GLIDING

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 103, 12 April 1933, Page 2

GLIDING

HERETAUNGA CLUB NOTES PLYING OPERATIONS RESUMED. SEVERAL GOOD FLIGHTS RECORDED. ' (By “Sky Hawk.’ - ) The Heretaimga Gliding Club has been experiencing an excess of ill-luck in connection with its usual Sunday activities. Until last Sunday, practically no flying has resulted, owing to consistent engine trouble with the car. However, to absolutely eliminate the trouble a new car was purchased, it too receiving a complete overhaul before being put on the job. Although the wind was very changeable on Sunday some very good flights resulted, and it is very gratifying to know that every pilot has now flown in the new machine, which is behaving exceedingly well, although some pilots appear to find it a little different in “touch” to the old machine. Quite good flights were made by Wright, Hawkes, Hill and Steele, who do not appear to have cultivated any staleness through the want of practice. Olliver, Sharpley, and Usherwood do appear to be a little stale, but should soon get into practice again. Sharpley made quite a good landing. Usherwood still persists in playing “Hell Divers,” and failed to hold the ’plane on the ground when he pulled out, the result being a couple of broken wires. However, considering that there has been practically no flying since the New Year, the standard of flying w-as quite good, and it is hoped that next week-end will see a great improvement in the flying conditions and general all-round performance. If all goes well, a competition will probably commence for the Martin Spot-landing Cup, the winning pilot to hold it for the ensuing twelve months. Looking to the Future. Sliding around the sky oh about half an aeroplane, with nothing to keep you there but your wits aud the weather, is a game that has a good many possibilities, besides being treated merely as a sport, or means of keeping the airminded out of worse mischief. , When gliding ultimately gets so popular that practically everybody can use a sailplane with efficiency, it may. perhaps, be used as a medium of travel to and from work, and when father comes home a little late, he will naturally have some explanation to make. “I’d have been home hours ago but a chap in the office told me about a short-cut so I thought I'd try it. Ho said I should take off into the river breeze and then turn sharp at the pickle factory, slide up to 1000 feet over the ball park and coast down past over the poorhouse to where the six o’clock breeze comes down the valley. That way you miss the crowd over the railway sheds and can sometimes pick up a nice updraft from the glue factory. But I hit the traffic light wrong over the city and had to swing out over the cemetery, and then a cloud came along and cut off the upeurrent I was counting on, and I had to go out over the

river again and you know what the river does to a single seater like mine. “Well, I made a neat turn over the iron works aud picked up a hundred feet or so from the blast furnaces, but I lost it again over that long stretch of railway yards. 1 thought I’d have to put her down, but just caught the five o’clock whistle from the round house, which blew me up to a full thousand feet. But there the air just died on me. I hung around a bit and rode on the slipstream of a mailplane but didn’t make much progress. “Why, at last I had to go across to Camden to get a breath of air and come home by way of the soup factory, with a little 'boost from the airport, which gives you a good push when the sun shines on it. It’s a good thing they put that apartment house over there at the edge of the park. There’s a nice upeurrent there, and if you make it right you can slide right down to our backyard. So who says gliding won’t be useful?”