by Ian Dunkley

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“There is nothing finer to see,
than a K8 plus L Spatz flying free.
Their pilot’s did boast
'We are off to the coast'
So off they flew to the sea"

This is intended to show you two things straight away. Firstly, the1954 World Championships at Camphill were emulated by “downwind dashes”, we will draw a veil over the weather for the time being, permanently perhaps. Secondly, a rich vein of literary talent was revealed by the week-long Rally “Limerick Competition”, the above being the winner of the “Standard Class”. Advance orders are now being taken for the “Camphill Poetry Book” that will be despatched in a plain brown envelope, when we have interpreted the handwriting and mildly censored the many entries.

O.K, I will come clean straight away the weather was very similar to 1954, in that it ranged from good to bloody unpleasant, just going to show that imitation is not necessarily flattery. However we did fly seven out of eight days, which tells you a lot about the Rally participants, an eighth day being “added” on Sunday by the Capstan pilot who had clearly had no home to go to.

The story starts in 1934, seventy years ago, when a small group of enthusiasts carried a primary glider to the top of a Peak District hill above Great Hucklow and Bradwell. With the aid of an even smaller group running over the edge, stretching an elastic rope, the first flight was made from the hilltop that was to become world famous, Camphill.

Fifty years ago, 1954, the gliding world came to Camphill for the first Gliding World Championship to be held in Great Britain. Opened by Lord Brabazon, complete with his car “Fly 1”, the event brought 44 competing aircraft from 20 countries from as far afield as Argentina and Australia, for the UK weather experience. Despite this, impressive flights were made, and Camphill was on the world map, the only trouble being we became known as “Damphill”.

You may recall that about three years back the Camphill Rally very nearly exceeded the total hours flown at the 54 WC, an abbreviation not a car number or toilet survey. This year we nearly exceeded the 44 WC aircraft, having 41 gliders, including our two club classics, and 72 pilots, we did not add up the crews, partners or children, making this the largest Camphill Rally ever, and hopefully retaining our modest claim of “the worlds second largest” Rally for another year. Next year the USA will be holding the “International Vintage Soaring Meet” at Elmira that threatens to push us into third place, so perhaps I had better reconsider my planned attendance.

One of the best days in 54 resulted in many competitors dashing downwind to the east for a day out at the seaside. This appears to me as an attempt to win the day on handicap as the chances of going much further than anyone else, without floats, were somewhat limited. In any event this year two intrepid pilots declared “the coast”, prudently not saying which one, launching into a strong westerly and disappearing. Their subsequent return, by road, earnt John Young and Tom Edwards, the “Man of the Rally Plate” and costing the club two bottles of wine for the day. In case you are wondering how two men can be “Man of the Rally”, the answers are simple, a) it’s the Camphill Rally we are talking about, b) they have been known to be joined at the hip for a number of Rally years.

These pilots also contributed to other Rally triumphs, one landing in a donkey sanctuary, and getting a cream tea, and the other, accompanied by another glider landing in a field to find the farmer waiting, apparently with his legal/financial adviser hovering in the background. The latter leading to a suggestion at briefing the next day that farmers should label their fields with prices. Another episode the next day, that further improved the profitability of hill farming, led to a visit to the farmer and finding out how to tell the difference between the friendly alsatian and the other one with a nice line in serious, if partially restrained, menace. The fact that I even got to meet the friendly one indicating that good relations, if not a refund, were now enjoyed with the farmer, who one stage suggested that :- “The pilot must have taken off to deliberately land in my field, why else would he have brought his wife and a picnic basket with him?”

Other flying highlights? When we had seventeen gliders strolling leisurely along a short beat of the ridge, a similar number having wisely gone somewhere else. This was fine until our replica weather came into play and pilots who knew that that old wings may be less affected by rain, decided simultaneously that that non existent or leaking cockpit canopies were. Was this really justification for littering up our airfield?

Morning briefings, not that this title accurately reflects what went on, provided the opportunity of telling all those happy little shining faces of the need to remember the first Camphill Law, “In a strong west wind, if you don’t think you are too high at your final turn, you are probably too low”. A number of pilots attempted to challenge this with approaches that gave enjoyment to all, except to those who would have had to fill the forms in. This message obviously got home for in one of the last landings of the Rally, Pete Redshaw’s immaculate Capstan was seen leaving a low key at a height that must have required oxygen.

Whilst we intended emulating 1954 we had hoped to avoid any accidents. Regrettably we had one, our first in 9 years, fortunately without injury to anything other than the aircraft. This was in an unplanned demonstration of Camphill’s third law, “ When considering leaving the ridge for your circuit, make sure you can see your reference point over the top of it”. The pilot involved impressed everyone the next day by apologising in a manner that would have taken a lot of guts. In case you are curious, the Second Law, closely related to the third, states “If on finals you are too low to see over the rear boundary wall, then you are definitely too low”.

“Oh dear! That didn’t go quite right, Buy lots of ply and aerolite!”

For a Rally that is supposed to be the antidote for competitions it may be surprising to some that there were some serious organised social confrontations. These take place purely to provide an outlet for the aggression that may otherwise be directed at me. You have already heard of the “Limericks”, divided into three classes, “standard”, “open” and “T21”, see sample above. These proved so popular that I will now recite one of my totally unsuccessful entries whilst I have a captive audience, thus saving the best ones for the book.

There was a young pilot called Wynn, who said that he would never spin. One day when flying rather low, he also tried it very slow. So we all watched that pilot Wynn, finding out that he could spin.”

The Vintage Group of the Kent Club presented a magnificent trophy for the Horseshoe Throwing competition, the “Camphillbillies” being the winners for this year. How this was achieved I know not, even though bribery is allowed under the rules. I can only assume that Kent, who scored the comps as well as competing, and were clearly loosing, decided that they would rather lose to Camphill rather than their arch rivals the “Flatlanders”.

Another new addition for this year was the “A4 Paper Aeroplane Comps” that I only mention because I won the “open class” by the ingenious interpretation of my own rules. All I can say is that in launching my self sustainer, a shaken ginger beer can with A4 wings, I forgot one of Newton’s Laws about equal and opposite when I pulled the tab. A further Camphill win came on the quiz night when diversionary tactics prevented other teams from realising who were the real enemies.

Better get back to a bit of flying now, Bob Machin won the Camphill Horn one day for “ Introducing a new “too fast” signal to the winch driver”, deploying the tail shute on his SHK. Another pilot, who I will not name, impressed the log keeper so much that she added an additional comment to the flying log “P1 has too much lip!”. Other recipients included the Pirat pilot, who followed to the letter the briefing, “approach at 65 knots”, whilst not noticing the wind sock was hanging like a bit of wet celery.

Highlights, Sylvia Sharman, Bob’s widow, attending to everyone’s pleasure, mine particularly for she cleaned and polished my caravan. This demonstration of how to succeed at Camphill led to her becoming the first person to win both the wine and horn on the same day. International visitors coming to see if the event was a good as they have been told it was, (it was), and going away happy, all the old members, or their children, calling in to see us. Particularly pleasing were the visits by Harald Lichtmananger, an instructor from the Austrian club at Kurfstien club, who laid a wreath at the memorial to Aloas Hassenkenoph, the pilot involved in the fatal accident at the 1954 Champs, and Klaus Schickling, who abandoned his 747 at Manchester to visit us for a couple of days. Unfortunately a previously unknown design flaw made it impossible to get his T21 through the cargo doors.

The end of Rally party, and 1934 – 54 celebration, started after a day of no flying, with one of our members, Steve Carver, giving an impressive power aerobatics display complete with smoke, possibly leaving local farmers thinking it was pay day again. A superb jazz band, complete with an instrument that could have flown as an over weight P2 in a T21, had us all dancing, which with the BBQ, brought to an end what all agreed had been “the best ever Rally”. Just goes to show how easily you can satisfy some people.

What about the aircraft?

If you want to know more you will have to wait for the article in VGC News.

(Cont'd)
"here as an old pilot from Derby,
whose crew were incredibly hardy.
On summer retrieves, they’d find him with ease,
and get back in time for the barbie”