A Wonderful Guide.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 60, 12 March 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

A Wonderful Guide.

! There have been many amazing ; flights by glider pilots, but none more 1 wondeful than that undertaken by a German instructor who covered 215 j miles in 5 hours and 50 minutes, j travelling at an average speed of 3o ; miles an hour without any motive power whatever. The glider was hitched on behind an aeroplane, and Erwin Kraft took off a quarter of an hour before midday. At a height of 660 ft he let go the tow rope and, using a thermal (a rising column of air) soon climbed to 3300 ft. Tiicr. he 6et off on hid proper course for Cologne at a speed of just over GO miles an hour. Imagine an engineless aeroplane rushing across the sky at the spe&d of an express train! Ten minutes later Kraft reached 7200 ft and entered a cloud in which he had to "fly blind" for some time; then he emerged again and found himself 1000 ft higher. To do this he had been forced to use a strong upward current of air—a current that most glider pilots would have "slipped" off because it was too dangerous. Then he took throe-quarters of an hour to go 15 miles and did not travel more than 44 miles in two hours. Speed afterwards increased, and ho finally landed at the Cologne Aerodrome at 10 minutes to six, after a recoid-bieaking flight. You mustn't assume that the young German had a pleasant trip all the way. At one time it was very bumpy, and on nearing Cologne he came down to a dangerously low altitude. Over Cologne itself he cleared the house-tops by only 6ft and. in his own words: "I thought I was about to break myself and mv sailplane as well as the record!" Fortunately, he succeeded only in breaking the record by & wide margin.