WORLD'S GLIDING RECORD.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17631, 7 December 1922, Page 9

WORLD'S GLIDING RECORD.

FRENCHMAN WINS THE PRIZE,

3 HOURS 22 MINUTES IN THE AIR

(FROM OCT. OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, October "4. M. Alex. Maneyrolle, a French airman, has beaten the world's record for gliding, and has carried off the £IOOO prize. Tor three hours twenty-two minutes he kept his monoplane in the air, and only came down when darkness had fallen, and when lie had beaten the German record by twelve minutes. Conditions on the last day of the trial -were not altogether favourable. The wind was sweeping up over the northern slope of the long ridge of grassy downs in Susses, at times blowing ,it thirty-five miles an hour, and rain fell at 'intervals. M. Maneyrolle's flight was an astonishing performance. Directly after he was launched he mounted fully 300 ft above the starting point. He turned and climbed away half a mile, turned again, and glided back, and then repeated the manoeuvre. It was apparent at once that he had found the currents that had sustained Mr Fokker and Mr Eaynham. At the end of five minutes he was swinging backwards and forwards like a pendulum, and at the end of ten it was realised that the length of his glide would only depend on his patience and endurance. The afternoon wore on, and there the Frenchman still sat, two hundred feet overhead, carrying on his monotonous and silent peregrination. Travelling with the wind, he often flew sideways to the line of ilight. His turns were made with the least degree of banking, and for seconds together he hovered. Very soon after Maneyrolle went up, Mr Eaynham, who naturally had been watching for a contingency that might rob him of the prize which seemed so certainly his, was launched into tho air. But at that feme no one thought that Maneyrolle would exceed Raynham's duration of one hour 53 minutes put up on the previous Tuesday. When the Frenchman passed Baynham's time there was a great outburst of applause. It was very curious to hear shouted conversations between the glider and his friends below, and in thi3 way M. Maneyrolle announced his intention to try to surpass the German record established by Hentzen a few weeks ago. British Monoplane' 3 Feat. About the time Eaynham was beaten, Squadron-Leader A. Gray went up on his monoplane glider, its first appearance. It looks very like an ordinary aeroplane, being made of a Bristol fuselage fitted with Fokker wings, all the material being scrapped parts, and the complete machine having cost no more than 18s 6d to buy,' erect, and ro-dope. It is evidently a very efficient glider, flying with remarkable steadiness; but to keep it up for over an hour at the first trial was certainly a surprising feat. The two machines ranging to and fro made a fine spectacle. At times they were quite close to each other, the Frenchman at a rather high elevation, and the British machine rollowing a "beat" rather to the east. When night at last had fallen tho gliders were still flitting to and fro, and one began to wonder how they would land. They called for lights to help them in this task, and these were supplied by motorists who concentrated the beams of their car lights on the hill top. There, within a hundred yards—the regulations allowed them eight hundred—of the spot from which they had M. Maneyrolle and Squadron-Leader Gray at last came gently to earth. Their landing created a spectacle strange and fascinating to a degree. Tho British glider had been up for nearly ninety minutes. The Peyiet Glider. Control at the low flying speed of "wind flight" and stability at low speed, are difficulties none of the British designs solved (writes Major C. C. Turner in the "Daily Telegraph"). Mr Raynham's machine achieves these qualities in some measure; but his machine has been modified again and again since i,t began its trials, and always with tho object of increasing control. But the Peyret monoplane, flown by M. Maneyrolle, which looks very like the Langley model of 30 years ago, appears to provide one complete \ solution. Many experienced designers on the Downs, criticising it before the flight, were very dubious about its qualities in these, respects. They wore astonished at its steadiness and at tho ease with which the pilot changed direction. We did not see the German Klemperer in a fair trial; but apparently that type shows best in a lighter wind, and certainly the Peyret is.sunerior to it. , The double monoplane is a fuselage of triangular cross-section, very deep, and presenting a lot of side surface. This fs made of three-ply wood. It carries a monoplano forward, 21ft 9in in span, and a similar monoplane aft. Behind is a fixed fin and a small rudder (not enough rudder, according to some of the experts). All the wings have their rear edges hinged throughout their soans. The ailerons are operated either as elevators, by moving the control stick to and fro, when the forward pair bend down and the rear pair up, or vice versa, thus giving powerful control over the machine's attitude to the direction of flight. By sideways movements of the same control stick the forward starboard and the rear port aileron are depressed, and the port forward and rear starboard aileron elevated, or vice versa, this operation giving lateral control. The controls work through a series of sears liko a motor-car's differential. The effect or the small rudder is enhanced by the big side surface of the w;hole machine, and bv simultaneous movements of the nilpvons. The wings slone up slightly right and left from the body. To say that this design is not an important contribution to glider design is to betray icnorance of the question "that has been vexing the minds of all the everts. It is not nnlikelv too. that it will influence the design of n low-power, chea.T>. *ngined aeroplane. Tt was enri-m-t to see that in elimkinsr it took a "Ko-jjflv nose-imwanl Attitude. M. ■Vf-nipy™ landed about 100 yards from the starting plnce.