TO TEACH GLIDING

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17964, 8 March 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

TO TEACH GLIDING

German Experts Visit England to instruct in the New Air Sport. 100,000 Members Anticipated in a Few Years.

(From a Correspondent). ■LONDON, January 19. Beoause there is no one in England who knows enough about gliding, German experts are to be brought to this oountry to teach members of a newly-formed association how to use glidersThe association is the British Gliding Association, which has been formed to foster the sport and science of gliding—flying, literally, “on the wings of the wind,” in tiny, engineless aeroplanes. As well as having Air ViceMarshal Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation, as its president and supporter, the association has the backing of the Royal Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, Several gliders from Germany will be delivered shortly, and the German instructors are expected over here in a few weeks’ time. Hundreds In Use. Gliding has not found great favour in England before, but, on account qf the Peace Treaty restrictions, Germany has specialised in it for some time. The Germans are restricted in their development of aircraft and the number of machines they produce, but the simpler craft used for gliding are not restricted; consequently hundreds of gliders are now in use in that oountry. i

Mr L. Howard-Flanders, secretary of the British Gliding Association, who was well known as a designer of aircraft in the earlier years of aviation in England, is optimistic about the success of gliding in this country. He told me yesterday that lie anticipated a membership of a hundred thousand in a few years. Cost Not Prohibitive. The cost of gliding is not prohibitive, and this i’aot will help to make the sport popular in England. It would be possible to form local clubs, with one or two craft, having a few dozen members paying only 10s each. Gliders will be made in England later, but for three or four months they are to be imported from Germany. The cost will be £43 for a "school” glider, on which elementary principles can, be learned, and about £3OO for the more advanced typeWhen the gliders are made in this country, these figures will be reduced. “There is plenty of space for gliding all over England,” Mr HowardFlanders told me, “ and we intend to get as many , people as possible interested in the movement. It is, I think, quite an excellent way of getting Britain ‘air-minded,’ for the science of gliding, once learned, proves useful to ,a person who, later, learns to fly power-drive machines. “Gliding is purely a matter of skill by the pilot., who has to understand wind currents, and must know how to use them so that they carry his craft into the air. With an advanced type of glider it is possible, with favourable conditions, tto rise to a height of several thousand feet by flying from tho peak of one air current to the next.

The sport has a following of several thousand there, and the science of engineless flight has been developed to a fine point. The whole German gliding movement is controlled by one organisation, the Rhone-Ros-siiten Club, which has power to lay down the law of gliding with regard to safety, records, and qualifications. Two German aircraft experts are to visit London next month to tell the Royal Aeronautical Society some of the" facts about gliding that the Germans have learned from experience. These experts arc Dr Walter Gcorgii, Professor of t lie Technical High School. Darmstadt, a leading authority on gliding, and Herr Slamer, Director of Hie Flying School of the German ■Research Institute.

According to a statement by the Royal Aero Club, the gliding records held by Germans arc:—Duration of flight, 14 hours 7 minutes; maximum flying distance, 282.5 miles; distanoo in a straight line, 44.7 miles; altitude, 3,967.9 feet; and speed in a closed circuit, 33.5 miles an hour. These records were made in the RhoneRossitten districts.