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

FRED SLINGSBY'S RETIREMENTANY are the men, from LiIienthalM.and Pilcher onward~, who havedevoted the major part of their life tothe furtherance of the. science and art0f gliding. Progress iD ~ny branch 9fscience of course depends entirely onthe practical man wh~ can mould theresults of scientific researchers into ausable commodity. Future' historians ofgliding will undoubtedly accord a placeof high honour to Frederick NicholasSlingsby, who retired on 31st Augustlast from the post of Managing Directorof Sti1'lgsby Sailplanes Limited.Born in Cambridge on 6th November,1894, Fred Slingsby evinced at an earlyage an interest in practical mechanicsand an enquiring turn of mind. As ayouth he bee-ame aware of the experimentsin aviation which were being conducted'by the Wright brothers, and notlong after the turn of the century hehad himself constructed gliders, albeitas models only.As he grew up this interest developedinto an enthusiasm for f1¥ing which ledhim, in March, 1914, to Join the RoyalFlying .corps. Posted to Belgium in thatautumn he served first as an AirMechanic, and a year or so later Onpromotion to Flight Sergeant as anObserverI Gunner. He was twice shotdown over the lines, and was awan;ledthe Military Medal for gallantry.After "demob" he took a partnershipin business in Scarborough as a fumituremanufacturer_ In 1930 he foundedthe Scarborough Gliding Club, and whentbe early gliders flown by Yorkshireenthusiasts needed repairs it was inevitablethat they should be worked onunder the supervision of a fellow ScarboroughGliding Club member, a manwith long experience of early militaryaeroplanes, himself now fast becominga devotee of gliding.Fred Slingsby gained his C at InglebyGreenhow in 1931 in a Falcon of, hisown manufacture, based on the GermanFalke design. He visited many clubs andentered numerous contests with consider·able success. Orders for this aircraft andfor the Falcon 3 two-seater started topour in, to such an extent that largerworkshop premises became essential. In1934 the Yorkshire Gliding Club hadbeen formed at Sutton Bank, and bygood fortune contact was made withMajor J. E. D. Shaw, himself a pilotwith two aeroplanes of his own, whoowned consider,able l'J"operty aroundKirbymoorside. By the time World Wllr11 started, Slings~y SailJ;llanes Limitedwas. well .'c:stabhslted ID a factoryslilCc1ally bUilt on the Shaw estate.The works were well adapted to themanufacture of troop-carrying gliders,orders for which; however, did notmaterialise for some time. It was not.indeed, until 1941 that the factory couldbe said to be fully engaged on this workand ,on tbe construction of gliders forthe Air Training Corps. It was these waryears, on top of th.estrain of buildingup the business from small beginnings,that built into Fred Slingsby's characteran element of shrewd caution and conservatism,combined with a willingnessto consider new ideas, which has everbeen the mark of truly great men.The post-war years saw the evolutionof improved designs, notably the Sky,which won the World Cbampionshjps in5