Down Memory Lane - From the Log Books #17

[Guest TOSGcentral]

MEMORY LANE #17.

 

 

Settling Down in Europe (Part 2).

 

 

 

As readers should now be aware, I did a fair amount of back and forthing between the Continent and UK as well as a lot of buying and selling. But the ultimate came when I and a couple of mates purchased the entire fleet of a major gliding club. This gave me a look at a lot of types – mainly French.

 

 

The following is an account of that situation and the types that were involved.

 

 

A reasonable sized chunk of my previous story has used the Allied military forces of Occupation as a key element in the later revival of civilian gliding. As the situation settled into the various ‘occupied zones’ of French, American and British with input from the Dutch and Belgians, a central Headquarters ‘meeting and control place’ was set up in France for overall administration.

 

 

SHAPE is an example of this (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) and there were other such outfits. That was OK and recreation for the staff and troops had to be catered for so there was a central military gliding club. Being in France most of the gliders were French as they were available to be supported locally.

 

 

Things became a little more sticky as we all trundled into the Cold War with Russia and the Allied effort crystalised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). But France opted out of this so the rest of the Allied military opted out of France as a result. This closed down the central gliding club and the whole lot was put into storage while situations were worked out. In typical military style nobody really knew what to do with a defunct club so the situation lingered on and eventually became an embarrassment that nobody really wanted to know about.

 

 

The situation became privately known of and a syndicate of three was cobbled together to move in on the situation. There was rather a lot of aircraft! They comprised:

 

 

1 x Wassmer Bijave two seater (fully operational)

 

1 x Wassmer Javelot single seater (operational but getting tatty).

 

1 x Wassmer Super Javelot single seater (fully operational)

 

1 x Carman M100s single seater (fully operational)

 

1 x SH1 high performance sailplane (fully operational)

 

2 x open trailers.

 

1 x early model Jodel two seat GA trainer with no solid documents).

 

 

An asking price was elicited and given. A counter offer of about half was made and accepted. This was very ‘pinch me’ stuff and we had gliders sticking out of our ears at a ridiculously cheap price each.

 

 

The entire lot was moved into alternative temporary storage so it was under our control and then steadily moved into Germany.

 

 

The Bijave was sold on the Continent and that paid for itself and the SH1

 

 

The SH1 was earmarked for the forthcoming UK Nationals and would probably have won hands down as (at that time) there was nothing to really compete with it and the pilot who would fly it). But, as it happened, the glider was operated for a short time with an RAF Germany winch launch club and one day when the wind changed and the gliders had to be taken to the other end of the airfield – a senior club pilot took it upon himself to fly the sailplane round from a downwind launch – and against explicit instructions that it was to be towed by car.

 

 

The winch failed and the glider was spun in and totally destroyed. The pilot was not killed but terribly injured. There were no particular tears over that as the glider was fully insured so one syndicate member was out clear with a very nice profit.

 

 

The Jodel nobody wanted so we just dumped it with the local aero club and turned our backs on it as the paperwork was anyway suspect and more trouble than it was worth.

 

 

The two Javelots and M100s we shuttled back to UK for full overhauls, C of A, fly them for a bit and then sell them at a profit.

 

 

Sounds good, and to an extent was, but I keep good books and by the time the three gliders were sold we were at break even. Trailering, ferry fares, parts, re-instrumenting from metric instruments, hangarage and so many other things add up.

 

 

We built two weatherproof ply streamlined trailers. These were expensive. The Javelot I had to pull entirely apart, de-corrode, re-protect and then re-cover. Back then recovering was the full bit. Irish Linen not the latest synthetic fabrics. Red glue dope to get the fabric on. Individual hand stitching to ribs at 2†intervals. Three coats of tautening dope plus rubbing down. A coat of UV protection silver dope. Then a couple of finish coats of colour.

 

 

The Super Jav and M100s were easier and needed just full inspections although belly hooks had to be fitted to both to enable winch launching. The trailers though took hundreds of hours to build properly so that the gliders would be totally weatherproof. No nails or screws were used just aircraft grade glues – mainly Aerolyte.

 

 

OK nobody made any profit and it cost unpaid time – but we got a lot of fun flying from the gliders – especially my wife Kay.

 

 

I took the Javelot to Lasham and there did the test flying etc for the C of A. Kay was working in the office and was no mean soaring pilot in her own right. The Javelot was a real good light conditions soarer so afternoon flights after work suited Kay well.

 

 

She was a bit more cunning though. She soon had a flock of adoring (usually poverty stricken) males who were only too willing to get the glider out and to the launch point waiting for ‘her majesty’ to arrive – providing they could have free flying in it themselves. I looked them over in a two seater first so we never had the slightest operational hassle and Kay got a lot of good evening soaring trips with minimum bother.

 

 

A quick look at the fleet structure before the individual gliders as this was the French method of meeting requirements via its main manufacturer – Wassmer. The Bijave was the basic trainer with advanced training capability. The Javelot was the entry level single seater. The Super Javelot boosted the bottom of the fleet but gave the impression from its styling that you were getting a bit more than you were.

 

 

The M100s was a full standard class glider and the SH1 was (at that time) Open Class although only 15 metres span. So it was a well balanced fleet that gave a lot of usage alternatives.

 

 

Javelot. This was a straight forward tube steel fuselage, wooden D box 3 piece wing. I have described some of the design structure when covering the Bijave in #8 of this series so refer back there for additional information if you wish.

 

 

This glider was certainly no ‘swan’ to look at. The dominant feature was the large and deep nose with a considerable sized, slab sided canopy extending to nearly your feet. There was a large main skid that was faired in which added to the impression of fuselage depth. In consequence there was no shortage of room inside the cockpit. The mainwheel had a good quality wheel brake

 

 

The glider was viceless to fly and an excellent light conditions soarer if having little penetration. The airbrakes were certainly over-done but nothing that a sensible briefing could not cover and you did not have to extend them all the way – half way giving you what normal gliders offered.

 

 

Super Javelot. This was basically just a tidied up Javelot and offered nothing really new other than styling – which made the glider look different.

 

 

The nose and cockpit were of more conventional layout with a blown bubble canopy and fibre glass mouldings around the nose area. The fin was larger and swept back at a rakish angle reminiscent of the Fokas. While the big main skid had been retained

 

 

It flew exactly the same as the earlier version and from what I could see had an identical wing and performance.

 

 

M100s. This was an Italian design that was also license built in France. I have again covered some description in #8 in discussing the M200 two seat counterpart.

 

 

The glider was intended for the Standard Class but not as good as the Ka6 so never particularly figured prominently outside countries of origin – although at least one M100s came to Australia.

 

 

I personally did not like the glider overly much. The design tendency towards ‘pod and boom’ in conjunction with the Freise aileron system certainly made the controls very light but took too much piloting attention to fly accurately unless you were flying virtually nothing else and were very current on the type.

 

 

The airbrake system was novel and while clever in design and very powerful, in practice was a nightmare to keep well sealed and/or service.

 

 

SH1. This type represented about the pinnacle that production wooden sailplanes reached. The SH1 was built by Schemmp Hirth who were now gearing up for high performance single seaters – and still hold a commanding market position today in that area. But the type was actually a production development of the Standard Austria that was a product of the Darmstadt Akaflieg and had been produced with a retracting undercarriage – thus placing it in the Open Class (until the rules were changed) but the machine certainly had the performance to compete and was only really eclipsed by the advent of the ‘plastic fantastics’.

 

 

The SH1 was visually striking. It was extremely clean in lines – an effect achieved by copious monocoque ply surfacing which in turn had heaps of filler applied that enabled accurate profiling, surface finishing etc and significantly reduced skin friction. The all wooden glider in fact looked liked the fibre glass gliders that were to shortly follow.

 

 

The most obvious feature was the all flying V tail. V tails were not unheard of by any means but they were always looked upon with some suspicion in some quarters. This view was heightened by an SH1 spinning in from height in the USA and it is worth looking at what was conjectured if maybe not actually found out.

 

 

The V tail unit is a ‘Ruddervator’ set up with the two surfaces giving both rudders by twisting in different directions, and elevators by going up and down. This is controlled by a ‘mixing box’ in the tail cone

 

 

Now in full spin recovery the standard activity sequence is FULL out spin rudder with stick laterally central, then progressively move the stick forward until the spinning stops then recover from the ensuing spiral dive.

 

 

For the majority of sporting gliders, while they may enter a full spin, at normal C of G range they are reluctant to stay in. Pilots soon learn that relaxing back pressure on the stick gets them out almost instantly in most cases (if your type experience is limited to those that do and do not require the full bottle recovery).

 

 

Now, what was either determined or opinined with the SH1 was that the mixing box had to be used in exact sequence to match the full spin recovery or the glider would not recover from a developed spin.

 

 

Expressed differently – the mixing box only has so much travel and one control input can dominate the other. If you apply full rudder first then you get full rudder and sufficient elevator is left for spin recovery. If you start moving the stick forward first then this dominates the mixing box and you cannot get full rudder travel – so the glider continues to spin and there is not much that you can do about it other than go back to the start and repeat the recovery procedure in the correct order (if you realise what is actually happening).

 

 

I am not going to comment if that view was right or wrong as I did not get to even sit in the SH1 let alone fly it before it was kindly spun in for us! As this happened at 300’ in a winch launch failure it would have had nothing to do with the mixing box and was more a low level loss of control with no time for the spin to actually develop. One SH1 was imported to Australia and did very well in the Australian conditions as the glider really was heavy.

 

 

SHK. I am adding this here as I had a fair bit to do with SHKs so can describe them more than I am able with the SH1 and the two types would be quite similar. This will give readers more of a ‘feel’ for the types.

 

 

The SHK was a slightly larger version of the SH1. The wing span went up to 17 metres. The V tail was enlarged by around 50% and the nose was lengthened. That latter made for a roomy cockpit even if a bit wrapped around the shoulders. The single piece bubble hood in conjunction with the mid wing gave excellent visibility to the extent that I initially found this a slightly off-putting feature of the type.

 

 

The V tail, being all flying, had mass balance weights mounted on rods from the tail unit tips. When turning your head on routine scans or when clearing turns, the ends of the tail unit were in your field of vision so initially you thought some other aircraft may be behind you and quite close. When you got used to this I was still left with a residual impression that I constantly had something behind me looking over my shoulder.

 

 

I did not like the retracting undercarriage – but that may have just been the example that I had access to fly in conjunction with a poor initial briefing.

 

 

The retraction and extension is via a handle on the end of a long rod running down the left side of the cockpit. This had no positive locks on it and depended on over centre locks on the undercarriage itself and you could not feel these through the control. Neither were there any lock position marks for down or up.

 

 

On extension the handle had to go fully forward or the gear would not lock down. What I was not told was that there had been trouble in the past and two marks had been scribed in the control and surrounds requiring that the control be hammered with the heel of the hand until they lined up! I got the gear down OK for landing and the landing was good, but the gear promptly retracted on me and I slid to a stop on the aircraft’s belly. That was the closest I have ever got to landing gear-up and was not amused.

 

 

Flying the SHK was lovely. She was very heavy so you had to take care and think about inertia/airspeed etc when winch launching one so you would remain ahead of the action. But heavy or not she took a great winch launch.

 

 

Once up, the high penetration and 38:1 glide angle was terrific – astounding for a production wooden glider in those days.

 

 

The glider was very stable with a solid feel in the air. The V tail was a non event as far as piloting was concerned and operated perfectly normally with the same response as anything else. Stability was good and the sailplane was good in cloud. Airbrakes were not bad but later versions of the SHK had tail braking parachutes fitted for smaller paddocks as they could occupy a fair amount of landing space in light wind conditions.

 

 

The glider was not too bad to ground handle but rigging and de-rigging was a real chore. You need at least four people ideally although you could get away with three. This was mainly because the wing panels were extremely heavy and connecting or disconnecting the wings was a precision exercise that it was easy to get wrong. While this was happening the poor bastards holding the wingtips were sinking up to their knees in the ground.

 

 

But all in all a really great glider!

 

 

Next time I want to take a look at how Australia settled down and some of the ramifications of that.