When I joined the GGC as a trainee in March 1962, the pride of the fleet was the "black and white" Grunau 2b, training was done in an old short-wing Kooka, and all launching was by winch and auto tow. I have gone back through my log book to prepare this snapshot of club operations in the early to mid-60s.
The only buildings at the airfield were the DCA caretaker’s residence and machinery shed. The club fleet was stored in an open-fronted shed at Doug Vanstan’s farm at Balliang (about 5 km to the south). Therefore, the gliders had to be rigged and de-rigged on most flying days. On one day, when a series of squall lines rolled through Bacchus, we rigged, de-rigged and trailered the Kooka back and forwards from Doug’s three times (in those days we weren’t concerned about the performance degradation of wet wings, but rather the effect of moisture on the casein glue which held it all together).
My first 500 flights (up to February 1964) totalled almost exactly 100 hours (an average of 12 minutes) and included only four aerotows. I can’t help comparing this with my experience over the past seven months since rejoining the club, when I have logged 52 hours at an average of 44 minutes.
I had my first 16 flights over 7 days in March and April of 1962, but the Kooka then had its back broken in a heavy landing. It was out of service for the next three months while the fuselage was repaired (by a VMFG member) and the wing rebagged by a small group of members working in an old chook shed at the back of Dave Rees’ home in Sunshine - no more flying for me until August 1962.
I had my first 16 flights over 7 days in March and April of 1962, but the Kooka then had its back broken in a heavy landing. It was out of service for the next three months while the fuselage was repaired (by a VMFG member) and the wing rebagged by a small group of members working in an old chook shed at the back of Dave Rees’ home in Sunshine - no more flying for me until August 1962.
Our winch was based on a 1924 Cadillac which was converted (before my time) by hacking holes in the bodywork and adding a Jeep transfer case and diff, plus cable drums, rollers, wire cage etc. There was a persistent rumour that members of the Vintage Car Club were organising a lynching party for the perpetrators and their fellow travellers. The "Caddy" could lay its own cables, but usually they were retrieved by the auto-tow car, a succession of vehicles reminiscent of our current pie cart vehicle, or any cars having bumper bars capable of withstanding the sudden application of the brakes by the winch driver.
Some brave souls, including 15 year old Haidyn Dunn [who didn’t have a licence to lose] and Bob Herd [who presumably had one] drove the Caddy to Geelong and back on a couple of occasions so the club could participate in the Geelong Festival (Haidyn recently reminded me that he had someone sitting in the aft-facing [winch driver’s] seat during the trip, as it wasn’t possible to get full throttle from the front seat (nor was it possible to get it to stop very quickly!). I wonder who would have been charged with driving the unregistered, unroadworthy vehicle if they had been apprehended? - the one who had control of speed but not direction, or the other who controlled direction but not speed). During the festival, we flew from the Belmont Common, where we had constant problems keeping people and dogs clear of the winch cables, and had to dodge the street lights on the old Belmont Bridge on final.
There was a fair bit of downtime on the winch - we generally had to replace the clutch every couple of months (more frequently with some members who persisted in riding the clutch). We became well practised in clutch replacements and could do the job within half a day. There used to be some horrendous tangles in the winch wire following cable breaks, and sometimes the only way to sort it out was to make a number of cuts in the wire and rejoin it using copper swages. We generally reckoned it was time to replace the wire when we had more than about five breaks a day. This meant we seldom had to simulate cable breaks, and no-one climbed steeply for the first few hundred feet. My log notes that I was winched to 2,400’ (AGL) in the Grunau in June 1963 - I recall that the "record" was closer to 3,000’ (we used to do a bit if kiting when conditions permitted, as there was seldom any power traffic and there were few power lines near the field).
Auto-towing was a lot of fun and very effective, with typical launch heights of around 1,200 AGL. The tow vehicle consisted of a basic 6-cylinder Chrysler (car) chassis fitted with a flat tray, cable release and concrete blocks over the rear end. The cable was 11 gauge high-tensile fencing wire, which was repaired using figure-of-eight knots. We took up slack by driving out to one side of the airfield, then accelerated back towards the (gravel) strip so that the glider was climbing nicely by the time one had completed a four-wheel drift and was heading down the strip. After the glider released, the tow car would drive up to the end fence, drop the cable (weighted with a chain), pick up the drogue and tow it back to the launch point, and be back in position for the next launch by the time the glider had landed. Spot landings beside the drogue were the general rule, particularly for the Grunau and Coogee, which didn’t have wheels, stopped very quickly on their skids, and were awkward to move around. Most pilots were adept at allowing for cross-wind drift of the drogue after release, so as to keep the cable within the airfield (slow learners had to buy a lot of beers at debriefing). However, if the cable dropped over the fence, we used a hand-held steel hook to feed it back onto the field while driving along beside the fence.
Between July and October in 1964, the airfield was closed because it was too wet, and we winch launched from a paddock on Doug Vanstan’s farm. My log book records that I had 29 flights (of 3 to 5 minutes duration) in the back seat of the Kooka on one day at Balliang.
During periods of fine weather, we would sometimes tie down the Kooka overnight at Bacchus in an outdoor "hanger" which we constructed from DCA’s gravel stockpile, by digging a gap in it for the fuselage, and trimming the top to accommodate the wings.
Our first conversions were to the Coogee, a home-built glider which looked like a Canadian canoe fitted with stubby, strutted wings, a low windshield and a tail. It flew like a brick, but could be soared on a good day and it was great to look over the side like the Red Baron and admire the view (which on one occasion included a Bristol Freighter passing 1,000 feet below). We didn’t need a yaw string for the Coogee, as slips and skids could produce strong crosswinds in the cockpit.
The black and white Grunau is fondly remembered by all who flew it. It had a fully-enclosed canopy, air brakes, Cosim vario (red and green balls in tapered perspex tubes), and an uncomfortable seat with vertical back. It thermalled well, but had a L/D of about 1:14 and a maximum rough air speed of 50 kt. A number of us achieved our Silver Cs and some respectable cross country flights (between 150 and 200 km) in the Grunau, while Ian Cohn took it to gold distance on a downwind task during the 1963 Nationals at Mildura.
The club’s first "modern" single-seater was the ES59 Arrow, which was aero towed from Parafield to Bacchus over two days in late 1963 (Dave Rees flew the Arrow all the way). The Mark 4 Kooka arrived in mid-1964 and we acquired an ES57 Kingfisher the following year. Fletcher Smith made his Cherokee available for members to fly in late 1966, shortly before I left for the USA.
I am pleased to say that the Geelong Gliding Club seems to have preserved much of the blend of spirit and discipline which was instilled into members during my time at Bacchus in the 60’s through the inspirational leadership of CFI Dave Rees, ably supported by Doug Vanstan and Laurie Harrison. It has been great to return from my time-warp and find a few of the trainees I remember from the mid-60’s (namely John Buchanan, John Ashford and Haidyn Dunn) continuing to make major contributions to the club and the gliding movement in general.