Monday, September 26, 2011

Name that Sailplane


A clue: Name that airport, then guess the date.

Another photo of this beautiful bird:



Here's the tow plane:

14 comments:

Andy Lumley said...

Conway NH circa 1975.

I let someone else name the glider, it's to easy.

Anonymous said...

It's waaaaaay before 1975.

-T8

Anonymous said...

I'm not so sure. This glider could have been around in 1975. We're still flying one that was designed in the forties!

Anonymous said...

But this glider *wasn't* around in 1975. Another clue.

-T8

S2 said...

It's hard to tell, but I think the guy flying it looks like Andy.

kevin brooker said...

The aircraft is a 1935 Schempp-Hirth Gö-3 Minimoa. The ship on final looks to be landing to the south at Gorham.

Richard DuPont set the world altitude record (21,939) in 1938 in one of these using a thunderstorm to find the lift. Flying in thunderstorms makes rotor seem like light turbulence.

Anonymous said...

Kevin: right vintage, anyway.

Time for another clue: this is an American designed and built sailplane.

-T8

Anonymous said...

Another clue, I suspect, is that we were about to go to war with the folks who were flying the Minimoa.

S2 said...

Somehow it reminds me of this plate: http://tinyurl.com/6db8y7p

Anonymous said...

Okay, Rick's got it. It's Harland Ross' Ibis, the successor to the more famous Zanonia. Now, who brought it to NH and what did they do with it?

Man I'd love to watch that thing get towed aloft by some cowled radial engine hotrod of the same era. A Monocoupe maybe. Or an Airmaster.

-T8

Anonymous said...

zzzzZZZzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzz

Man, this crew is sleepy.

The story is written up in Soaring mag, December 1938. You can find it online at SSA, and it is worth a read. It's the story of the very first wave flight at Mt Washington, even if the wave wasn't properly identified as such by the pilot, Lew Barringer.


-T8

kevin brooker said...

I remember taking a tow into wave behind a Stearman that was based in Gorham. It was part of the ride operation there. The tow rope was a 1" manilla thing that sagged a good 10' below the tug/glider pair. Both aircraft were off the grass well before the rope.

The story is also posted on the MWSA site and is archived as part of the National Historic Landmark of Soaring for Mount Washington.

Rick said...

Here: http://tinyurl.com/3fjss46

I had to recuse myself since I wrote that story.

Anonymous said...

That's a much more believable excuse than some we've heard.