"Robin Birch" wrote in message
...
In message , Alistair
Wright writes
Congrats to Dennis for earning his badge in the way the original founders
of
gliding intended. Though long retired from the sport I can well
understand
how Dennis must feel. I did my five hours in smoky thermals over
Stoke-on-Trent (UK), my height off a very low launch at Sutton Bank in
Yorkshire both of those in an old wooden Olympia 2. Distance was in a Ka8
from Dunstable. It took fourteen years all told because I was instructing
within a year of going solo and could never get into a single seater. In
my
view all sports are going the same way -- high performance equipment being
used against the old low performance goals. I guess the Silver distance
should be at least 150Km to level the playing field.

Or done in a T31 :-)

Robin

That's a bit harsh! I did know a guy who did it in a T21b though. The cross
country was always the challenge in the UK in the 60s -- there were some
quite competent aircraft around but most of us did not own or get to fly
them. I scored the 1971 Nationals at Husbands Bosworth and setting a 300k
O/R was a big deal -- and only a few got round. Plastic hadn't been
invented and everybody flew wooden ships. We got a lot of outlanding
practice in those days.

Alistair Wright