Part 1 - ASK13
People associated with radio-controlled scale model gliders may be divided into the following classes:
(1) Glidermen. They fly the gliders (yes, they tend to be men, hence the term).
(2) Glidermasters. They build gliders as a hobby.
(3) Glider-Groupies. People who are enamoured with gliders but lack the ability to either fly or build them, and stick around the Glidermen and Glidermasters in the vain hope that some of the romance and glamour will rub off on them.
Needless to say, I am one of the latter. I lack the emotional detachment necessary for flying a glider, and since one needs to understand something about flying gliders before one can build them I would be quite hopeless at that, too. But well, one can’t be good at everything, so when it comes to gliders I content myself with admiring and encouraging the masters in the field.
Glidermen tend to operate in summer, so in the off-season it is easy to suffer from withdrawal symptoms. To counter this, I had long dreamed of a Glider-Mobile to affix to the ceiling of my bedroom, so I could watch the gliders gently circle and glide, as though riding on a thermal on a balmy summer’s day. One can, of course, buy such things, but all I could find were versions for children with either rough-hewn, primitive, blimpish airplanes, or flimsy balsawood versions which flew alright but did not look very much like the real thing. That’s not what I wanted!
When I first started to hang out with Glidermen & Masters I imagined that they lived in houses or apartments with huge rooms and high ceilings, from which they suspended their gliders when not in use. I fondly thought of my glamorous friends building their new creations beneath a collection of well-used well-loved sailplanes, all hung from the ceiling with strong ropes and carefully positioned to show off to best advantage. I imagined them relaxing after a hard day’s work on a comfortable sofa, listening to Rachmaninoff while watching their gliders slowly sway in a little current drifting in through the open window, dreaming of their flights of the previous summer and contemplating the exploits of the coming season.
The reality, as so often, turned out to be less romantic! Instead of hanging their trusty gliders from the ceiling they dismember them and wrap each part in swaddling clothes and store them away for the winter. Very practical, but where is the romance in that? I was determined to crowd the airspace above my bed with gliders!
To this end I started to importune my favourite Glidermaster, until he made me a scale model of the ASK13. Beautifully made of balsawood, with a plastic canopy, and painted in white and red, just like the real glider it is a model of. I admired it profusely, and transported it home with much worry & trepidation, since it was such a fragile little thing, and spent a considerable amount of time considering how to best show-case it. I briefly considered the idea of a mobile, but a mobile with just one glider hanging from it would be both unstable and ridiculous, so I abandoned this idea. After much experimentation I attached the ASK13 onto the top of a carving of an African lady with a hair-do reminiscent of Marge Simpson. It looks like the glider has just landed on the carving to rest for a while before flying off again, and I am quite pleased with it.
First it lived in the dining room, just below two old photos of La Bourboule which I had bought on the internet in the US US Nebraska
But later, as my efforts to populate the airspace of my bedroom became increasingly successful, I decided to move both photos and glider into my bedroom so as to enjoy the company of the other gliders who were by now hanging from its ceiling. This was a very good move, as I shall relate in due course, because the Little Visitors, which now live in my church-tower and mobile, became attracted to my house after they had spied the ASK13 through the window one day.
Anyway, this is what the ASK13 looks like now:
And the general setting:
I do apologise about the glare in the photo, but the corner is a little dark and the flash always causes these reflections. Here is another try:
This is still my favourite glider, although the glider statue I shall feature in a week or two is also close to my heart.
I should perhaps have mentioned that the ASK13 was developed in 1965 by Rudolf Kaiser and produced by Alexander Schleicher. It is a two seater and still widely used for training glider pilots. But well, I am interested in gliders on a personal, rather than species level, and just like I can talk for hours about my Beloved Mouser without once mentioning his race, I can admire and enjoy a glider without any curiosity as to his or her specifications. This one is called Rudi-Alexis, by the way.
