Down Memory Lane - From the Log Books #18

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SETTLING DOWN IN AUSTRALIA.

 

 

This series lapsed for a bit over a week so just as a memory refresher we are covering the single seat post war period up to the advent of fibre glass gliders. This time we will be looking at Australia.

 

 

The really only option to buy a home grown product for Oz clubs was to go to the only local manufacturer – Schneider. Once this business got going they initially served Oz well enough and were quite prolific with types.

 

 

A Gull 1 had been brought out for a visit from UK and had started waking up people to the real potential of Australian soaring conditions. The aircraft was taken on a long tour of NSW starting from Narromine and, followed by its tug and ground crew, would fly all day then overnight then put in another day the next day and so on. This tour received a lot of attention and did the gliding movement a great deal of good.

 

 

Initially Schneiders seemed to ignore the countries cross country soaring potential and continued more on straight line development of small and light single seaters typified by the Nymph and Kingfisher that had neither a great glide performance nor much in the way of penetration.

 

 

The situation changed somewhat when the Gliding Federation of Australia commissioned the production of the Arrow. This was a 13 metre sailplane with a more exotic double curvature plywood monocoque fuselage. This little single seater followed the Kookaburra two seater in that it also had a single piece wing which made trailering it awkward in some respects.

 

 

Although the Arrow had been primarily intended for more performance soaring it soon became obsolescent and was often relegated in club use to first single seater duties. I never winch launched one and presume they would have been OK in that area but I was not impressed with them as a first single seater – particularly on aerotow.

 

 

This was a good example, in club fleet design terms of the importance of staged matching in handling as pilots worked through the fleet and broadened experience. The Arrow was docile enough but in my opinion was too light and sensitive to be a good progression from the Kookaburra basic trainer which had a totally different feel. In fact the Arrow was twitchy enough on early aerotow take-offs as to frighten not a few converting low time pilots.

 

 

This had a domino effect of having to build up far more experience solo flying the trainer and in consequence clogged the training treadmill which was the essential lifeblood of the club. Bottlenecking is often deliberately generated by hour limit to ensure even fleet utilisation and sometimes to protect the more expensive high end of the fleet – but having to hold pilots back because of handling mis-matches is poor fleet management. You really need early solo pilots out of the trainers and into the single seaters as early and safely as possible.

 

 

Things began looking up for Oz soaring by the development of the Boomerang in 1964 which was primarily designed for competition flying in the Standard Class and was Oz’s competitor to gliders such as the Ka6, although heavier and somewhat larger in the fuselage and cockpit.

 

 

The aircraft had an all-flying tail which was naturally light yet not at all difficult to control but the overall design was modified in 1969 into the Super Arrow.

 

 

The Sparrow (as it is commonly referred to) was a fine wooden glider of reasonable performance and had the tail unit mounted lower than the Boomerang and represented by a conventional tailplane and elevator set up.

 

 

This was a really good club glider and given even average club training was difficult to get into trouble with, performed well and was easy to fly. But unfortunately that was the end of the road for series produced Oz single seaters. Schneider produced nothing more other than the prototype of the ES63 Platypus fibre glass two seater in the very early 1970s and I will be looking at that in later instalments of this series, although I will be mentioning it below as well.

 

 

I have a bit of space to make this section something more of a read so will discuss a little about some other aspects of types, club fleets, manufacturer’s output and how clubs respond to available supply. This will include two seater considerations as well as these are always the basis that a club fleet will be built upon. I will use Benalla as an example of the early 1970s when fibre glass machines were starting to make an impact on club fleet flying.

 

 

Australia has always been (or certainly was) fiercely patriotic about using the home grown product but was (in gliding) restrained by what home grown products were available for clubs to buy affordably and were sufficiently refined that they could be used practically in a club environment. The gliding club based at Benalla was one of (and probably still is) Australia’s largest clubs and was definitely patriotic!

 

 

At 1972 the club fleet at Benalla when I arrived there was 4 x Mk4 Kookaburra basic trainers, 1 x Blanik advanced trainer (mainly used for passenger flying as most club ‘advanced trainers’ are), 1 x T61a Falke motor glider multi purpose trainer, 2 x Arrow entry level single seaters, 3 x Super Arrow intermediate level single seaters, 3 x Libelle fibre glass ‘top of the fleet’ single seaters. Launching was exclusively aero tow and the club owned 2 x Pawnee 180s (one being a two seater for tug pilot training There were no private owner machines – which was surprising for a club of this size – other than a private Chipmunk tug which was made available reasonably frequently.

 

 

This was a pretty impressive fleet by anyone’s standards but actually had quite a few problems with it. The Kookas could not be kept in the air long enough or economically enough for basic training in non soarable conditions. If they were soaring then it broke up the repetitive training required for vital circuit, approach and landing exercises.

 

 

The Falke motor glider had been purchased to resolve this and was one of the main reasons I had been employed. I was able to fit it into the professional mid week operation well enough but had a great deal of trouble getting the switch over with the honorary club instructors for basic training although the machine was used well enough for paddock selection exercises.

 

 

The Blanik was basically there because Scheiders had done nothing after the Kooka for a next generation club trainer, but the need for such a beast was at least notionally apparent.

 

 

The Arrows were out of phase with the handling of the Kookas so that gave the training extra hassles at the transition phase into the first single seaters.

 

 

The Sparrows were superb and the club should have flogged the Arrows and got a couple more Sparrows – but that destroyed the progression or “carrot†principle that gliding so much depends on of having another step or challenge just out of reach until the pilot is experienced enough to make his or her own challenges.

 

 

The Libelles were OK but I considered they were too cramped in the cockit for general club use and I personally dislike detachable canopies for club aircraft as they get damaged too readily. The Standard Cirrus, Open Cirrus or the ASW15 would have been more sensible club aircraft. The Libelles had too high a minimum hour restriction on them but this was primarily to control fleet utilisation so the Libelles could be used for long badge flights by the club’s experienced pilots – and that was fair enough.

 

 

The actual key factor to all this was the manufacture Schneider and the supply available from that source. Production and new design was already lagging in two and single seaters alike. Schneider had actually slipped at least one entire generation of trainers and also had nothing in line to compete with the ‘glass generation’ of single seater which had already progressed from ultra expensive hot ships to affordable aircraft that clubs could use – hence the Libelles at Benalla.

 

 

I am not loading up Schneider with all of this exclusively. The Australian market was too small to sustain the development of a single new higher performance type let alone a complete range of new types to fit in with normal club fleet planning. Successful overseas manufactures had staggered development to deal with the capital impact but still retained fleet matching but they had much a larger market buying base to justify the development expenditure and were able to work over shorter time frames.

 

 

Schneider did make one last supreme effort however and this underlines the ‘generation gap’ more clearly than virtually anywhere else. He designed and began building the ES63 two seater which came to be known as the Platypus when the prototype flew.

 

 

I made the effort to go to the factory at Gawler and see what was going on. I was impressed with what I saw but that that time there was only the wooden plug made for the fuselage moulds and a few other bits and pieces. I did take an unauthorised sneak preview behind some extensive curtaining and saw at least four completed forward fuselage shells.

 

 

I came away with the feeling that the new glider could well be a winner (if it had no major handling problems with it) but in my estimation we would not be operating them for at least two years and probably three.

 

 

That gave me a problem because Benalla had invested heavily in setting up a new, professionally staffed seven day a week system that I was charged with making a reasonable quid out of for the club. But the club had taken this step with an out of balance fleet with aging basic trainers and had no forward fleet plan.

 

 

I knew this could not be done with the equipment available and the clubs’s full time airworthiness mechanic was already getting anxious about the wear and tear on the aging Kookas and the amount of time needed to keep them going.

 

 

On the positive side the training standards at Benalla were very good and the club had had few major damage or write-off situations. That side did not worry me too much but fleet mismatching was causing concern.

 

 

I designed a new fleet for the club committee as a forward planning exercise and the full magnitude of the ‘generation gap’ became very plain – the cost was going to be unattainable. Gliding clubs (especially the large clubs) cannot afford to miss a generation – you wind up paying sooner or later!

 

 

Schneiders were facing this by attempting to make the massive leap from the very basic Kooka to the state of the art Platypus – and doing so without the technical and financial support that the German and Polish manufactures had available. In the event Schneider was to fail but that was not known at that time.

 

 

But what the manufacturer had also done was dominoed the problem into a management exercise for clubs and virtually forced them to import. Other major clubs such as Gawler and Waikerie had met that challenge early. Gawler had staged through the Ka7 and then into the ASK13. The proceeds of that had left them with a most useful single seater fleet. Waikerie had done the same but used the Blanik and were already fielding Kestrels and the like for performance flying.

 

 

Both clubs were well poised with valuable training assets that would off-set the purchase gap to the glass two seaters that were by then obviously going to come and we already were starting to see the Twin Astir and Janus looming on the horizon.

 

 

Breaking the impass that Benalla was in was going to cost and would take time but there was no way to do it without filling the missing generation gap. So my first fleet design was a stepping stone. This is what it was.

 

 

4 x ASK13s as a holding measure for a couple of years until the ES63 came along. These would double our mid week flying income for no further impost on launching and gave a better conversion platform to the Arrow.

 

 

The lower and central areas of the single seater fleet (Arrow and Super Arrow) could remain unchanged for quite some time.

 

 

The Blanik would be retained for the time being to continue giving a retracting undercarriage two seater which was also flapped and therefore supply additional training flexibility to help meet the increasing single seat sophistication.

 

 

The Libelles would be sold while they still had good value and replaced by ASW15s. I would have preferred the Standard Cirrus but it had an all flying tail and was very light. The ASW15 was more docile but had the same big cockpit.

 

 

A new introduction level to the fleet would be Open Class and I planned for 2 x Kestrel 19s.

 

 

The T61a Falke motor glider still had very good value and would be replaced initially by one ASK16 motor glider and then a second later on. These had far more performance, retracting undercarriages and would provide more balanced training support to the increasingly ‘hot’ single seater fleet whereas the Falke was already becoming obsolescent and required skilled instructors to make it effective by using power to replicate glide performance.

 

 

The really big introduction would come by the staged introduction of 2 x Caproni Calif A21 high performance trainers with full flap systems and retracting undercarriages. With hindsight this would have probably been changed to the Janus which were a lot closer than was then realised and would have been less intensive in the airworthiness area (the A21s are very large and complex airframes anyway and you certainly would not want to bend one!).

 

 

There were a few logic streams working in parallel there.

 

 

The ‘13s would in themselves have doubled the income in non soarable conditions and given greater quality of flying when soarable – in keeping with the GFA objective of training being to promote cross country soaring. They would have also boosted low level single seater usage.

 

 

The high performance trainers would have completed checking and training coverage across the high end of the fleet. But they would also have allowed senior club soaring pilots to either fly mutual or take lower time pilots with them and speed their knowledge and confidence acquisition.

 

 

The more advanced motor glider would have given specialised support without putting any further strain on the launching system and expensive tugs. It would have also opened a new market of hire for long distance touring with soaring along the way.

 

 

For seven day a week operation and general club flying we would have had on offer anything anyone could have wanted in broad brush training and soaring. The members would have had state of the art participation for badges, records and the club could have fielded a strong presence at National and regional competitions. That would have been one helluva fleet 25 years ago and yet (at full size) was only four more aircraft than we were already operating. Often it is not just numbers – it is flexibility and usage!

 

 

Less obvious was that the fleet would be heavily polarised to a single manufacturer still but this time in Germany. The club had ample long distance airline pilots so that a face to face presence could be maintained with Schleichers and spare parts and other facilities could be consolidated.

 

 

But to start this I had to start with the basic trainers that everything else hinged on – so I sugared the pill for the committee. Using contacts and German friends a deal was struck with Schleichers that Benalla could leapfrog the two year waiting list for the ASK13 if we bought four of them (as would be required) and they would give us a substantial discount as well – we could have them in a few months in a single container shipment that saved even more money.

 

 

The committee considered, and rejected. Instead they voted available funds to be deposited or pledged to Schneider to assist in underpinning the development of the ES63 and that froze the situation. The ES63 never happened as a production aircraft and Benalla were forced to bridge the generation gap anyway. They did so by introducing 4 x IS28s, which were a good compromise and worked well.

 

 

There is another aspect to all this that is a bit more subtle because the re-equipment of a large club has a great impact on the rest of a nations gliding community. Just as today’s super ship will be next years second hand aircraft that advances the private owner opportunities or the top end of club fleets, so the turn over of trainers enables small clubs to grow and improve within their financial reach. Benalla’s four Kookas, although uneconomic for Benalla utilisation and income requirements, were still valid trainers 25 years ago to enable a single club to form or an existing small club to expand – and do so within their price reach.

 

 

Anyway, that is all history now even if the same principles still endure. Next time we will return to UK and see how they settled down with the single seaters – which was both curious but also has a lot of broader development lessons to it.