Wings of the Wind

Germany boasts 10,000 licensed glider pilots, Russia 30,000. In all the U. S. there are less than 200. Last week most of them were gathered on a high ridge in Elmira, N. Y., for the fifth annual gliding contest of the Soaring Society of America. For two days unfavorable winds kept the impatient birdmen on the ground, but on the third day conditions were ideal. Over the flat top of Henry Harris Ridge, newly cleared at a cost of $10,000, floated fleecy cumulus clouds with their promise of thermal currents. Beyond the Chemung Valley 900 ft. below beckoned the blue hills of Pennsylvania.

Off the ridge sailed Richard Chichester du Pont, 24-year-old son of Vice President Alexis Felix du Pont of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., in his new sailplane Albatross II which he and Gliderman Hawley Bowlus had designed & built in California. Like a great flying fish, sleek in the sun, Albatross II soared out over the valley, circled back over the ridge, climbed higher & higher on a thermal current. By staying in the air five hours young du Pont would get his "D" license, held by only one other U. S. pilot, John K. (''Jack") O'Meara.

Soaring over the ridge an hour and a half gave Dick du Pont an idea. Year ago his father offered $3,000 for the first motorless flight from Elmira to within 25 miles of New York's Times Square. To attempt such a distance flight now with neither map nor parachute was a risky business. But the opportunity might not come soon again. Southeast, without a second thought, young du Pont pointed the nose of Albatross II. Skillfully he darted from cloud to cloud, hitchhiking on thermal currents. Over the rugged Alleghanies he soared in silence, flew south along the Susquehanna River. Over Scranton he ran out of clouds; dropped to 500 ft. Hot air over the city pushed him up again, enabled him to float serenely through the Delaware Water Gap. With the skyscrapers of Manhattan just visible in the distance, he ran out of clouds again, dropped to 200 ft. over the flat Jersey countryside, was forced to land at an airport in Basking Ridge.* He had missed his father's prize money by five miles.

On the wings of the wind he had soared 155 mi., broken the world's distance record (136.8 mi.) made by the late Guenther Groenhoff in Germany's Wasserkuppe three years ago. Previous U. S. distance record (121.6 mi.) was made by du Pont last autumn in Virginia's Shenandoah valley, Elmira's rival as a U. S. soaring centre. Belittling his achievement, du Pont told newshawks: "All there was to the flight was finding clouds and going for them. ... I used a mountain only once." Same day in Elmira Richard's wife Helena Allaire Crozer du Pont stayed up 5 min., won her "C" (soaring) license. Few days later she went up again, stayed more than 5 hr.. would have set a women's record had she carried a barograph. Official credit for a record went to Mrs. Dorothy Currier Holderman of Leroy. N. Y., who soared 4 hr. 28 min. and had a barograph to prove it.

Back in Elmira Dick du Pont took off again, climbed 6,500 ft. for a new U. S. altitude record. Previous record (4,780 ft.) was made by O'Meara in 1932. World's altitude record (8,494 ft.) is held by Robert Kronfeld of Austria, which, with Germany, has long led the world in the art of soaring. Developed in Central Europe after the War because of treaty restrictions on military aviation, gliding has only recently come into its own in the U. S.

*Few days later Gilbert Baker, 24, of East Orange, took off in his glider from a field near Basking Ridge, lost a wing, plunged 100 ft. to his death.

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