Gliding at Elmira

For months before gathering at Elmira, N. Y. last week for the Third Annual National Soaring Meet, an enthusiastic little group of glider pilots had prayed that the winds of the Chemung Valley would not fail them, as they did for a fortnight last year. Perversely, on opening day last week, for the first time at an Elmira meet, the wind was too strong for soaring. Nevertheless a crowd of 28 pilots and some 300 spectators climbed Big Flats Ridge, northwest of the town.

The shock-cord crew of ten men stood ready in front of a black-&-white Hailer-Hawk sailplane named Unguentine. In the cockpit sat Warren Edward Eaton, one-time War flyer, executive staff member of Norwich Pharmacal Co. (Unguentine), president of the Soaring Society of America, Inc. Assistant Secretary of War Frederick Trubee Davison made a little speech, fired a little pistol. "Walk!" shouted Pilot Eaton to the shock-cord crew. After they had begun to walk, stretching the elastic cord, he cried "Run!" Down the hill they ran for ten paces or so, stretching the cord tauter. Then--"Go!" At that signal the sailplane was snapped free of its anchorage, sailed out from the brow of the hill like a stone from a boy's slingshot. Headed into the teeth of a 30 m. p. h. wind, Unguentine zoomed up 175 ft. without advancing more than 50 ft. Pilot Eaton landed without delay. His comment: "Plenty tough." Only one other pilot ventured a take-off that day. Jack O'Meara, who has glided up & down thermic currents over Manhattan, soared for 3 hr. 42 min., climbed to 3,259 ft., 45 ft. short of the U. S. altitude record. Other pilots & crews amused themselves as they do on windless days, playing baseball.

While performance during the first days of the meet did not approach that achieved in Germany, Austria and Honolulu, where records of 283 mi. distance, 8,494 ft. altitude, 21 hr. 34 min. duration have been made, it was in all respects the most successful glider meet yet held in the U. S. The entry list of 50 pilots surpassed previous years. Hard-up pilots camped in an apple orchard adjoining Elmira Airport. Three youths pedalled bicycles from La Porte, Ind. just to look on.

Most important, a meteorological service was provided at the meet by Massachussetts Institute of Technology which loaned its famed Dr. Karl 0. Lange, an authority on soaring. Each day at 5 a. m. a plane climbed to 13,000 ft. with M. I. T.'s special instruments for recording weather data. At 7 a. m. Dr. Lange directed the glider pilots to the best ridge for the day's soaring, told them what currents to expect. Then pilots & crews started for the ridge, dragging their craft on trailers.

When a pilot lands out of sight of his take-off he gets to a telephone, calls headquarters at Elmira Airport. Headquarters flashes his position by short-wave radio to the crew atop the ridge, and off they go with the trailer to retrieve the ship.

Novelty of the meet was the entry of two two-place gliders; one a Heraclio Alfaro flown by Lieut.-Commander Ralph S. Barnaby & wife (he made the first airplane-airship hook-on experiments by dropping from the U. S. S. Los Angeles in a glider); the other designed and flown by Dr. Frank Gross and Joseph F. Funk of Akron.

The Gross party was camping on South Mountain. Just before taking off for a soar, Dr. Gross put a kettle of potatoes on the open fire to boil. After wheeling & turning about the hills for an hour, Dr. Gross suddenly remembered his cooking, swooped low over the heads of the crowd on the ridge, asked someone to look to the potatoes, floated away again. (The potatoes were burned.) For 5 hr. 8 min. Funk & Gross stayed up, Dr. Gross becoming so weary that he let his legs dangle over the edge of the fuselage.

Most impressive flights of the first week were made in one day by O'Meara and Martin Schempp of Pittsburgh. Taking off from East Hill, O'Meara flew 38 mi. to Endicott, N. Y., breaking the U. S. distance record of 10.9 mi. made last year by famed Hawley Bowlus (who last week was absent, recuperating from an attempted suicide at his California home). He also thought his barograph would show a new U. S. altitude mark of 5,000 ft. or more. Pilot Schempp sailed from the same starting point 65 mi. to New Milford, Pa.; but because he is a German citizen he may not be credited with a U. S. record.

A record was nearly soared by 18-year-old Robert Eaton, nephew of Pilot Warren Eaton, son of Vice President Melvin Eaton of Norwich Pharmacal Co. Robert, who last year piled up more points than his uncle, went for a sail of several miles and turned back. Failing to realize how far he had gone, he passed directly over his original take-off point, landed somewhere else. Had he been aware, he could have made a record for distance-&-return. Flying weather was so good for the first stage of the meet that pilots welcomed two days of doldrums in which to rest, make repairs.

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