SOARING WIND

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1936, Page 9

SOARING WIND

DAY IN GERMAN GLIDING SCHOOL

A little group in pyjamas and raincoats stood in the middle of Grunau village street and gazed disconsolately at the sky. It was half-past four in the morning. The air was cold. Low grey clouds threatened rain and covered the hills in a wet mist. But of the soaring wind which had been foretold, and which we had dragged ourselves out of bed to find, there was no sign. With scarcely a “Heil Hitler” or a salute we separated and went back to bed (writes Patrick Early, in the London “Daily Telegraph.”) When we met again at the normal parade time of seven o’clock there was still no sign of the strong westerly “segel-wind” for which we had hoped. The stocky, grey-uniformed figure of Ziller, our instructor, appeared at the door of the school buildings. Frederick, the senior member of the group a genial Prussian ex-Service man who had fought in Russia, hastily called us to attention and gave us “Eyes Left!” Ziller halted: gave the Nazi salute; greeted us with “Heil Hegelflicgcr! ” "Heil Fluglehrer!” we roared hack. “Eyes Front! Stand at Ease! So! The scgelwind has not arrived. But it many come yet. In the meantime, if we cannol soar, wo can still glide downhill. Right. Turn! March!

So wo marched up the hill track to the top of the Galgenberg, where the machines are kept. We could see from here 30 miles across country, over ridge after ridge oi hilly Silesian forest-land to the mountains on the Czechoslovakian frontier. There great clouds were piling up on the summits —a portent of strong winds, they said. But round us the breeze was, still gentle. We brought out three school machines, manned the elastic ropes, and catapulted them into the air. Theie were no up-currents to support them. They hummed off away from the hillside, settled down into a slow, quiet glade, sank gradually and, after a minute or so, landed at the foot of the slope. , . Before we had been at work foi half-an-hour the wind was moaning round the roof and whistling' in the trees outside. We downed tools and went out to investigate. There was no doubt about it now; the west wind was coming with a vengeance. We carried out two of the special high performance sailplanes used for soaring, and packing the launching gear on a trolley, set off across country towards the Westhang a steep wooded ridge running north and south where the best soaring currents were to be found. We had waited a fortnight tor this wind, the wind which would enable us to soar- climb, and remain for five minutes above our starting-point to gain a. “C” certificate. At last the day had come. Now the first machine to start cleared the line of trees without effort, rocketing upwards on a gust of wind. It turned to the right and sailed off along the ridge, swaying in the turbulent air, and finally disappeared round the shoulder of the hill, (lying on the conventional course, but uncomfortably low over the treetops. We watched anxiously for its return. At the end of two minutes it reappeared, much higher than before and soaring comfortably. It made another trip before Ziller signalled it to land,

and then it slid down and came to rest in a. field below the woods. We shouted a triple “Heil!” to greet the successful pilot, and turned to launch another machine. Not all the flights were happy. We trudged home through the moonlight that evening, carrying the remains of one broken machine, but we were very cheerful. For our group had scored 11 “C” certificates out of 16 attempts. A rival group had scored nil and wrecked three machines.