Down Memory Lane - From the Log Books #20

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MEMORY LANE #20

 

 

Settling Down in the UK (Part 2).

 

 

First I have to complete the Slingsby part of the first half and that will be hands-on with the Dart.

 

 

Dart 17R. This was the only Dart type that I flew and I really did like it. So much so that one day I chose it above a ‘plastic fantastic’ for a days cross country. Happened like this.

 

 

On of the penalties of flying full time (plus a bit more) is ‘burn out’. You can become jaded and seldom want to fly for pleasure. But on the other hand you have to. I needed to complete the Gold C which would help with future employment prospects. But that was tough in UK – you needed the right day to start with and they were few and far between. You also had to do it in your own time.

 

 

I was given a few days off after a solid stint of ab-initio, instructor training and some systems development flying that had all run together over two weeks. I was tired but the weather did not look too bad so I entered the club morning ballot for a single seater.

 

 

This in itself was interesting because this was a big club (850 members all up) and while they did not all turn up at once, even mid week there were too many for the number of aircraft. So you had to be at the club canteen at the crack of dawn (a few members actually slept on the canteen floor to improve their chances) and then put your name in the hat but you had to be there at 6.00 am to do this when the draw started. The available fleet was split into cross country and ‘stay local with an hour flight limit’ so everyone had a bit of a shot at flying.

 

 

That morning the cross country allocation was 2 x Phoebus C, 1 x Dart 17R, 1 each of a Skylark 3 and Skylark 4 and a couple of Ka8s for Silver C distance. The names were drawn out and at each draw the winner could choose the type that s/he was qualified for. I happened to be first out of the hat and I was qualified to fly the lot – I chose the Dart over the much higher performance glass Phoebus Cs! My reasoning may be of interest because there was a fair bit of airmanship and practicality involved.

 

 

I had about equal time on both the Phoebus and the Dart but primarily for local currency flying and this was not a great deal. There were a number of significant differences between the two types. The Dart had a much larger and comfortable cockpit. This enabled a large instrument panel that could have full sized artificial horizons and turn and slips. With a forecast (and highly unusual for UK) cloud base of 6000’ I was not expecting to cloud fly but if I did then I would need to and I wanted it as favourable as possible.

 

 

Another important point for myself was that the Dart had a ‘wood’ feel to it while the Phoebus had the slippery ‘glass’ feel to it and would build up speed rapidly and silently – much more than types I was spending most of my time in. If I was tired later on and faced with an exacting out landing (almost assured on a 300 Km triangle attempt in the UK in those days) then I wanted as much going for me as possible.

 

 

The Dart added to this as it had extremely powerful airbrakes and you could put it confidently into small paddocks – that are the norm in UK. On the other hand the Phoebus had relatively weak brakes for the day but would go very fast – which could be embarrassing!

 

 

I suppose that I had better finish this ‘sub story’. The whole thing was a non-event but damn I had a great flight!

 

 

I had flight planned for an OSTIV 300 km triangle. First leg straight into wind early in the day. Second leg cross wind in the peak of the day. Third leg with a big downwind component as conditions were weaking.

 

 

I was approaching the first turn point and elated at the speed – looking good. Then I got the radio call from the two Phoebus now well ahead. They said that the front out to the West was moving in faster than forecast and I had no hope – go back!

 

 

So I took her up to the 6000’ cloud base and turned for home, idly dolphin soaring on the way as I had more than enough height. I got back with an embarrassing 3000’ plus and had to stooge about for 20 minutes or so getting rid of it. Then landed and spent the rest of the day relaxing the other way!

 

 

Personally I liked the Dart a great deal. It was not a demanding aircraft to fly for even a modestly experienced pilot – but it could kill you!. So I found that the pilots that I converted to a Dart I tended to spend more time with. Some of them squawked more than a bit when I dragged them into a Bocian for a spot of spinning to blow some of the cobwebs out – but it did them no harm, just left them a bit poorer.

 

 

Elliots of Newbury and the EON Series.

 

 

This was the other main UK manufacturer and they tried a few things but were really more into competition and performance sailplanes rather than club type aircraft – they never built a club training glider for example. However they did build their own copy of the Grunau and named it the EON Baby, building quite a few of these. Time and the second hand market would see a lot of their products become part of club single seater fleets and these aircraft served very well indeed.

 

 

Elliots really put themselves on the map with the Olympia, a successful copy of the pre-war Olympic Meise that they refined somewhat, particularly by including a mainwheel. They stuck with their successful design and many of these gliders afforded a practical stiffening of the UK soaring scene and affordable Standard Class competition flying.

 

 

Evolution of design then split into two parallel single seater paths. On one hand the Olympia was steadily developed into larger and higher performance sailplanes, much as Slingsby had developed the Skylark series out of the Gulls then only introduced a new stand-alone design with the Darts. Elliots went for a totally new design much earlier and this became their second best selling aircraft produced in volume. This was the EON 460 series.

 

 

The 460s were Standard class but were much more practical for UK conditions than the large and heavy Skylarks. They had two piece wings that two people could manage with ease and although smaller and lower still had roomy cockpits.

 

 

There were three main models. The first was the 460 and only a couple were built. I thought that this was rather ugly and had a distinctly hunch-backed appearance in reality that its general arrangement drawings do not suggest.

 

 

The best seller became the more styling refined 463 which was directly competing with the Ka6 and could hold its own in that area. The glider had become sleeker and although looking significantly different from the ‘traditional’ shapes that had followed the war years, certainly had its own character and appeal.

 

 

The last of them was the 465. Only a few were built and the stimulus was World Championship entry. The type was lowered and more streamlined with the pilot more reclined. These survived (maybe still do) in the hands of private owners but I never even saw one in reality let alone get the chance to fly it.

 

 

Going back to the evolution of the Olympia pedigree, more interesting (if still somewhat traditional) developments were taking place.

 

 

The Olympia was developed ultimately into the Olympia 4. Just like the Slingsby Gull 4, this glider became the springboard into the new range. This was evidenced via a few examples of the 401, then 402 which were followed by the 17 metre 403. The 403 was developed into the 419 at 19 metres and then reduced to 15 metres as the 415 for Standard Class.

 

 

The 419 in particular was most impressive. It was a very large single seater with one helluva performance for its day

 

 

These were all lovely and well performing sailplanes. They were not however a commercial success as they were expensive and not many of them were built. As all wooden gliders with double curvature skins they could not be built cheaply.

 

 

The death of the Elliots managing director, who had been the main force to remain in gliding production, saw Elliots withdraw from gliding entirely and Slingsby took over that area of the business, continuing to supply parts for the earlier EON types.

 

 

My association with the EON types was reasonably constant as they were all over the place. The RAFGSA had cornered most of the surviving ‘exotics’ and were operating two 419s and what was termed a ‘417’. Another 419 was being operated in private civilian hands. The ‘417’ was not actually an EON type and was probably the 17 metre 403 (an ‘urban myth’ forming as the 17 meter aircraft was so like the 415 and 419 that 417 was an obvious name for it).

 

 

I never flew any of them although I did want to – particularly the 419. I saw them often enough but circumstances were always against me – the weather, instructing, the gliders not out etc etc. However I did fly the Olympia 2b and the 463.

 

 

Olympia 2b. Although highly competitive in its day, the Oly 2b became an excellent first single seater or ‘middle of the fleet’ glider for clubs. I flew a number of them and they were all the same – viceless and pleasant gliders that soared well, had reasonable glide, were semi aerobatic, and good approach control.

 

 

The seating was a bit ‘sit up and beg’ bolt upright style and the cockpit was a tad narrow – but the whole thing was comfortable enough with reasonable visibility and everything coming to hand readily and working easily.

 

 

EON 463. I only did familiarisation flying in this type for personal interest as I never instructed at a club which had them as part of the fleet. I class them as an excellent sailplane. They were semi reclining with a roomy cockpit and excellent visibility. They would take a spectacularly good winch launch.

 

 

Handling was easy but the glider had a fair bit of ‘life’ to it and soared beautifully. Spinning was convincing but a lot more predictable than, say, the Dart which was a bit too abrupt on spin entry. Approach control was excellent and landing very easy.

 

 

Conclusion. That is it for this time period in the UK. A lot of other things were happening, or did happen, and I will round these up later with the entry of glass gliders and also the ‘oddities’ that turned up with people designing and building their own dreams and some of them being intended as an entry to full time manufacturing that never really worked out.

 

 

Next time we will look at the early days of the advent of the ‘glass ships’ and how these were to evolve into the production aircraft of the day. We will also touch on the metal high performance gliders that tried to compete with the new trend.