Volume 16 No 1 Feb 1965.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

cursed. The designer looked despondentlyat the sky: "Well, are you going to flyTI didn't feel like waiting, al)Q decidedto take off.We had a shart conference round the'sailplane•.defined the first assignment:: tocheck the chief flying properties of theDiscoplane. Then we made arrangementswith Galina Sokolova, the piloter the towplane. to watch carefully thebehaviour of the sailplane and to makean immediate decision if anything untowardhappened.I could see blue gas coming out of theexba'ust of Ga]ina's "Yak", I lookedaround, checked the straps and the parachutelock. 1 tried the controls with myhands, and feet---everything was OK.Then. I closed the cabin hood. The towcablewas attached and we were readyfor the take-off."Stretch the tow-cable!" cameGalina's command. The plane startedtaxi-ing. I switched on the recordingdevices, which had to operate from thevery beginning of the take-off.Everything went as usual at first. Butwhen tbe tow-plane gained speed, Ifound it more and more difficult to keepthe sailplane at the same altitude-thestrain on the handle had increased agreat deal. The sailplane did not want toclimb and I soon found myself far belowthe tow-plane. I could not right the sailplaneby pulling .the stick. Morecver, theDiscoplane heeled over and only with agreat effort did I manage to set it straightagain. The flight was getting increasinglydifficult. The tow-cable was tearing atthe plane. r managed to climb up to200 metres, but that was the limit. Theairfield was close by, and it was a suitablemoment to release the tow-cable.We decided to try again and cbangethe towing speed. Everything went muchbetter ne~t time. There was no heelingover, no jerks of the tow-cable. Obyiouslyon the first flight .the speed hadbeen too high. The tow-plane seemed tohave stopped dead en the hariz;on infront of m:.. There was no strain oranxiety. I could hear only the whistlingsound of the air current and the hum ofthe recorders.We tried over and over again, witbthe assignments growing more complicatedas the days went by. Minimumspeed' tests . . . every pilaf knows howtroublesome and sometimes even dangerousthe loss of speed can ~. howunstable the plane gets. The surprisingthillg was that it was the minimum speedtna! proved to be the Discoplane'sstablest regime. And finally came the spintest. I did eve.rything I co