Given the size of my The Little House, I have to limit my
personal possessions and furniture somewhat.
Despite my dictum ‘My House maybe small but my Dreams are Big!’ I have
to admit that one can’t put a gallon into a pint jar (though Heaven knows I
tried), and therefore, painful as it is to me, most of my gliders are small, if
not to say, tiny.
In the previous posts about my glider collection I covered
its large members, not because they are my favourites but because they are
easiest to photograph! Taking pictures
of small objects with my little camera, especially in dark conditions,
frequently results in blurry photos, giving the impression that they depict not
so much little gliders as visitors from Fairyland. This is unfortunate, because the story of the
Tiny Visitors, which I shall recount in due course, is unbelievable enough, and
I have no desire to further undermine my credibility by accompanying it with
fuzzy photos.
However, today’s post is not about the Tiny Visitors, but
about Zachary the Zugvogel. He is even
tinier than the Tiny Visitors, in fact 1:250, while the Tiny Visitors are
1:200. Another difference is that
Zachary came in a box from EBay, whereas the Tiny Visitors arrived of their own
accord. Lastly, Zachary is a child of
the late 1950s, whereas the Tiny Visitors were all hatched before WWII. Well, perhaps they were hatched. I used to think they were manufactured by
glidermasters just like the big gliders, but recently I saw one emerge from a
Kinder-egg so I am not sure any more.
Anyway, since Zachary is so much younger than my other
gliders, and has very little real life experience, having lived in his box most
of his life, the other gliders have taken him under their collective wings and
try to instil some sense into his frivolous soul, so far to little effect. Most of the time he just hides in the
Clock-Tower, it being dark and safe, rather like his box, which I have taken
away to stop him from hiding all the time.
But when he does get out he tends to make a nuisance of himself and
likes to irritate the other gliders, as well as Goncalo Alves, the wooden
cat. I tried to get him to fly in my
mobile with the Tiny Visitors, but he upset their harmonious balance by
slipping out of harness without telling them, so I had to give up on that
idea. I should note that the Tiny
Visitors also leave their harnesses, but they do so in concert to ensure that
the balance is never disturbed – oh well, you can’t expect wise cockpits on
baby gliders, I guess. One of the Reiher
Quartet tends to keep him company on the Clock-Tower and makes sure he stays
out of trouble.
In 1951 Egon Scheibe founded the Scheibe-Flugzeugbau company. The Zugvogel was their first high performance
glider, and won first prize in 1955 in
the German National Gliding Championships, flown by Hanna Reitsch. The design continued to be improved, and in
1957 the Zugvogel III was launched. My
little Zachary is a tiny scale model of this Scheibe Zugvogel III, on the scale
of 1 to 250.
The original has a wingspan of 17 meters , and although it would no
doubt look impressive stuck into the belfry of the church around the corner, my
little finger tells me that neither priest nor congregation would welcome such
an addition. So it is lucky, really,
that I spotted little Zachary on Austrian EBay a few years ago. At night before I go to sleep, when I watch
my little glider collection without wearing my glasses, and everything is a bit
blurry, it seems almost credible that Zachary is a real glider hiding in a real
clock-tower.
That said, I have to admit that I much prefer my illusion to
the reality of life size gliders.
Although I do not consider my life worth more than that of any other
person, I nevertheless feel much attached to it, and risking it by flying in a
real life glider is not something I would do without need.
Next time I will introduce the Tiny Visitors, starting with the Red Reiher Quartet!
