WINNING on the Wind

WALTER KAHN OLD VICARAGE LONG BUTTON HOOK, HAMPSHIRE RG291S2 FAX AND TEL:- 01256 862641 WINNING on the wind By George B. M offat, Jr. *<>I *4i^ v — * h* Introduction by Philip Wills h* '/{ ' v <5^/-v , -rj *\_, n Some notes on this book: The text was set in Press Roman 11/12 on the IBM MTSC. The display type is Century. The book was designed and composed by Graphic Production of Redwood City, California, except for the cover, which was designed by Sam Smidt Associates of Palo Alto, California, and printed by George Banta Company, Inc., of Menasha, Wisconsin. The Soaring Press P.O. Box 960 Los Altos, California 94022 U.S.A. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information, storage and retrieval system without written per mission from the Publisher. Copyright © 1974 by George B. Moffat, Jr. All rights reserved First Edition 1974 Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 74-82783 Printed in the United States of America u Dedication To Suzanne and Ralph, who believed when there wasn't much to believe in. 111 CONTENTS Illustrations vii Preface ix Introduction xiii TOOLS 1 1 The Modern Sailplane 3 An approach to evaluation 2 Four American Metal Ships 9 Sisu 1 A, HP-8, HP-10 and HP-11 3 Standard Class Potpourri 1 5 Ka-6, Olympia 463, BG-12, Foka, Edelweiss and Austria 4 The Calm before the Storm 31 Skylark 4, Elfe MN, Dart, Austria SHK, HP-14, plus 2-32 and T-49 5 Wood Turns to Glass 45 Standard Elfe, Standard Cirrus and ASW-15 6 First of the New Breed 57 Nimbus, Kestrel, BJ-4 and FK-3 7 The View from VRSAC, 1972 65 More than met the eye 8 Competition Face-off 75 ASW-17 vs Nimbus II TECHNIQUES 83 9 Low-Loss Flying 85 Winning by not losing 10 Contest Strategy 95 Thinking ahead is half the battle 11 Practicing for Competition 107 Essential for consistent results 12 The First Big Contest 117 And how to fly it RESULTS 129 13 Starting at Chavenay, 1959 131 How is your technical French? 14 Records at El Mirage, 1962 143 15 Thermal Tightrope 151 1963 Nationals at El Mirage 16 1964 National Competition 159 And flying a 300-Km triangle 17 A Near Miss 165 The Nationals at Reno, 1966 18 The First Big Win 171 Marfa, 1969 19 "Welcome Back, World Champion" 179 A win at the Worlds (Marfa, 1970) 20 Bad Day at VRSAC 195 The 1972 Worlds in Yugoslavia 21 Winning on the Wind 205 Contest flying as an Idea- Liberal and Waikerie INFAMOUS LAST WORDS 223 Appendix I 239 Appendix II 241 Acknowledgements 243 VI ILLUSTRATIONS Ka-6CR three view 16 Suzanne Moffat in George's SH-1 22 Libelle 301 three view 40 Schweizer 2-32 three view 42 Standard Libelle three view 48 Standard Cirrus three view 50 ASW-15 three view 52 Schweizer 1-35 three view 54 Kestrel three view 60 Vrsac tasks and turnpoints 66 Vrsac patterns 68 Caproni A-21 Calif three view 70 ASW-17 three view 76 Nimbus II three view 80 Suzanne and George with the Standard Cirrus 140 HP-8 at El Mirage 144 100-km record barograph trace 145 300-km record route in California 147 300-km record barograph trace 148 300-km record route in Texas 162 Decisions ... decisions 173 ASW-12 three view 176 Vll Marfa turnpoint (note wing flex) 182 "Welcome back, World Champion" 187 Vrsac patterns 197 Vrsac tasks and turnpoints 198 Nimbus II at Hahnweide 206 Australia - '74 Worlds venue (with contest area) 210 Concentrating at the task briefing 213 Schweizer 1-26 three view 230 vin PREFACE In the future we will probably come to realize that the '60s and early '70s have been a Golden Age of soaring, in the sense that the 1930s were a Golden Age in the development of power flying. True, the pioneering work had been done as early as the '50s with ships such as the RJ-5 and skills such as MacCready's. For the vast majority, however, the ships of the early '60s were the Skylark, the Ka-6 and the 1-23 and pilot skills were based on the famous Dick Johnson dictum, "Get high and stay high." One need only contemplate the absurdity of entering any of those three ships in a current National championships almost anywhere in the world to appreciate the development in sailplanes. One need only examine the contest scores then and now to see the remarkable improvement in flying skill. In 1963, Ed Makula of Poland won the World Championship in the Open Class with an average daily score of 871 points, while Schreder placed third with an average of 770. In Australia in 1974, the Open Class winner averaged 974 points per day; the third-place man, Grosse of West Germany, 921. What has caused this remarkable evolution in little more than a decade? Certainly the development of modern, high-wing-loading, fiberglass ships capable of extraordinary L/Ds at speeds over 100 miles per hour is part of the story. Having bought one of the pioneers of the new breed in 1962 Dick Schreder's record-setting HP-8-1 became very much interested in sailplane evolution and flew something IX jc / Preface like fifty types over a ten-year period to assess development trends. The first part of this book is a condensed record of some of the more interesting ships of the last fifteen years from most of the countries actively involved in building sailplanes, and what it was like to fly them. At first I had thought to edit out all but the successes-the Libelles, Cirruses and Nimbuses. But gradually I realized that the relative failures-the HP-10, the Dart—were interesting and important attempts, experiments that helped channel the Holighauses, the Waibels and their peers into the ultimate designs of the current superships. Another reason for including reports on the also-rans is simply that many of these types are disappearing fast. It thus seems valuable to have a history of what at least one pilot, with broad experience from which to compare, thought they were like to fly. The second stage in the evolution of soaring's Golden Age in the last decade has to do with the skills needed for successful speed and contest flying. In 1960, when I began to soar seriously, virtually nothing had been written on maximum-performance flying. Today, thanks to books by people like Huth, and the various Symposia such as Holbrook and Byars', a vast body of excellent knowledge exists both on flying and technology to feed the intellectual and functional needs of every class of soaring pilot. The second section of this book, consisting largely of talks given by me at the annual Soaring Symposium, is a sort of personal history of learning to fly fast when there were not yet books to learn from. There is a considerable span of experience there: the thinking of 1960 was that a contest wasn't likely to be won in a ship of over 5 Ibs. wing loading; by 1970 we had taught ourselves, and each other, to win in ships that seldom flew at under 8 Ibs. The third section is a widely varied set of descriptions by me of several competitions in the National and World arena, leavened by accounts of record attempts and the special difficulties that attend them. I added a piece at the urging of my publisher/editor on the year 1959, which was spent in France working on FAI badges and which served to catalyze Preface / xl my ambitions in soaring. Also, under similar stimulus, I reviewed the major shift in personal thinking and approach to competition flying that I experienced between 1970-71 and the Liberal and Waikerie competitions, and upon which my flying became based. The high note of those last two years, 1973 and 1974, seems a good one upon which to end the serious sections of the book. It should be appreciated, in reading the material in this book, that it has all been left in its 'original* state. Thus, for example, a contest report or flight test written in the mid '60s will reflect the thinking of that time, and will not have been revised or edited to reflect later thinking on my part. I confess to feelings of ambivalence about the last chapter, impishly dubbed 'Infamous Last Words' by my publisher/editor, since it was not my idea at all. He suggested, after spending several months rummaging about in my prose, that my reputation for being outspoken was not wholly unjustified. He then decided that a chapter of gems (or darts), whittled from the surrounding fatty tissue of context as originally spoken or written, might beguile the reader. I admit to having spoken or written them all; you, the reader, must decide for yourself whether these sometimes scurrilous thoughts are indeed diverting. All I would wish is that you treat them in the same vein as their original delivery-my attempt to wring some of the lightness and joy from what can at times be too serious a sport. In sum, this Golden Age of soaring-if indeed it is one—has been an exciting time. It has been a great pleasure to have been present and to have participated in the creation of an era, to have had the chance to know so many of the people who have become its legends-Philip Wills, Camille Labar, Heinz Huth, Klaus Holighaus, Dick Schreder and to have flown such a high percentage of the ships.

Load more