16 Soaring • August 2019 • http://www.ssa.org
the airport manager had tied a rope
between the huge tree and the last
hangar to keep the spectators out of
contention when the airport was ac-
tive. So while rolling lightly on the
glider’s main wheel – that is, the glider
really wanted to continue flying – this
rope was encountered, tested, and
failed, leaving us in the ridiculous situ-
ation of proceeding slightly downslope
going lickety-split on the way to town
in the glider.
After about 50 yards, I managed to
get the 2-22 stopped. Then there were
a number of seconds of complete si-
lence, except for my loud heart pound-
ing. Looking back, I could see 12 to
15 fellow club members (led by Tom
Knauff ) who had successfully man-
aged to either duck, fall flat on the
ground, or run to miss being hit by
the glider, all now running down the
road toward the glider, not uttering a
word, and all with seriously concerned
expressions on their faces. My first
thought was: Wow, I scattered them and
now they’re provoked! Only after they
arrived at the glider and could see that
everything was OK, did they burst out
laughing.
The laughing continued while push-
ing the glider back up the road to the
hangars, until we arrived back at the
tree and hangar where the rope had
been extended. Then one of the mem-
bers pushing and holding a wingtip up
shouted, “Hold on a minute, my tip
is going to hit the tree,” and then the
other tip holder shouted that he was
going to hit the hangar! It took sev-
eral minutes of jostling the glider back
and forth to where finally the glider
was positioned back between the tree
and hangar. It was later estimated that
each tip had only about 1 ½ inches of
clearance when I had flown between
the hangar and the tree! While this
feat made me look pretty good, if I
were to try to do it again, it might take
me 100 attempts before again gettingthe glider through the available space
between the tree and the hangars ...
while demolishing a bunch of 2-22s
in the attempts.
Note: Schweizer’s production of
subsequent trainer models was
changed on the 2-22 with respect to
the cockpit actuation handles for the
tow release and the spoilers by provid-
ing them with a larger panel mounting
separation distance, as well as config-
uring the handles differently from each
other by using only one T-handle.Second Incident
On a fall weekend, our club flying
site was approximately 5 miles by air
from our usually used old State Col-
lege grass strip airport. Our club
president and mentor, Bill Clark, had
scouted out a farmer’s field that was
close enough to an interesting ridge,
as well as being sufficiently long for
good ridge soaring, and had obtained
permission for us to use the field for