VINTAGE & CLASSIC
INTERNATIONAL VINTAGE PARTIES
THE LARGEST GLIDING EVENT IN THE WORLD By Ian Dunkley
For the past 38 years vintage and classic gliders have been travelling across Europe, in trailers ranging from the tatty originals to, in recent years, the latest smooth plastic, for the annual ‘Vintage Glider Club (VGC)’ International Rally. This year around 100 gliders, together with some 300 pilots and party goers, will arrive at Spitzerberg, close to Vienna on the borders of Austria and Slovakia, for the largest event of the gliding year. Next year new ground will be tested, with the first Rally to be held in Lithuania. Over the years the rally has visited many countries over a wide area of Europe; north to Finland, east to Hungary, west to the UK and south to France and Switzerland. The long trips are not limited to the VGC Rally, for national vintage clubs organise events that attract cross border participation, some of which are devoted to a single glider type like the Grunau Baby. It might be expected that pilots and their crews would only come from Europe. That is not the case, as gliders have been shipped to and from Japan just to take part in a UK VGC Rally. Similarly a U.S. rally which normally takes place every five years has attracted gliders from Europe, and one made an epic trip from Australia and back, involving a sea trip and then a California to Upper New York State trailer run. All this, just to fly at Harris Hill - the cradle of U.S. gliding, for the International Vintage Soaring meet. Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and associated political institutions, many pilots took their aircraft to take part in two rallies that took place in Communist Hungary. This enabled many to take the opportunity of visiting other Eastern Bloc countries and seeing for ourselves how ‘the other half’ lived and experiencing ‘Checkpoint Charlie’.
40
April 2011
The overflow from the bigger party inside
The most remarkable thing about the Hungarian rallies of that time was the large number of young Hungarian pilots who were available to ensure the exceptionally smooth running of the events. The fact that they were members of the ‘Miners Gliding Club’ or the ‘Railway Workers GC’ etc. was less remarkable than their uniforms - miniscule bikinis being the norm for both sexes. Without offending sensitive readers, I can only say that it is somewhat disconcerting to be sitting in a cockpit with a bikini clad top bouncing in front of your eyes, while the owner helps you with the straps. Needless to say, it took longer than usual. It was equally disconcerting to have the bikini bottoms at close eye level, whilst the wearer was standing waiting to attach the cable. All this changed with the fall of communism, for at the next Hungarian rally bikinis and young bodies had been replaced by world standard scruffy gliding club ground crew of more advanced years.
