At 20:34 5/09/2011, you wrote:
Hey people,
The place was called SOUTH CERNEY
That's with an E not an A.
Mike (Borgelt)
Thanks Mike, I was beginning to wonder when somebody would pick that
up! I was there for one day of the 1965 Worlds, having flown my first
glider flight there 2 years previously on an Air Cadet Air Experience Day.
I rode my push bike out from Bristol (about 55 km each way!) with a
school mate, and fortunately not only was it a nice day but the
previous day had been a Free Distance task and several competitors
had overnight retrieves from as far away as Yorkshire, about 250 km -
so the Saturday was a rest day. Lots of the gliders were doing some
local soaring, and there was plenty to see. At that stage my mate and
I were still not solo, but had signed on for an Air Cadet course
which came up later in the year. My mate joined the RAF on leaving
school, duxed his course at Cranwell and then spent his first 6
months flying Chipmunks with a University Air Squadron before getting
a proper flying posting. Sadly, he was killed in an accident 6 years
later over the North Sea, when his Jaguar strike aircraft hit the
water in bad weather. I went on to become a science teacher and came
to Australia in time to crew at the Waikerie World Championships.
Tony Gaze (who had flown in the 1960 Worlds in Germany) was a member
of the local gliding club which I later joined, and he recalls that
the Aussie team found great difficulty navigating because they found
it hard to adjust to the sun being in the south at midday. Also the
Americans, after driving through the Cotswold villages of Stow on the
Wold and Bourton on the Water, came across a sign saying Mud On The
Road and thought it was another quaint English village name!
Some of the people who were involved at South Cerney were also at
Waikerie, both Australians and others. Wally Wallington directed both
(SC as a Brit and WKI as an Australian) and later directed the
Benalla Worlds in 1987. Dickie Feakes, who was British Team Captain
in 73, is still active in gliding and I met him at Bicester in the UK
last year. John Williamson flew in both contests, and later was
Manager at Benalla for several years. Because of the distance, many
of the imported gliders that flew at Waikerie were sold here after
the comp, and a number of them are still flying 38 years later.
Just reminiscing....
Wombat
_______________________________________________
Aus-soaring mailing list
Aus-soaring@lists.internode.on.net
To check or change subscription details, visit:
http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
