VGC News/Newsletters - Lakes Gliding Club

membership. We would also, because of the uniqueness ofyour set up, not expect you to offer members of our club reciprocalfree membership.[f you wish to take advantage of our offer your memberswould be most welcome to fly with us either on an individualor group basis at any time.Yours sincerelyFRANK TOWNSENDChairmanHOOKED!My Log Book records that it was on the 15th April 1967 that,as an early solo pilot, I undertook my first flight as a contestantin an official competition. My mount was a SlingsbyTutor which had been "cobbled" together with bits fromdivers other Sproule type gliders; and adorned with a homemadecanopy and a resplendant bottle green and white topcoat ,it was, in those early days, the Club's hot ship. I clearlyremember hurtling down the runway on the back of a coupleQfthousand feet of 12swg (.104") piano wire (£5. 12s. Od.)which Was suitably attached to an Austin Princess car(£25.1Os. Od.) and achieving a very creditable launch height ofIOooft - launch fee, Is. 6d.!The task was to fly a text book circuit and land within theconfines of two markers, so placed as to ensure that thelanding had a cross wind component.I thought that I did reasonably well but, as every early solopilot will be aware, all CFIs appear to be blessed with peripheralvision which somehow exceeds 360 degrees in bothazimuth and elevation. They also seem to possess a vocabularyto match this extraordinary "sense" and as this incumbentwas no exception, I duly received the benefits of his observations!To cut a long story short this competition was the 1967W.D. & H.O. Wills Competition that could win for the Clubwhich produced the person who was considered to be the bestsolo pilot, a brand new Slingsby Swallow. Needless to say,yours truly never reached the finals of this unique competitionbut it did introduce me, with some vengeance, to the OttfurRelease Unit.Apparently one of the final tests in the competition was toassemble from a pile of unrelated bits of ironmongery, onecomplete and functional Ottfur Release Unit and to assist youin this task you were permitted to use a few standard handtools.Now, from my comments above regarding my then residentCFI it will come as no surprise to be told that he had the verybright idea ithat this exercise would be well wOl1h trying onsome of his Own early solo wards - one if which was me!It took me over an hour not to complete the task and toafflict third degree lacerations to the thumb and first andsecond fingers of both hands and to conclude that the task wassimply quite impossible. Also, 1 took an oath that never againwould] venture into the inner workings of these malevolentmechanical assemblies called Ottfurs, and even now, somethirty years after that painful and frustrating experience, Imust admit to still having a serious hang up with such thingsas Chinese Puzzles you get out of Christmas Crackers, andRubic Cubes.[n late 1995 I was working, together with a couple of likeminded colleagues on the restoration of Colin Street'sOlymp'ia 2 when he suggested that we might be interested inre-establlishing an Ottfur Release support service for the 'olderglider' fraternity. He advised us that some time previously hehad procured the design and manufacturing rights fromSlingsby and/or Vickers and as the available ex-MOD (UK)spares were now beginning to dry up it seemed an opportunetime to seriollsly consider such a project.My instinctive reaction was to duck the issue but my colleagueswere deeply involved in other areas, so I, having thebreaking strain of a dehydrated Kit-Kat and secretly hopingthat given time the suggestion would die a natural death,reluctantly agreed to conduct a feasibility study.Within a few days Colin presented me with a plastic folderfull of drawings, a box full of Ottfur bits, some new, butmostly unserviceable and four wooden trays containing half aton of tooling.Out of the plastic folder fell a little bit of gliding history.Here w,ere some of the original Ottley Motors Ltd: drawings,many updated or redrawn by Slingsby. The drawingscovered all of the Ottfur configurations and except for theassembly and functional test procedures the package wascomplete. It did not take long to conclude that, given suitableresources, it would not only be possible to produce new sparecomponents but also complete new units.It took even less time to discuss and decide to proceed withthe project.My long-standing aversion to the inner workings promptedme to co-opt the assistance of my unflappable friend from pastrestoration days, Bob Stringer who, with the aid of a couple ofserviceable units, took on the task of writing the assemblyprocedures together with the design and manufacture of anyspecialised assembly tooling which would be necessary.As for the test procedures - more of these later.Next came the ~ooling. Much of it was in dire need of somededicated TLC, but with the exception of a couple of items,complete. There were Drill Jigs, Welding Jigs, Ring Mandrels,Jogglimg Tools and Press Dies, all of which were, at firstglance, useable. Here again Bob came up trumps with thedesign work for some missing Drill Jigs which were thensuperbly machined and assembled by Dave Linford of theEast Sussex G.c.Equivalents for the original material specifications weredetermined and, after some experimentation with these newmaterials, it was decided to discard the Press Dies in favour ofLaser cutting;. this process, together with surface hardeningand fablication being sub-contracted out to professionals. Furthermore,the etch primer and paint process proved to besomewhat of a health and safety problem so it is now plannedfor pl'Oduction units to be zinc plated.The big headache did not appear until the test procedureswere considered. Without the original Slingsby documentationit was difficult to know where to begin. Obviously in thecase of dle Ottfur it was necessary to comply with the requirementsdefined In BCAR Section E, but was it necessary toconsider JAR 22?In September 1983 the Australians had produced a reportfor the OSTIV Meeting which indicated that the release pullloads for 'wom' Grtfur units were well in excess of thosedefined in JAR 22. They made no reference to BCAR, so tocheck out their data and evaluate BCAR requirements a TestRig was manufactured by another restoration colleague, MickDunford, and with many thanks to Crawley College, suitablycalibrated.21