Evening star., 1934-09-30
Daring Gliding Sport Finds Picturesque Center
In Luxmiant Meadow Atop Peak in Blue Ridge
Quest for New World
Records to Be Launched
From National Park.
u. S. Record of 10000
Feet Set When Pilots
Find Strange Currents.

A strangely luXuriant mountaln-top
meadow, overlooking hundreds Of
square miles of the valley of the
Shenandoah and the rolling Virginia
Piedmont, guarded by the sharp
green-bearded peaks of the high Blue
Ridge, has become the picturesque
scene of an American bid for world
supremacy in one of the most daring
sports that thrills the blood of modern
SportSmen.
The once lonely meadow today is a
scene of buStling activity as bronzed,
clear-eyed youngsters breast the keen
mountain winds in broad-Wlnged,
fragile looking sailplanes, in quest OF
new world records for motorlesS air
planes.
Although the meadow, in the heart
of the new Shenandoah National
Park. has Just been officially opened
by the Federal Government as ma
tional glider park, it already has wit
messed the setting of new American
soaring record-a double record, since
it was set simultaneously by two OF
the finest soaring planes the country
has produced, flying in close for
nation.
Climb 10000 Feet.
Taking off in the closing gusts of a
violent mountain thunderstorm, the
two craft climbed together above the
forbidding wilderness of the great
mountains to an altitude of some TO-
600 feet above sea level, $500 feet
above the point of take-off. But for
the coming of nightfall, they prob
ably could have set new world altl-
tude record; they were still being car
ried up at a rate of 10 feet second
on an ascending air current, of a
type unknown to either of the expert
enced pilots, when approaching dark
ness forced them to give up the at
tempt. They had no lights on their
ships and dared not risk night land
ing in the mountains.
The men who made this flight,
Warren E. Eaton, president of the
Soaring Society of America, and
Levin Berringer of Philadelphia, and
the other well-known soaring pilots
who have gathered at Big Meadows in
an informal meet of the most purely
sporting character, are firmly con-
vinced after week on the scene that
this mountain meadow, only IS miles
on an airline from the National Cap
ital, is one of the finest soaring camps
in the world.
They feel certain that it is only a
question of time until some real rec
ords are achieved. They have been
disappointed by the brand of Sep
tember weather served up to them
during the past week, but they ex-
pect to return again and again, if
present weather does not serve, until
they are able to get the ideal combi-
nation of circumstances necessary for
record flying.
Record Is 233 Miles.
The records they must break to
gain American supremacy are truly
formidable. To smash the existing
world distance record they must fly
more than 233 miles. The world rec
ord of 158 miles, established by Rich
ard c. du Pont, from Elmira, N. Y,
almost into New York City, early in
the Summer, was lost to Germany by
virtue of magnificent 233-mile
flight soon after Du Points record
had been established
To better the German mark an
American soaring pilot starting from
Big Meadows must cruise along the
mountains, sustained only by the
tickle, tricky up currents of air, along
the length of the Virginia Blue Ridge,
across the Potomac River into Mary
land, along the Maryland mountains
past Frederick, where Du Pont landed
after 122-mile flight from Waynes-
boro, Va, last year; across the Mason
and Dixon line into Pennsylvania
and on up the line of the PennSyl-
vania mountains as far as Allentown.
To establish a really worthwhile
record Americas glider pilots hope
to soar from Big Meadows into the
mountains of New York State
The flight must, of course, be made
nonstop. Not for more than a mo-
ment in this long flight may the pilot
lose his supporting up currents. Such
a flight can be made only when there
is a strong, steady wind from the
northwest or between west and north
west along the entire mountain chain
from Virginia into New York There
can be no break in the up currents.
Such flight requires skill. determi-
nation and experience of the uncer-
ta1nties of air currents which make
the requirements of most other sports
seem tame.
Weather Plays Role.
To smash the world altitude record
for motorless flight requires skill of
nearly as great an order. The advan-
tage of altitude record soaring, how
ever, is that the necessary weather
conditions may be confined to only a
small area. There is not the same
need for waiting for certain COM
bination of conditions along an area
stretching for hundreds of miles.
The world soaring altitude record
now is between $4,000 and $4,000 feet,
also established by German pilot
during a soaring expedition in South
America near Buenos Aires. Glider
altitude records are measured above
the point of take-off. To gain an ex-
ira 1000 or more feet, Americas pilots
hope to take off from the floor of the
Shenandoah Valley, below Big Mead
ows, to catch the Valley "thermals, ,"
or heat up-currents Of the type which
form the towering alto cumuluS