Wally Kahn article

[Frank Whiteley]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/wally-kahn-recordbreaking-glider-pilot-who-helped-turn-his-pursuit-into-a-competitive-sport-and-a-popular-leisure-activity-10237507.html

[son_of_flubber]

Interesting about the purchase of Lasham field.

Is the sale of of cheap military surplus airfields in UK/Europe one of the factors that enabled winch launching to take root in UK/Europe?

[Julian Rees]

At 13:22 09 May 2015, son_of_flubber wrote:
>Interesting about the purchase of Lasham field.
>
>Is the sale of of cheap military surplus airfields in UK/Europe one of
the
>factors that enabled winch launching to take root in UK/Europe?
>
You may be right.....

A large number of UK gliding clubs set up on ex-military airfields post
war, joining a small number of (mainly hill-top) pre-war sites. Most of the
former were initially leased from the Ministry of Defence, and some clubs
were later successful in purchasing the sites giving them single use
airfields with long runway(s).

Many other UK ex WWII airfields were sold & broken up for hardcore - often
to supply the growing highway network. If you fly over some parts of the UK
they are so closely spaced that the bomber circuit patterns must have
nearly overlapped!

Typically UK gliding clubs operated at sites which were gliding only, and
used a mixture of A/T and winch or sometimes an automotive equivalent such
as "reverse pulley" or direct car launch.

However I know the Yorkshire club bought an ex-RAF Tiger Moth for £25-00
(there were hangers full of them!) after the war so A/T was available. But
I think light aircraft/Tug running costs have historically been much
higher in UK than US due to fuel costs and legislative environment.

I would guess the widespread use of winch launch has been driven by costs,
low noise footprint and ease of operation at the mainly volunteer run clubs
on their own sites. Initially winches were often built by club members
using an old truck or bus as a donor & I know one club at least which used
an old WWII balloon winch. Latterly clubs use professionally built winches
of course.

Certainly a shared power/gliding site makes winch launching more
difficult.For another club history see :

http://www.bggc.co.uk/index.php/about-the-club/club-history

[xcnick]

On Friday, May 8, 2015 at 3:36:54 PM UTC-7, Frank Whiteley wrote:
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/wally-kahn-recordbreaking-glider-pilot-who-helped-turn-his-pursuit-into-a-competitive-sport-and-a-popular-leisure-activity-10237507.html

Wally has left many legacies for soaring. One was he did many write ups on his friends when they passed. Thank you for sharing this link about him.

He personally shared his extensive library about soaring history with me and made many introductions when I wrote the book "Naomi the Aviatrix." He has since scanned his library about soaring making them available to as many people as possible. http://www.lakesgc.co.uk/mainwebpages/eBook%20Library/

My condolences to his daughter and the rest of his family.