PHILIP WILLS it? /i*T» 4* fB**ff If fttom tlje £It<mg ItBitattg of in ON BEING A BIRD ON BEING A BIRD PHILIP WILLS WITH 15 GRAVURE ILLUSTRATIONS AND 34 DRAWINGS IN LINE MAX PARRISH • LONDON First published 1953 MAX PARRISH AND CO LTD Adprint House • Rathbone Place • London, Wi Made and printed in Great Britain by WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED LONDON AND BECCLES CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 9 1 IS IT ANY USE? II 2 WE CUT LOOSE 32 3 FLIGHT WITHOUT POWER 38 4 A FEW SQUARE FEET OF PLYWOOD 60 5 ON BATHWATER 7! 6 A GLANCE (RATHER NERVOUS) AT THE WEATHER 87 7 THE SPIN TEST 94 8 STABILITY AND CONTROL IO2 9 GETTING UP AND STAYING UP 106 10 GOING WEST 115 11 BRINGING THEM BACK ALIVE 124 12 THE INSTRUMENT BOARD 135 13 COMPETITION FLYING 145 14 TO MAIDEN AUNTS 157 15 THE DEAD END OF THE MALOJA WIND l6l 16 BLIND FLYING IS A STATE OF MIND 172 17 BIG STUFF 191 18 SUCCESS STORY 2O4 APPENDIX I: THE GLIDING MOVEMENT 214 H: GLIDING CLUBS 22O III: GLIDING RECORDS 223 BIBLIOGRAPHY 228 INDEX 229 The author's acknowledgements are due to the Editors of The Times, Aeronautics and Lilliput for permission to reprint articles which have appeared in their pages, to Messrs John Murray for permission to use part of his contribution to Ann Douglas's Gliding and Advanced Soaring, and to Mr R. H. Swinn for permission to reprint part of his article on 'Dust Devils'. He is also grateful to the following for their courtesy in allowing him to reproduce photographs in their possession: Professor Fritschi (Plate XI), T. Heimgartner (cover and Plate XII), Pye Telecommunications Ltd (Plate VIII, top), The Royal Meteorological Society (Plate IV). Mr Hugh Kendall and Dr R. S. Scorer have given much useful advice on some of the more technical aspects: the mistakes which remain are the author's own. ILLUSTRATIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE Frontispiece The author at Cuatro Vientos, July 1952 facing page 1 Battle of Britain aircraft: Avro 504 16 2 Minimoa sailplane 17 3 Lenticular cloud, New Zealand 32 4 Wave clouds in Scotland 33 5 Soaring eagle 48 6 Instrument board 49 7 Bunjie launch 64 Two-seater trainer 64 8 Radio maintenance 65 Slingsby Sky trailer 65 9 Slingsby Sky sailplane 144 10 1950 World Championships, Sweden 145 11 Alpine soaring 160 12 'A quiet white shape amidst the blacknesses* 161 To Kitty INTRODUCTION They say that everyone has it in them to write one good book. But when one actually starts to take 'them.' at their word, doubts begin to creep in. Who are they anyway? Are they going to read it? In so far as gliding is concerned, the world falls into three classes: a few thousand who do it, perhaps twenty times that number who would do it if only... and the remaining two thousand-odd million folk who don't even know what gliding is, and would not care if they did. Let me say at once, therefore, what this book is not. It is not a technical text-book for the practising enthusiast. In­ deed, our subject has nowadays become altogether too big a one for the whole scope to be contained in any one volume. As in so many other fields, ours has now become so large that separate books need to be written under each heading: meteorology, aerodynamics, training methods and operat­ ing techniques, constructional and repair methods, instru­ mentation, and so on. This is not any one of those books: indeed, whatever some might think, I do not claim to be an expert on any one of these subjects, and on some of them I am positively dim. What I am trying to do, therefore, is to paint a picture of the air as it seems to the man or woman who approaches it in silent flight, as a medium almost more than material, having a life and character of its own. This has been attempted in the case of the sea, and by far more brilliant pens than mine, because man has been able INTRODUCTION for centuries to absorb the moods and character of the oceans from sailing craft and canoes in slow and contemplative fashion, and only later has it become comparatively remote from the decks of Atlantic greyhounds. Man, however, has been brought to the air in the reverse order. The early flights of balloons and primitive gliders soon gave way to the noise and vibration of the powered craft, and man's senses thus bedevilled are incapable of absorbing the elusive flavours of this new medium. Only since the ad­ vent of soaring flight has it become possible to attempt the task I am now essaying. The air is a truly vast canvas, and one extraordinarily diffi­ cult to convey intelligibly to others. I have therefore had to attempt the method of the Impressionists - to throw on blobs of colour in a way which, at first sight, may appear random, but which, if it comes off, will gradually build up a total pic­ ture of greater descriptive subtlety than can be achieved by more direct methods. To understand our picture, the reader will have to learn some of our language, and this I hope he will do, without tears, as he reads on through the book. The plan, therefore, is to build up a picture by telling of various experiences, interspersing between each sufficient technical matter, told as simply as possible, to make each succeeding story com­ prehensible. It is a formidable task and my only qualification to attempt it is that I have been well and truly bitten by the bug for longer than most. It is now over twenty years since my first launch, and in that time I have tried to learn enough of the subject to achieve my desire: to have as much fun as it is possible to extract from the most absorbing sport of all time. IS IT ANY USE? There is a true story of a sailplane pilot who landed in the park of a large house somewhere near the Cheddar Gorge. The lady of the house came out and, after the machine had been attended to, asked the pilot in, and proceeded to cross- examine him. After hearing all he had to say, she said: 'Well, I simply can't imagine what makes you waste your time in such an extraordinary way!' A little later, the tea was brought in, and as she poured it out, she remarked 'I am so sorry that my husband isn't here to meet you. He is out caving. .' Why glide? This is perhaps the first question shot at enthusiasts by the stranger. The question is one that is dim- cult to answer on the spot without being either boring or pompous. The man of my dreams, who always produces the right answer at the time, instead of an hour after the ques­ tioner has gone, would I think reply something on the following lines. 'You ask me, madam, what use is Gliding. Well, there are many useful things in the world, such as Uranium 235 or the Ministry of Supply or the latest detergent powder; and many useless ones, like the path of the moon dancing to the sea's horizon, or the smell of a wood on a summer's morning, or the Unfinished Symphony. 'You enquire in which camp Gliding stands and I think the true answer is that it has a foot in both. But as for me, I ii ON BEING A BIRD fly because I am fascinated by the ocean of the air, by its habits and moods, and in learning slowly to understand its curious ways. I suppose you could say that I love the air for itself, as a good husbandman loves the earth or the good sailor the sea. And in people of my way of thinking I find a companionship I need/ 'But', chips in my dream-lady (and just at the right moment), 'if you have this peremptory urge to fly, which occurs in no other land-animal I know of, and so must in itself indicate some psychological abnormality, why not fly an aeroplane, which I can see does in fact get you somewhere both literally and metaphorically?' 'It is possible', I reply, 'that I cannot explain to you what I am trying to communicate. Your tea has been excellent, and as my hostess I feel indeed grateful to you, but in our short conversation you have dropped more bricks than I may be able to pick up before you throw me out. 'Can you understand that you cannot learn the subtle flavours of the air by screaming, deafened and bejellied, behind five thousand odoriferous horses across the com­ plaining sky? The powered aircraft provides the quickest, least tiring and most satisfactory way to deliver a business man to his board, or an atom bomb to Hiroshima. Its functions may quickest be summed up in the two words: death and dividends. 'So the satisfactions to be achieved from powered flight are quite different. They may include excellent things such as a desire to serve the community, or to exercise one's administrative or technical talents; they may develop ad­ mirable characteristics in a man, such as courage, devotion to duty, or the intellectual integrity of scientific or technical research. They may shade off into less worthy motives, such 12 IS IT ANY USE? as to demonstrate power over more ordinary people, or even to show off to the girl-friend.