Flying Back In Time
A nostalgic look back at the Ghost Squadron Aerotow held at Middle Wallop, Hampshire in October of 2015.
The military base of Middle Wallop in Southern England is reputed to be the largest grass aerodrome in Europe. For over a decade the UK scale soaring fraternity enjoyed many, many aerotows on this site, before a change of base priorities sadly bought it all to a close in 2019. This article was first published in Flying Scale Models in 2015.— CW
I would imagine it to be highly unlikely that 2015 will have gone down in anyone’s diary as a premium flying year, but for the scale soaring fraternity, the last event of the season at Middle Wallop certainly put the crack in the Christmas cracker. For starters, courtesy of Mr. Putin, a high pressure system all the way from Russia wrapped the UK in it’s chilly embrace, and the strong breeze that was forecast failed to materialise, giving us some lovely smooth air to fly in, even if the lift was hard to find. As if that weren’t enough, we had been promised a fly-by from the Vulcan, which was in the final days of its flying career, an event keenly anticipated by all concerned. In the days preceding the aerotow, things did not look quite so rosy, though. New management at Middle Wallop had seemingly resulted in a ban on all types of model flying activity on this military base, as a variety of new brooms sought to sweep clean. With John Greenfield out of the loop due to family concerns, it fell to tug pilot Pat Marsden to climb the mountain of paperwork that was required to make things happen, one of the spin offs of which was that I felt it necessary to nominate him Man-of-the-Match!
As usual, there was much to see and admire, as my pal Motley and I rolled up. Paul Bartlett’s Duo Discus was one such machine, rendered more interesting by the sight of its red moustache. There was time when the sight of a propeller perched on the front of a glass machine would cause a rash of pursed lips amongst the purists, but these days they have been forced down off their high chairs, because such things can now be found on the front of full-size glass sailplanes. Known as ‘sustainers’ the idea is that should a glider pilot find himself low and out of ideas at the end of days soaring, he can unfurl said propeller and use it as get-out-of-jail-free card. So, you still need an aerotow to get off the ground, but once airborne, the sky is your oyster. Paul’s Duo was made by Paritech, to that company’s very high standard (and price!) and was impressive indeed to see in action. Long time Middle Wallop fan, Brian Sharp, had come down all the way from Scotland, bringing with him his 1:3.5 scale ASW 20 from the newly revamped Pat Teakle kit and his 3rd-scale o/d BGA 351. Over the weekend, he was the keenest of all to get a flight, and his face was never far from the ever-present glider queue. Being of Scottish descent, his reasoning was quite simple: the £300 cost of his weekend had to be divided by each flight accomplished. Obviously, the more flights he achieved during that time , the lower the unit cost of each flight! By my reckoning, the final cost-per-flight ratio must have worked out at around 10p!
During the Saturday evening, somebody came up with a pretty bright idea. Antonia Gigg’s better half Mel was credited with the brainstorm and his notion was this: during the half-hour stand down the next day, when the Vulcan fly-past was due to take place, might it be a good idea to place all the gliders in a delta formation on the ground in the hopes of catching the eye of pilot as he flew by?
As V-hour approached, the tugs fell silent and the last of the gliders landed. (Brian, probably).
There was a spate of feverish activity as the gliders and tugs were manhandled, with money changing hands to see who’s model would be at the front of the formation, it turning out to be a tug, unsurprisingly. Once the task was completed, the crowd fell silent, eyes scanning the Eastern horizon. ‘‘There she is” someone shouted, and a dot became visible, trailing a thin plume of smoke. Soon, the familiar shape hove into sight, and a groan went up: it looked as though she was going to pass well to the North of us. As she came nearer, the pilot made a discernable turn to the left, and there she was, low and almost overhead, to the familiar turbine whine accompaniment. The Vulcan then made a complete 360 and, could we believe it, came past once more. Now, it is believed in some quarters that the pilot saw the delta formation of gliders on the airfield and, filled with a natural human curiosity, came around for a closer look. This is a theory to which I subscribe wholeheartedly, and may God rot the socks of anyone who says different.
There is often talk of the Vulcan Howl, a noise peculiar to that particular machine, well there is another that makes a similar sound (see Resources, below). Out for its annual outing, my third scale DFS Habicht was once again cavorting in the skies above Middle Wallop. The Habicht was a German glider from the 1930’s, designed specifically for aerobatics. It is reputed to have dived down into the arena during the 1936 Olympic Games with enough retained energy to glide off again and land somewhere, so far unspecified by history. I find my 30lb model somewhat intimidating, if a lot a fun, hence its limited annual appearance. Flights are short, somewhere around two minutes each, as it is absolutely mandatory that aerobatics are committed as much as possible. This usually culminates in a relatively high speed pass and roll, during which a distinctive howl is heard. It’s always fun to watch the unmitigated duck and turn white, muttering, “strewth, wot the heck was that!” In case you are wondering, the howl is caused by the strips of Mylar on the undersides of the wing vibrating in the slipstream when the ailerons are at full deflection. To hear the howl yourself, see 3rd Scale Habicht In HD in Resources, below, and hear it from the on-board video.
Staying on a personal note, there is another downside to using something only rarely. As this weekend was to be a special occasion, I decided to use the drop-off dolly on my two-seater Minimoa, the MO 2a. Normally it’s too much faff to use it at an aerotow, as somebody has to run on the to take off area and retrieve the dolly, but gets worse, I decided to utilise the headlight, too. (This was fitted to the full-size presumably to aid a record duration attempt that might terminate in a night landing.)
So, trying to remember which switch did what, terminated on the first flight with me releasing the towline instead of the wheel. The tug pilot said something in ancient Anglo Saxon, and then we re-set.
This time I got it right, released and turned on the light. (I don’t know why: it’s about as dim as a concussed tortoise). I flew around, but something didn’t feel right: the Minimoa was wallowing around in the turns like a crab in handcuffs. The flight terminated in a landing-of-shame, whereupon I eventually realised that activating the light switch had had the inadvertent effect of knocking the adjacent switch and thus deactivating the coupled ailerons and rudder (CAR). As the Minimoa has an enormous all-moving rudder, the consequences are rather more noticeable than usual! I can tell you, I’ve gone right off the use of these aeronautical gadgets.
There wasn’t too much in the way of glider damage over the weekend, but one incident did stick in my mind, which illustrated the perils of ‘turning back’. I don’t have a PPL, of course, but in a lifetime of reading aviation literature I’ve come across the warning: never turn back if the engine fails on take off, unless there’s an awful lot of altitude in the bank. There is a glider equivalent to this situation, and that is when it becomes obvious to the pilot that his approach has been too high and if he’s not careful, he’s going to land a long way upwind with the subsequent walk-of-shame. At the decision point, several factors come into play. Dependant on the height, a model with forgiving and efficient wing section might well be able to turn back in a 360 and land safely. The alternative is to land straight ahead, or to S-turn, never more than ninety degrees to the wind. (Side-slipping is an option, of course, but let’s not go there). On this occasion the unfortunate pilot of an L213a made the wrong call and decide to turn back. It’s a buttock-clenching manoeuvre: the model will almost always get through the downwind leg unscathed only to come a cropper on the crosswind when it becomes obvious that there not enough left on the altimeter, and the unconscious desire to pull back on the stick takes over, with the resultant spin into the deck. That this model was built up from a kit with all the labour involved makes it all the worse, and the moral is a sober one. It’s better to be red in the face than to be forced back into the workshop.
When it was all finally over, and we were packing up the car, Motley and myself were of one mind: this had been one of the Ghost Squadron’s best ever events: what a cracking way to end the year. Thanks must go to the guys and gals of the GS for all their efforts, especially Mr. Marsden for all paperwork wrangling, and we can only hope for more of the same next year.
©2015, 2022 Chris Williams
Resources
- 3rd Scale Habicht In HD — video by the author: “heavy Habicht howls in HD!”
- Vulcan XH558 Farewell Flight at Middle Wallop, Oct 2015 — contemporaneous video shot by Simon Ellis Wildlife Photography.
All images by the author unless otherwise noted. Read the next article in this issue, return to the previous article in this issue or go to the table of contents. A PDF version of this article, or the entire issue, is available upon request.
