51,849 feet by BobRodwell?

I think you will find that this was an article WRITTEN by Bob Rodwell who
was a journalist as well as the Chairman of the Ulster Gilding Club. He was
not the pilot involved.

The "record" flight was, as I remember, not ratified as there was very good
grounds to think that the barograph trace was not consistent with the
claimed event. It was claimed to be a wave climb upwind of a thundercloud.
A phenomenon never before encountered to such heights .The pilot also landed
away from base and only one of the barographs showed a trace.

I remember when the event was reported that my partner, who was a dentist,
expressed doubts at the pilots claim that the cold was so intense that his
tooth fillings fell out There were several inconsistencies which caused a
very detailed investigation and the record claim was not accepted. As the
pilot concerned threatened legal action it could not be stated that the
claim was actually fraudulent.

No doubt some one who was involved in the BGA at the time knows more about
it? Ian Strachan maybe ?


Gary Boggs wrote in message
...
I've been looking through some old Soaring magazines and in the June, 1977
issue there's an article about a record flight by Bob Rodwell to 51,849
feet
on March 29th of that year. Can someone tell me why that isn't the
current
altitude record? Sounds like he's lucky to be alive after having his
controls mostly frozen for most of the descent. In the article it says
that
after finding his spoilers frozen shut, he put his Skylark 4 into a 38,000
foot spin that had an estimated 400 turns! Is Bob still around and is he
still soaring? He would be in his late 70's now.

--
Gary Boggs
3650 Airport Dr.
Hood River, Oregon, USA
97031-9613

You are confusing the two height claims by Mike Field.

The first claim for the U.K. local height record was flown from a launch at
Booker Gliding Club in a club owned glider (a Skylark 3g I think) and was
done by climbing in a cu-nim to 25-30,000 ft., and then climbing in wave in
front of the cloud. The flight finished with a field landing (not
surprising with a flight of this nature), he was retrieved by the Chief
Flying Instructor of his club, who I knew and who saw no reason to doubt
him.

This type of flight is well known, but I have not heard of any other flights
of this type to such heights. I did not know about the dental "evidence",
my own doubts related to the oxygen system he used, a 120 litre portable
system with one of those dreadful medical re-breather bag masks, which I
thought would not have withstood the cold and only had an endurance of 1
hour.

Although quite a few people were worried the claim was allowed, and I know
one person involved with the claim who still thinks that he could have done
it. The record was subsequently withdrawn when the second claim was shown
to be fraudulent.

The second claim for a world record was flown in a Skylark 4 and was
sponsored by the Daily Telegraph, but the journalist involved was not a
glider pilot and their gliding correspondent Anne Ince was not involved
(funny that!). The launch and landing were at Feshie Bridge in Scotland,
and the flight was supposed to have been done in wave.

There were so many oddities about this flight that no-one really believed
it, and it was very carefully investigated. When the barograph trace was
examined under a magnifying glass it was found that part of the trace was
double, and that the descent was so steep it could only have been drawn on
the drum if it rotated backwards for part of the time! In other words the
trace had been drawn freehand and not by the barograph. I don't know how
he got round the official observer.

W.J. (Bill) Dean (U.K.).
Remove "ic" to reply.


"Silent Flyer" ] wrote in message
...

I think you will find that this was an article WRITTEN by Bob Rodwell who
was a journalist as well as the Chairman of the Ulster Gilding Club. He
was not the pilot involved.

The "record" flight was, as I remember, not ratified as there was very
good grounds to think that the barograph trace was not consistent with the
claimed event. It was claimed to be a wave climb upwind of a
thundercloud. A phenomenon never before encountered to such heights.
The pilot also landed away from base and only one of the barographs showed
a trace.

I remember when the event was reported that my partner, who was a
dentist, expressed doubts at the pilots claim that the cold was so intense
that his tooth fillings fell out. There were several inconsistencies
which caused a very detailed investigation and the record claim was not
accepted. As the pilot concerned threatened legal action it could not be
stated that the claim was actually fraudulent.

No doubt some one who was involved in the BGA at the time knows more about
it? Ian Strachan maybe ?