THE AIRWAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 782, 1 October 1929, Page 7

THE AIRWAY

(By

THE ROC.

Gliding In a Motorless Plane

ANOTHER ancl most fascinating branch of aviation—gliding—is about ,to make its debut in Auckland. And it is with pleasure one learns that it is a band of enthusiastic University students who have formed a club which will assist materially the Model Aero and Gliding Club in putting the sport definitely to the fore in Auckland.

TT is not likely that until gliding is definitely under way Aucklanders will realise the fascination of the sport. The enthusiasm which marked the meeting of the Varsity students last Thursday evening certainly indicates a great future for the newly-formed club. Aviation as a business is yet a mild form of gamble as far as New Zealand is concerned, while as a hobby it is rather expensive. But gliding is favoured with many of the pleasures of flying in a motor airplane and has a distinct thrill. It is certainly a most Inexpensive method of acquiring an air sense. The membership fee of the Varsity club has not yet been decided but it is douotful that it will exceed one guinea. With a reasonable number of members the club will for that amount be able to build its own machines and organise contests and week-end meets. Competition plays no small part in gliding. Contests can he held with other clubs. No small attraction will be the camping over week-ends at the landing' ground, which will necessarily, be well out of the city, away from telegraph lines and other obstructions which are nightmares to the glide* pilot. GETTING INTO THE AIR There are various types of gliders and consequently various methods of getting them up into the air. Some years ago “The Roe” had the pleasure of viewing a home made gilder in flight. It was over the undulating country out from Palmerston North. Dike a giant bird of prehistoric days, the streamlined, feather-weight craft of thin plywood framework and lightwoven linen wings was poised on a

ing, America, or even Australia where the Sydney University stu- . dents have formed a club and have j made some most remarkable flights, i Germany by far leads the way in i gliding and one may recall that she j did not care particularly for some j provisions of the Treaty of Versailles,; which ended the war. One of these provisions placed restrictions on the ! development of airplane engines. So j Germany turned her attention to gilders and she now views this restriction In the light of a blessing in disguise, and in no sense considers that her aeronautical activities have been turned back to the days of Wright and Chanute. Germany’s first gliders were crude, inefficient machines, but these have now been supplanted by graceful, beautifully built and skilfully designed light ships, in which the pilot is comfortably seated in an enclosed cockpit instead of being exposed to the elements. In the early planes control was maintained by shifting the body. The modern glider has the same controls as the modern airplane. The first thing which the young sailing flyer must learn is gliding. This signifies nothing more than flying from an elevated space in the open field to a lower point. Such glides can be carried out even without any wind. The best gliding planes, or sailing planes, attain a distance of about a mile when gliding, in the absence of wind, from a height of 300 ft. If one were to start, therefore, with such a machine from a mountain 5,000 ft high, one would fly a distance of 60 miles, providing the landing point was at elevation zero. Every motor airplane comes to earth by gliding if the motor is turned off, but

hilltop for a stirring take-off. It was a windy day. To a hook at the bottom of the craft’s nose several men attached a tow-rope of rubber as thick as a man’s finger. A gust of wind swept the hill. “Bet her go?” Half a dozen men raced down the slope, dragging the machine at increasing speed as if it were a kite being launched. Others ran beside it, holding up the fragile wings from the ground until they seized the air and lifted the craft. "Free?” shouted the pilot. They let go. The tow-rope fell off and the loosed glider soared over their heads. There was no noise of racing engine, no smell, only the beating of the wind against the wings. Dike some giant crane, the great soaring bird wbqpled and glided on motionless pinions/ Such a sport is gliding, or flying in a motorless airplane, launched as a kite. And this event provided a real thrill for both the pilot and the onlookers. BLESSING IN DISGUISE Staying aloft thus in a motorless heavier-than-air machine may seem to many to be an impossible feat, but there has been ample demonstration of its possibility and one has only to turn to Germany, the home of glid-

in such planes, the gliding angle when compared with that of sailing planes is very poor. THE ART OF SAILING And now as to “sailing.” This is only possible in an ascending current of air. Such a current is called the “upwind,” and it must at least be so strong as to make up in each second the distance which the plane loses in elevation in gliding. The task of the sailer flyer, therefore, is to make use of the upwind. If the upwind is stronger than the sinking of his plane, he will be lifted and the plane will rise above its starting point. Repeatedly sailing planes have attained a height of more than 1,500 ft and even with a passenger have reached 900 ft. The upwind is the alpha and omega of the sailing flyer. It Is most markedly in evidence on the edge of mountain ridges. When the wind blows against an obstacle, be it a ridge of mountains, or sand dunes, or a row of houses, or the edge of a forest, it will be deflected upward, and so create an upwind. If the pilot can succeed in keeping his plane in the upwind zone, then he can fly and sail about for hours; only a subsidence of the wind or fatigue on the part of the pilot brings the flight to an end.