GLIDER FLYING

Hokitika Guardian, 28 February 1930, Page 2

GLIDER FLYING

NEW SPORT IN SYDNEY

■SYDNEY, February 13

Before long Sydney will have its first . taste of the thrilling sport of glider flying, or motor less aero-planing, now all the rage in Germany and 111 America. Sydney’s first modern glider believed to be the first machine of the kind in Australia, in fact, will be tested this week. It is a smart little craft, with a wing span of 35 feet, and weighing only 1651 b—the same weight, by the way, as the machine in which a German pilot glider hopes to cross the English Channel. It was designed 011 the Continent and built in Sydney. It cost between £250 and £3OO. but machines of the same type will he turned out later for about £IOO each. This glider is built on much the same lines as an ordinary aeroplane. The controls, for example, are the same. The vital difference is that- it is propelled, not by motor, as in the case with ordinary aircraft, but by upward air currents, and is catapulted off the ground. Glider clubs are already talked of in Sydney. They will operate in cooperation with the university glider movement, and the Aero Club. The glider to be tried out this week is for instructional purposes. From it the pupil will pass to what is known as a secondary glider, and then, as a fullblown glider pilot, to the sail aeroplane, which stays in the air for hours and climbs to dizzy heights. If German frauleins can fly these gliders, then Sydney’s youth ought to. be able to do so. It is believed that the gliders will be useful adjuncts to instruction in ordinary aviation.