Very few people would be aware of the Sydney University glider club, run by Dr Hayden that ran off Fred Weir’s farm north of Gerringong, at the Kiama bends. A Museum volunteer, Jock Marks, remembered it and asked Kiama Local History to research it. He recalls a friend of his who has or had an old Ford with ‘Kiama Gliding Club’ painted on the side!
Pictures of Doc Heydon’s Slingsby Gull can be found in the Australian War Memorial Archives at
http://www.womenaustralia.info/archives/IMP0289a.htm
This is what has been found so far…
http://www.kiamaindependent.com.au/06/jun21/news/04.htm
Bessie East’s obituary mentions the novel way Bruce East used to get back form Sydney while they were couritng…
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=237589
A typical glider of the era, the ‘Bat’.
A comprehensive history of early gliding, including the first recorded soaring at Saddleback Mountain by Phil Hamilton in 1936.
http://www.gliding.com.au/sx/clubhistfull.htm
Gliding really took off when the first Slingsby Gull came to Australia in 1939.
It was the first glider to cross the English Channel, in 1939 and compehensive detail photos can be found here.
http://www.glue-it.co.uk/aircraft/slingsby/kirby%20gull%201/index.html
The history of the Slingsby Gull 1 can be found here
http://www.nms.ac.uk/sailplanes.aspx
and more comprehensively here
http://www.sailplanedirectory.com/slingsb.htm
A vintage sailplane club still exists
http://www.vintagegliderclub.org/
The photo is titled ‘University of Sydney Gliding Club Kiama 1938’
Specifications of the Slingsby Gull I are:
Slingsby T. 12 Kirby Gull 1
Specifications
Span 15.33 m./ 50.2 ft
Area 14.86 sq. m. / 160 sq.ft.
Aspect ratio 15.8
Airfoil NACA 4416
Empty weight 172 kg. / 384 lb.
Payload 111 kg. / 240 lb.
Gross weight 283 kg. / 624 lb.
Wing loading 19.1 kg. / sq. m. / 3.91 lb. / sq. ft.
Structure 1-strut-braced wood/ fabric wings, wood/ fabric tail, wood fuselage.
Performance
L/D max. 24 77 ph / 41 kt / 48 mph
Min. sink 0.61 m/s / 2.0 fps /1.18 kt
64 kph / 35 kt / 40 mph
Other
Country of origin Great Britain
Designer F.N. Slingsby/ John S. Sproule/ Mungo Buxton
No. of seats 1
No. built 10
No. in the U.S. 1
The Gull 1, which first flew in 1938, was intended for pilots who had outgrown their Kirby Kite or Grunau Baby sailplanes. Spoilers were fitted to all Gulls after the first production example. In 1939, a Gull flown by Geoffrey Stephenson was the first sailplane ever to cross the English Channel in true soaring flight.
I believe that the photo shown above cannot be that of the Slingsby T.12 Gull I. The same photo is shown in sailplanedirectory, too. The giveaway is that the “real” Gull I has (had) wing struts, that can be clearly seen in the photos on http://www.glue-it.co.uk/aircraft/slingsby/kirby%20gull%201/index.html
But what is the sailplane in the photo above, who knows?
I never flew the Gull I (after taking part repair work on it, I was angry to learn that the test pilot had crashed it on the first flight. That was it!) But I did fly the similar-looking T.6 Kite in 1960. There are several Kites still going strong in the UK.