Riding Thunder-heads

At Elmira, N. Y., where the Soaring Society of America was holding its eighth annual meet last week, the air one day was heavy with a threat of squally weather. Lightning glimmered occasionally in the distance, and mountainous dark storm-clouds or "thunderheads," with flat bottoms and bulging, shifting domes were moving in on Harris Hill. On the hilltop, where the meet was in progress, Soaring Pilot Richard Chichester du Pont appraised the grim thunderheads with eager eyes, then took off in his big, sleek sailplane after an automobile tow. Up, up, up he circled on rising air currents, while hundreds of faces turned up at him from the ground. Pilots of motored planes swing far off their courses to avoid thunderheads but motorless Pilot du Pont had just the opposite idea in mind. Up 4,500 ft., directly over Harris Hill, he guided his ship directly into a thunderhead, rode along inside it for an hour during which he was lost to view. Coming out several miles away, he turned back to the hill, entered another thunderhead, rode it for 21 mi., landed in Pennsylvania. Although a few daring pilots had tried it in previous years, this was the first successful demonstration of riding thunderheads at a Soaring Society meet. To sailplane pilots it represents the most fascinating pinnacle of their sport. To most spectators it is as though an aquaplanist were to get bored with skimming the waves on his aquaplane and take a ride on the back of a healthy shark. That Pilot du Pont, 27-year-old scion of the Wilmington family, has plenty of nerve he showed three years ago when, finding good conditions aloft, he set out for New York City without parachute or compass, set the U. S. distance record of 155 miles.

Thunderheads are cumulus clouds which mark the top of a rising column of air. The expansion and cooling of the air as it rises condenses atmospheric moisture, forms the cloud. The air in and around thunderheads is often gusty enough to toss a glider around like a canoe in heavy surf. The top of the cloud is charged with negative electricity, the bottom with positive. When this difference of potential becomes high enough a stroke of lightning cancels it. A direct hit by lightning has never been definitely shown to be the cause of an airplane wreck, but there is little doubt that the concussion of a nearby lightning stroke might suffice to send a comparatively frail glider down out of control or in splinters.

At week's end Soarer du Pont, who is president of the Soaring Society, was declared U. S. champion for 1937, having earned 182 points. For a climb to 5,890 ft. he was awarded a gold trophy and $500 prize offered by his airminded father, Vice President A. Felix du Pont of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. In points. Peter Reidel of Germany was ahead of Du Pont with a score of 196 but the German was not eligible for the U. S. championship.

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