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Old 10th Sep 2010, 19:40
  #46 (permalink)  
roys
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: halifax west yorkshire
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Slingsby T53

Spoke with dad this evening and he has promised me a letter in reply to the criticism on here.
Wooden sailplanes had been axed by Slingsbys due to rising labour rates and new standards of accuracy demanded by low drag wing sections.
To set the scene,the T53 was designed over the winter of 1966/67-the year of my birth, so perhaps its my fault for all those sleepless nights! Knowing dad he probably stopped at work to avoid all that domestic stuff!
He joined the Sigma project as of January 1967.
On the morning of the first flight of prototype he had just arrived back from Germany meeting F X Wortmann,regarding the Sigma project, to be told it was going up.
After ceasing to do Slingsby work, a replacement designer was engaged to be then followed by Pat Monk and I found an interesting obituary here
Pat Monk - RIP - Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums
Pat Monk was a most capable chap and also built a house extension during his time at Kirkbymoorside!
I also found an interesting article on the next saga ,the HP14 here
http://www.soaridaho.com/Schreder/HP...4c/Hp14V_C.htm
and this mentions Joe Provins workshop in Scarborough, which I visited with Dad as a young child and still have a memory of it now. It was a 1st floor workshop on Silver Street Scarborough and the building is still there.

Joe Provins had a car body repair business, was not impressed by the Hp14 and died in his forties one day after flying the Hp14, of jaundice.
To complete the morbid theme of this posting my father decided if Geoff Bailey Woods did not survive the test flying of the prototype T53, as they both had young families, my father would gas himself in the oven at home!
This might seem extreme but he had sadly seen a lot of death on the Buccaneer test flying development team at Holme on Spalding Moor.
If any of you chaps know of a current location of either a T53 or Torva sailplane in the UK which I could view I would be most interested.

Last edited by roys; 19th Dec 2012 at 18:09.
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