard 

SCHULZ Adalbert 

HANSEN Peter 

BRITAIN 

HARMER Peter & Jill 

WILLS Christopher 

SHRIMPTON Oavid 

FLYING HOURS 

WEDNESDAY the 6th August, 

2 hours 26 mins.from 7 aerotows. 

THURSDAY the 7th August 


FRIDAY the 8th August 


Weihe 50 0-7080. 

Grunau Baby 2b 0-9297. 

11 

Grunau Baby 30-9297. 

Weihe 50. D-0361. 

Meise D-1420 

Ka-6 CR 0-1551. 

Weihe 50. 0-0084. 

Minimoa 0-8060. 

Weihe 50 

ITALY - PEOIELLI Vincenzo 

SPAIN - COLOMO Jose Jgnacio Garcia 

BRITAIN - FERRIER Graham 

Total =43 gliders. 

Ka-2B BGA 2147. 

Mg 19a "Steinadler" BGA 2903. 

Swallow BGA 3469. 

Establishing this figure was made more difficult because two 

pilots sometimes entered the same glider for which no 

National registration letters and numbers were given. Therefore 

the same glider would have been entered twice. Because 

of this, Maurice has given the number of glider entries as 47. 

Should anyone have any corrections, please could C.Wills 

be informed. 

SUNDAY the 3rd of August 

33 hours 31 mins. from 36 aerotows. 

MONDAY the 4th of August 


TUESDAY the 5th of August 


SATURDAY the 9th August 


SUNDAY the 10th August 

9 hours 57 mins. from 24 aerotows. 

TOTALS 328 hours 18 mins from 295 aerotows. 

This averages out at 1 hour 7 mins. per flight or 8 hrs 12 mins 

per glider assuming that 40 gliders flew. (The "Honza" 

primary was not flown.) 

The above statistics were received from Maurice Renard 

and were achieved without a single accident, in spite of the 

arrival of vicious thunderstorms and their aftermath of 

pouring rain. 

A brief description ofsome of the Gliders. 

The MOSWEY 3 HB- 374. This was formerly owned by Willi 

Bischof, who brought it to our first VGC Rally at Husbands 

Bosworth in 1973 .. It was then painted silver/blue and looked 

very smart. U is now painted yellow and it was restored at 

Chanis. We beHeve that it took part in the World Championships 

at Samaden ,in 1948 and at Cuatro Vientos (Madrid) 

in 195'2. It now looks very smart again. 

The FAUVEL AV 22 F-CAGL. This has been restored at Pont 

Saint Vincent and looks very beautiful. Jean Claude Neglais 

told us that by regulating the front seat forward, and by the 

pilot and passenger leaning forward, the AY.22 cou'ld achieve 

higher speed more effiently, because of alteration of its C of 

G, than by giving it down elevator. This reduces its rate 'of 

sink by one metre at 130 kph! This and the AY.22 at Angers 

are very impfessive flying wings from dIe point of view of 

performance at low and high speeds,and flight handling. Their 

performances are better than that of the AY.36. except in 

climb. 

The Ka-2, entered by Piet de Cram from Holland, with 

Belgian registration, is an original short span (ISm) Ka-2. It 

seems 10 fly and climb very well. Pier is nQw Holland's senior 

inspector for gliders. The wingspan of a production Ka-2B is 

16 m. The first Ka-2 was built during the winter of 1952/3 by 

Rudolph Kaiser fOF Alexander Schteicher to build as one of 

Germany's second wave of two seater sailplanes which were 

rather cheaper to build than the prewar ones. The wing profile 

was somewhere between Ithe Go 535 and Go 549. The Ka-2b 

soOn proved itself by flying German height, gain of height and 

distance records for two seaters. Schleichers. had been building 

before andattJhe same ,time, Heini Dittmar's Condor 4s, 

which were essentially very expensive to build, prewar 

sailplanes. Whereas the Condor 4 had a better performance 

than the Ka-2, the latter was more practical and much cheaper 

to build. Ka- 2b National German records were:- Dieter 

Schmidt, Heidelberg on the 24th Jan. 1959 7,770m absolute 

height and 6,907m. gain of height. On the 21 st May 1964, 

Oskar Damann and Franz Rlitschle flew a distance record of 

424.5 kms. There was also the extraordinary Turkish effort 

when the pilots flew their Ka-2 beyond the French frontier 

in~o Bellgium, (386km), beating all other two seaters, during 

the 1956 World Gliding Championships at St Van. There were 

no points scored for flying outside France so all they were 

credited with was 231 miles (400 kms) but their retrieve crew 

took three days sorting out the red tape at the border before 

returning to St Yan. 

THE RALLY DAY BY DAY. 

SATURDAY 2nd August. This was arrival and Opening Day. 

The distance and time needed to transfer to Celles from Pont 

Saint Vincent via the scenic route, was considerable. Some of 

us passed through Colombey Les Deux Eglises which was the 

home and final resting place of General de Gaule, former 

President of the French Republic. The weather and time precluded 

us from seeing very much of the famous place. 

The formal Opening took place at Celles in the evening and 

Maurice Renard thanked the many sponsors who had made 

the Rally possible. The Club's President made a short speech 

and Chris Wills finally declared the 25th International VGC 

Rally open and rang the traditional bell. 

14

SUNDAY 3rd August. 

See Table 5 

Some of the flights of less than one hour have been omitted 

from the above although they may have been of merit. 

On Monday, we were visited by Andre MONET, the President 

of the French Gliding Federation. He regretted that he 

could not have come during the weekend because of the 

traffic but he would now stay with us for the whole day. We 

have never met a finer gentleman and we were glad to have 

had him with us. He left on Tuesday morning and said that he 

was completely contented by what he had seen and heard at 

our Rally. 

MONDAY EVENING (Night!) WAS INTERNATIONAL 

EVENING. This occasion was more magnificent then ever 

before. There were two bands. The firsl one was a Swiss band 

with lwo recorders and an accordion playing Swiss Alpine 

music. The second one was German with one trumpet, three 

accordions and a singer. This continued ever growing in 

strength for half the night and it did not play only German 

music. The French liqueurs, schnapps, wine, beer and the 

food was tremendous. The British Contingent was small in 

number but it tried to aquit itself with honour. 

WEDNESDAY 5th August 

Storms were forecast for the whole day. A tour of 

TROYES was available by bus. We were able to admire the 

ancient architecture and the stained glass windows of the 

cathedral. These were truly magnificent. Shopping was then 

possible but some of us were deluged by a storm. Back on the 

airfield, the winch was tried out. A witness said that it nearly 

exploded! From the glider's end, the situation was not so desperate 

as the Pegase managed to stay up for 20 minutes. The 

winch had been bought from Pont Saint Vincent for our Rafly, 

and the club, during the previous week and it had not been run 

for a long time. Perhaps, after some maintenance, it might 

become a success 

Best flights of Wednesday were by:- 

JEAN CLAUD NEGLAIS AV 22 F-CGSG 20 mins. 

ROLAND D'HUART Specht OO-ZCN 21 mins. 

JOCHEN EWALD Specht OO-ZCN 18 mins. 

DAVID SHRIMPTON Swallow BGA 3469 10 mins. 

There was occasional very heavy rain. Martn Simons, Ted 

Hull, Laurie Woodage and Ian Dunkley all arrived from the 

Wachtersberg during the evening, The latter brought with him 

his Nimbus, which he was allowed to fly without problems. 

There was bad weather over all France on this day. This 

evening our great cooks prepared a dish of Couscous with sea 

food.This was truly magnificent. Old CARS were brought 

onto the airfield. They took some of us after the Couscous on 

a tour of the Champagne Route in the dark. This brought some 

of the village inhabitants out on to the streets to wave to us, 

and created a real old time car rally atmosphere. The old 

French, British and Americain cars were in splendid condition. 

THE MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL RALLY 

COMMITTEE on THURSDAY 7th AUGUST 1997. 

This was held at 0930 hrs chaired by David Shrimpton who 

had a hard job. 

Members attending were: Didier Fulchiron - France, Jorg 

ZilIer - Germany, Emil Sliva - Czech RepubHc, Joseph Ott 

Slovakian Republic, Didier Fulchiron -France, Johann Kieckens 

and Firmin Henrard-Belgium. Willi Schwarzenbach - Switzerland, 

Hans Dijkstra -Holland, and David Shrimpton- Britain. 

The first task was to decide on the venue for 1998's 26th 

International VGC RaIly. This was decided by majority vote 

that it should be at NITRA in Slovakia, where we have not 

been before. JOSEF OTT had already done much preparation 

work for this Rally. He showed a video film of Nitra which 

revealed that it was a large airfield with a considerable infra 

structure that we could use. He mentioned that almost everything 

in Slovakia would be very cheap for us from Western 

Europe. We know that there was a very strong wish from 

Achmer/Osnabruck that they should host the 1998 International 

VGC RaIly, and that the British would favour this as it 

is not so far to travel as Slovakia. It seems that Josef Ott had 

received the impression already last year that the 26th International 

Rally should be at Nitra and that this started him with 

his preparation. IT SEEMS VERY IMPORTANT THAT 

THOSE WISHING TO RUN OUR INTERNATIONAL 

RALLIES SHOULD BE PRESENT AT OUR INTERNA 

TIONAL COMMITTEE MEETINGS, WHICH ARE HELD 

DURING OUR INTERNATIONAL RALLIES, AT LEAST 

TWO YEARS BEFORE THEIR WISHED FOR RALLY 

DATES. WE ARE HOWEVER VERY PLEASED THAT 

THERE ARE STILL, AFTER 25 YEARS, PEOPLE WHO 

ARE PREPARED TO RUN OUR INTERNATIONAL 

RALLIES. WE THANK THEM WARMLY AND WE DO 

NOT WISH TO PUT THEM OFF IN ANY WAY. THEIR 

TIME WILL COME. 

Even harder was the decision as to where to hold 1998 's 

RENDEZ-VOUS RALLY. EMIL SLIVA proposed his club at 

HRONOV, which is a lovely location in the hills close to the 

POLISH frontier. The site has a slope which can be used in 

certain wind directions. Our Rally would be held in conjunction 

with a vintage aeroptane and car rally. It was fell that this 

might be on the line to Nitra from North Germany and that 

perhaps the 1938 Autobahn from Dresden to Upper Silesia 

might help our members to get there. It should be mentioned 

that the above Autobahn is probably still in 1938 form and 

may not now be in the best condition (although perhaps it has 

been repaired ) 

However, the VGC had also been receiving letters from 

ZBRASLAVICE offering to hold our 1998 RENDEZ-VOUS 

RALLY and that their infra structure had been recently 

improved even more, than it had been when we were last 

there. Johan Kieckens, who has often visited the Zbraslavice 

Club, said that we do have at least one member there and that 

they still do have vintage gliders, although one of them, a 

LUNAK has been recently acquired by the British. The line 

through Zbraslavice to Nitra is more direct for the British. We 

already kmow this magnificently picturesque site, with its 

good thermals. 

The Committee's voting for HRONOV and ZBRASLAV 

ICE was almost exactly equal. However, it was decided by 

one vote that our 1998 RENDEZ-VOUS RALLY should be at 

ZBRASLAVICE but that those who wanted to, could go to 

HRONOV. Contact at Zbraslavice is: Milan Kamenik, Club 

Chairman, Aeroklub Zbraslavice, 28521 Zbraslavice, okr. 

Kutna Hora, Czech Republic. Tel/Fax (+420327) 92286. 

Contact at Hronov is Emill Sliva. 

Contact at NITRA is Jozef Ott, Panska dolina 2, 94901 

NITRA, Slovak Republic. Tel Home +421 87 411523. Fax 

Aeroklub +421 8734805. E-mail aeroklub.ni@usa.net. 

THURSDAY 7th August 

On tills day, a delegation representing the powers-that-be at 

NITRA, arrived very excited by the International Rally Committee's 

decision to hold the 1998 International Rally at their 

IS

But first before you fly you have to rig the thing! Christian 

Ravel in charge ofrigging the Av 22. G. Ferrier 

site. They inspected our situation at Celles, with a view to 

deciding whether they could offer us satisfactory amenities. 

They decided that they could. 

At first on this day, there were good thermals to 3,200 ft 

(1,000 m) c10udbase but then a storm started to move in 

against the wind. Those of us who thought they were up wind 

of the site, now discovered that they were down-wind of it and 

would have to go through the storm to return to the site.... if it 

was not covered by the storm! The storm was producing rain, 

hail, thunder and lightning. 

Firrnin Henrard said afterwards that, although he had 900 

hours of gliding,. this was the first time he had been really 

frightened. It seemed that that those of us who were keeping 

up before the storm, would have to wait long enough there for 

the storm to clear the site. To one side of the storm, there was 

sunlight shining through the rain. It was possible to proceed 

through the rain and out into the sunlight.. and there, below 

us, against the dazzling white of the cloud, was a rainbow.. 

with one end of it pointing at the large concrete building 

which was near the site. The site was indeed clear of the storm 

and in the sun. Three other gliders including an AV 22, which 

seemed to be proceeding round the whole sky, were also 

preparing to enter the circuit. An attempt to stay in powerful 

lift failed. It was hoped to "stand off' to allow the other 

gliders to land first, but the "lift" was just turbulance. Therefore, 

after the AV22 flying wing had landed, it was resolved 

to land also. After being retrieved by a voiture de piste in front 

of the already full hangar, further storms with rain, thunder, 

lightning and hail came in and it was thought that it was better 

to remain in the cockpit to ballast the aircraft, with the rain 

gradually seeping in, for about two hours. This was the worst 

case scenario of a storm in the middle of our Rally period, 

with no hangarage available to keep our precious aircraft dry, 

and no chance to derig them in time to get them into the 

shelter of their trailers. 

During our approach, a blue Swiss Grunau Baby 2 was 

seen all vache in a field of cut corn. It was possible to retrieve 

this one directly back to the airfield without derigging it. 

Another GB-2b was landed out but this one had to be 

retrieved by trailer.The great tragedy was that before the 

storm arrived, both the Aventoft Minimoa and Weihe were 

poised at the launch point before their first flights of the Rally. 

Now they were deluged with water, one having about 10 cms 

of water lying in its cockpit. There was no prospect of immediately 

drying them out. An attempt was made to airate them, 

derigged, on their trailers on the next day. However, it was 

decided to tow them both back to Aventoft to prevent them 

getting wet again, as the forecast was for possible further 

storms. Another to be towed home was the Czech Orlik 2. Nor 

were these the only misfortunes as the lightning had struck the 

Pump Station and so the site was without water. However, 

when finally the water supply was restored, the water was 

brown instead of clear, as it had been before. After a day, it 

became clear again. Those of us installed on the camp site 

were now very damp. Such were the ordeals for those in tents 

and caravans. During the evening, morale recovered when we 

were visited by the Ancient Order of Champagne Cork 

Poppers which was visiting a flying Rally for the first time. 

Their procession appeared with great dignity in ancient 

costume, led by Heraldic trumpeters, to proceed through the 

Briefing tent towards the dais. There, an announcement was 

made ,in anC'ient French which included the phrase ,that 

"Champagne was the King of Wines.. and the Wine for 

Kings". New members of the Cameraderie were then enrolled 

and were honoured with heavy golden medals which were 

ceremoniously hung round their necks. The new members 

were from each country taking part in the 25th international 

VGC Rally. These were:- Witli Schwarzenbach for Switzerland, 

Firmin Henrard for Belgium, Jozef Ott for Slovakia, 

Maurice Renard, the Bar sur Seine Club's President, and the 

CH of the Bar sur Seine Club for France. Hans Dijkstra for 

Holland, Werner Tschorn for Germany, David Shrimpton and 

C.Wills for Britain and many others became new Chevaliers 

of the Ancient Order. 

Then, after being belaboured on their shoulders by a hefty 

piece of Vine, they had to swear a terrible oath never again to 

imbibe such base liquids as water or vineger etc etc (It is hOt 

remembered whether beer was included) Champagne corks 

were then discharged into the assembled multitude... or 

upwards... or anywhere. The Ancient Order -then formed in 

procession and proceeded from the tent with great dignity. 

Then followed a considerable celebration with much singing 

and drinking of the "King of Wines", which was issued free. 

That evening will never ever be forgotten by those of us 

present. 

Some gliders were left out some nights at Bar sur Seine. 

G. Ferrier. 

16

THURSDAY'S flying was as follows:- 

WERNER TSCHORN - Weihe D-7080 - 1 hour 03 mins. 

C.WILLS and VINCENZO PEDRIELLI - Mg 19a BGA 

2903 - I hour 32 mins. 

PATRICK RENAUDIN - Breguet 90ls F-CCCJ - 1 hour 05 

mins. ROBERT MONGIN - Specht OO-SZD - 35 mins. 

JAN EVERT VERMEER - Prefect PH-192 - I hour 35 mins. 

GERD HERMJACOB - Weihe D-0361 51 mins. 

There were many other duration flights. 

In spite of the storms, we were lucky that no gliders had 

been broken. Our pilots had done well and we hope that none 

of their gliders suffered through damp. It was hoped that by 

flying them on the next days, we would airate them and dry 

them. 

FRIDAY 8th AUGUST -- see table 6 

The Meteo was the same as for the previous day. There was 

the possibility of storms. If one was seen to be coming, we 

were advised to open airbrakes and land immediately and to 

put the gliders quickly in their trailers. 4-8 octas cumuli, a 

f0recast temperature of 26-28 degrees. We had the same moist 

airstream as during the previous day. As storms might arrive 

later, we were to rig and fly at once after br,iefing. For those 

wishing to go in them, the very old cars would arrive at 1400 

hours to take them free to the champagne caves and would 

bring them back to the airfield. 

All flights on this day were copied from the log by CW, but 

the pilots' names were not with the entries and so sometimes 

these were guessed. It was clear that something more than just 

local flying was tried by some of the pilots. 

SATURDAY 9th AUGUST. 

Meteo briefing. The weather was expected to be better than 

yesterday's weather. 213 metres / sec thermals were expected 

at least by 1600 hours. Pressure was 1018 millibars. Thermals 

were expected to start by 1100 hours. No dangerous phenomena 

were expected. Tomorrow would be even better weather! 

Tonight would be the closing banquet and Prize giving at 

20.30 hrs. The restaurant would be open tomorrow until 

midday.The weather turned out to be the best of the whole 

week with high cloud bases. 

See Table 7for the flights 

One gallant lady was running the Flying Log for the entire 

week. (except for the last Sunday). She clearly had difficulty 

with some of the registrations..... particularly the British ones. 

BGA numbers should be marked clearly on the rear Left Hand 

sides of the fuselages. The Mg 19a was recorded always as 

Tous Blanc (all white)! 

During Saturday evening there was the FINAL PRIZE 

GIVING in the briefing tent. Almost the entire French Organization 

Team were given prizes. Maurice and Isabelle Renard, 

Didier Defontaine and Jean Delemontey,who gave us La 

Cuisine Francaise, Couscous, and Paella, all of which were 

enjoyed and were very healthy eating. Chris discovered that 

Didier was a glider pilot with at least 100 hours experience 

when, on Saturday, with the final banquet looming imminently 

and the airfield out of sight, Chris asked whether dinner 

was prepared. The reply was "almost, but we had better try to 

get back."! 

However, on returning to the field, Didier wanted to continue 

the flight still longer at cloud base together with many 

other gliders including an AY.22. It was clearly the flight of 

his life! The CFI Alain Basuyaux and lhe President of the Bar 

sur Seine Club, Bernard Guerill, Michel Bearel, Frederic 

Dufraghe who drove the Voitures de Piste, Mme Denise and 

M.Pierre Vallin who ran the Flying Log and Claude Bougeneaux 

and Vincent Renard at the Start, all received token 

prizes, as our gratitude for their hard work which was always 

accomplished with good humour. A French member said that 

Chris's Prize Giving was "better than the Fete at Avignon". 

When asked what he meant by that, he feplied that "the Commentator 

of the Avignon Fete is on the whole rather too 

serious"! Finally it was announced that Jozef Ott, who had 

had to leave before the Prize Giving, h.ad said that he hoped 

that he would be able to welcome us all in 343 days time at 

NITRA in Slovakia for the 26th International Vintage Glider 

Rally. Then followed much festivity during our last evening 

together, notwithstanding that there would be flying tomorrow, 

when the weather would still be ,fine. The 25,th International 

VGC Rally had been a fantastic success, in spite ef the 

storm half way through it. The efforts of Maurice and Isabelle 

Renard and their whole team had been incredible. Nothing 

had been too difficult for them and everything had been 

accomplishel;l with good humour with a minimum of delay. 

We wiU never fmget our 25th Internafional Rally. It had been 

a unique Rally and one of the best that we have ever had. 

Maurice celebrated his 53rd birthday during the rally and we 

are sure that he will have many more birthdays. His efforts 

have inspired us all. 

SUNDAY 10th AUGUST. 

In spite of the previous day's hopeful weather forecast, the lift 

was not so good today. There were no clouds... and all thermals 

were blue. On this day, CHRIS WILLS had 4 aerotows 

behind a new DEMONA. These were among the best he has 

ever experienced. The Demona was flown solo and the take 

offs were up hill. The Mg 19a was flown with two people on 

board and has a 'built-in wfueel. Although the take offs were up 

a slight hill, the Demona got airborne with much of the 

runway still before it. His second flight was with GUY 

URIOT, President of the Society to preserve all things to do 

with the prewar designed AVIA gliders. He mentioned that an 

AVIA 11 Primary from 1930 is being restored for static exhibition, 

but that an AVIA 15 Primary with Nacelle from 1932 

is being restored to fly. This was later built as the AVIA 15A, 

the AVIA ~51 and the AVIA 152, the latter being designed 

and built during the war as one of the best training gliders in 

existence. 

The flight in the Mg 19a went on for over an hour in thermals 

from the slope above Bar-sur-Seine with Guy singing 

French songs to encourage the Mg to stay up. Max. altitude 

achieved was not much more than 2,000 ft. but the flight gave 

great joy to Guy who wanted to stay up longer. The last flight 

lasted 35 mins with a small French girl on board. She enjoyed 

it. Strong lift was found in smoke from a fire some way down 

wind of the site, at after 1900 hours. The lift gave us 2,000 ft 

which allowed us to easily get back. Burning field fires are no 

longer legal in Britain and so, to fly in the smoke from one 

over France brought back memories of great experiences. 

After the landing, there were still some of our members on the 

site, to help derig the Mg 19. Chris would like to thank them 

all. They said that they had been told that the Mg was difficult 

to derig, but they had found it easy. It was just that the wings 

were heavy to handle on the ground. There were also a Spatz 

and the Ka-2B of Firmin Henrard flying during that last 

Sunday at Bar sur Seine. We believe that they stayed there 

17

Didier Pataille and Marc 

Bourdon in Didier's 

M200. Didier is the Secretary 

of Dedale and 

Marc was the President 

before going to live in 

l'Ile de Reunion. Chris 

Wills. 

longer. The RALLY hac! revealed once again that we are 

flying gliders of many sizes, colours and forms, which are gull 

winged, straight winged, tail-less, etc etc and we believe that 

they offer a more exciting scene than that which is usually 

witnessed at contemporary gliding events. If only we could 

have among them a Horten tailless, or a sailplane using the 

Horten principles, by the end of the Century, we could say 

that we have been here! 

Chris Wills 

TABLES 

THE MOST NOTABLE FLIGHTS WERE: 

SUNDAY 3 August 

Jan Vermeer 

Didier FuJchiron 

Patrick Renaudin 

Richard Geiser 

Hu 0 Roth 

Peter Urscheler 

Uwe Mor enstern 

Firmin Henrard 

Hans Rothenbuhler 

Didier Pataille 

Prefect 

Rhonlerche 

Breguet 90 I S 

Moswey 3 

S r 5 

S atz 

Ka6CR 

Ka-2b 

S alinger S.19 

M-200 

PH-I92 

Ihr 38 mins. 

BGA 4116 

1ill 29 mins. 

F-CCCJ 

3 hrs 12 mins. 

HB-374 

44 mins. 

HB-36,..:.9 --=2..:.hr=-s=--2-=-=5'---'-'-m:..:..:in-=..::s"--. -'--- _ 

F-CDLC 


D-1551 2 hrs 07 mins. 

OO-SZD 

1 hr 05 mins. 

HB-225 

I hr. 49 mins. 

F-CDHC 


MONDAY 4th August 

Christian Ravel jr. 

Firmin Henrard 

Uwe Morgenstern 

Robert Mon'on 

Hugo Roth 

Gerc! Herm'acob 

Didier Fulchiron 

Emil Sliva 

HailS Peter 

HailS Dijkstra 

Jail van der Ber 

Rhonlerche PH-247 I hr. 57 mins, -------- 

S echt OO-SZD 2 hrs 24 mins. 

Ka 6 CR D-1551 3 hrs 27 mins. 

Ka-2 OO-SDW I hr. 29 mins. 

S~_r_5 H_B_-_3_69 3_h_r_s_33_m_J_·n_s. _ 

Weihe D-030 I --=2=--h:..:..:r:.=.s..:.2..:.1..:.1TIl:..:..:·:..:..:n.::..:s. _ 

Ka-4 BGA 4116 1 hr, 37 mins. 

Orlik 2 OK-6922 3 hrs II mins. 

Moswey 3 HB-374 2 hrs.54 mins. 

Ka-2 OO-ZQB 2 hrs 14 mins. 

Ka-7 OO-ZXJ 2 hrs 41 millS. 

18

~ZilIer Meise D-1420. 2 hrs 10 mins. 

WilIi Schwarzenbach S.18-3 HB-411 1 hr. 53 mins. 

Willi Walti L-S atz 55 HB-737 J hr. 42 mins. 

Hans Rothenbuhler S.19 HB-225 2 hrs 29 mins. 

Patrick Renaudin Breguet 90ls F-CCCJ 2 hrs 57 mins. 

Gerd Ra Grunau baby 2b D-9297 1 hr. 30 mins. 

Jacqucs Menei Spatz F-CDLC. 1 hr. 23 mins. 

C.WilIs,G.Czeiner Mg 19a BGA 2903 2 hrs 03 mins. 

Pataille,Domini ue- M.2oo F-CDHC 53 mins. 

Peter Urscheler S atz F-CDLC 51 mins. 

Werner Tschorn Weihe 0-7080 4 hrs J8 mins. 

Willi Schwarzenbach S.18-3 HB-411 30 mins. 

David Shrim ton Swallow BGA3469 45mins 

Daniel Steffen S.18-3 HB-51O 3 hrs 19 mins. 

Evert Jan Venneer. Prefect PH-In 3 hrs 48 mins. 

Francois Du ey M.loo F-CCSP 2 hrs. 10 mins. 

Hans Disma Goevier 3 PH-207 2 hrs 08 mins. 

Jacques Beguin GB 2b HB-234 1 hr. 46 mins. 

Jan Forster T.31 BGA 3181 1 hr. 17 nuns. 

TABLE 6 

FRIDAY'S FLIGHTS=••.=.. 

HANSROTHENBUHLER S alin er S.19 

HB-225 

ROBERT MONGIN S atz B OO-ZJW 1 hour 35 mins. 

JEAN-CLAUDE NEGLAIS AV-22 

F-GAGL 

2 hours 26 mins. 

..~---'-------------------------------'----- 

JOSEPH BOCIARELLI 

Javelot 

F-CBGZ 

1 hour 18 mins. 

WILLI SCHWARZENBACH S alin er S.l8 

HB-411 

1 hour 31 mins 

Z~LER,KARCH,HEYN Meise 

0-1420 


HANSDISMA 

Goevier 3 

PH-207 

33 mins. 


M.2oo 

F-CDHC 


CHRIS WILLS 

M 19a 

BGA 2903 

38 mins. 

HUGOROTH 

S yr 5. 

HB-369 


WILLI SCHWARZENBACH S alin er S.18 

HB-411 


ROLAND d'HUART 

S echt 

OO-SZD 

57 mins. 


M.2oo 

F-CDHC 


GERD HERM-JACOB Weihe D-0361 27 mins. 

JEAN-CLAUDE NEGLAIS AY.22 F-CAGL 32 mills. 

JACQUES BEGUlN 

Grunau Baby 2 

HB-234 


HUGOROTH 

S r 5 

HB-369 


UWE MORGENSTERN Ka6CR D-1551 3 hours 07 mins. 

JACQUES BEGUfN 

Grunau Bab 2 

HB-234 


ROLAND d'HUART 

S echt 

OO-SZD 

1 hour. 

CHRIS WILLS 

M 19a 

BGA 2903 


PETE and JILL HARMER Ka-2b BGA 2147 2 hours 02 mins. 

ZILLER, HEYN, KARCH Meise D-1420 2 hours 26 mins. 

HANS DIJKSTRA Ka-2 OO-ZQB 1 hour 49 mins. 

HANS DISMA GOEVIER 3 PH-207 1 hour 47 mins. 

CHRISWILLS M 19a BGA 2903 27 mins. 

CHRISTIAN RAVEL M 19a BGA 2903 14 mins. 

CHRISTIAN RAVEL M 19a BGA 2903 14 mins. 

_ 

19

TABLE 7 

OERHARD RAPP Orunau Baby 2b D-9297 

I hour 32 mins. 

WILL! SCHWARZENBACH S alin er S.18 HB-411 


_C_HR_IS_T_I_A_N_R_A_V_E_L Breguet 904 F-CCPN 

32 mins. 

JAN EVERT VERMEER Prefect PH-192 


CHRIS WILLS Mg 19a BOA 2903 I hour 04 mins. 

LOUIS LAMISSE AY.22 F-CCOK 40 mins. 

CHRISTIAN RAVEL Breguet 904 F-CCNM I hour. 

ROLAND d'HUART SPECHT OO-SZD 


---------------------------------- 

AERO CLUB Bijave F-CDHC 

45 mins. 

HANS DIJKSTRA Ka-2 OO-ZQB 2 hours 

DIDIER PATAILLE M.200 F-CDHC 

45 mins. 

DIDIER PATAILLE M.200 F-CDHC 

FIRMIN HENRARD Mg 19a BOA 2903 1 hour 30 mins.. 

JACQUES BEOUIN Orunau Baby 2 b HB-234 35 mins. 

HANS DIJKSTRA Ka-2 OO-ZQB 1 hour 13 mins. 

ROBERT MONGlN S atz-B 

----------------------- 

OO-ZJW I hour 50 mins. 

WILL! SCHWARZENBACH S alinger S.18 HB-411 I hour 28 mins. 

ROBERT MONOIN S atz-B OO-ZJB I hour 56 mins. 

ROBERT MONGlN S atz-B OO-ZJB I hour 18 mins. 

PETER URSCHELER S atz A-60 Fauconet F-CDLC I hour 32mins. 

LOUIS LAMISSE AV 22 Fauvel F-CCOK I hour. 

HUGO ROTH S r 5 HB-369 35 mins. 

CHRlS WILLS* Mg 19a BGA 2903 2 hours 20mins. 

HANS DIJKSTRA Ka-2 OO-ZQB 1 hour 15mins. 

DIDIER PATAILLE M.200 F-CDHC I hour 12 mins. 

JACQUES BEGUIN Grunau Bab 

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

2 HB-234 I hour 04 mins. 

WILLEM de BAARS T.21b PH-1043 I hour. 

RICHARD OEISER Moswey 3 HB-374 2 hours 50 mins. 

* with Didier de Fontaine. 

TABLE 8 

Particip.::.::an.::.::t=_s 

Hiitter H 17 BGA 490 Nick Newton 

Fauvette BGA 2768 Ted Hull! Larie Woodage! Martin Simons 

Condor IV BOA2292 Mike Birch 

Kra'anek BGA665 Malcolm Wilton Jones 

Swallow BGA3823 Ray and David Whittaker 

Weihe BGA1093 Keith Green! Mark Wills 

-'-S~k

Moswey HR 374 slfffered minor damage in the trailer but it was soon repaired andjiying again. G. Ferrier. 

Old cars, even older gliders G. Ferrier. 

21

The Wachtesberg Rally 

See Table 8 

Many British pilots were unwilling to commit themselves to 

attending the French Rallies without full assurance beforehand 

of obtaining a licence to fly there. Accordingly, contact 

was made by Ted Hull with the Segelflugclub Wachtesberg, 

where such a successful Rendezvous Rally was held in 1991. 

Eberhart Elsner, the club President, very kindly arranged to 

open the airfield for us for the two week period. 

From an anticipated attendance of four gliders, numbers 

increased until a total of 17 gliders arrived and flew at this 

most beautiful of gliding sites. The low key, but efficient, 

organisation and superb hospitality of the club made this a 

most enjoyable event. There were in all 12 participants from 

the UK, 4 from Germany and one from France. 

lection of aircraft, gliders. racing cars, motor bikes, vintage 

cars, farm vehicles, and railway and military exhibits. 

At one evening event (a Grill-Fest in a nunnery, don't ask 

any more!) in the local town of Wildberg, birthday boy Too 

Hull conducted a 30 piece band playing an "oompah" tune! 

David Shrimpton led the assembled crowd of bemused locals 

and (how shall we put it) merry, visiting glider pilots, ill B 

clap-along song with the aid of a pair of giant plywood hands! 

Oh the effect of German beer. 

The club members arranged a very enjoyable, mid-rally, 

smoked trout evening which was combined with the usual 

Rally "British Evening" somewhat dominated by a whole 

Wensleydale cheese which was contributed by Barry Smith. 

Other notable events which occurred during our time at the 

Wachtesberg included the loss, and the subsequent search for 

in dense undergrowth, of the tail chute from lan Dunkley's 

Nimbus 2, and a llOkm cross-country flight by Richard 

Moyse in the Slingsby Sky, to Hohenzollern Castle and 

Hohloth Radio Transmitter on the edge of Ithe Black Forest. 

There were also a number of very enjoyable barbecues using 

the club's excellent fire pit and gibbet cooking device, and 

many tales were told late into the night under the clear, starlit 

skies. 

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable and well-run and above 

all, friendly event and ten good days of flying were achieved 

out of 13. 

Many thanks to Ted, Eberhart and aB the members of the 

Wachtesberg Segelflugclub. 

Otller visitors during the week, without gliders, were Klaus 

and Renate Heyn wi,~h Silke, 10rg Ziller, Jochen Kruse, Peter 

Okke, Peter Rivers, Geoff Moore, and the Munster Mafia 

were represented by Gisela Dreskonfeld and Wilfred Kampmann. 

Ted Hull and Mark Wills 

A RARE 

VINTAGE 

n, 

\( 

I 

Weihe, Condor 4 and Hiitter at Wiichtesberg. Ted Hull. 

Wonderful soaring weather was ItQ be had over the first four 

days wilth cloud bases up to ·6500ft above the silte. Short lapses 

in tile weather offered opportunities to visit the Mercedes 

B.enz factory, Schempp Htrth and the excellent Auto and 

Technic Museum in Sinsheim which houses an incredible col- 

Ifyou have put a lot of time, effort and 

money into a vintage glider, you will want 

to safeguard your investment. We can 

help you by providing a reliable and 

competitive insurance policy together with 

a friendly and efficient service. 

Phone, tax or write to: 

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ell aviation· 

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Itd 

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22

9TH SWISS NATIONAL VINTAGE GLIDER 

RALLY AT COLOMBIER ON 23RD AND 24TH 

AUGUST 1997 

The group "Amical du Grunau Baby HB-234" celebrated this 

year the 60th anniversary of their "Baby" and on this occasion 

the members of the OSV (Oldtimer Segelflug Vereinigung 

Schweiz- Swiss Vintage Glider Club) were invited to join 

them at Colombier for their National Vintage Glider Rally for 

1997. 

See Table 9 for the pilots who were able to bring their 

gliders to the meeting. 

The Airfield at Colombier is located directly on the border 

of the lake of Neuchiitel and not far away from the Jura 

(=three chains of hills; usually good soaring conditions). 

The weather conditions on our weekend were just perfect; 

hot and windless at the airfield, thermals in the Jura. However, 

the Babys had some problems to catch the thermals in the Jura 

because of the distance from the airfield (or in other words) 

because of their poor performance. 

I was very impressed to be aerotowed over the lake of 

Neuchiitel just after becoming airborne. Hundreds of sailing 

boats on the lake and me only 50m above them. By the way, 

the tug from Neunkirch was also vintage: HB-O I0, Piper L-4, 

90 hp, 1944. Some VGC members may remember this tug 

because it was engaged on the 13th and 19th International 

Rallies at Amlikon and Neunkirch. 

The OSV bought a bungee in Great Britain (where else) 

several years ago. The first test launches on the airfield at Sion 

in 1995 were not successful; either WiIli Schwarzenbach was 

too heavy or the launching team were too weak. 

In the meantime WiIli Fahrni has improved the launching 

system (perfect job, thank you Willi!) and new test launches 

were calTied out at Colombier. The result was satisfactory. An 

L-Spatz and a Grunau Baby were launched up to a height of 

3metres! The next step will be a bungee launch meeting on 

which all pilots can pass the "Swiss Bungee Launch Certificate". 

Afterwards we will have to find a suitable bungee 

launch point on a hill. 

Daniel Steffen 

Chris Hughes wonders how to make the most of the conditions 

at Camphill. lan Dunkley. 

TABLE 9 PILOTS WHO WERE ABLE TO BRING THEIR GLIDERS TO THE MEETING AT COLOMBIER 

HB-234 

HB-494 Grunau Bab II Hans Bucher 

_H_B_-5_I_O . ~ali~~,---er_S-,-I--,8,----,---11_1 1,---93,---9 R__ud,---o,---l_fB.::...:.:..ar,---th-,-,Daniel Steffe_n _ 

HB-369 S yr 5 1942 Hugo and Werner Roth 

HB-442 Grunau Baby Ila 1944 Louis Hayoz, Renato Koni , Danielle Stark, Anton Liithi 

-------------------------- 

HB-348 Nord 1300 1947 Pierre-Alain Ruffieux 

._----------- 

HB-522 Moswey 4a 1951 Willi Fahrni 

HB-737 L-S atz 55 1955 Jiir and WiIIi Wait 

HB-625 Schleicher Ka6b 1959 Richard Schneider 

HB-724 Schleicher Ka2 1961 Andreas Fahrni 

""H.=.B'----7...:cS.=.5 -=-S..:.:ch..:.:l..:.:eie.::-c'---he""r...:K..:.:ac:..::l:...=0 ...:cl.=.964-=--:.- A::..::.::AIe.::-h:...=0c:..::ns::.:eC-D-'---=elley'-- _ 

HB-902 Elfe S 3 1967 Rudolf Kunz, Peter Bollinger, Helmu BoIli 

HB-916 Diamant 18m 1968 Hans Jacob 

23

VGC'S BRITISH NATIONAL RALLY 1997 

This event was held during the week of 24th May - Ist June 

1997, at the Derbyshire and Lancashire Gliding Club at 

CAMPHILL, which we thank warmly for having us. The 

week gave us fine soaring weather with a wind that gently 

went round 360 degrees, day by day, during the week. This 

gave us some interesting winch launching and landing directions 

and, thinking about the circuits required was actually 

worse than achieving them, such was the quality of our pilots, 

many of whom managed to soar every day from winch 

launches, and there were no accidents.The light wind experienced 

on every day, except on the first two days, made it possible 

to leave some of the gliders outside during nights and 

this is a rare occurence at Camphil!. 

The success of this rally was largely due to the preparatory 

work and the organization at the time, by our membership 

secretary lan Dunkley and Pat, with John and Sylvia McKenzie 

the Camphill club's manager and caterer respectively. 

See table 10 for Gliders taking part. 

Also visiting the Rally were Martin Simons from Australia 

and Hein Schwing from Holland. We were glad to have them 

with us. 

WEATHER, The previous week had been cold, wet and 

dark. Two days before the rally, the weather changed to a N.E. 

flow. On the first day, a high cloudbase was expected with sun 

and thermals which could be contacted from winch launches. 

It must be said that only winch launching is possible at Cam- 

phill as aerotowing is forbidden and bungee launching is 

seldom practiced. Thus the club has two modern winches 

which are capable of giving good launches even down wind! 

A very special and good dinner had been prepared for us by 

Silvia in the club house on Saturday evening and the 1997 

YGC's National Rally was officially started by the ringing of 

the traditional Bell. 

SUNDAY 25th MAY 1997. 

The KRANlCH 2 BGA 964 with Tony Dickinson and C. 

Wills flew for I hour 51 minutes from a 700 ft launch and 

completed an Out & Return to Chatsworth and back reaching 

3,500 ft above site. 

BGA 964 was later flown for I hour 16 nuns by lan 

Gordon and David Salmon, the Derbyshire & Lancashire 

Club's CFI. lan has had much previous experience flying a 

similar Kranich 2. (BGA 1092). 

The PETREL BGA 651 was flown by Graham Saw for 4 

hours and reached 4,500 ft. He was astounded to be outclimbed 

by a Hang-glider which reached 6,000 ft. This aircraft 

had a max.LID of 1;6 and a relatively high sinking speed 

with the pilot sitting below it with his legs crossed. We 

suppose that the pilot just remained in the centre and strongest 

part of the lift. One immediately thinks of the D.28 Windspiel, 

the Horten Parabola and the Emouchet as they could turn in 

three times their small wingspans but they were rather more 

expensive to build than a hang-glider. Perhaps we could do 

this by turning our gliders more steeply, but then they would 

TABLE 10 

PREFECT BGA 2380 Chris Hughes. 

HUETTER H.17a BGA 490 Nick Newton. 

PETREL BGA 651 Graham Saw. 

SKYLARK 3 BGA John Strzebrakowski. 

Ka-2b BGA 4336 Pete and Jill Harmer. 

Ka-2b BGA 6172 Malcom Wilton-Jones. 

Ka-7 BGA Ken Blake 

SKY BGA 685 Mark Wakem. 

L-SPATZ BGA 1265 Yernon Jennin s. 

KITE I BGA 251 Bob Boyd. 

.:..:KI=-T.:..:E=....::..1 -----'B=-G-=..:..:A:....:3:....:1-=-0 ~:...:0=n.y Maufe. 

KITE I BGA 400 Peter Underwood. 

EAGLE BGA 777 Derek Philips. 

KRANlCH 2 b-l BGA 964 Chris Wills. 

HARBINGER BGA 1091 Bob Sharman. 

--------------- 

SKYLARK 2 BGA Richard Kilham. 

GULL 3 BGA 3825 Peter Phil ot. 

CONDOR 4 BGA 2292 Mike Birch. 

T.21 b BGA 2351 Mike Powel!. 

T.21 b BGA 280 Tommy Gornal!. 

T.31 BGA 3272 Neil Scully. 

SCUD 3 BGA 684 Ted Hull. 

LIBELLE BGA Tony Dickinson. 

KRAJANEK BGA 655. Mike Birch. 

KITE 2 "Percy" BGA 689 Peter Warren. 

'--------------------------------------- 

SWALLOW BGA 3469 David Shrim ton. 

24

e felativel,y heavier than a hang-glider, although the Petrel is 

one of our faster clinlbing gliders. Clearly we should ibe able 

to outrun Hang.gliders in the horizontal plane. 

The Spatz of Vernon Jennings flew for I hour 41 mins. 

The Scud 3 belonging to Ted hull flew for I hour 36 mins. 

The Pr,efect of Chris Hughes flew for 2 hours 58 mins. 

The Kite I of Tony Maufe flew for I hour 58 mins. 

The Kite I of Bob Boyd flew for I hour 50 mins. 

The Ka-2b of the Harmers flew for 5 hours 09 mins. 

There may have been other good flights of lesser durations 

but it had clearly been a very good day for the VGC. There 

had been no clouds as forecast. 

On MONDAY 26th May 1997, we clearly had very different 

weather to that of the preceeding day. Monday's Prize 

went to the Harmers for their 5 hours 09 mins flight. 

Sky ofMark Wakem, landing with a Ka2 alld Hiilter waiting. 

Maggie Harboor. 

There was a strong West wind which would be on the 

slope. llhe sbort winch launch run was used which would give 

only 4 to 500 ft launch heights straight ,in to the hill lift. There 

would be a likelihood of waves. No one should get behind the 

back wall white crabbing in to land. The flights of Monday 

were often dramatic in the extreme. They were: 

Eagle with Derek Philips and passenger 2 hours 42 mins. 

Harbinger witb Bob Sharman and 

passenger 

Kite I Tony Maufe 

Gull 3 Keith Emslie 

S·ky Mark Wakem. 

T.21 b Mike Powell and passenger 

Scud 3 Ted Hull 

Scud 3 Laurie Woodage 

Ka-2b MalcOln Wilton-lones & 

Colin Anson 

Skylark 3 loon Strzebrakowski 

Kranich 2b-1 Chris Wills & 

Paul Underwood. 





37 mins. 

2 hours W mins. 





We regi'et that some flights of less than one hour may have 

been omitted and there may be other mistakes. 

At first, the wave had actually connected with the hill lift 

and so launches were made straight into hill lift and wave. It 

was then tha't the greatest heights of up to 7,000 ft above site 

were achieved, notably by Chris Hughes in his Prefect. Neil 

Scully and David Ormerod reached 6,500 ft in their T.3l. This 

was truly a brave effort. 

The slightly ,later launches found the wave out of sequence 

with the slope lino One of those who found these later conditions 

was C.Wills with Paul Underwood in the Kranich. 

Firstly, there was weak hill lift and then getting into the wave 

lift was hard work. The best height reached was 4,200 ft 

above site. It was clear that weather conditions were changing 

for the worse rapidly. However, we heard that a fibre glass 

sailplane had reached 13,000 ft over Sheffield. What now was 

happening was that the waves started to fail and clouds began 

to fill all gaps below the gliders, so that some dramatic 

descents had to be made through cloud or through the last 

holes in the cloud below. One of those to be caught out by this 

was C.Wills in the Kranich who had to make a lucky landing 

in a field on the top of a small hill by a quarry. With 'help from 

an A-A man, he was able to organize a retrieve by 5 cars as it 

was not yet clear how the Kranich would ever be got out of 

the field. He wishes to thank all his retrievers who toiled on in 

spite of worsening weather and darkness. Chris remembers 

Lome Wekh briefing him many years ago... "It does not 

matter if you land at Timbucktll as long as you pick a good 

field. It will still be quicker to retrieve you from Timbucktu, 

than it would be if we should have to repair the glider after a 

bad field landing". During this prQ\;edur,e, two of the retrieving 

team were accosted by a policeman, with drawn truncheon, 

on suspicion of "loitering with intent" especially when 

they told him that they were looking for a glider. It seems that 

during the previous weekend, £12,000 of equipment had been 

stolen from the quarry and he thought that they had come 

back for the rest of it!' However, the trailer was got to the 

glider by the efforts of lan Dunkleyand the derig and retrieve 

went off without problems. Chris would like to thank his 2nd 

pilot Paul Underwood for staying with, and guarding the aircraft 

for hours before the retrieving team came. 

TUESDAY 27th MAY 1997. 

Someone said that if there were no more good weather 

days, the weather on the preceding days had made the rally a 

success.. 

There was a cold NE wind. There were many circuits by 

the H.17a and the Ka-2b, which was occasionally kept up 

under cumuli. There were three soaring flights by Robin 

Wilgoss in the Ka-2b, who had his first ever winch launch. 

Robin won the day's prize and Maltin Simons received a prize 

for just getting in to the H.17! 

WEDNESDAY 28th MAY 1997. 

The wind had gone more to the East but was not so strong 

as it had been on the previous day. The best flights were: 

Chris Hughes, PREFECT, 3 hours 07 mins. 

Keith Emsley, GULL 3, I hour 26 mins. 

Derek Philips and Bushell, EAGLE, 1 hour 06 mins. 

Malcom Wilton-lones, KRA1ANEK, 2 hours 02 mins. 

Mark Wakem, SKY, I hour 45 mins. 

Tony Maufe, KITE I, I hour 15 mins. 

Peter Chamberlain, L-SPATZ, 45 mins. 

David Shrimpton, SWALLOW, I hour 01 mins. 

Bob Boyd, KITE 1,43 mins. 

Ian DunkJey, PETREL, 41 mins. 

On this day Peter Warren arrived with his Kite 2 "Percy". 

BGA 689. 

Also the Krajanek arrived and was back at Camphill where 

25

it had been kept for many years of its life. On Wednesday 

evening, there had been a fantastic meal prepared by Sylvia, 

and the concert by local musicians after it had been not too 

loud and really good. C. Wills thought that they were very talented 

musicians. Both Sylvia and lan Dunkley were thanked 

for the evening. 

THURSDAY 29th MAY 1997. 

The longest flight was by the Camphill CFI David Salmon, 

who flew the PETREL for 17 mins. There was a Southerly 

drift to the very light wind which was on Eyam Edge. Temperature 

needed on the ground to start the thermals was 20 

degrees. Manchester Airport already during the morning had 

21 degrees but at Camphill, it never rose above 18 degrees C. 

On this day, the Gull 3, Kite I and Scud 3 were trailered 

home, thereby missing the next day's better weather. Peter 

Underwood brought his Kite I BGA 400 up from Booker. 

FRIDAY, 30th MAY 1997. 

This day gave us a light SE wind and dry thennals. As the 

wind was flowing along Eyam edge, it was sweeping over the 

Westerly slope. Nevertheless, gliders were winched often into 

lift which carried them over and beyond the West slope and 

were not affected by any sink in its lee. The longest duration 

flights were:- 

David Salmon, CONDOR 4, 1 hour 31 mins. 

Pete & Jill Harmer, Ka-2b, 3 bours 54 mins. 

T0fiU11Y Gornall, T.21!:>, I hour 17 mins. 


Martin Simons, SKY, I hour 42 mins. 

Malcolm Wilton-Jones, Ka-2b. I hour 55 nuns. 

Sid Davis, CONDOR 4, 46 mins. 

On this day, the Blackpool & Fyld Club's syndicate flew 

their T.21 b round a 32 kms quadrilateral course and had to 

descend from 3,600 ft with spoilers out due to acute rigor 

mortis. The combined age of the machine and its two pilots 

came to 132 years! 

Imogen Maufe had the shortest duration flight. She is the 

granddaughter of Michael Maufe British Silver C pilot NoAO 

and a 1939 National Contest pilot, and now 81 years old, he 

camped out during the entire week, as he has always done at 

all our rallies. Nick: Newton flew his H.l7a consistently. He 

had 9 flights of 3-4 minutes duration. 

During the evening, there was a barbecue at the Camphill 

Vintage Group's hut. It was hoped that much support for the 

Group could be achieved, and this did happen. They intend to 

restore a T.21 b. The evening continued with the rendition of 

old gliding songs from the Camphill Song book. It was 

however darkly suggested by Austen Wood, that they had not 

in fact got a hold of the Camphill Song Book, but rather the 

Glider Pilots' Psalter! Nevertheless, the songs went well, 

accompanied by C.Wills on his accordion. It was a fine 

evening in the old tradition of the club. 

SATURDAY 31st MAY 1997. 

Best flights were:- 

Malcom Wilton Jones & passenger, Ka 2b, I hour 18 mins 

J.Gale ,SKYLARK 2, 1 hour 08 mins. 

M.W. Noxon, EAGLE, 2 hours 04 mins. 

Bob Sharman, HARBINGER, 1 hour 41 mins. 


Mark Wakem, SKY, 3 hours 12 nuns. 

Mike Birch & Mike Armstrong*, CONDOR 4, I hour 51 

mins. 

Malcom Wilton-Jones, Ka-2b, 1 hour 00 mins. 

Goodard, T.21 b, 43 mins. 

Richard Kilham, SKYLARK 2, 50 mins. 

John Strzebrakowski, SKYLARK 3, I hour 30 mins. 

The above flight was a cross country of 25 kms Chatsworth 

House-Redmine Reservoir followed by an out landing. 

Dick Derbyshire, T.21 b, I hour 04 mins. 

* Mike Armstrong is the son of Stan Armstrong, a founder 

member of the Derby & Lancs GC in 1936, who organized 

our International Rally at Sutton Bank in 1984. 

During Saturday evening, there was a final dinner followed 

by Prize Giving. It had been one of the best National Rallies 

that we had ever had. The site had revealed itself in the fine 

summer weather as really beautiful. The winch launching had 

been safe and good: we thank the winch drivers for their 

efforts. It is also a tricky site but none of our pilots had accidents 

and so our vintage glide,rs are in safe hands. 

John and Silvia McKenzie and lan Dunkley and Pat were 

thanked for their fine efforts in giving us a good rally and we 

hope that we may be allowed to return. 

C.Wills would like to mention that the above account was 

written some time after the event from notes that he took at 

tne time. He believes that he has got it right concerning dates 

and flight durations, etc, but he hopes, that he will be corrected 

if there any serious mistakes. Short duration flights of less 

than 30 minutes have sometimes been omitted. 

C. Wills 

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A WEEKEND AT A NEW LOCATION FOR THE 

VGc. THE VALE OF WHITE HORSE GLIDING 

CLUB AT SHRIVENHAM, WILTS, 5-6 JULY 

The Vale of the White Horse Gliding Club only moved to 

this field a few years ago and we were pleased to receive an 

invitation from Graham Turner to visit it. It is a green field 

offering landings and take offs in one direction or the reciprocal. 

Winch launching and aerotowing are available. The club 

has set itself up with a hangar and a small club house in spite 

of the short time it has been there. We were at once struck by 

the hospitality of the club members. VGC gliders that 

attended the rally were from Lasham and Dunstable. 

These were: 

From Lasham:- 

The prototype SKY BGA 685 Richard Moyse, CADET BGA 

731 Richard Moyse. 

From the LGC. SCUD 3 BGA 685 Ted Hull, GRUNAU 

BABY 2B BGA 2433 Laurie Woodage. 

26

uilt before, during, and after the war, most of them were converted 

into Slingsby Type 8 TUTORS, which first saw the 

light of day in 1937. John Sproule also designed the Tutor 

after becoming inspired by BAC 7 wings, a BAC 7 being in 

the Slingsby workshop at that time, under repair. 

C. Wills 

Richard Moyse landing his prototype Slingsby Sky at Shrivenham. 

G. Ferrier 

Margaret lames, David Shrimpton, Ted Hull and fan Smith at 

Shrivenham. G. Ferriel: 

From the V of WH GC Siebert SIE 3 BGA 2642, DART 17R 

71 This had once been Philip Wills' Dart 

From Keevil David ShrimptoIJ and Margaret flew in with a 

Motor Falke ano a T21 le> was also aerotowed over from there 

as well. 

The weatner was quite good on both days for Ithermal 

soaring. The star perfoffller was Richard Moyse and the 'Cadet 

which he has recently restored. This aircraft soared for over 

an hour on botm days, getting away from a low winch launch 

of only 500 ft on the first day. This mOfe than justifies our 

hope that prewar training gliders (and the high pelformnce 

ones) will do better now than they did when they were new, 

because their present owners are experienced glider pilots 

operating them with improved technique, with better possibilities 

on the ground for getting them 'airborne, with m.inimum 

frustration, compared with the IUsual scenario before 1940. 

Cadets at that time were for pilots hoping to gain their C Certificates. 

Now they are being flown by Sillver and Gold C 

pilots. John Sproule, who designed it all himself at SLingsby 

Sailplanes in ]936, would have been proud to know that VGC 

members hav,e two of them airworthy. Although 43] were 

THE END OF SEASON RALLY 

held at Lasham during the weekend of the AGM and 

Annual Dinner, 20 &21 September. 

At our Annual General Meeting we were glad to have with liS 

Tony Goodhart, the younger of the two Goodhart brothers 

who were so much a part of British gliding during the 1950s 

and 1960s. Also wilh us for the AGM and the Dinner was 

David Ince, who wOn Britain's 2nd Gold C flown over British 

soil. 

During the Annual Dinner, we were privileged to have Ann 

Welch as our Guest of Honour. She gave a most interesting 

talk reminiscing on experiences she had had when she was 

British Team Captain at international contests in many lands. 

With us also were our Dutch members Peter Deege and his 

wife, Hans and Nel Dijkstra and Jan F6rster. Peter took home 

many pr~zes and we hope that they all enjoyed being with us. 

Hans Dijkstra is our International Council member for the 

Netherlands and Jan F6rster was elected to our Executive 

Committee. 

During this weekend increasing high pressure gave us fine 

weather for flying vintage gliders... especially on the Sunday. 

The following gliders were flown, most of them on Sunday: 

Ka-2b BGA 4336 (D-6173) Booker syndicate. 

KITE 2 BGA 663 Frank !rving, Ralph Hooper and Bill 

Tonkyn (Lasham). 

PETREL BGA 651. Graham Saw (Booker) 

GRUNAU BABY 2b BGA 578. (Lasham) 

PREFECT BGA 2333 Bob Sharman. (Crowland) 

T.31 BGA 3272 Neil Scully. (Saltby) 

JS WEIHE BGA 1092 Keith Green.(Lasham) 

SWALLOW BGA 3823. Ray, Whitaker and Julian Ben-David. 

(Lasham) 

CONDOR 4 BGA 2292 (D-8538) Mike Birch (Booker) 

T.21 b BGA 2351. Mike Powell (Booker) 

SKY (prototype) BGA 685. Richard Moyse. (Lasham). 

HUTTER H.17A BGA 490 Nick Newton (Booker) 

GRUNAU BABY 2 B BGA 2433 Laurie Woodage. (Dunstable-LGC) 

During the Sunday, the wind was from the SE and this 

allowed high winch launches to 1,700 ft into wind along 

Lasham's main runway. The weather was fine for both days, 

but the thermals were better on Sunday. During the weekend, 

Mike Birch's nephew and niece, Sam and Lucy Barr, both had 

their first flights in a glider, (Mike's Condor 4) and enjoyed 

themselves. On the Sunday, the area North of Lasham, which 

was somewhat down wind of the airfield, became a great area 

of lift becoming stronger as the day went on. We believe that 

some of the lift was as strong as 6 knots, occasionally to 3,500 

ft, but as there were no clouds to mark the lift, gliders tended 

to keep together in weak lift, but if one of them went off on its 

own, it could find stronger lift. Pilots shared their gliders and 

so flights were usually of about one hour's duration. It would 

have been possible to stay up probably for three hours, had 

they not done this. All the vintage gliders, including the 

H.l7A stayed up. 

It was a fine End of Season Rally for the VGc. 

C. Wills 

27

Features 

A Hot Ship of the 1950's 

The Condo.r IV, by lochen Ewald 

A super-high performance two-seater - to-day dlat would 

make anyone think of the ASH 25, developed from the ASW 

22, whose performance equals that of the very best single 

seaters. But the idea of developing a two-seater competition 

machine from a high performance single seater is not as new 

as all that. As early as 1951 Heini Diumar designed the 

Condor IV on the basis of his successful pre-war single seater, 

the Condor Ill. Ernst-Gunther Haase demonstrated the excellence 

of this machine in August of 1952 by completing a 100 

km triangle at an average speed of 80.9 kph. With this flight 

he not only achieved the first German post-war world record 

in the two seater class, but the overall world record as well. 

Along with the Kranich III with its steel tube frame fuselage, 

developed by Hans Jacobs on the basis of the Weihe wing, the 

Condor IV was in its time no doubt the best performance 

glider in series production in the world. 

At first (apart from two prototypes), the Condor IV was 

built by Flugzeugbau Schmetz at Herzogenrath near Aachen, 

and later with simplified fuselage with straightline spine, it 

went into series production at Schleicher's near the 

Wasserkuppe. Another few specimens of the Schleicher 

version were made in Argentina. Only a very few of the 

German-built Condors are still flying to-day. At the Vintage 

Glider Rally in '93 at Zbraslavice in the Czech Republic I had 

an opportunity of gaining some impressions by flying the 

second Condor IV prototype, BGA 2292, belonging to Mike 

Birch, which had been built by Heini Diltmar himself. Initially, 

the designer built this model in the form of a single 

seater especially for the Egyptian Hassan Kamil, who paIiicipated 

in it in the world championships in 1952. In this Condor 

Heini Dittmar also tried out Ithe idea of coupling the brake 

paddles to the fully deflected position of the ai'leron, extending 

asymmetrically to increase turning response. This idea 

was taken up again by KIaus Holighaus in recent years, perfected 

and applied to the Nimbus III and IV! Later, this V-2 

was brought up to production-series standard and flew for 

many years at Karlsruhe under registration No. D-8538. 

If you think that all vintage gliders are lightweights which 

will not threaten those rigging them with slipped disk problems, 

you will find you are wrong when you help to rig the 

Condor: its empty weight of about 360 kg, of which quite 100 

kg is contributed by each of its elegant gull wings, easily 

equals that of to-day's plastic two-seaters. (The Schleicher 

Condors were noticeably lighter). In the course of the years, 

some small modifications were incorporated in this machine. 

The one-piece detachable canopy with many small panes was 

replaced by a blown, hinged two-piece canopy comparable 

with that of the K 7, and the original jettisonable two-wheel 

undercarriage attached to the skid was replaced by a fixed 

wheel fitted in the skid. 

If you have ever flown a K 2(b) you will immediately feel 

at home in the Condor cockpit. This cockpit was adopted 

almost unchanged for this famed Schleicher training twoseater 

series. As in those gliders, the Condor root ribs act as 

'blinkers" which somewhat reduce visibility for the occupant 

of the rear seat. One way in which the Condor is different will 

become apparent, at the latest, during the initial ground run: 

the all-moving tailplane with its fulcrum relatively far 

forward will deliver some hefty blows due to its mass inertia, 

and forces the pilot to hold the stick very firmly. This is advisable 

also in free flight, as the all-moving tailplane tends to 

develop a vigorous life of its own, especially in gusty conditions. 

However, don't be misled by the heavy control forces: the 

re-actions of this heavy two-seater to control inputs are perfectly 

normal and precise! To make life easier for the pilot, its 

owner, Mike Birch, has embellished the control sticks with 

beautiful large mahogany hand grips, which are easy on both 

eye and hand and add delight not only to the flying, but by 

their looks and feet Incidentally, BGA 2292 still has the side 

wall couplings for forked launch cables - on aero-tow, there is 

no noticeable difference compared with the cable releases we 

are used to to-day, while a winch launch can be controlled 

with agreeable ease, and there is no tendency for the nose to 

rear up, thanks to the coupling being positioned close to the C 

ofG. 

In free flight, the Condor reveals unexpected qualities: one 

may imagine that a glider of this weight would cruise well, 

but I really had not anticipated that it would thermal so pleasantly 

and effectively at 36 to 40 knots that you have no trouble 

in outclimbing most other gliders! Good control effectiveness, 

combined with excellent control co-ordination, allows its 

good performance to be used to the full, once you have got 

used to its unusual elevator control loads. Even in poor conditions 

and in strong winds this more than forty-year-old twoseater 

still tempts you into cross-country flying! At slow 

speeds, the Condor's behaviour differs slightly from that of 

the two-seaters in use to-day: after the controls begin to feel 

very sloppy at an indicated air speed around 33 knots, it will 

show a distinct tendency to drop a wing if yOll apply further 

backward pressure. However, this is not very serious, as the 

incipient rotation stops as soon as the elevator back pressure 

is relaxed and opposite rudder applied, with hardly any loss of 

height. 

During the landing approach the Schempp-Hirth brake 

paddles extending from the upper and lower wing surfaces 

impress not only by their effectiveness, but also by the force 

with which they try to suck open, which can only be described 

as fierce. Slipping is very effective. Those Condor IVs built 

by Schmetz, like D-5000 now at home at Wipperfurth, still 

had DFS brake paddles with gentler effectiveness and pleasanter 

operating loads. 

One may wonder why, in spite of its excellent performance, 

so few Condor IV were built. Well: the cost of producing 

the 18-meter gulled wing was very high, and the financial 

resources of the clubs at the beginning of the fifties were still 

pretty meagre. Therefore, Schleicher1s decided on the development 

of a greatly simplified, less expensive club performance 

two-seater, the K 2. The Condor fuselage, already simplified 

with its straight-edged spine, was largely adopted for 

28

Two views ofMike Birch's Condor 4 as described by Cassius. Jochen "Cassjus" Ewald. 

29

~~ 

I t~ 

tc.~ 

~J'~~ 

Figures are for the Muster aircraft 

in 1953. . D-8538 and one other 

Condor 4 were flying in the 1952 

Spanish World Championships. 

D-8538 was being flown solo by 

the Egyptian Kamil Hassan. 

_ 

i 

I 

Wingspan 

18 metres. 

Length. 

8.440 metres. 

Empty weight 

787.6 lbs. 

Max. 

permissable 

Flying weight 

1144 lbs. 

Max LID ../ 5 by Schmetz Flugzeugbau. 

-l/io h ,',' 12 by Alexander Schleicher not 

flown dw en 1 ~.' lnc . 1 ud' lng t h' elr k' ltS wh' lCh 

and 1/2~a / ~, were sent to the Argentine. 

when flown I Max.winch & auto tow 

solo ' .. speed •• 90 kph. 

1 

Max. rough alr speed .. 1 ,,0 kph. 

Max. calm air speed •• 170 kph. 

Cloud flying not permitted. 

Aerobatics •. not permitted. 

r~. 

11 

fI 

I; 

I,i 

\ _. ,I 

",-1 ,. -.=-.• ' 

LID at 

100 kph 

0::1/26.5 

when flown 

dual and 

1122.2 when 

flown solo. 

rbeltsblliHerfGrden PrGfdlenlt 

Segelf'lugzeug 

Condor IV 

Baure1he 

Mult....Bla" 

Bloltzohll 

1 Blalt11 

Sponnwelte 118000 mm BeansprvchungsgrvppeI 

Or68te Langel 8440 mm t"':Z=-aJt"':',':"1der~-=:SItze--';:;";.;;"."':":'.-,,--+- 

t 'v=.:ng,~dc,'l Leergewlc:htcleiMusterftug , 

_.... """'"W . H6dlstzuf4a1ge Zulad"ng I 

f, Ulaiung 

~ kg 

- 

f lcg 

Enlwvrf Musterbetrever : H6dIltzul4ssig. Auggewicflb: :; 20 leg 

,. Het"t Olttaer lIM : HacNtz.Gew.d.nJd\ftr.Telu 3,0 leg 

- 1r- -1-_ 

A. Sohielahtr 

Po 

..::! Bavfaht des 

'Mulfwflugzeuges: 1'53 

2 

2 

\ 

Ị 

I 

" ( 

Condor IV· 

Handdart ••• • • • • • .1 ja 

_-le KraftWagen- u. Wlndenstart bit I ,,0:'b1Ih 

c 

II:g , • Rugzevgcl!epp ••• '. blu 100 km/h 

GIe'tflug b.lX5lgem Wetter bbl 1.QO km/h 

II:g t 

GI.ltflug b. "lhlgemWeit. bill, ,"'10 km/h 

kg B Wolleenflug ••••••••I"ln 

leg Kilnstftug •••••••••1 "'in 

_---L..--:. 

SJllbruchatelle .In.''O leg J1034 119 

ill SchleppMU: aid. -520 leg ~ 7etJ 119 

30

Superschiff der 50er 

Der Condor IV 

Ein Doppelsitzer der Superlative - da denkt heute jeder an die 

aus der ASW-22 entwickelte ASH-25, die in ihren Leistungen 

mit den besten einsitzigen Segelftugzeugen mithalten kann. 

Ganz so neu ist die Idee, aus einem Hochleistungseinsitzer ein 

doppelsitziges Wettbewerbsftugzeug zu entwickeln, jedoch 

nicht Schon 1951 konstruierte Heini Di ttmar den Condor IV 

auf der Basis seines erfolgreichen Vorkriegs-Einsitzers Condor 

Ill. Wie gut dieser Condor war, bewies Emst-Giinther Haase 

im August 1952, als er mit einem Schnitt von 80,9 kn1Ih ein 

1000r Dreieek umrundete. Mit diesem Flug stellteer nkht nur 

den ersten deutschen Nachkriegs-Weltrekord in der Dop,pelsitzerklasse, 

sondern auch absolut auf. Zusammen mit dem 

von Hans Jacobs auf Basis des Weihe-Fltigels entwiekelten 

KIallich III mit Stahlrohrrumpf war der Condor IV zu seiner 

Zeit wohl das weltbeste in Serie gebaute Segelftugzeug. 

Zunachst wurde der Condor IV (his auf zwei Prototypen) beim 

Flugzeugbau Schmetz in Herzogenrath bei Aachen und spater 

mit vereinfachtem, nicht eingesehniirten Rumpf bei Schleicher 

auf dei' W'lsserkuppe in Serie gebaut. Einige weitere Exemplare 

des Schleicher-Condors wurden in Argentinien 

hergestellt. Nur wenige der vielleicht fiinfzebn hier gebauten 

Condore ftiegen heute noch. Beim Segelftug-Oldtimertreffen 

'93 im tscheehischen Zbraslavice hatte ich Gelegenheit, einige 

Flugeindriicke auf dem von Heini Dittmar selbst gebauten 

zweiten Prototypen des Condor IV BGA-2292 von Mike Birch 

zu sammeln. Der Konstrukteur baute dieses Exemplar 

zunachst speziell als Einsitzer fUr den Agypter Hassan Kamil, 

der mit ihm an den Weltmeisterschaften 1952 teilnahm. Heini 

Dittmar erprobte mit diesem Condor auch mit c1em 

Querruder-Vollausschlag gekoppelte, asymetrisch ausfahrencle 

Bremsklappen zur Erhohung c1er Wendigkeit. Diese Idee 

wurde in den letzten Jahren von KJaus Holighaus am Nimbus 

111 und IV wieder aufgegriffen und perfek,tioniertl Spater 

wurde die V-2 auf den Serienstandard gebracht und flog mil 

dem Kennzeichen D-8538 lange Zeit in Karlsruhe. 

Wer glaubt, Segelftug-Oldtimer seien allesamt Leichtgewichte. 

bei denen die Aufriistarbeit ohoe Bandscheibenprobteme 

vorgenommen werden kann, wird bei der Montage 

des Condor eines Besseren belehrt: Mit einem Leergewicht 

von etwa 360 Kilo, von dem gut 100 Kilo in jedem clef eleganten 

Knickftiigel wiederzufinden sind, zeigt sich der 

Condor heutigen Kunststoff-Doppelsitzern durchaus ebenbiirtig. 

(Die Schleicher-Condore waren deutlich leichter.) Im 

Laufe der Jahre wurden einige kleine Modi fi kationen, an 

diesem Condor vorgenommen. So erhielt er stan der eintei'ligen 

Steckhaube mit vielen kleinen Scheil:>chen eine der K-7 

vergleichbare, zweiteilige geblasene Klapphaube. Aueh das 

Fahrwerk, ursprunglich ein zweiradriges, an der Kufe eingehangtes 

Abwurffahrwerk, wurde durch ein festes, in die Kufe 

eingebautes Rad ersetzt 

Wer einmal eine K-2 (b) geflogen hat, wird sich im 

Condor-Cockpit sofort zurechtfinden. Das Condor-CQckpit 

wurde flir die beriihmte Schleicher-Schuldoppelsitzerreihe fast 

unverandert tibernomrnen. Wie bei diesen F1ugzeugen bilden 

auch die Condor-WurzeLrippen "Scheuklappen",. die dem hinten 

Sitzenden einige Sichtillloglichkeiten nebmen. Was beim 

Condor anders ist, das splirt man spatestens beim Anschleppen: 

Das Pendel-Hohenruder rillt relativ weit vorne liegendem Drel1 

punkt teilt heim Rollen dureh seine Massentragheit kranige 

Seh!age aus und zwingt den Piloten, clen Kniippel krMtig 

festzuhalten. Das ist auch im F1ug empfehlenswert, gerade bei 

boigem Wetter mochte das Condor-Hohenruder ein beachtliches 

Eigelilleben zeigen. Da daff mall sich nicnt von den Kraften 

lauschen lassen: In seiner Reaktion allf Steuereingaben 

benimmt sich der schwere Doppelsitzer vonig normal unci 

prazise! Um es dem Piloten leicht zu machen, hat Besitzer Mike 

Birch seinem Condor groBe, handfreundliche Edelholz-Knlippelgriffe 

spendiert, bei denen nicht nur das F1iegen, sondern 

auch das Ansehen und Anfassen SpaB macht. Der BGA-2292 

hat tibrigens noch die Gabelseil-Seitenwand- Schleppkupplung 

- im F-Schlepp merkt man keinen Unterschied ZlI den heute 

iiblichen Kupplungen, wahrend der Windenstart dank der schwerpunktnahen 

Fesselung sehr angenehm und ohne Aufbaumneigung 

aussteuerbar ist. 

Im freien Flug zeigt der Condor liberraschende Qualitaten: 

DaB ein so schwerer Segler gut gleitet, ist gut vorstellbar. Aber 

daB er sich mit 65 bis 70 Stundenkilometern so angenehm und 

effektiv in der Thermik kurbeln laBt, daB man die meisten 

anderen Segelflugzeuge problemlos abhangt, damit hatte ieh 

nieht gerechnet! Eine gute Ruderwirkung, kombiniert mit 

einer hervorragenden Abstimmung erlaubt eine effektive Ausnutzung 

der guten F1ugleistungen des Condor, wenn man sich 

einmal an die ungewohnlichen Hohenruderkrafte gewohnt hat. 

Selbst bei unglinstigen Wetterlagen und starkem Wind verlockt 

der gut vierzig Jahre alte Doppelsitzer noeh heute zum Uberlandfliegen! 

Im Langsamflug benimmt sich der Condor ein 

wenig anders als die heute liblichen Doppelsitzer: Nachdem 

um 60 KmIh Fahrtmesseranzeige die Ruder extrem weich 

werden, will er beim weiteren Uberziehen eindeutig iiber den 

Fliigel abkippen. Dies ist allerdings weiter nicht schlimm, 

denn soba!d das Hohenruder zUriiekgenonunen und Gegenseitenruder 

getmten wh'd, stoppt die beginnende Drehung sofort 

und ohne nennenswerten Hohenverlust. 

Bei der Landung beeindrucken die Schempp-Hirth-Bremsklappen 

auf F1ligelober und Unterseite nicht nur durch ihre 

gute Wirkung. Auch die Krafte, mit denen sie sich heraussaugen 

wollen, sind mit "barig" recht gut beschrieben. Der 

Slip ist ebenfalls sehr wirksam. Die bei Schmetz hergestellten 

Condor IV, wie der jetzt in WipperfUrth beheimatete D-5000, 

hatten noch DFS-Bremsklappen mit schwacherer Wirkung 

und angenehmeren Betatigungskraften. 

"Bei so guten Leistungen fragt man sich, wieso nur so 

wenige Condor IV gebaut wurden. Nun, der Bauaufwand des 

18-Meter-Knickfliigels war sehr hoch, und die Finanzmittel 

der Vereine Anfang der 50er Jahre noch recht gering. So 

entschloB man sich bei Schleicher zu Entwicklung eiIlles 

weseliltlich vereinfachten, preisgiinstigeren Club-LeistLingsdoppelsitzers, 

der K-2. Der fUr den Condor bereits vereil1 

fachte, nicbt eingeschniirte Rumpf wurde hierfiir weitgehend 

iibernommen, das Pendel-Hohenruder durch ein Gedampftes 

ersetzt. Hue Nachfolger K-2b, K-7 und ASK-13 beherrsehten 

bis in die 80er Jahre die Vereinsflugzeugparks. Zudem gibt es 

seil 1956 keine Doppelsitzerklasse mehr auf den Segelflugweltmeisterschaften 

(das doppelsitzige Fliegen bei Meisterschaften 

in der Offenen Klasse wurde erst klirilich zugelassen), 

ein wichtiger Anreiz fUr den Kauf von Hoehleistungsdoppelsitzern 

war weggefallen. Heute zahlen die von ihren 

Besitzem liebevoll gepflegten und restaurierten Condore mit 

ihrem eleganten FIugbild zu den beliebtesten Oldtimern. 

Jochen Ewal (with kind permission of Fliegermagazin) 

31

this purpose, the all-moving tailplane being replaced by a conventional 

tailplane-cum-elevator. Its successors, the K 2b, K 7 

and K 13 dominated the club fleets well into the 1980s. Moreover 

after 1956 the two-seater dass in the world gliding 

championships was abo~i·shed (the flying of two-seaters in the 

open class championships was permitted again only recently), 

and so an important incent,ive for buying a high-performance 

two-seater disappeared. To-day the efegance in flight of these 

Condors, lovingly restored and cared for by their owners, 

makes this type one of the best loved of vintage gliders. (We 

are grateful to Colin Anson for his work in translating this 

article and the previous ones on the SG38 and Weihe Ed) 

Tailplane/elevator 

type 

span 

area 

Fin/rudder - height 

Fuselage - length 

cockpit width 

Weights - empty weight 

max. all-up weight 

wing loading 

All-moving tailplane 

3.5m 

1.85m 2 

1.5m 

8.44m 

0.58m 

310-358kg 

520-560kg 

(individual machines) 

24.5 kg/m 2 

Condor IV - Specifications 

Type class High performance two-seater 

Construction material Wood & Fabric 

Manufacturers H. Dittmar, Smetz, Schleicher. 

Wings - 

span 

area 

aspect ratio 

inboard profile 

outboard profile 

18.0 m 

21.2 m 2 

15.3 

Go 532 21.5% 

NACA 0012 

Stalling speed 

60kph 33kts 

Min.sink @ 24.5 kg/m 2 and 65 kph - 36 kts 0.70 rn/s 

Best LID at 24.5 kg/m 2 and 80 kph - 45 kts I: 31 

VNE 

170kph-94kts. 

An Epic Flight 

by Martin Simons 

At the OSTIV Congress held at St Auban during the recent 

World Gliding Championships, a guest of honour was Dr. 

Joachim Kiittner. He gave a highly entertaining talk on his 

gliding and soaring experiences at Grunau before the Second 

World War and the wave flying done as part of the Sierra 

Wave Project in Caltfornia during the nineteen fifties. 

Or Kiittner was one of the first sailplane pilots to explore 

and use the famous Moazagotllee wave. Flying in a Rhonbussard 

he was towed by Erwin Ziller, the Chief Instructor at the 

Grunau school, in very rough air through one or two secondary 

waves to reach the primary. After releasing he climbed 

smoothly ahead of the huge lenticular cloud until, in the open 

cockpit, he became so cold that he was shivering from head to 

foot. Before getting into the sailplane his shoes had got wet in 

the long. dewy grass and now he could not feel his feet at all. 

His altimeter did not read higher than three thousand 

metres and began to turn a second time around the dial. Not 

realising that he was suffering from anoxia (hypoxia}, soon he 

saw two suns where there had only been one. Suddenly, where 

there had been sunlight ahead, there was only a huge wall of 

cloud and he became dirrtly aware he had fost oriel1tation. 

Recognising that he was in trouble, he was able to pull 

himself together to keep control of the aircraft and tried 10 

descend. Because the lift was so strong he could not lose 

height. He thought to fly along the wave to reach the end of it 

and eventually, in this way, found sinking air and carne down 

rapidly. Still shivering with the cold and only semi-conscious, 

he decided to land near a farmhouse. 

As he came in he saw the farmer's wife run away into the 

house but the farmer himself, a large man, stood with his arms 

widespread as if to welcome him. He touched down safely but 

was unable to get out of the cockpit until they came to help 

him. The farmer and his wife spoke only Polish. The Bussard 

had come down in a predominantly Polish part of Silesia, 

although not actually across the frontier. 

He was well cared for and fed and managed to get a 

message to Grunau as to his whereabouts. It was agreed the 

crew would come to the nearby village square and toot three 

times on the car horn so that someone from the farm could go 

and guide them the last few hundred yards. Meanwhile, 

Joachim was offered a bed, which he was glad to accept. 

The baragraph confirmed that he had exceeded 23000ft 

altitude, a record, and without oxygen! 

Soon after this, partly because of the resulting publicity, it 

was discovered by the Nazi authorities that Joachim had a 

Jewish grandmother, and he was thereafter not permitted to do 

any flying in Germany. 

(In the next issue, Dr Kiittner's involvement in the Sierra 

Wave Project. Ed) 

Martin Simons 

Joachim Kilttner aged 90 at OSTlV '97. Martin Simons. 

32

Air Travel Tweety Style 

(Even T.3ls get you to the party on time) 

by David Ormerod 

Neil SCI1'U>, and I (Captains Screaming and Barking respectively) 

had heard that great parties took place at Husbands 

Bosworth on competition weekends. So we decided we must 

arrive in style by flying our T.31 'Tweety" down for the party 

that evening. After watching the club gliders struggling to 

stay airborne for more than half an hour we decided a big 

helping hand from our tuggy would be much appreciated. 

There was a short debate as to whether we were, in fact, 

crazy enough, then a line was drawn on a map and off we 

went. 

We pul'led off tow at 5000ft after a fair amount of ground 

had been covered, and after we had descended back past the 

€lauds we could see lots of competition gliders coming the 

other way at top speed. We had worked out that with this 

much height it would be a simple final glide to get to Hus Bos. 

Neil's new OPS confirmed that we were on track so we sat 

back and waved to the big wrnte 50: I, gliders going the other 

way_ What brave men they are! We arrived over site with 

1800ft to spare so could l11alce our arrival look even more 

impressive by conducting a high final turn followed by a 

special, T.31 style side slip. After basking in an hour or so of 

glory, we decided to come clean, but only after we made some 

hot ship pilots embarrassed that ,they had landed out when we 

had flown 50k with no problem. 

It was a truly great party with fine food and a live and quite 

exce'llent band. (Thanks to Nonnan with the Motor Tutor for 

letting us borrow his caravan for the night) 

After a hearty breakfast and a period of time recovering from 

the night before, we thought we would set off back to Saltby. 

Once again the intrepid aviators donned their silly hats and 

goggles ,and strapped themselves Ito a bright yellow flying 

machine. 

We pulled off at 1800ft str3,ight into a whopper. In fact, all 

rhe thermals were whoppers that day, the only problem was 

the lO-115kt headwind and what seemed like several miles 

between thermals. We spent a frustrating couple of hours 

flying back and forth between Bruntingthorpe and Leicester, 

losing 'I 500ft between each thermal. It looked like we were 

not goiJlg to get to Saltby at this rate and when we looked the 

other way, guess w~hat. We didn't have enough height to get 

back to Hus 80S. There was nothing for it, we sn()].Ild just 

have to lallld on that tiny little runway beneath us, Bruntillg~h· 

orpe. We selected a suitable blade of gl'ass on a nicely mown 

strip by the side of tha1t rather small runway, andllanded. After 

spending an enjoyable few hours browsing around a display 

of various civil andl military aircraft our friendly tuggy picked 

us up and took us back home. 

Although we may l1ave done things a littile different to 

most Ihat weekend we both had a vast amount of fun. A huge 

thank you goes to the people of Husbands Bosworth, our 

much loved tuggies Pilil Walsh and Val Oreene, my best chum 

and co-pilot Neil and, of course, Tweety, who helped make 

this a memoFab'le w.eekend. 

(How nice to hear of members using their old gliders to go 

somewhere, and to have so much fun in doing so. A lovely 

story, David and Nei!. Ed) 

T3J "Tweety" at the back ofthe grid at Husbands Bosworth. 

David Ormerod. 

Pegasus Microlight with Olympia 2b during the rowing trials. 

Keith Nurcombe. 

33

More Towing with Microlites 

by Keith Nurcombe 

-J:- 

Pegasus Microlight with a Bocian on tow (llOOlbs all up 

weight with two on board) Keith Nurcombe. 

Two years ago at Husbands Bosworth we caused some amusement 

(and encountered not a little antagonism) by demonstrating 

that a flex-wing microlite was capable of launching conventional 

gliders at a useful rate of climb (VGC News No 87). 

That particular test program was brought to a premature end 

thanks to some internal politics, and it took all of that two 

years to get everything in place again. 

This time, we had the tug aircraft for a week (along with a 

full support team from Solarwings Aviation), the enthusiastic 

support of the CFI, the explicit support of Dick Stratton and 

Dick Dixon, and had the pleasure of Anne Welch's company 

for good measure. 

The biggest difference this time round was that, with 80HP, 

we had an extra 16 horses at our disposal, and expected to see 

a considerable improvement in the performance. We were 

also hopeful of finding strong thermic conditions to test the 

handling limitations. All in all, we were not disappointed. 

We started the week by repeating the original program and 

launched the vintage Tutor at around 500lbs AUW. The result 

was startling. A five knot cross/headwind resulted in a short 

take-off run, with glider and tug becoming airborne together, 

saw us crossing the upwind fence at over 300 feet and climbing 

at 500 ft/min. with 45kts on the clock. Strong lift and sink 

were encountered on the four minute tow to 2000 feet. Conditions 

were such that the glider was soared quite happily 

despite the absence of a functioning variometer. The second 

launch was of the T31, two up, reportedly with similar results, 

which I watched from 3000 feet. 

Shortly after, the club Ka8 and a private Olympia 2 were 

happily launched·. Next came the Junior, which, at 550lbs or 

so, had previously proved to be near the limit of the 64HP tug. 

The extra horses showed just what was in store when it was 

again taken to 2000 feet in four minutes at 50-55 knots with a 

heavy pilot on board. By now, we were very happy with the 

capability of both tug and tug pilot with the gliders tested so 

far, and a queue began to form. This was a club weekend, and 

over the next two days, club members who were current on the 

aircraft launched so far were cleared after a simple briefing. 

The sceptics confounded! 

This was very promising, and on Monday we stopped to evaluate 

the data over lunch. Looking at the weights and flying 

speeds involved, we had decided the time had come to try the 

Discus (dry, of course), when Mike lordi declared his confidence 

in the ability of the tug to launch his LS6. Not wishing 

to S and in the way of someone so keen to relieve me of the 

responsibility of .explaining why the Discus was buried in the 

far fence, I eagerly assisted him onto the line. The take-off mn 

(at around 800lbs AUW) was rather longer than previously 

seen, with the tug airborne just before the glider, but the combination 

was at a respectable height over the far fence and 

climbing at a rate later reported to be 350 ft/min (not much 

different to many self-launchers). 

Having watched all of this very carefully, I pulled the 

Discus onto the tine: Take-up - All out - PUNK. Without 

moving a millimetre we had suffered our first weak link 

failure. 

At this point we looked again at the towing kit. Originally 

set up for towing hang gliders, the weak link of 2 x 60lb cord 

(two bootlaces!) had been upgraded to 3 x 60lbs (three bootlaces!). 

This had not been replaced for three days, and we 

decided to replace it daily rather than add another link to 

make 240lbs (no bootlaces left). It was proving difficult to 

induce snatch loads in flight; the tug was very accomodating 

to even the most drastic out-of-position manoeuvres (of 

which, more later). Consequently, the greatest load in the 

towrope was almost certainly that during the initial launch 

phase. The only other feature which caused some silent contemplation 

was the line swivel which was a bit of shark 

fishing kit. While accepting this for the time being, we 

decided to investigate the alternative options offered by yacht 

chandlers for a future occasion. However, it is true to say that 

this one weak link failure was the only bit of trouble encountered 

all week, and even then it was doing exactly what it was 

designed to do. 

So, back to the Discus. The tug became airborne before the 

glider, and I was rather disconcerted to see the tug climbing 

away steeply above me, although the speed (55kts) was quite 

adequate. This proved merely to be a matter of tug-pilot training, 

and after explaining our requirements more clearly, future 

launches were more comfortable. A climb-rate of 350 ft/min 

at 50-55kts was demonstrated, (2000 ft in six mins.) which 

was maintained over a wide range of pilot weights. An LS4 

and an ASWl5 were added to the list of glass gliders successfully 

launched, along with other wooden gliders falling within 

the weight range tested so far. (We drew the line at a Dart 15 

weighing 600lbs empty, in view of our lack of recent experience 

on this type, along with its poor handling reputation at 

low speeds. This may be an unwarranted slur, and I apologise 

to any Dart owners who may be offended.) 

Again, all of this was done in thermic conditions during 

several busy club/course days. The gliders were soared, the 

tug pilots learned to use the thermals rather than to avoid 

them, and the new tug fitted smoothly into the flying operation. 

We had two tug lines and a winch line all running side by 

side. Pilots - club members and visitors alike - took their 

choice without any complications arising. During the course 

of the week, Ron Beezer, our current CFI who, like me, had 

been alerted to the possibilities at our first test flights two 

34

years ago, spent much of his time trying to upset the tug with 

almost no effect. My own attempts to snatch load the tug were 

likewise without result. Thanks to the thrust line tow hook, it 

appears to be much easier to wrap the rope around the glider 

than it is to upset the tug. 

By Friday, we were getting cocky. Ron pulled the Bocian 

to the back fence and took a solo launch. After passing the 

launch point at over 50 feet he took another launch two-up. 

The result at 11001bs AUW was very similar. Thereafter, 

several more launches of the Bocian two-up demonstrated 

350 ftlmin at 50-55kts and gave a normal height over the far 

fence despite starting at the usual launch point. 

So there we are. We have no doubt that the existing production 

Pegasus weight-shift microlite from Solarwings 

equipped with a watercooled 80HP Rotax 912 can operate 

within a nornwl club environment and safely launch (dry) 

standard class gliders and wooden two-seaters. 

What problems a:rose 

There must have been some, bUll can't recall any. One low 

hours pilot reported feeling uncomfortable in the ASW 15 at 

50-55kts on his first launch, but as far as I can determine, 

everyone who flew wooden gliders reported that the launch 

was easier and more comfortable than behind a Supennonk. 

Even heavy pilots flying 15m glass agreed t1~at their initial 

scepticism had dissipated and that the experience had been 

surprisingly enjoyable. We were all agreed that some development 

willlbe needed before laullching ballasted gliders can be 

contemplated, but that one can now see the possibility. 

Where win we find the tug-pilots 

Barry Underwood, CFl at Swinford Microlight Club, who has 

taken pari i,n both sessions, pointed out that everyone involved 

in this operation is a GA pilot, and switches happily between 

three-axis and weightshift with no difficulty. This is becoming 

a growing trend, and he maintains that converting existing 

pilots (particularly those with gliding and tugging experience) 

is a simple matter. (Almost as a post-script, we did one launch 

with the AX2000 three-axis microlight. It fell far short of the 

ideal, being underpowered, overcomplicated, and noisy. It 

demonstrated clearly that the Pegasus weight-shift is definitely 

the way to go.) 

What next 

For the future, IOOHP is a very real possibility, as is a four or 

five blade propellor which would further reduce the already 

low noise level. The model on test, while quieter than the 

Supermonks most of the time, had its exhaust pointing 

directly at the three bladed prop. This was a perfect phase 

generator, and there was a very narrow band of irritating noise 

audible from some locations. As a two seater, there is only 

one option for the reduction gear. But Solarwings tell us that if 

the existing tug were re-designated as a single seater, the 

weight saved would allow the changing of the reduction 

gearing to reduce the propellor RPM. Of even greater interest, 

ll5HP is a future prospect. Re-rigging the airframe and optimising 

the propellor could allow a faster tow, which offers the 

realisat'ion of the ideal, purpose-built, low cost tug with the 

ability to launch all but the heaviest of ballasted gliders. 

However, development costs being what they are, before any 

of this becomes a reality, I am sure that they will need to be 

sure of the market. Someone will have to do a cost analysis to 

show the benefits ,in financial terms, but let there be no doubt 

that the week at Husbands Bosworth this sunmler demonstrated 

the existing capability, as well as the future prospects. 

Many thanks to John Fack and Bill Sherwood at Solarwings 

Aviation who did everything they could to make the 

week successful: To our hardworking tug pilot, Barry Unclerwood: 

To Anne Welch who added to our credibility: To Paul 

Treadaway for his photographs, and to all who made ,the week 

a resounding success. 

Keith Nurcombe 

(This story has been accepted on the grounds that the subject is gliding, it is certainly vintage and it may interest or amuse the 

readers but its inclusion must not be seen as an invitation for further stories ofa similar nature! Ed) 

Tales of Vintage Past - The Streak 

by Pete Wells 

Wiith the possible exception of low flying Hippo-rhinostracows, 

migrating flying fish and other lower forms of semiaquatic 

life with a predilection for the damp and dank, for 

most living creatures April 25th 1974 was undeniably a very 

grotty day. Some would say that it was a typical early Spring 

day, which had been, and would continue to be, endemic in 

the UK for many centuries. It had rained for most of the night, 

but although this had now stopped, the watery morning light 

revealed a low grey overcast that stretched from horizon to 

horizon. The wind had eased a little but it was still rather cold 

and, .if you planned to venture outside, some form of topcoat 

was essential. 

It was supposed to be the annual Easter Task Week! 

Initially the weather had not been too unkind but from the 

start had steadily deteriorated until on this particular day it 

unequivocally declared its intention to ruin the week. 

In spite of the obvious, most people turned up on time for 

lhe briefing just to listen to the Me,t. man state the obvious. 

They were tl1 the middle of a slow moving, warm occlusion. 

In fact it was so slow moving it might even go backwards! 

Those who really understood what a warm occlusion was 

promptly left to pursue other interests. A few of the more 

hopeful, but less well informed, remained, happily unaware 

that optimism is more often than not the offspring of ignorance. 

'How about a spot of fishing' suggested one. 

The second, gloomily watching a seagull trying to raise 

breakfast by treading the grass observed, 'We need some 

worms'. 

'No problem' cried a third, 'Here's a spade, I'U go and dig 

for some" 

Now, the venue of this task week was a military establishment 

where, as is normal in such places, those in authority 

had for reasons best known to tI1emselves, conducted some 

form Qf ceremonial during which large areas of grass had been 

deified. Just to walk close to this hallowed turf would evoke a 

sharp directive from those especially appointed to protect it. It 

was therefore not surprising when, at the very mention of the 

words 'spade' and 'digging'. the natives became extremely 

agitated. As if by magic, the spade disappeared and for a few 

35

moments the proposed fishing expedition, like the gliding, 

looked destined to become a non-event. 

'I have a better way of catching wormS than digging for 

them', declared a more enterprising individual. 

, All you do is take this three foot metal stake, hammer it 

into the ground - like this. COlll1ect it with a thick piece of 

wire to the live pin of a 13 Amp f>lug -like this. Plug it in and 

switch it on - like this' 

The worms erupted out of the sacred grass like a multiple 

launch at Cave Kennedy and at the same time all the 13 Amp 

outlet sockets expt.oded and blew off the hangar wall! 

Strangely enough, this caused less of a disturbance amongst 

the natives than the earlier reference to spades and digging. 

Shortly after ,this brief but spectacular fireworks display the 

fishermen departed with their can of worms. The few remaining 

stood by the hangar doors, heads craned back in unison, 

contemplating theirs. 

Among these hopeful souls stood George and Sydney. 

George and Sydney hailed from a Club in the far flung west 

and as far as they were concerned, to have travelled all those 

miles for nothing was, to say the least, unthinkable. 

The cloud base had just gone up an inch or two when 

George noticed an EoN Primary in a far corner of the hangar. 

'Let's ask the CFI if we can get the Primary out', he suggested. 

Probably seeing this as an opportunity to ensure the continued 

existence of what remained of his hangar, the CFI 

promptly agreed. However, their next request for a Supermunk 

to launch it with resulted in obvious signs of physical 

distress and imminent apoplexy, so they beat a hurried retreat 

to find a winch driver. 

Co-opting some extra support, they manipulated the 

Primary out of the corner of the hangar and on to the airfield 

and there followed a cold but most enjoyable hour or two 

when all who so wished availed themselves of a couple of 

launches. To ensure zero ground handling, and under the 

threat of buying the beer for the rest of the week, spot landings 

were the order of the day. With a launch height of around 

900 feet they achieved a very creditable turn round time of 12 

minutes or so and. an average flight time of 3Y2. (minutes that 

is). Which just goes to prove that Platypus was not very far off 

the mark when he said that there is an alternative to talent. Its 

called performance! 

It was only to be expected that after a while interest in the 

circuits and bumps would begin to wane a little and some col- 

Pilot, location, photographer and date, all unknown to the 

Editor. But we do know it is an EoN Primary. 

lective thought was therefore given to how to liven up the proceedings. 

This was the moment when the glove was thrown down. 

Someone called, 'Who will be the first to do an aerial streak' 

George, being George and not one to miss an opportunity 

for a good laugh, especially when there was a possibility of it 

being at the expense of someone else, challenged Sydney. 

Sydney, a quiet well spoken gentleman who designed 

dredgers as, a profession and being equally quick on the 

uptake produced a coin from his pocket and said, 'Toss you 

for it' 

Nobody appears to know exactly how the coin fell. Suffice 

it to say that Gem'ge, except for an old style cloth flying 

helmet, complete with Mk 14 Goggles and a pair of fur lined 

gloves, divested himself entirely of his apparel, leapt upon his 

faithful Primary, performed a copybook circuit and, 3 1 h 

minutes later, laid claim to a place unique in gliding history. 

The reaction of the natives varied from shock horror by the 

prudes and those in authority, to others who expressed their 

considerable concern regarding George's nether regions 

which, having been exposed for some considerable time to the 

elements could have been, at best temporarily, or at worst, 

irretrievably damaged. At the time Gem'ge, quite naturally on 

a bit of a high, didn't really care. The first aerial streak was 

his! 

The Knights of the Popping Corks 

by Colin Anson 

Apart from performing miracles in setting up and running our 

most enjoyable International rally this summer at CeHes-sur 

Ource, hard-working Maurice and Isabelle Renard, and their 

equally hard-working helpers, had also provided for a very 

full programme of events. Among these, the item listed in the 

progranune for Thursday, August 7th, seemed a bit puzzling: ' 

The 'Enthronement' ofone VGC memberfrom each participating 

country "to the Saltlte Bouchon confraternity". 

Then we were advised at briefing to buy a commemorative 

small, tulip-shaped champagne glass, imprinted with the 

emblem of the rally, which would be filled with champagne 

on the evening in question. Also: bottles of champagne were 

available to participants at a very advantageous price - bottles 

witb a special label, showing a vintage glider and details of 

this "25e Rassemblement de Planeurs Anciens". So that was 

it: a sales presentation of the local wine makers. And why not, 

indeed. We remembered the delightful cruise on the Mosel 

dur,ing the rendez-vous at Traben Trarbach, when young 

ladies kept re-filling our glasses with various Mosel wines as 

we passed the very vineyards of their origin. And then, as we 

disemlJarked, we were invited to buy a few bottles of this and 

a crate of that. Well, all I can say is: we were in for a big surprise! 

This was no sales presentation, but a grand and solemn 

ceremony, such as we had not expected, nor ever seen before. 

36

It began with a splendid procession of dignitaries in magnificent 

dark blue velvet robes, richly trimmed with gold 

braid, preceded by four trumpeters with long silver trumpets. 

The procession passed through the centre of the briefing and 

assembly hall, and on to the stage where the dozen or so dignitaries 

formed a line facing us. The trumpeters sounded a 

rousing fanfare, and the Grand Master of the "Commanderie 

de Saulte-Bouchon" opened the proceedings. Willi 

Schwarzenbach and I were dragged on to the stage, to provide 

German and English translations, but we immediately chickened 

out: to have an elaborate ceremony in ancient French 

thrust upon us without notice was more than we thought we 

could 'cope with, and stuttered attempts at translation would 

have spoil,! dIe elegant rhythm of the sonorous phrases. WiI\i 

was to be called again later, to be honoured as one of the 

national representatives; I hid behind the line of big dignitaries 

in their voluminous robes and head-dresses. 

Now the ceremony unfolded, with eloquent speeches and 

elaborate ceremonial - solemn, but not without a hint of 

tongues-in-cheeks. As far as I understood it, the Commanderie 

was something between a trade association and an 

ancient Guild (perhaps not quite 'so ancient), to watch over the 

standards of the wine producers of the region of Champagne. 

Presently, they got down to the business of the day: the induction 

into the order of one prominent VGC member from each 

country, above all, of course, our President, Chris Wills. One 

by one, they were called up on to the stage. The new postulants 

were examined by the Vice Master, received absolution 

from the Chaplain for previous misdemeanours such as (their 

words:~) tndulging in p-poor vinegars masquerading as 

wines, and were then required to take the solemn oath, administered 

by yet another high officer, in future to be faithful to 

the true ,and 1I0ble vintage. And then the Connetable formally 

raised them to the state and dignity of Knights of the Noble 

Order; dubbing them on the shoulder with a hefty gnarled vine 

which is the badge and implement of his office, and the 

fanfare sounded to proclaim their elevation. Each then 

received an elaborate Certificate. 

Now the newly created knights each had to open a champagne 

bottle. Some needed a good deal of tuition in that art. 

Glasses were produced (rather larger than the ones we had 

beeninvired to buy!), decorated with the insigJlia of the Commanderie. 

Toasts were drunk (and a kind lady smuggled one 

of the glasses into my hand. where I was hiding behind the 

bulwark of robed figures, and that, too, was filled with champagne). 

Then the Grand Master gave his final address, 

announcing that this was the first time the Chapter had been 

convened on an airfield, in order to honour this unique champenoise 

occasion and to emphasize the affinity between the 

members of the Guild of the Leaping Cork, and those who 

Leap into Ithe Air in Gliders, to soar over the wonderful region 

of Champagne and survey its great vineyards, so they may 

spread to the four corners of the earth the fame of their noble 

product, which is "the Wine of Kings, and the King of 

Wines"! 

M0re fanfares brought the ceremony to an end. The Grand 

Officers fi:led down from the stage and processed out of the 

building, preceded by the trumpeters, each dignitary carrying 

the implement of his office. By now, the catering marquee had 

been stocked with batteries of champagne bottles, and our 

glasses were filled not once, but re-filled again and again, as 

often as you liked, with overwhelming generosity. And it was 

very good champagne. The mood became merrier and 

merrier, and the usual spirit of camaraderie in our lovely international 

VGC family of friends was elevated to a quite 

unusual degree. The members of the Commanderie circulated 

among us and chatted with all and sundry. Even the newly 

ennobled Knights among us spoke to us most graciously and 

affably, as though they were just ordinary VGC members, just 

like you and me. 

Twent to bed convinced that happiness is vintage gliding in 

the Champagne! 

Restoration of Grunau Baby BGA 370 

Due to pressure of other, more urgent work, we understand 

that Neil Scully has not made much progress on his Grunau 

lately. We are promised that by the next issue real progress 

wiIJ have been made, especially now that he has enough 

timber to finish the restoration and has sub-contracted the 

work on the wings to Richard Kilham (who was awarded a 

VGC Prize for restoration of a Skylark 2) Ed. 

International News 

AUSTRALIAN NEWS 

1998 marks the 50th Anniversary of Gliding at GAWLER, 

home of the Adelaide Soaring Club. The Club intends to start 

the year of celebrations with the National VGA Rally from 

the 3rd until the 19th January 1998. The Homebuilt Association 

has indicated that they will be present also. KEVIN 

SEDGMAN (Patron of the VGA) has just returned from a trip 

in the USA where he had a good time visiting Paul Schweizer 

and his wife at Elmira. He enjoyed "SUA and Fun", Elmira, 

Cape Canaveral, Tehachapi, Edwards Air Force Base, NASA, 

War Birds at Shafter, and met lots of very fine people. 

RESTORATIONS in progress are the Kookaburra VH 

GHN. This is being modernized and "cleaned up". Its trailer 

has been used to transport the Grouch /Johnstone Kookaburra 

4 from Adelaide to Karoonda for its rebuild. 

The GOLDEN EAGLE. VH-GFC, which is Australia's 

oldest airworthy glider, having been built in 1936, is now 

almost ready to fly again after a re-cover and painting by Alan 

Patching and Geoff Richardson. All parts are now a glorious 

yellow and white and all that is needed now is weighing and C 

of G checking. Jim Garay, Editor of the Home-build Association's 

newsletter, is to mark the Golden Eagle's 60 th anniversary 

with a Total Golden Eagle Newsletter with articles by 

Geoff Richardson, Alan and lan Patching and others, who 

have had association with the aircraft. IAN PATCHING has 

organized a Dinner at Bacchus Marsh on Saturday the 27th 

September 1997, to celebrate the anniversary of the Golden 

Eagle's first flight, which took place on the 26th of December 

1937. 

The BERFALKE 3 VH-GTP. This aircraft is a replacement 

/ reincarnation of the original Berfalke 3 VH-GTP, which was 

destroyed in the Lake Keepit fire on October 10th 1994. Purchased 

from Germany in 1988, it was ready to fly in October 

1994. While its main components were somewhere else, the 

hangar fire destroyed floor and instrument panels.(This is an 

accurate copy ofthe news from Australia but we don't understand 

it Ed) Finally, pressure from Bruce Taylor forced Ian to 

fly TP in March 1997 and it is now based at the Kentucky 

Flying Club near Armidale, NSW. The original GTP was with 

37

the New England Soaring Club and while there, it flew inumerable 

300 km and one 500 km flight. It won the first, reintroduced 

sports two seater competition at Leeton 15 years 

ago. Before the fire which destroyed it and other sailplanes at 

Lake Keepit, GTP had had around 28,000 flights, during 

which 7,500 hours were flown without an accident. Hundreds 

of pilots had their first flights in her, and notable first solos in 

her include those of Bruce Taylor, Brad Edwards and lan 

McPhee. At the new GTP's first flight celebration, out of the 

30 people attending, 25 had either had their first flights, or had 

done their first solos, in her. 

BELGIAN NEWS 

Over a year ago, we heard that a Swiss SPALINGER S.15K 

had been discovered in Belgium and, at that time, it was 

hoped to restore it to airworthy condition. This is a 14.6 metre 

span gull winged and strutted sailplane from 1935, which had 

a max.LID of 1:21. Only one other S.15K is known to be in 

existence but this is stored, togetl1er with a Rhonbussard, in 

bad condition in the hands of an aeromodeIler in Switzerland. 

(The Rhonbussard, perhaps, was HB-258 ) In 1956, there 

were six S.15s registered in Switzerland. In 1941, there had 

been 15 of the type registered and so it would seem that S. 15s 

have been an important part of Swiss Gliding's history. 

CZECH REPUBLIC NEWS 

Vladimir Danda has wlitten saying the CZECH National 

Vintage Glider Rally took place this year at Sumperk. During 

the first half of the week, there was very bad weather with 

rain. However, half way through the week, the sun shone and 

the following vintage gliders took part:- 

Pionyr OK-2218, Kmotr OK-1260, Lunak OK-0975, Sohaj 

OK-5333, Demant OK-9902, Orlik OK-6922. At Prague 

Kbely on the 17.5.97 were seen the following types:- Krajanek 

OK-8565, Lunak OK-8918, Demant, Weihe OK-8303, 

and Meise. Although we have no information concerning 

these aircraft, we imagine that they have been restored for 

static display in the War Museum which is at Kbely. As there 

may not be room for them at the moment, we expect that they 

will be stored derigged until there is room for their display. 

We believe that the Weihe and Meise may be the last of these 

two types in the Czech Republic and that they were both built 

in Germany during the war. We have no information as to 

whether any of these aircraft can be flown. 

CZECH HISTORY. Production of Kranich 2s at Mraz from 

1941 to 1946. 

1941-320 

1942 -400 

1943 - 530 

The finn also built two Heini Dittmar Condor 3s during 1943 

and 30 DFS 230 troopcarriers during 1943/44. We have no 

trace of what happened to the Condor 3s. 

1944-290 

1945 - 80 

1946 - 24 

Total- 1644 

7 of these Kranich 2s were exported to Hungary during the 

war, where they were the "hot ships" for record breaking.(as 

also were the M.22s) 

17 of these Kranich 2s MAY have been exported to 

Yugoslavia as they were on the Yugoslavian register of 1949 

1958. We think that they could have been built by Mraz as the 

Yugoslavian Air Museum sold one to the Germans, who at 

once put it in a Museum on static display. It had been built by 

Mraz. 

We thank Mike Gurney for this information. He had 

obtained it from Zdenek Bedrich, whom we also thank. 

Mike had thought that the number of German gliders left 

behind in Czechoslovakia in 1945 might have numbered 

about 1,000. However, he now thinks that the number might 

have been between 300 and 400 as some of the registrations 

on the register had not been allocated. Those interested should 

watch this space, as more information may come in soon. 

The Kranich 2s in Czechoslovakia were known after the 

war as VT-52s, Jerabs, which also means "Crane". This is pronounced 

Yerczab in English. 

BRITISH NEWS 

The SCUD 3 BGA 283, has been sold by Martin Garnett to 

Laurie Woodage at the London Gliding Club, who has already 

been flying it. There are now two Scud 3s airworthy at the 

LGC, the other being BGA 684, which is owned and kept airworthy 

by Ted Hull. BGA 283 gained its first BGA C of A in 

December 1936 and BGA 684 gained its first BGA C of A in 

January 1953. This latter one was crashed during a powered 

take off at the LGC against the wind, which was blowing 

down the hill in 1936. It was repaired and test flown during 

the war by Ron Clear, who was arrested by the military, put in 

prison and fined by the civilian authorities for illegally flying 

a glider, when civilian gliding and powered flying was forbidden 

during .the war. He undoubtably would have been punished 

even mOre severely had not the judge been a First World 

War pilot. He was fined £ 15 which was a lot of money in 

those days The Scud 3 was designed as a powered glider and 

flew first in 1935. Only two were built. As both of them are 

still airworthy, it is another example of Worthy aircraft being 

kept by the British, to fly on, we hope il1to the next century. 

Both of them are unpowered now but Ity well enough unpowered. 

RESTORATION PROJECTS in hand now in Britain are 

three German built GRUNAU BABY 2 Bs, one British 1936 

built GRUNAU BABY 2A, a British Royal Navy built 

GRUNAU BABY 2B, two EoN OLYMPIAS, one SKY, and 

one PREFECT. We have just heard that the PREFECT has 

been finished. The German wartime built Grunau Babies were 

probably among those that were imported during the early 

1960s by the RAF in Germany to be sold to Civilians in 

Britain as, at that time, there was probably no market for them 

in Germany. 

They are being worked on by Chris Tanks in North Wales, 

by Mark Clayton at Bidford on Avon and by Laurie Woodage 

at Dunstab1e (the LGC). 

So there is still considerable restoration activity in Britain. 

The North Wales Baby 2b was probably one of six Grunau 

Babies which were built by the Danish Air Army in 1941 and 

these were taken by the Wehrmacht Luft in 1943. As they 

were in WL markings, they were removed, with 28 other 

Grunau Baby 2bs and 48 other German gliders, by the British 

Army, from Denmark in 1945. 

There may be other restorations in hand that we do not 

know about but still in store in England alone, awaiting we 

hope, restoration are:-one JS WEIHE, two KRANICH 2s, one 

SPALINGER S 21h, one MINIMOA, one GRUNAU BABY, 

one DAGLlNG, one HUTTER H.17A and the WILLOW 

WREN (Britain's oldest glider, BGA 162.) and 1 KITE I (the 

prototype). 

38

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Wingspan: 14.6 rn. 

Wing Area: 14.2 sq.rn. 

Empty Weight: 264 Ibs. 

Loaded Weight: 418 Ibs. 

Wing Loading 2.74 / sq.ft. 

Max. L/D= 1:21. 

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39

improved primary with nacelle, is being restored to fly. This 

also originates from 1932. This, with slight modifications, 

became the AVIA 151 and AVIA 152. The latter was built in 

some quantity during 1941/42 and, after the war in France and 

Algeria. In 1942 it had been examined by the Engineer 

LESCURE and redesigned by him to be the best training 

glider in Europe. Max Gasnier tested the prototype of the 152 

over La Banne d'Ordanche and found that it was suitable for 

slope and thermal soaring. 

The Scud 3 which has just been bought from Martin Garnett 

by Laurie Woodage, shown with Lauries Dad. L. Woodage. 

A new arrival 

Thomas Frederic Russell born in July 1997 to 

Veronique and Francis (Lofty) Russell. He already has 

a log book with 45 mins flight time recorded. All 

Lofty's many friends send their best wishes to the 

whole family. 

DUTCH NEWS 

We are sad that a GOEVIER 3 and an AY.36 flying wing have 

left us, for ever, for Japan. We are, however, glad that a 1938 

GRUNAU BABY 2 is at last restored and flying again. We 

understand that the person behind this restoration is Peter 

Deege. There is much of the original 1'938 wood still on the 

machine. It is now Holland's oldest glider and the only one in 

existence that was built before the war which ~s airworthy. 

A team has now been formed to repair the unique T.21 C 

that was crashed and the aircraft is going to be repaired soon. 

We have no news of the 1946 FOKKER built GOEVIER 2 

in Holland. It was the first of two Goeviers that Ken Crack 

owned and it was sold some years ago to owners in Holland. 

At that time it needed some regluing. 

FRENCH NEWS 

At our 25th International Rally at Bar-sur-Seine, which was so 

well organized by Maurice Renard and his team, it was very 

apparent that many French vintage gliders (C.30 I s, 

Emouchets, C.25s's, C.800s, C.310s, C.311 s, and Air lOOs 

etc) were not there. We do not know the reason, unless French 

entries were restricted to make room for us, or because of the 

cost, or the weather However, it is enough to know that they 

do exist. It is clear that there are still a great number of French 

gliders in France to restore as they are the remainder of a huge 

French Gliding movement after the war, which was very 

much subsidized by their Government. 

As mentioned in the report on the main Rally, an AVIA II 

primary is being restored for static exhibition. This was the 

production version of the Avia 10. Both originate from 1932. 

One was even flown as a two seater. An AVIA 15a, an 

NEWS from the G.P.P.A. the Regional Musee de I' Air et de 

I'Espace on Avrille airfield, near Angers, has sent the following 

News via their Bulletin No.55, June 1997. 

The AVIA 41P No. M-3, which belongs to the Musee de 

I' Air et de I'Espace at le Bourget. has been finished after three 

years of intensive work by Paul Genes! and Yves Edmery. It 

was handed over ceremoniaUy to the Musee de I'Air et de 

I'Espace, which was represented by General Siffre and Christian 

Tilatti, who are respectively, Director and Conservationist 

of the Museum, in a friendly Iit,tle ceremony on the 30th of 

April, which was attended 'by the Mayors of Avrille and 

Angers, members of the G.P.P.A. and numerous friends. 

The AVIA 41 P is France's No.1 vintage high performance 

sailplane. It was very much influenced by Kronfeld's WIEN, 

but it is smaller and has many differences. 

At the Contest of Vauville in 1928, the Wien (Vienna) had 

made a great impression on French engineers, including 

Raymond JARLAUD. The first prototype of the AVIA 41P 

was presented at the Salon de I' Aeronautique's Grand Palace 

at the end of November 1932 and it had its first flight at Buc 

on the 7th of December 1932 piloted by Georges Bouvier. 

Because of the complexity of its structure, the Avia 41 p 

attained only limited production and therefore only the most 

experienced pilots flew it... Bouvier in 1933 and then, in 1934, 

Eric Nessler, who christened it "I'Aigle de la Banne" ("Eagle 

of 'the Banne d'Ordanche", which was France's No I Gliding 

Centre at that time). Its max un was I:25 and it weighed 165 

kgs empty (363 Ibs) which is most creditable for a machine 

with an 18.5 metre wingspan. Its wing profile was Gottingen 

555 with Gottingen 527 at its tips. On the 10th April 1938, 

Eric Nessler was winch launched from Beynes at 10.48 hI'S 

and landed at Saint'Pere-en-Retz at 16.55 hours after a distance 

flight of 347 kms. On the 18th of April 1938, Nessler 

again had a winch launch from Beynes, but landed after only a 

few krns. He returned with the 41 p in time to have another 

winch launch. This time he landed at Chatellaillon at 18.30 

hours after 382.4 kms at an average speed of 77 kph. This was 

a new French distance record. It should be noted that Nessler 

hoped to arrive on the Isle of Oleron but lift gave out near La 

Rochelle. These flights were done in the AVIA 41 P No.2. It 

was later taken by the Germans from Beynes in June 1940, 

together with 15 new Delanne 60s which were still in their 

packing cases. It seems that 7 AVIA 41 ps were built. The one 

that is now restored for static exhibition at the Musee de I' Air 

et de I'Espace was No. 3. It was built in 1936 by the Societe 

Franc;ais d'Aviation Nouvelle (SFAN) for the military at 

Avignon-Pujaut. With it, Lt Pierre Wemert, who was a pupil 

of the pioneer Thoret, and commander of the military gliding 

section at the above base, flew two French records, 207 kms 

in 4 hours 33 mins and climbed to 2,300 metres height, which 

was a gain of 1,850 metres height. These were not recognised 

as he had been aerotow launched by an MS 315, and not by 

winch or bungee, as had been stipulated by the FAI of that 

time. It seems that the military gliding section disappeared in 

40

1938. and the 41 p No.3 was taken on strength at the Bahne 

d'Ordanche Gliding Centre. Because of its military service, it 

was named Avia 41 p No. M-3. 

In the review Air Sport NO.10 of the 15th August 1943, 

Max Gasnier describes his flight of 22nd July 1939, when 

during the National Contest, he flew 168 krns to his goal (La 

Banne-Lyon). " One took myoid No.3, a 41 p but all the same, 

it was well tired". 

For the whole war, the Germans having banned performance 

flying, No. 3 was hidden in some farms near la Banne. 

It was seen in 1949 stored derigged in a workshop together 

with the Kronfeld AUSTRIA of the Auvergne Aero Club. It 

never flew agai n after 1939 but it was found incomplete but 

dry stored by the GPPA three years ago. 

Because the AVIA 41 P was expensive to build, France's 

only high performance sailplane in production before the war 

was the much smaller AVIA 40p' about 50 of which were built 

from 1935. One of these was bought in England by Fran90is 

Ragot and was returned to France last year, after it had been 

restored after th.ree years of work by Mike Birch at Wycombe 

Air Park (BookerG.C.). 

The G.P.P.A, is also restoring an SA 103 EMOUCHET to 

fly. Its tailplane has. now been started. The rest of it is finished 

and it should be ready to fly before Christmas. 5 Emouchets 

were built by 1940 and so some of these must have flown 

during the War. There is even a photograph of one flying over 

La Montagne Noire in 1943, when all gliding in France was 

supposed to have been banned in late 1942, because of the 

war situatioD. 

Therefore soon, the following pre 1940 designed gliders 

should be flying in France. AVIA 15, EMOUCHET, CASTEL 

C.301s and AVIA 40p. 

The G.P.P.A. is also restoring the Fauvel designed AY.22 

NoJ F-CCGK, which belongs to the G.P.P.A. Its wings are 

finished and work is progressing on its fuselage. 

GERMAN NEWS 

OTTO GRAU's newly built RHOENSPERBER is now finished 

except for its fabric, as also is KLAUS HEYN'S 

MUSTERLE which he has bullt from scratch at home.. We 

congratulate ,them for getting their projects this far. The 

progress report on the new DFS RElHER in the previous 

VGC NEWS was over optimistic. Although SIEGFRIEO 

LORENZ has finished 261 new Reiher building plans, the 

project has not yet been started by the Oldtimer Club 

Wasserkuppe, although some details have been built. SEF 

KURZ has been giving his time to further developing his ME 

163 B KOMET. We believe that he may be installing a piston 

engine power unit, but this has yet to be confirmed. 

We have news of change of ownership of two Weihes in 

Germany. 

Firstly, D-3654 is now owned jointly by Gisela Oreskornfeld, 

Gerd Hermjacob and Englebert Westerwalbesloh. It was 

originally built in 1953 by Focke Wulf (works No 3) and was 

first bought by Richard Kaselowsky of Biefeld, and it flew at 

Oerlinghauseo and Windelsbleiche. Its last owners were 

Adolf S,tick of Westerland, Sylt, and Jochen Kruse of 

Ueterseo. The GrundUberholung will be finis'hed in the 

autumn of this year by Karl-Heine Bienas (who did such wonderful 

work on the Minimoa and Go 4 restoration for the 

MUnster Old' timers Club.) 

Secondly, 0-0301 which was built by the Flugsportgruppe 

Zurich in 1962 is now owned by Gerd Hermjacob and Englebert 

Westerwalbesloh. It flew at our 1997 rallies at Pont St 

Vincent and Celles-sur-Ource. Its previous owner was GUnter 

Solms of Siegen. ([t was not factory built, therefore it has no 

works number) 

Obituary 

JOSTFREI 

With sadness we report that Jost Frei died on the 11th of 

August at the age of 86 after a long illness. Jost was one of our 

first members who joined the VGC in 1974 when taking part 

in the 2nd International Rally on the Wasserkuppe (Rhon) 

flying his Weihe 50 and winning the first prize for best performance. 

The following year he organised the 3rd VGC Rally at 

Gruyeres in Switzedand and from there he did some great 

mountain flights in the Weihe. Jost and his wife Hilde 

attended nearly all of the VGC International Rallies trailing 

the Weihe, and later, the heavy Kranich 3 as far as Sutton 

Bank or Budapest and for the last time, to Schaffhausen in 

1991. Flying at the faUies and meeting pilots and friends provided 

pleasur.e and happiness to lost. 

lost Frei. by Willi Schwarzenbach. 

Professionally, he was in a leading position in chemical 

engineering within the CIBA works in Monthey. But he was 

also an experienced mountaineer, a skilled skier, a good 

observer and he had a wide knowledge of nature, rocks, 

stones and flowers. 

lost became a passionate gliding pilot in 1960 and did 

many flights in dle Alps, discovering again 'all the mountains 

he had climbed before. No wonder that later he was the 

driving force when the Gliding Club "Les Martinets" was 

created in Hex. Under his leadership this club developed 

rapidly, many young pilots discovering with Jost the beauty of 

the great world of gliding. 

Our sincere sympathy goes out to his wife Hilde and his 

family. 

Witli Schwarzenbach 

41

Letters 

From David Shrimpton, Chairman VGC International 

Council to lames W Swannich, National Soaring Museum, 

Harris Hill, Elmira, New York, USA. 

Following the VGC International Council meeting held at Bar 

sur Seine, France, this month I wish to inform you that the 

vac is keen to support and promote the proposed IVSM 

meeting at Elmira for the year 2000. 

The International Council also agreed that there will be a 

VGC International Rally in the UK, the birthplace of the 

VGC, during the same year, but not on the same dates in order 

that members can attend both occasions. 

I will be grateful for any fUlther information regarding the 

IVSM meet, particularly sponsorship available to assist with 

transport of gliders or persons across "the pond". 

Any other useful information which can be published in 

future issues of VGC News to encourage attendance at what 

promises to be a prestigious occasion would also be welcome. 

From David Shrimpton, Chairman VGC 

I wish to reply to the letter from Heinz Bauer, VGC News 

N091, in which he suggests that the VGC should publish 

minimum criteria for a successful rally in future. 

The points he raises are, of course, valid, but I would ilike 

to reassure all our members that rally guidelines already exist. 

As early as January 1988 certain proposed guidelines were 

discussed, and then circulated to the International Council 

which meets each year at the International Rally. (These proposals 

were reported in VGC News No 65) They have since 

been amended and the resulting guidelines are shown here. 

GUIDELINES FOR INTERNATIONAL RALLIES 

1. Essential 

Sites should have a good soaring record with favourable outlanding 

prospects, and be safe for most levels of experience. 

The site is to be inspected by an experienced member of the 

VGC in advance, before final approval is granted. 

Airspace limitations should not impair rally flying. 

Adequate toilet and shower facilities must be provided for 

all registered participants adjacent to the camping area. 

2. Recommended Requirements 

Aerotow and winch should be able to operate simultaneously. 

If there is no winch, a minimum of one tug to eight gliders, 

and with winch a minimum of one tug to twelve gliders. If 

only winch launching, there must be at least two good, serviceable 

winches. Tugs must be suitable for vintage towing 

speeds with experienced tug pilots. 

Trailer parking and glider rigging areas should be ample in 

size and close to the flying area. 

Camping should be in a quiet environment on the airfield, 

but with adequate local accomodation and restaurant facilities. 

There should be access to professional weather forecasting. 

There should be a focal meeting place on the airfield 

(marquee or clubhouse) open at all hours. 

3 Desirable 

A complete provisional wet weather programme should be 

organised for each day 

On-site professional repair facilities with assistance from 

experienced staff. 

Hangarage is desirable, if only for de-rigged gliders on 

open trailers. 

All facilities must be available until the very end of the 

rally 

4 Organisation 

Rallies should be organised by VGC members on their home 

bases with enough workers to cope with the load. 

Recommended personnel 

(a) Doctor, Nurse or both 

(b) Tramslators / Interpreters 

(c) Met forecaster 

(d) Professional aircraft engineer 

(e) Publicity officer 

(t) Press relations officer 

(g) Flight operations director 

(h) Ground operations controller 

U) Tugmaster 

(k) Padre 

5 Finances 

Charges should be paid by those who benefit from the facilities. 

All pilots must be registered. Entry is by glider, but 

charges must include all pilots. The entry form must make this 

point clear. 

All rally pilots should be VGC Members. Entry forms 

should include a VGC membership application form. 

Sponsorship is encouraged, provided flying activity is not 

thereby compromised, and the organiser's freedom of action 

is safeguarded. 

A minimum two year lead time is envisaged. 

A pre-paid ticket launch system is to be used. 

Entry papers should be posted by Christmas because of 

Ferry bookings. 

6 VGC Financial support 

The local rally organisers may take advantage of a VGC loan 

to cover initial deposits, hire of equipment, site preparation 

and so on. This loan to be repaid from operating surplus. 

The VGC will guarartee the provision of essential services 

like showers and toilets, but the rally must be financially selfsupporting. 

A full account of the finances should be rendered to the 

VGC within six months of the end of the rally. 

Ratty organisers must expect to pay any remaining balances 

to the VGC to support the club and to provide the IRC 

with guarantor funds for future rallies. 

The International Council or the Executive Committee 

may review the guidelines at any time but members views are 

welcome should they wish to write to VGC News. 

David Shrimpton 

Chairman VGC Executive Committee and International 

Council. 

From Martin Simons 

The "Penguin" Dagling on page 43 of VGC News N091 is the 

one I did my first ground slides in. It was dragged by the 

winch across the field at Camphill and we learned to use 

ailerons and rudder this way, although, as I mentioned in my 

Slingsby book, not in any coordinated fashion. It was, or had 

been, a Slingsby Dagling. 

42

The Kathleen in that picture was Kathleen Bodell. I met 

Phil Leech again in May at the Camphill rally, for the first 

time in almost fifty years. I don't remember Mr Lever, but I 

believe Jim Lawless is still around, although not now doing 

any flying. Others who started with me at about the same time 

in 1947 were Bert Wardale, who also turned up at Camphill in 

May, Margaret Swale who starred in the film "Wings for 

Pauline", Derek Roper and several others whose names I 

don't recall. (Martin's excellent book Slingsby Sailplanes is 

now available through VGC Sales, see the centre pages. Ed) 

THE CLASSIC GLIDER 

(This proposal has been received from Hans Dijkstra and it 

will be discussed, together with any other proposals, before 

the committee puts a recommendation to the members) 

I. Discussion 

During the 1997 ICM at Bar sur Seine it was noticed that the 

average age of our members is slowly increasing and also that 

the total number of members is not growing. To be sure that 

the VGC and the now operational vintage gliders have a 

future, it must be made more attractive for youngsters to join 

the club. There is also the realistic assumption that a number 

of the now operational vintage gliders will outlive their 

present owners and unless something is. done (in some cases 

individual it is) these vintage gliders wil1 get lost in due time. 

The definition of a vintage glider, as can be read in the 

ICM minutes of 1989, makes an increase of the existing 

vintage fleet practically impossible. The definition is not only 

vague, but also custsomised to the 1989 situation; up to 1945 

designed/manufactured is real vintage but the club was and is 

not able to survive without post-war gliders. So what was 

done After looking to the actual situation of that moment 

(1989), gliders designed up to 1945 but built up to 1951 were 

all named 'vintage' (as far as I can understand the definition). 

But what if there is for instance a T-21B built in 1959 This is 

designed in time but built long after 1951. Some other T 

21 Bs, however, are built before 1951. And what about new 

(after 1951) built replicas and modified gliders The Newsletter 

now and then calls everything in the club vintage - not a 

very clear situation. 

So standards have to be set in such a way that now relatively 

modem gliders are also called 'vintage' in the future. 

This then, hopefully, will attract youngsters to join our club, 

which is, again, important for the future of the VGc. 

As far as I know, there are already two systems designed: 

one by the VSA and one the Munster Oldtimer Club. Both are 

well designed and thought about. So why not use these Well, 

during the 1997 (CM it became clear (after some time) that 

the term 'oldtimer' is not acceptaole for our British friends, 

but 'classic' is, and also that ~he current rules of the VGC only 

deal with the terms 'vintage' and 'historical'. Therefore, from 

now on, only the terms 'vintage' and 'historical' will be used. 

Resuming: 

• The VGC is and will be a club with flying gliders and not 

with static (museum) gliders. 

• There are hardly any, or none, vintage gliders to be found 

any more and the present ones won't live for ever. Also, it is 

realistic to assume that a number of them will outlive their 

present owners. So a way must be found to ensure the existence 

of active vintage gliders in the future. To do so, it is 

very important to attract young members. by allowing other 

gliders 10 become 'vintage'. 

• The 1989 IeM minutes' definition of a 'vintage' glider is 

too vague. 

• Because of the rules of the VGC, it is better to define and 

implement a 'historical' category glider than a 'classic' category 

glider because this can be done without changing 

these rules in an AGM. 

2. Considerations 

• Only active gliders with a valid certificate of airworthiness 

are to be considered. 

• Factors to be dealt with are year of design, year of manufacture, 

active number, merit and, if applicable, a negative 

value. 

• It must be possible for a historical glider to become a 

vintage glider in the future. 

• The vintage/historical calculation system must be 'rolling'. 

The minimum to be classified is 35 years. 

• For replicas built to the original design, the actual year of 

manufacturing is taken into account. 

• For rebuilds, the glider must officially have its original 

serial number, otherwise it is regarded as a replica. 

• Modifications are accepted as long as they do not change 

the original shape/model of the glider. The ICM may give a 

'negative' value if a modification is too obvious. 

• To prevent discussions about the 'make' of a glider, the 

design-date to be considered is the date of the original 

design. 

3.Definitions 

A vintage glider 

• All gliders designed and/or manufactured > 35 years ago 

with a minimum of105 calculated points 



A historical glider 

• All gliders designed and/or manufactured < 35 years ago 

with a minimum of70 calculated points. 



4. Calculating 

Calculation is as follows: 

• Year of original design> 50 years ago 

55 points + I point for each year> 50. 

• Year of original design < 50 years ago I 

point/year 

• Year of manufacturing> 50 years ago 

55 points + I point for each year> 50. 

• Year of manufacturing < 50 years ago 

+ I point/year. 

• Active number of the type 

I point each with a max. of -5. 

• Merit points (+ only) 

Max. 15 points to be decided by the ICM upon request of 

the owner. 

• Negative points (- only) 

To be decided by the ICM as a result of (a) too obvious 

modification(s). 

Note I: If for example a overhaul is in progress, the applicable 

gHder may be without a valid certificate of airworthiness 

for max. 3 years. 

Woensdrecht, 15/09/97 

Melis Blecklaan 61, 4634 VX Woensdrecht, The Netherlands. 

Tel: (+) 31 164 613529. Fax: (+) 31 164615887 

43

Classifieds 

FOR SALE KITE 2B. BGA 757. With Skylark 2 fin and 

rudder. Geometrically washed out wing tips. Basic 

instruments. It requires wing, tailplane and rudder refabricing. 

Open and closed canopies. To be sold within the 

UK. Offers to David Richardson, Booker Gliding Club, 

Wycombe Air Park, Near Marlow, Bucks SL7 3DR, Tel: 

01494-442501/529263. 

FOR SALE Ka-4 RHOENLERCHE. Airworthy and in 

excellent condition. Offers to Jochen Kruse, Ortbrook 23 B, 

25436 UETERSEN, GERMANY. 

FOR SALE Cosim variometer complete with flask, £50. 

Peter Warren Tel 01785 602186 (Stafford) 

FOR SALE 

.4.00 x 3_ tyre and wheel for Olympia etc. Believed to actually 

be a Spitfire tail wheel. £ I00. Peter Warren Tel 01785 

602 I86.(Stafford) 

FOR SALE L-SPATZ 55 (1958) All logs since new, no 

crashes and in good condition with new C of A, Radio and 

tow-out kit. A delight to fly. Includes spare fuselage, canopy 

and wings fof restoration. For more information call Peter 

Mann Tel 01296 630699 (Aylesbury) 

FOR SALE Slingsby Prefect Prototype T30A, BGA 

599/G-ALFF. Only 27 hours flown since complete rebuild to 

original format. Spacious aluminium trailer, current C of A. 

Beautiful to handle and good open cockpit performance - a 

unique vintage glider £4700 John Hopkins Tel 0146076394. 

FOR SALE Slingsby Swallow surplus to requirements, no 

trailer. £1000 B.F. Wilson Tel 01302 786360 

FOR SALE 

Ka 4 Two seat glider with open trailer. C of A expired £1000 

or near offer. Tel 0113255 1768 (Leeds) 

FOR SALE Nord 2000 Fully restored with new C of A. In 

Armee de I'Air colours. Max cockpit weight 108 kg (237 Ibs) 

Excellent wood and fibreglass trailer View at Dishforth 

£3500. Barry Smith Tel 01439771056. 

FOR SALE Covered glider trailer 25ft long x 51 inches 

high x 44 inches wide (rear 7ft is 12inches higher) Poor 

condition but towable. £100 ono. R Andrew Tel 01430 

431752 (Yorks) 

FOR SALE Open glider trailer Tubular steel construction 

on a VW axle. Poor condition but towable. £50 ono. R 

Andrew Tel 01430 431752 (Yorks) 

FOR SALE BAC-7 The only example of the first Blitish 

Two-seater, designed in 1931. Fully restored I re-constructed 

to flying condition in 1991, with 38 hours to date. For further 

details contact either Mike Maufe Tel 01943 608910 or Tony 

Maufe Tel 01603 872737. 

FOR SALE EoN 460 With trailer. Starboard (Right) wing 

"clean" ie suitable for the Lasham reinforcing mod, BGA 

TNS 3/4/97 Para 1.16, but Port (Left) wing condemned. 

Offers to G. Terry. Tel 01642 592460 

FOR SALE AVIA 60P (15 Metre) Light and compact, so 

easy, quick rig, delightful handling and excellent performance 

(better than K8); super airbrakes, belly hook mod. With basic 

instruments and radio, all in a light-weight low-line fibreglass 

trailer. Parachute and baragraph also available. I am 

compelled to give up gliding after 40 years, so the glider 

needs completion of fuselage re-covering, hence low price of 

£950 ono. Beverley George Tel 01344 428208. 

FOR SALE OR EXCHANGE 1939 Altimeter by R. Fuess, 

o- 10km, large scale Ikm per 360 degree needle rotation 

with km and mbar sub-scales. 80mm panel cutout, in working 

order but not calibrated. Offers to Martin Hardy Tel 01380 

870008. 

FOR SALE Skylark 3 components ie 3F Fuselage which 

has been repaired but has storage damage, 3B Fuselage 

whose nose is missing from Wing L.E., 3B & 3F outer wings 

needing some work, three wing centre sections all requiring 

some work, also Skylark 2 tailplane. John would like to find 

someone to share the repair work to make one glider out of 

these parts or would sell the lot for £600. John Saunders Tel 

01952505207 

FOR SALE Grunau Baby liB - 1951 Austrian built by 

Oberlerchner, SIN 003. Full C of A until April 1999. Colour 

scheme creme and transparent covering. In prize winning 

condition. Open and closed canopy, original instrumentation. 

Closed metal trailer. Contact Peter Deege, Hilversum, 

Holland Tel. 003 1-35-6241307 

FOR SALE Slingsby T31 Very good condition, C of A until 

August 1998. Also complete undercarriage, alloy fuel tank 

etc. for conversion to T31 M Motor Tutor. Contact David 

Shrimpton Tel. 01749841084 

Front Cover Keith Green, Richard and Helen towing the 

Weihe at Wiichtesberg. Ian Smith. 

Back Cover Chris Wills's Kranich soaring over Camphill. 

Barry Smith. 

Published by: 

The Vintage Glider Club 

Wings 

The Street 

Ewelme 

Oxon OXIO 6HQ 

Tel: 01491 839245 

Editorial Team: clo Graham Ferrier 

41 Oakdale Road 

Downend 

Bristol 

BSI66DS 

Tel: 0117 9490 509 

Disc conversion, text massage, page assembly, black and white halftone production. design and consultancy, 

by Roger Booth Associates, 99 Keymer Road, Hassocks, West Sussex BN6 8QL. 

Tel: (01273) 842244 Fax: (01273) 842246. Email roger_booth@pubshop.demon.co.uk

XKIO "CLUB" VARIO SYSTEM 

* Now with AVC on down tone 

from 'a"lr 

DEDI

VGC News/Newsletters - Lakes Gliding Club

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