Sailplane pilot who wandered across the Iron Curtain in the 1960's.

[[email protected]]

I didn't get to watch much TV as a kid, my dad made me sit in my room and read books with a dictionary and Thesaurus, hence my magnificant SAT verbal score, but I digress. I find Youtube to be quite entertaining, moreso than much of current crop of garbage on TV and in watching some old shows I came across an edition of "To Tell the Truth," featuring a sailplane pilot who accidently flew into commie land during a World Championship in Germany in 1960 or thereabouts. Go to YOUTUBE and search for "To Tell The Truth, Sailplane pilot." Guy's name was Dick Streeter of Strieter... Perhaps some of the older guys here might have known him.

Walt Connelly
Former Tow Pilot
Now Happy Helicopter Pilot

[Tony[_5_]]

Schreder.

https://books.google.com/books?id=KL6DygVUR10C&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=dick+schreder+east+germany&source=bl&ots=PA5Ujcb_OA&sig=ACfU3U3oR52L8C0eSskhi2Etp5o0iEptyw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit_peVp5fnAhUaac0KHe-iChIQ6AEwA3oECAMQBA

[Paul T[_4_]]

At 13:17 22 January 2020, wrote:
>I didn't get to watch much TV as a kid, my dad made me sit in my
room and
>r=
>ead books with a dictionary and Thesaurus, hence my magnificant
SAT verbal
>=
>score, but I digress. I find Youtube to be quite entertaining,
moreso
>than=
> much of current crop of garbage on TV and in watching some old
shows I
>cam=
>e across an edition of "To Tell the Truth," featuring a sailplane pilot
>who=
> accidently flew into commie land during a World Championship in
Germany
>in=
> 1960 or thereabouts. Go to YOUTUBE and search for "To Tell The
Truth,
>Sa=
>ilplane pilot." Guy's name was Dick Streeter of Strieter... Perhaps
some
>=
>of the older guys here might have known him. =20
>
>Walt Connelly
>Former Tow Pilot
>Now Happy Helicopter Pilot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Schreder - you seriously have
not heard of him????

[Tango Whisky]

West German gliders ending up in East Germany used to be a regular thing (like one every two or three years until 1989).
There was an ADIZ along the border on the West German side (about 30 km deep), and ingress without flight plan into the ADIZ was treated as a felony, but gliders used to be tolerated by allied forces to fly within the ADIZ (sometimes for stretches of 200 or 300 km).

[[email protected]]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 9:30:06 AM UTC-5, Paul T wrote:
> At 13:17 22 January 2020, wrote:
> >I didn't get to watch much TV as a kid, my dad made me sit in my
> room and
> >r=
> >ead books with a dictionary and Thesaurus, hence my magnificant
> SAT verbal
> >=
> >score, but I digress. I find Youtube to be quite entertaining,
> moreso
> >than=
> > much of current crop of garbage on TV and in watching some old
> shows I
> >cam=
> >e across an edition of "To Tell the Truth," featuring a sailplane pilot
> >who=
> > accidently flew into commie land during a World Championship in
> Germany
> >in=
> > 1960 or thereabouts. Go to YOUTUBE and search for "To Tell The
> Truth,
> >Sa=
> >ilplane pilot." Guy's name was Dick Streeter of Strieter... Perhaps
> some
> >=
> >of the older guys here might have known him. =20
> >
> >Walt Connelly
> >Former Tow Pilot
> >Now Happy Helicopter Pilot
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Schreder - you seriously have
> not heard of him????

I am BAD with names, I will remember every word of a conversation for years and years but have a block quite often with names. I have towed a few of his designs though.

Walt Connelly
Happy Helicopter Pilot

[Bob Kuykendall]

Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHBzBpV9bOA

[Dan Marotta]

I wonder how many gliders flew from East Germany into West Berlin or
Germany...

On 1/22/2020 9:15 AM, Tango Whisky wrote:
> West German gliders ending up in East Germany used to be a regular thing (like one every two or three years until 1989).
> There was an ADIZ along the border on the West German side (about 30 km deep), and ingress without flight plan into the ADIZ was treated as a felony, but gliders used to be tolerated by allied forces to fly within the ADIZ (sometimes for stretches of 200 or 300 km).
>

--
Dan, 5J

[Michael Opitz]

At 18:59 22 January 2020, Bob Kuykendall wrote:
>Link:
>
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHBzBpV9bOA
>
I'm getting old. I was at the 1960 WGC as a 9 year old, and got to
meet the US Team. The SSA chartered a DC-6 (-7 maybe?) from
the old Idlewild (before it was renamed JFK) to Cologne for
members who wanted to buy tickets to go see the WGC. Our family
went along as a vacation and chance for my parents to revisit
friends and family they had not seen since the war. My brother and
I got to meet a lot of relatives and new friends.

We were there for the opening and closing days. I remember Dad's
old friend Albert Falderbaum performing two fantastic aerobatic
displays in his Lo-100. The first was mostly inside maneuvers, and
the second was mostly outside stuff, sort of the mirror image of the
first show, only all done inverted. He rolled inverted at about 50'
on tow right after take-off, and did the whole tow inverted.

The other thing I vividly remember was the Polish team flying over
the finish line in (welded wing) team formation in their Foka's and
Zephyr's. (and people were laughing... Who had the last laugh about
team flying?)

I do not remember Dick's story of having landed in East Germany
though. Much later, at the 1989 WGC in Wiener-Neustadt,
most of us competitors were able to participate in the fall of the
Iron Curtain by flying over Hungary (and 100 out of 115 pilots
landing out there) on the first two contest days with some guys
landing in a mine field on the border!


I think Cologne the first time I met Dick, but I may have met him
at the Elmira Nationals back in 1956(?). 10 years after Cologne, I
was 19 and flying against Dick (and XX, KS, DB, TB, SM, CI++) at
Elmira in the first US STD Nationals. That was 50 years ago now...
Time does fly.

RO

[Bob Kuykendall]

Thanks for taking the time to put that in writing!

--Bob K.

[AS]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 2:11:08 PM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
> I wonder how many gliders flew from East Germany into West Berlin or
> Germany...
>
> Dan, 5J

None.
If you wanted to pursue Soaring in East-Germany, you had to join the GST (Gesellschaft fuer Sport und Technik), essentially the Hitler-Youth with colors changed from brown to red.
I had a coworker (in the mid '90s, after the reunification) who was a GST glider flight instructor. He got grounded after some infractions and not being in line anymore with the system. Anyhow, for anyone wanting to fly XC, they had to file for some kind of a permit 12 months in advance with info like date, glider type, take-off and landing site, exact times, flight path, etc., etc., you know, just the basics. So in essence, there was no spontaneous XC.
The area my coworker flew at had frequently wave conditions. After the big-wigs became aware of the height they could achieve and they figured out how far they could glide from that height, it was also curtailed. Oh - the joy of living in the proletarian paradise ...

Uli
'AS'

[Bruce Friesen]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 5:17:24 AM UTC-8, wrote:
> I didn't get to watch much TV as a kid, my dad made me sit in my room and read books with a dictionary and Thesaurus, hence my magnificant SAT verbal score, but I digress. I find Youtube to be quite entertaining, moreso than much of current crop of garbage on TV and in watching some old shows I came across an edition of "To Tell the Truth," featuring a sailplane pilot who accidently flew into commie land during a World Championship in Germany in 1960 or thereabouts. Go to YOUTUBE and search for "To Tell The Truth, Sailplane pilot." Guy's name was Dick Streeter of Strieter... Perhaps some of the older guys here might have known him.
>
> Walt Connelly
> Former Tow Pilot
> Now Happy Helicopter Pilot

Seeing this thread, I half expected a link to a famous escapate by a regular poster on the board, John Firth.

Here is the link, to an article written by Christine Firth in 1978, about John's adventure in the 1972 World Contest in Yugoslavia.

https://www.wgc.mb.ca/static/freeflight/78_03.pdf

Page 20, "Excapades".

Ah, the good old days!

Bruce Friesen

[Delta8]

I wonder how many gliders flew from East Germany into West Berlin or
Germany...

On 1/22/2020 9:15 AM, Tango Whisky wrote:
West German gliders ending up in East Germany used to be a regular thing (like one every two or three years until 1989).
There was an ADIZ along the border on the West German side (about 30 km deep), and ingress without flight plan into the ADIZ was treated as a felony, but gliders used to be tolerated by allied forces to fly within the ADIZ (sometimes for stretches of 200 or 300 km).


--
Dan, 5J

Not a glider but a gutsy Ultra light escape .
https://www.readersdigest.ca/culture/escape-east-germany/

[john firth]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 8:17:24 AM UTC-5, wrote:
> I didn't get to watch much TV as a kid, my dad made me sit in my room and read books with a dictionary and Thesaurus, hence my magnificant SAT verbal score, but I digress. I find Youtube to be quite entertaining, moreso than much of current crop of garbage on TV and in watching some old shows I came across an edition of "To Tell the Truth," featuring a sailplane pilot who accidently flew into commie land during a World Championship in Germany in 1960 or thereabouts. Go to YOUTUBE and search for "To Tell The Truth, Sailplane pilot." Guy's name was Dick Streeter of Strieter... Perhaps some of the older guys here might have known him.
>
> Walt Connelly
> Former Tow Pilot
> Now Happy Helicopter Pilot

Re my adventure in Roumania: It was the crew who had the adventure;
I just sat around feasting on local produce waiting to be rescued.
JMF

[Dan Marotta]

I got a great laugh out of the story!

On 1/23/2020 12:42 PM, john firth wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 8:17:24 AM UTC-5, wrote:
>> I didn't get to watch much TV as a kid, my dad made me sit in my room and read books with a dictionary and Thesaurus, hence my magnificant SAT verbal score, but I digress. I find Youtube to be quite entertaining, moreso than much of current crop of garbage on TV and in watching some old shows I came across an edition of "To Tell the Truth," featuring a sailplane pilot who accidently flew into commie land during a World Championship in Germany in 1960 or thereabouts. Go to YOUTUBE and search for "To Tell The Truth, Sailplane pilot." Guy's name was Dick Streeter of Strieter... Perhaps some of the older guys here might have known him.
>>
>> Walt Connelly
>> Former Tow Pilot
>> Now Happy Helicopter Pilot
> Re my adventure in Roumania: It was the crew who had the adventure;
> I just sat around feasting on local produce waiting to be rescued.
> JMF

--
Dan, 5J

[Shaun Wheeler]

If I picked two epic flights from my lifetime the first would have to be that of Larry Walters with a lawn chair and a pile of weather balloons. The other would be the Cessna that landed in Red Square.

[kinsell]

On 1/23/20 11:22 PM, Shaun Wheeler wrote:
> If I picked two epic flights from my lifetime the first would have to be that of Larry Walters with a lawn chair and a pile of weather balloons. The other would be the Cessna that landed in Red Square.
>

Look up "Taffy Holden, the accidental Lightning pilot" on youtube. The
guy in the lawnchair has nothing on him, other than getting more publicity.

[Shaun Wheeler]

On Friday, January 24, 2020 at 12:56:51 AM UTC-6, kinsell wrote:
> On 1/23/20 11:22 PM, Shaun Wheeler wrote:
> > If I picked two epic flights from my lifetime the first would have to be that of Larry Walters with a lawn chair and a pile of weather balloons. The other would be the Cessna that landed in Red Square.
> >
>
> Look up "Taffy Holden, the accidental Lightning pilot" on youtube. The
> guy in the lawnchair has nothing on him, other than getting more publicity.

Incredible.

[Eric Munk]

Then there's the lady who rode the tail of a Spitfire by accident in
1945...
https://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk/artefact-month/the-waaf-who-flew-a-circuit-on-a-spitfire

[kinsell]

On 1/24/20 1:38 AM, Eric Munk wrote:
> Then there's the lady who rode the tail of a Spitfire by accident in
> 1945...
> https://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk/artefact-month/the-waaf-who-flew-a-circuit-on-a-spitfire
>

Don't forget Mike Hughes, who built a steam-powered rocket and launched
himself 2000 in the air. Didn't take much piloting skill, but you sure
have to admire his G force tolerance.

[Colten Coughlin]

On Friday, January 24, 2020 at 9:04:16 AM UTC-6, kinsell wrote:
> On 1/24/20 1:38 AM, Eric Munk wrote:
> > Then there's the lady who rode the tail of a Spitfire by accident in
> > 1945...
> > https://www.tangmere-museum.org.uk/artefact-month/the-waaf-who-flew-a-circuit-on-a-spitfire
> >
>
> Don't forget Mike Hughes, who built a steam-powered rocket and launched
> himself 2000 in the air. Didn't take much piloting skill, but you sure
> have to admire his G force tolerance.

have you seen the documentary? it is hilarious!