DOVEDALE GLIDING THRILLS …The gliding exhibition at Ilam, Dovedale, during the week-end attracted thousands of visitors. Large crowds from Derby gathered around Bunster Hill yesterday in the brilliant sunshine to watch the daring glides of Herr Hans Werner Krause and Herr Magersuppe, two German experts… Magersuppe, whose machine was better suited to the conditions than that of Krause, repeatedly thrilled the spectators. More than once he plunged his plane headlong towards earth and then flung it upwards in a magnificent sweep just at the point when everyone was expecting a crash…Among the silver medal winners were Messrs [P]. W. Pearson (26sec), G. O. Smith (26) and A. L. Slater (22), all of the Matlock Gliding Club. (Derby Telegraph 29 June 1931)
Given Percy Pearson’s later forays into building model aeroplanes and caravans, it seems highly likely that he had a hand in building the glider that won him his silver medal at Bunster Hill in Derbyshire in 1931. The inaugural meeting for the Matlock and District Glider Club had been on 30 May 1930. Attendees included the three silver medal winners at Dovedale, Messrs Pearson, G O Smith and A L Slater, who were all elected to the committee. By 6 September the Matlock Club had one glider. This was probably the hand-made Dickson Cloudcraft Primary that club member Louis Slater gave to the London Gliding Club in August 1933.
A Cloudcraft advertisement from The Sailplane and Glider in July 1931 claimed that there were “over one hundred in use at the present time” in the UK, United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Some of these may have been built from kits, others from plans published in books and magazines or bought from Cloudcraft itself.
The design of the Dickson Cloudcraft Primary emphasised low cost and simplicity over aerodynamics. Sail cloth covered the wooden structures of the wings and tail plane, while the pilot sat on an open seat at the front. It looks terrifying, but not unlike the experience of a hang-glider or a paraglider of today.
Six weeks after the Dovedale meeting, on August 30th 1931 Percy, my Grandfather, achieved the 30 second flight required for the award of a Gliding Certificate from the Royal Aero Club. The three silver medal winners and a fourth member of the club, Harold Gell, all gained their A class certificates on 14 October 1931 at a Committee meeting of the Royal Aero Club in London. Percy was the 194th certified glider pilot in the country.
The 192nd and 193rd certified pilots, Louis Slater and Gerald Onslow Smith, would help to found the Lancashire and Derbyshire Gliding Club. These two men would become known in the gliding world as pioneers of the sport in Britain.
By the time he had gained his gliding certificate in 1931, Percy had moved to Chesterfield in Derbyshire to become a teacher at William Rhodes School. Gerard Smith and Louis Slater were by now motoring down to Dunstable to gain greater experience with the London Gliding Club. They were eventually to gain their C certificates there, the highest class of award for glider pilots at the time. According to Smith ‘No serious gliding activities took place in Derbyshire until 1934’.
Having left the London Gliding Club in 1933, Smith and Louis Slater built another glider in Slater’s garage. The third shareholder and builder was R. G. Robertson, who had moved from the London club to Nottingham to take up a teaching post at the University. Known as the Golden Wren, the three men flew this glider at ‘Cocking Tor near Matlock, sometimes over Riber Castle itself, sometimes at Mam Tor, and occasionally over Bradwell Edge, the site of the present club [in 1938]…Our experiments aroused increasing interest until a Derbyshire club was formed’. This club was eventually merged with a Manchester club to form the current Lancashire and Derbyshire Gliding Club at Great Hucklow.
And what of the two German experts at the Dovedale meeting? In Germany Hans Werner Krause was selected as a test pilot for an ornithopter, a man-powered aircraft with flapping wings. Magersuppe, too, was highly regarded among British and German gliding circles. In 1931 he completed flight trials on the Tern glider, which he demonstrated at meetings and contests around Britain.
Such demonstrations by German experts in Britain in the late 1920s and early 1930s provoked interest in the sport across the country. Gliding had developed in the aftermath of World War 1 when the Treaty of Versailles imposed severe restrictions on Germany. Whilst the rest of the world were developing the technologies for aircraft, Germany concentrated upon unpowered flight, and trained up their pilots with gliders.
Gliding both grew from war and trained for battle and within eight years Germany and Britain were fighting again. As a result, the two flying aces who thrilled the crowd with their courage and daring in 1931, were by 1939 our enemies.
