Gliding in Cloud in the 50s.
Extract from memoirs.
One Saturday afternoon at Farnborough I found myself sitting in the right seat of the ETPS Sedburg glider with Bill Bedford, the Harrier test pilot, in the left. Bill was an enthusiastic glider pilot and at the time held several British gliding records for height and distance. We released from an aero tow somewhere near Guildford under a growing cumulus cloud and were soon rapidly gaining height in the cloud. The air temperature kept reducing with increasing altitude and we began to wonder how much colder we could become before leaving the cloud.
The glider had a battery driven artificial horizon and direction indicator and Bill had been doing a good job with these instruments. But without us realising it initially, the battery was going flat and the AH started to lean over. Bill followed the AH until I noticed that the turn indicator was not making sense. Soon after we entered a steep spiral dive and speed rapidly increased. I watched in horror as the airspeed went on up over the red line speed of 92 Kts. Markings around the dial of the ASI were from 20 kts to 110 kts with a gap around the bottom 30 degrees of the dial. I watched the needle go around through the gap and continue until it was showing 25 Kts the second time around.
The airflow noise was very high and I was using both hands pulling on the air-brake lever with the feeling that if I pulled any harder I would break something. We hurtled out through the cloud base still well nose down and directly over the city of Guildford. Bill slowly brought the nose up and as the speed thankfully reduced we zoomed up to cloud base again. By now the AH was unusable and there was no way we were going to re-enter the cloud.
We recognised that we were now too low to glide upwind to Farnborough so Bill elected to try to glide downwind to the airfield at Dunsfold just visible in the distance. We hoped to be able to pick up some rising air on the way. Our gliding angle was obviously too high for us to reach Dunsfold directly so we headed off a little towards another cumulus hoping for some lift beneath it. But we were disappointed and realised that a forced landing was now most probable.
It was the time of the year when all of the wheat fields in the area were being harvested and there were bales of straw all over. We spotted a green field beyond a small forest and decided that this was to be our place to land. Having committed ourselves to this green field, there was then nowhere else to go. Alas we soon began to see that it was a wheat-field ready for harvesting.
I tightened my harness as much as possible expecting a sudden stop and that was just as well. Bill levelled off the glider just above the wheat and it brushed us loudly underneath. Eventually stalling we sank down into the wheat until our sight line was below the wheat. Suddenly the wings sank into the wheat and we stopped immediately with very rapid deceleration. The last foot or two was a vertical drop on to the ground with a teeth jarring crunch.
Suddenly all was silence except that in the distance we could hear a few people yelling to each other. We had disappeared from anyone's view and local observers all believed from the noise generated by our arrestment that we had severely crashed.
Bill and I looked at each other in relief and having assured ourselves that we were alright we climbed out to find that we were just tall enough to see over the top of the wheat. We carefully made our way along the rows of wheat in the general direction of a farm house not far away with Bill explaining that it would be normal for the farmer to extract compensation for that portion of his crop knocked down.
Soon we were being treated to a cup of tea in the farmhouse whilst curious locals turned up from all directions. Someone had reported a crash to police and soon several police cars approached. Two policeman turned up on bicycles. One came on a horse. Then came an ambulance and Bill was able to talk the ambulance crew into giving him a few swigs of medicinal brandy. The policemen were eager to help so we used them to help manhandle the wings off the glider and move them and the fuselage into the farmer's barn ready for retrieval next day.
All that remained was the completion of an incident report and a structural inspection of the glider for overstress. It was pronounced airworthy. Two weeks later it was used to give the Duke of Edinborough his first flight in a glider.
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Then there was the time when I was enjoying the challenges of glider flying in the ETPS Olympia over Farnborough seeing lots of green ball as I climbed in a growing Cu. Niggling buffet at the normal soaring speed gradually increased in intensity and demanded my attention. A quick glance away from the instruments was enough to see extensive ice accretion along a wing leading edge and around the nose. I could not believe that the extent of icing had not reduced the gliding capabilities of the Olympia to that of a brick.
Straightening up soon had me out of the side of the cloud, now with maximum red ball, plunging down to below freezing level. Big chunks of ice started to break away creating another hazzard and I was much relieved that none of the chunks hit the tail. It occurred to me that the chunks of ice were probably big enough to reach the ground so I endeavoured to avoid overflying built up areas for a while as I made my way back to Farnborough.
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Then again in the Olympia in cloud over Farnborough I was startled to hear 4 engines with noisy props approaching. I wanted out of that cloud in a hurry but not soon enough before the roar of the close pass of an aircraft reached a crescendo and then slowly died away at about the same rate as the lowering of my racing heart pulse rate. I now wonder why I didn't roll over and pull through away from the approaching menace.
I am now cured of flying gliders in cloud!