Vintage Gliders

Actually more closely related than you think. The photos of the Tiger Moth spraying gorse at Mangere were taken by the same person who drew up the plans for the Eon (nee Chilton) Olympia in 1946 from the original Meise.  It had to be beefed up for aerobatic reasons and added about 40kg weight. 

Hi Paul,

I too learnt to fly gliders at Tangmere in the ATC. I Remember the civilian instructor with a Jaguar, but had forgotten his name was Paddy (it rings bells now). Anyway, I took a picture of his car at the time, and have attached it here.

Nigel[ATTACH=CONFIG]245274[/ATTACH]

Talk about thread drift . . .

Interesting photo of the Tiger nevertheless.
I suspect it is not a ZK-AO? as all 11 of the AO? Tiger Moths had either crashed before 1958 or were South Island based or were not agricultural aircraft at that time.

If the pilot was Boyce Barrow (quite possible) he had started up his own Weedair company by then. Tiger Moths utilized by him for spraying were ZK-AUD (wfu 1956/57) ZK-AUT ZK-BAN ZK-BDG (from 1961) ZK-BDH (from 1963) ZK-BFX (from 1962).

In light of the above I would say it was ZK-AUT.

Slightly related. Tiger Moth ZK-AO? spraying gorse at Mangere Airport (pre International) 1958. Possibly Boyce Barrows piloting.

Nice photos thanks. Oly looks good, I havent seen a EoN Baby for some time. Ive just got back from the Haddenham Vintage glider rally. Its been to windy for the last two days.So most gliders havent come out of there trailers. We did have a Tiger Moth fly in from Devon. Im back their tomorrow to see what happens.

Dave

Thanks for posting Peter, especially the first photo!

http://www.sgc1.org/VGCPics.pdf?bcsi_scan_004A30265ADC0276=0&bcsi_scan_filename=VGCPics.pdf

Update of pictures from the Vintage gliding rally. We were lucky to be blessed with lovelly weather towards the end of the week. Great location and great aeroplanes. They’ve all gone home now unfortunately.

Well first page features AAs Rapide about to “tow” an Olympia 463
Next page is a Weihe
Next page is a Grunau Baby being taken to the launchpoint
Next page, tow shots of our resident T21
Next page the Olympia 463
One of our members old Austin, he learnt to drive in it
Our visitors camping out on the airfield
The hangar laid out for a massive eat all you want dinner and party
Vegetarians nightmare!

Beautiful day down here today with lots of flying going on, more piccies to follow soon

FB

Hi Fournier boy,

Thanks for the pics, I recognise the T21 but what are the others?

Steve

Piccies from the vintage meet over the last couple of days

http://www.sgc1.org/VGCPics.pdf

FB

Will do, bit drizzly here so most have gone out to Arundle, Tangmere or the pub. Weather set to improve from tomorrow though.

FB

Fournier Boy, please say hello to my father Peter Underwood. He’s gone there with my mum, in the caravan. You may find him inspecting some of the vintage gliders. He’s just given up solo flying now he’s 79!. But still doing a bit of work on wooden glider’s.
Dave

As it so happens, all this week there is the National Vintage GLiding Week being held at Parham Airfield in West Sussex. It started on saturday and runs til next weekend. Theres nearly 40 vintage gliders on site (all flying), including some of the oldest flying left in existance. Why not pop along and give it a go! Take the kids, I believe its half term. I’ll be there for the next few days and will try and post some good piccies by the end of the week.

See www.sgc1.org for more info.

FB

C.1985 my dad and his then Boss Ronan Harvey of Delta Jets fame decided to start a gliding club at Bruntingthorpe – I was 9 or 10 – they bought 6 T.21s ex- air cadets for about £200 each which had been stored for a number of years – at auction, together with 1500 ft of cable, and an ex USAFE Germany Chevy V8 pick up truck – the memory I have best was of the CAA ‘test’ pilot arriving to check the aeroplanes out – my dad being volunteered as ballast and turning green as the CAA pilot had a chute and he didnt – my first ever flight – 2 dodgy 2 way radios were used, one by the truck driver and one by the pilot, shouting distance to end of runway and present height!
TT

I wonder if this glider tucked away in Delta Jets hanger is one of those original gliders TT ?

Has anybody got any photos of Prefect WE992 and T.31 XA310 during their time with the air cadets?

Turning the engine off in flight is the best part – especially if you’re giving a ride to a helicopter pilot…… and you don’t tell him you’re going to do it

You’re talking two diametrically opposed methods of achieving flight there!

One of the most impressive things that I have seen is a CFS Gazelle Instructor chopping the power in a 100′ hover, landing, lifting off to 10′, doing a 360, landing, lifting off to 10′, doing a 180 and landing again all from the enrgy in the rotor-head, that’s Rotary gliding!

Dune Flying

I found a great gliding video page. If I was to recommend one video it would be the video file linked below showing arial shots from a vintage glider being flown above the dunes along the Dutch north sea coast in the middle of winter.

59MB but well worth it in my opinion,

http://nistal.kzc.nl/films/t31hellingvliegen.wmv

Lovely pics from keevil Albert!!
According to my old log book I last flew Prefect 992 at Halton in Jan 72 brrrr !!
Nice to see the old girl is still flying and looking pristine .
We never got the single seaters on loan in the summer !!

2 of my pics here…the T21 was at Haddenham last year during their Vintage meeting.
The Slingsby Skylark 3b was at Moffat Field ,Gwelo ,Zimbabwe circa 1983 with a Swallow behind

Just came back home from my first ride in a T21. God I love those oldtimers 🙂

Turning the engine off in flight is the best part – especially if you’re giving a ride to a helicopter pilot…… and you don’t tell him you’re going to do it