It was about noon on a beautiful Saturday September 4, 1993. At the Panhandle, Texas airport, Dick Wilfong and I were standing in the bright sunshine admiring a beautiful 1977 SZD-41A Jantar Standard sailplane. I looked at Dick and he looked at me. "Now, who's going to fly it?" we asked each other at the same time.
Dick and I had just assembled our sleek, white, fiberglass, high-performance, retractable-gear, T-tail, single-seat Jantar Standard sailplane and it was ready to fly. However, neither of us had ever flown this Jantar sailplane before. Actually, neither of us had ever flown
any Jantar sailplane before. As a matter of fact, neither of us had ever seen any Jantar sailplane fly
at all. But, it looked good. The previous owner
told us it would fly. All the pieces went together as advertised, and, after we assembled it, we didn't have any pieces left! It
must be ready to fly.
Well, the tow-plane pilot was waiting and the Jantar looked like it was ready to go. Now what do we do?
1977 SZD-41A Jantar Standard Glider N11XH at the Panhandle, Texas airport
...all dressed up and waiting for a pilot.
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Here are the aircraft specs from Wikipedia:
General characteristics
Crew: 1
Length: 7.11 m (23 ft 4 in)
Wingspan: 15 m (49 ft 2 ½ in)
Height: 1.51 m (4 ft 11 in)
Wing area: 10.66 m2 (114.75 ft2)
Aspect ratio: 21.1
Wing profile: NN 8
Empty weight: 244 kg (538 lb)
Gross weight: 360 kg (794 lb), with ballast 460 kg (1,014 lb)
Performance
Maximum speed: 250 km/h (155 mph)
Stall speed: with ballast 80km/h (50 mph), without ballast 68 km/h (42.25 mph)
G limits: * without ballast 5.3 / -2.65
with ballast 4.14 / -2.5
ultimate 7.95 / -3.98
Maximum glide ratio: 38 @ 92 km/h (57 mph) no ballast, 38 @ 105.2 km/h (65 mph) with ballast
Rate of sink: with ballast 0.69 m/s (136 ft/min), without ballast 0.6 m/s (118 ft/min)
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How Dick and I ended up wondering who was going to fly this sailplane
For 6 months, Dick Wilfong and I had looked for a sailplane to buy. We traveled to Dallas, but didn't like any of the 'for sale' sailplanes we saw there.
Midlothian, Texas (near Dallas) is a great glider airport but, this weekend,
Dick (hatless) and I found no used sailplane that we wanted to buy.
A few weekends later, Dick and I traveled to the Decatur, Texas airport and met a gentleman from Louisiana. He had a 1977 Jantar Standard and had agreed to meet us about halfway between our two home cities to show us his sailplane.
We peeked into the long glider trailer. (Glider, sailplane, we use the term interchangeably.) The plane looked good, the trailer and plane were clean. We needed a closer look.
I'll not go into lots of detail here, but, we pulled the fuselage halfway out of the trailer, removed and attached one wing, attached a wing dolly to that wing in order to keep the aircraft level, removed and attached the other wing, pulled the glider completely out of the trailer, and, then, removed and attached the horizontal stabilizer. During this process, the owner gave us continuous detailed instructions and answered all of our questions. When the glider was assembled, we took turns sitting in the single-person cockpit where we buckled the 4-point seat belt; latched the canopy; worked the stick, rudder, brakes, spoilers; did
not retract the single, center-wheel landing gear; operated the tow-rope release handle; and switched and clicked all of the electrical equipment.
When we had seen everything, we returned the aircraft to the trailer reversing the order that the pieces had been taken out. Everything was smooth and simple; all made sense. Of course, the owner and long-time pilot of this sailplane made everything go smoothly, but, Dick and I did catch on fast.
Dick and I ran out of questions and had no qualms about anything. It was a deal. We shook hands with the seller, paid the man, hooked the trailer up to my white Cressida and headed for Amarillo. We had a sailplane.
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Two weeks later, we faced our dilemma: "Now, who's going to fly it?"
Dick said, "Want to flip a coin?"
I said, "Great."
Dick took out a coin and said, "Heads or tails?"
I said, "Wait, does the winner fly or does the winner watch?" We laughed and agreed that the winner would fly.
"Heads," I said.
Heads it was.
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First flight
Dick and I pushed the Jantar to the north end of runway 17 at the Panhandle Airport. We removed the tail and wing dollies and I walked around the plane one more time. Everything was solid, all control surfaces reacted correctly to positive and negative control inputs, we had streamlined all open seams with white friction tape, battery was fully charged, the removable windshield was clean, parachute had a current inspection date, main tire was properly inflated, tow rope hooked and unhooked properly--I was ready to hop aboard.
I got into the plane and buckled in. Dick picked up the canopy, set it in place and I locked both sides. Dick hooked the tow rope to the nose hook, pulled it tight and signaled me to released it. I did and it worked fine. Dick, hooked the tow rope up again and signaled for the tow plane to take out the slack in the rope.
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This is the club's Cessna 182 tow plane. On soaring days, if I was not flying a glider, I was flying the tow plane. (If you click the photo to enlarge it, you can see the tail hook at the bottom of the airplane's tail. Typically, the glider pilot, at 2,000 AGL, released from the tow rope and headed out. The tow plane then drug the tow rope back to the airport, and, at about 200 feet over the approach end of the runway, dropped the tow rope so that it fell right onto the runway numbers. By the time the tow plane landed and taxied back to the starting point on the runway, the ground crew had positioned the next glider, hooked the tow rope to the nose of the glider and were waiting to hook the rope to the tow plane.)
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The tow plane taxied ahead until the tow plane signaller raised his arms and crossed his wrists. Now, the tow rope laid flat on the runway and had no curls. I checked the instruments. Dick held up the tail dolly so that I could see and verify that it had been removed from the plane (you do
not want to take off with the tail dolly attached to the plane). The tow plane signaller stood expectantly beside the tow plane looking back at the glider sitting 200 feet behind. Eight glider pilots stood beside the runway watching and waiting. The take off checklist was complete and I had nothing else to do but fly.
With my feet on the rudder pedals, my right hand on the stick and my mind focused laser-like on the scene through the windshield, I quickly glanced at Dick, who was standing at my right wing-tip, and gave him a thumbs up. Dick stooped down and lifted the right wing tip until the wings were level. Only by pulling the tow rope release handle now can I stop the next steps.
The tow plane signaller saw the wings become level and began slinging his left arm in a complete, vertical circular motion. A light cloud of dust rose behind the tow plane, the rope rose from the ground and we were moving forward. Dick, holding the wing tip, walked and then ran for 5 to 10 seconds and then let go. With the main gear and tail wheel still on the ground, I steered the glider--with aileron, rudder and elevator--down the runway behind the tow plane. Gently pushing forward on the stick, I raised the tail wheel. Keeping wings level, fuselage straight and nose level, we gained speed. At some speed--probably around 40 to 50 knots (you do not look at the instruments much during takeoff)--the plane lifted off the ground.
Now the hard part
I was now flying the glider but the tow plane needed another 10 to 20 seconds to get into the air. Until the tow plane leaves the ground, I must fly perfect formation behind him--rope taut, wings level, same altitude and directly behind the tow plane's tail. I must nail it! (The high-performance fiberglass 'rocket' glider wants to climb like, well, a rocket, but I must climb no higher than the tow plane. If I zoom up, I'll lift the tail of the tow plane making the tow plane uncontrollable. And, if I move left or right, the tow plane becomes uncontrollable. And, if I intentionally or unintentionally deploy the spoilers, drag increases so much that the tow plane can't reach takeoff speed. If any of those things happen, the tow plane pilot will--as agreed to beforehand--immediately release his end of the tow rope, fly away freely and bid me farewell--have a nice day! Understood rule between the tow-plane pilot and the glider pilot--hurt yourself if you wish but you're not going to hurt us both.)
I stayed behind the tow plane as he gained speed and lifted off the ground. With both of us in the air, I kept the rope taut, stayed at his altitude and matched his bank during turns. He circled the airport once while heading for a release altitude of two thousand feet above the ground and he stayed close to the airport just in case I screwed up and caused a rope break. See photo and note below.
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Note - On August 15, 1993, while flying a two-seater Grob 103 in Hobbs, New Mexico (see photo above), I did have a rope break at 500 feet. I circled back, landed, got a new tow rope and flew 7 more flights trying very hard not to do that again. (While climbing out on tow, the glider pilot periodically glances at the altimeter, and, upon passing 400 feet, says, out loud, "Four hundred feet." Glider pilot rule: if you have a rope break before you have said, "Four hundred feet," you land straight ahead no matter what. Everything
might be okay. If you have a rope break after you have said, "Four hundred feet," you immediately turn into the wind, complete your turn toward the airport of departure, and, land. Everything
will be okay!)
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During tow, we passed through some rising air and the tow pilot then planned our circuitous, rising flight so that I would be in that rising air when our little two-plane formation reached an altitude of 2,000 feet above the ground. The tow plane pilot and I both knew what was happening because we were both glider and tow plane pilots and we both knew that we were looking for rising air.
At 2,000 feet above the ground, about 3 miles southwest of the Panhandle airport, on a southwest heading, I decided that this thermal would work, so, I released the tow rope, and, at that moment I began a steep climbing turn to the right, and, the tow plane--dragging the 200 foot tow rope--began a descending left turn that would take him away from me. I immediately retracted the landing gear to reduce drag. (During tow, we leave the gear down causing some drag, because, the slick, high performance glider can too easily overtake the tow plane.)
The rest is history. I flew the beautiful Jantar Standard for 42 minutes that day--climbing and turning like a silent beautiful, white bird over the clear blue skies of Texas Panhandle. During the next few years, I would take this sailplane up to 22,000 feet and make flights longer than three hours. Like a dream. But, it was real. I could be a test pilot!
Richard landing the Jantar Standard N11XH at the Panhandle, Texas airport.
(circa 1995)
Dick Wilfong, Bill Scholl (the other owner of this aircraft) and I flew the Jantar many hours over the Texas Panhandle and northeastern New Mexico. Our Jantar flying days ended when Dick moved to Austin and the local soaring club dissolved. Maybe later.
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