Soaring

At 3,500 feet, the soaring plane skirted a cumulus cloud, was instantly sucked up into it by powerful air currents. Airman Udo Fischer got panicky. At 5,000 feet he bailed out. Minutes later he landed in a farmer's field near Big Flats, N. Y., unhurt but out of the running for the Elmira Soaring Contest's annual $1,500 trophy.

But still brilliantly in the running was Lieutenant Robert M. Stanley of Pensacola's naval air base. Fortnight ago he had upped the U. S. altitude record to 13,400 feet (world record: German Captain Walter Drechsel's 23,196 feet). Last week, skilfully riding the air currents, he darted deliberately into just such a cumulus as had made Udo Fischer abandon his plane, bettered his own record by 3,194 feet.

Three days later, stunting for more points, he too came a cropper. In a spectacular spinning dive, his left wing snapped off. He tossed back the cowl covers, tried to wriggle out of the cockpit. Centrifugal motion held him fast. Finally leaning far out over the nose, he grasped a metal indicator, wrenched himself free, parachuted into a birch tree.

Limp with suspense, spectators agreed they had got their money's worth. They had witnessed the only two bailouts in Elmira soaring history.

But the trophy, and $1,425 in prize money went to Chester Decker, who sat tight in his sail plane, piled up 3,020 points.

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