A Noteworthy Pilot

A Noteworthy Pilot

This is one of the posts from my old blog, dated 15 January 2010.

After a lifetime as a glider and power pilot, just two weeks short of his 92nd birthday, Polish glider pilot Tadeusz Góra passed away in Swidnik, Poland on the 4th of January.  Except for his age, you ask, why is this noteworthy?

It is noteworthy because Góra was the very first FAI Lilienthal Medalist, in 1939.  This award was presented to him in recognition of a flight the then 20 year-old made on the 18th of May 1938.

Reports from another pilot predicted great soaring  that day.  Therefore Gora strapped himself into a Podlaska Wytwórnia Samolotów PWS 101 high performance glider at his home field in Bezmiechowa, in southeast Poland, and headed for Vilnius (Wilno), Poland (now Lithuania), where his folks had retired.  He did not quite make it though, only managing to get to Maly Soleczniki, 30 km (18.5 miles) short of Vilnius.  Yet the distance covered was 577.8 km (359 miles) and this was a spectacular flight for 1938 (not too shabby even today).  He had to wait until 1945 to actually receive the award.

If this were all Góra did, his passing would still be noteworthy.  Yet he had a long and distinguished career in aviation.

Born in Krakow (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) on the 19th of January 1918, the family followed his Boarder Guard father from posting to posting.  It was a friend of his father who introduced the then 15-year old to aviation.  That same year his father retired to Vilnius and Tadeusz joined the Vilnius Aeroclub where he learned to fly gliders and soon had his “A” and “B” badges.  He earned his “C” badge at Bezmiechowa in 1935.  A year later he received his sports pilot license at Lucko.

Having to repeat his senior year of Primary School, Góra was overheard claiming that “flying is more important than school.”

Góra first began to distinguish himself with an 18 hour duration flight in 1937.  He then won the 5th Polish National Gliding Championship four months later.

In 1939, Góra joined other Polish glider pilots in training for the 1940 Helsinki Olympic Games.  He showed off a little during that year’s ISTUS International Conference, when Góra managed a 304 km flight from Policho to Bydogszcz.

When the World War II broke out, Góra was first arrested by the Soviet forces, but managed to escape.  He then took a round about route to France so that he could join the remnants of the Polish Army and Air Force.  When France fell, he went to England with what remained of the military.  Flying everything from Hurricanes to Spitfires and Mustangs, he managed 160 flights including 52 combat missions.  His efforts were rewarded with the Polish Cross of Virtuti Militari and British Cross of Valor for his participation in the Battle of Britain.  He was also finally able to receive his Lilienthal Medal while he was still in England in 1945.

Góra returned to Poland in 1948 and became the CFIG at Bezmiechowa again.  He was also able to complete his Gold Badge the same year in the former Grunau, then part of Poland.  With a 1950 altitude gain of 5038 meters (16,529 feet), Góra became the second person in the world to earn the Diamond Badge.  Five months later, he was awarded with his third Diamond.

In 1953, he moved to Bielsko Biala and became a test pilot for SZD.  Joining the Aeroclub there, he remained the CFIG until 1957.

Following the death of Stalin, in 1953, Góra was accepted into the Polish Air Force and allowed to fly with the Warsaw Pact forces.  Here he flew Mig-15s and Mig-17s.  Still he never got far from his love of flying gliders.

Flying a Mucha Standard in 1962, he won the Polish Nationals.  Two years later, he made a personal best with a flight of 630 km (391 miles).

Health problems caused by his 1960 crash in a Mig-19, forced Góra to retire from the Air Force with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  Yet later, on his 88th birthday, he was promoted to Brigadier General.

He retired to Swidnik where he got his helicopter license in 1977.  Two years later he became a CFI in helicopters and trained others until 1981.  When PZL-Swidnik sold helicopters to Libya, he went along to train the pilots as part of the contract.

Following his retirement from the Air Force, Góra became a staunch advocate for restoring the old glider site of Bezmiechowa.  The SZD Jerzow Salamandra mentioned in Blog #6  (Monday 7 December 2009) had its first flight at Bezmiechowa in the summer of 2009.  Góra was delighted to be able to see it fly and to visit with the young people there.

In order to honor him, the Rzeszów Technical University Academic Flying Center in Bezmiechowa was named after Góra and was dedicated by him on the 21st of August 2004.  The school, set on the top of the Sionne Mountain, has provided a backdrop for a 2007 film about him called, “The Diary of Pilot Góra.”

Góra was buried with full military honors in the Swidnik Cemetery’s Avenue of Distinguished Citizens.

His Lilienthal medal now rests in a vault at the Bezmiechowa Primary School, which was named for “Polish Glider Pilots,” where it can be viewed upon request.  The school crest incorporates the three gulls of the “A” badge, and the students wear this on their school uniforms.

A glider rally is planned in his honor at the gliderport in Bezmiechowa in  May 2010.  It is intended to commemorate his 1938 Lilienthal Medal flight by encouraging the participants to duplicate Góra’s flight and fly from Bezmiechowa to Maly Soleczniki.

This news came to me 3rd hand from Bruce Stephenson, in England.  The information itself was compiled by Jan Szladowski.

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Funny How Things Work Out

It started out innocently enough.  An urgent email from Hungary (Gabor Fekes) and Germany (Bernd Diekmann) via France (Francis Humblet) requesting information about the possibility of a German-built 2-place Prüfling glider at the American Motorless Aviation glider school on Cape Cod in 1928-9.

I had never heard of such a glider at Cape Cod.  A single-place Prüfling, yes, but not a 2-place.  I didn’t even know there was such an animal.

The Prüfling was a German, what we call a “secondary” glider.  It was designed Alexander Lippisch and was built at the German government’s flight research center, the Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft to allow new glider pilots to transfer into after they learned the basics on a Zögling “primary” glider.  The Prüfling, which means “student” or “examinee” in German, was but the 2nd step to actually soaring a glider.  It was in actuality, a low performance training glider.

The question arose as to whether it might be the one that Ralph Barnaby flew at Cape Cod in 1929 and then in 1930 when he dropped from the US Navy Zeppelin Los Angeles.  Nope.  After some digging, I did locate two profile shots of the glider under the dirigible.  I also located a picture of Barnaby and the other students at Cape Cod in front of the Prüfling.  So that ruled this one out as the 2-place.

As I did more digging, the fellow in Germany (Bernd) sent me a clipping of a modified Prüfling in Wichita, Kansas.  It seemed that American glider designer and builder Harland Ross had designed and built new, tapered wings for his brother’s Prüfling.  I forwarded that to a contact of mine in Wichita and am still awaiting a reply.

The gliders got all over.  I have not looked it up, but I know that there was at least one Prüling even in Southern California, and that it flew at the legendary Arvin meet(s).

Anyway, this missive from Europe opened a whole different world to me.  For one, it was the catalyst for my re-launch of this blog.  I realized that since Soaring magazine discontinued my monthly glider history column, that I really missed the digging.

For another, it got me thinking a lot about a glider which I had never really thought about before.  How many were in the US?  Were any 2-place (Bernd insists at least one was and that it went to Cape Cod, and he says he has the shipping manifest, he says, to prove it).

In just a couple of days, I have gone from only a couple of Prüfling photograph to a dozen or more.  None show a 2-place.  My search even led me to the photo at the head of this column.  I do not know who the gentleman is, nor where the photo was taken, but it is a nice shot of a Prüfling.

This has even blossomed into other German gliders in the US in the 30s.  I found a picture of a Professor at Cape Cod.  This has gotten me back into old familiar territory, the gliders that Gus Haller sold and built as part of Haller-Hirth Sailplanes, in Pittsburgh.  Haller imported kits from the Kassel Flugzeugbau (Kassel aircraft factory) and sold them as Haller-Hirth Hawk (a Professor), Haller-Hirth Junior Hawk (a Kassel 20), or as Haller-Hirth Sparrow (Zögling primary).

So what is going to happen next?  I guess I will keep digging and maybe, just maybe, I’ll find that elusive 2-place.  It is all just fascinating to me.

The photo at the bottom of this column is a Prüfling in Belgium.

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Ralph Barnaby and the American Motorless Aviation Corp.

Ralph Barnaby and the American Motorless Aviation Corp.

The photo comes from the South Wellfleet, MA website (<http://southwellfleet.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/south-wellfleet-glider-school/&gt;), on the “South Wellfleet Glider School” page:

The photo which accompanies this entry is a real find.  It depicts the glider gang at the American Motorless Aviation Corp. (AMA), on Cape Cod at South Wellfleet, Massachustts.

What is significant is that it appears to depict Navy Lt. Ralph S. Barnaby, who was a student there in 1929, he is the 3rd from the left.

Why is this important, you ask.  It is important because the AMA was the first glider school in the US.  It was founded by J C Penney, Jr, and staffed by top German glider pilots.  Gliding had taken hold in Germany shortly after the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, after World War I, prohibited the Germans from having motorized aircraft.  The Germans had become quite proficient at gliding and soaring in the intervening years, while Americans only began to  notice gliding after Lindbergh flew the Atlantic.

Barnaby is significant because in 1929, he became the 1st American to break Orville Wright’s 1911 distance record in a glider.  Barnaby did it at Cape Cod, at this school, and in the glider depicted.

In 1930, Barnaby pioneered dropping an aircraft from a Zeppelin, the US Navy Airship Los Angeles, when he mounted a German Prüfling secondary glider beneath the giant dirigible and dropped from it.  The purpose was and experiment to find an efficient method to get a crewman from the Zeppelin to the ground in order to direct docking.  The Nave ultimately decided to use a power plane.  This glider was the same one he used at Cape Cod and is depicted in the photo.

Barnaby is also important because in 1936, he convinced the Navy to experiment with using gliders for primary flight training.  As with using gliders beneath airships, this training experiment was short lived. During the early part of World War II, Barnaby again convinced the Navy to train with gliders.  The purpose was to fly gliders into combat as the Army did.  When they realized that the island hopping strategy would not facilitate cargo gliders, the Navy canceled this program too.

It has been theorized that Barnaby would have become an Admiral if he had not been tied to the gliders.  He did, however, become a Captain.

All through these years, as well as after the war, Barnaby became a spark plug behind the Soaring Society of America.  As a result, is a member of the Soaring Hall of Fame and the National Soaring Museum (NSM) hosts an annual lecture by notables in the soaring world, and named it after Barnaby.

In addition, in 1981, the NSM dedicated Landmark of Soaring #1 and located it at Truro, on  Cape Cod.

Barnby died in 1986 at the age of 93.

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Intro to the Vintage Sailplane Blog

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Intro to the Vintage Glider Blog

This was my first blog, back on 20th November 2009. I have edited it to reflect the times.

It occurred to me that what we are missing in the world of vintage glider history, is someone who will pontificate endlessly on the subject. I think I might just be that man, we’ll see.

What set this insight into my feeble brain were that a couple of fairly interesting events have taken place recently, but they are not widely known. I will cover these events in as much detail as I can ascertain at a later date.

I am not saying that I will have all of the information, in some cases I will be far from it. I merely hope to spread the word a little bit. I intend to include news and updates about various vintage glider events and about what people are writing about vintage gliders and their history. I may even post a little glider history on here.

That is not all I will be blathering on about, of course. Some of what I will be posting will be old “Clio Whispers” columns from the Bungee Cord, the Vintage Sailplane Association’s newsletter, as well as “Clio’s Wings” quizzes from Soaring magazine. I had the opportunity to write the Bungee Cord column four times a year for 13 years. The Soaring magazine quizzed appered every month for 7 years. Not all were gems, and most were probably horrible, you be the judge.

I also had the pleasure of having edited the Bungee Cord for nine of those years. What I am not trying to do is to upstage the various vintage glider publications such as the Bungee Cord, VGC News, Føniks Posten, de Spandraad,Vintage Kiwi, nor the Vintage Times, to name just a few. I only want to supplement them. We’ll see how it works out.

The photo is my 1954 Slingsby T-31B Tandem Tutor at the International Vintage Sailplane Meet, in Elmira, New York, on Harris Hill, in 1995.