Once Upon a Timer
I regret that I have but one octave to give.
This story originally appeared in the 1994 NE Sailplane catalogue. As usual, Bob’s storytelling is timeless, so we’re happy to have him tell this ripper to a whole new audience.— Ed.
We all know that soaring is an exhilarating, cerebral, idyllic experience but we are often unaware of the hidden dangers that lurk ominously behind even the most innocent phases of the activity. While I am not talking about the obvious hazards such as winch accidents, I did witness one winch accident with a truly creative twist.
Dave Banks was flying in a Northwest Soaring Society Contest at the Seattle field. He was a leading contender and went boldly up to the winch to initiate his usual aggressive launch. All was going well until the retrieval line got wound around his transmitter antennae and jerked the transmitter out of his hands. With the instincts of a champion and the speed of a gazelle, there was Dave sprinting down the field with his transmitter ever just out of his grasp — until at last and a 50 yard dash later the glider lost some momentum and the retrieval line tension relaxed a bit allowing Dave to make the catch-of-the-day. Oh yes, if I remember correctly, he went on to max the flight and win the contest. However, to a lesser pilot or to a slower sprinter, this unexpected happenstance could have spelled disaster!
But now on to the hidden danger area of soaring. I wonder how many people realize that they are taking their lives in their hands every time they offer to time for another contestant? Most of us feel pretty safe timing because even though we are concentrating on the clock, we can always stand behind the pilot while he is landing. This way, if he overshoots a landing, the plane will hit him first!
However, even this clever plan can fail if you are timing for an out of control pilot with great self preservation skills. I once saw a pilot whose plane was coming in high and fast on a landing approach and was heading straight for him and instant suicide. The plane was two feet off the ground boring in on him at thirty miles an hour! Being focused on the clock and having his human guardrail in front of him for protection, the timer wasn’t worried — until at the last instant when the pilot leaped into the air allowing his prize possession to whistle by beneath him. Needless to say, the glider ‘took out’ a disbelieving and ever afterward wary timer.
Lest you think this leaping over your incoming glider is always a great last-ditch, desperation pilot ploy, I have seen other occasions where the pilot has sprung into the air with great alacrity only to re-kit his glider by accidentally landing squarely on top of it. Perhaps the worst case scenario for the pilot is when he gracefully catapults himself into the air a split second early and just clears the trailing edge of the incoming glider wings on his descent — ending up astraddle the turtledeck just in time for that fiberglass fin to forever alter his vocal range. It could be claimed that this is the ultimate sacrifice by the pilot as he bravely proclaims the immortal words “I regret that I have but one octave to give for my timer.”
I am not proud to say that I was personally involved in a disastrous timer mishap, in a most non-heroic fashion. At the time, there were a few radio systems that would malfunction if the glider was flying far off and low over a transmitter on an adjacent frequency. One flyer in particular was having this problem at an NWSS contest. I was flying and in a good thermal with my Windsong and was fortunate enough to have Tom Neilson as my timer. Since I was high and in good lift, I was able to keep an eye out for the guy with the brown multichannel glider who had been having radio problems. To my horror, I saw his plane heading straight toward my location at the landing circle. It was only about forty feet high and I knew that my frequency was one that was causing him problems. As the ‘brown bomber’ was nearly overhead, I became very apprehensive. Of course, my unsuspecting timer, Tom, was dutifully keeping me informed of my times while standing safely behind me. He did not suspect a thing. Always quick with an excuse, I afterwards blamed my stuttering problem for my failure to inform Tom of the impending danger.
Suddenly, there was a four-and-a-half pound guided missile headed straight for me at a 60 degree descent angle. Forewarned, my reflexes had the needed time and I chicken-heartedly stepped aside at the last moment — totally exposing Tom who was still looking at the clock. The lethal bird-of-prey struck him so hard that he flew twisting into the air like a flapjack and landed on his back as flat and still as a pancake. With my contest mentality in full gear, I saw that Tom had dropped the stopwatch during his aerial maneuvers and I started shouting "I need a new timer—someone grab the stopwatch!" After seeing that Tom Neilson had finally started twitching a bit, Tom Brightbill who had been the first to arrive at the disaster scene, reluctantly left the side of his fallen comrade to man the stopwatch for the rest of my flight. Fortunately, Tom Neilson eventually came around and it was learned that the nose of the glider had struck him in the shoulder and that he had only gotten the wind knocked out and a badly bruised shoulder. Naturally Tom Brightbill piped up with "it’s too bad you didn't get hit in the head and then you wouldn't have been adversely affected at all!"
One thing is clear, since that defining moment in my flying career, I have had a heck of a time finding good timers. The last good timer I had was Bill Hansen. He and I would bet quarters on air times and landings during practice. He still thinks that it was because I was losing too much money to him that when he was timing for me during a recent contest, he felt the cutting edge of my Saber on a ‘slightly misjudged’ landing. I swear to God "it was an accident!" I guess what it all boils down to is if you are timing for an erratic flyer like me, "ask not for whom the stopwatch tolls, it may toll for thee."
©1994 Bob Dodgson
Read the collected works of Bob Dodgson in the New RCSD: see The Dodgson Anthology. Also, are you a fan of the retro Dodgson Designs logo? Otherwise, now 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.
