Huish Hill
HUISH HILL: Gliding site
Note: Although listed before, this entry has been greatly expanded by the kind help and advice from Mr Micheal T Holder, a great friend of this 'Guide' who provided the maps, pictures and newspaper articles. I have added some text and the Google Earth © area view.
Location: W of the A345, 2.5nm NNW of Pewsey and 4nm SW of Marlborough town centre
Period of operation: 1930s only? 1933 most definitely - 18th June to the 16th July
NOTES: This site was selected by the British Gliding Association for their 1933 Summer School. It was intended to last until September by lack of interest led them to curtail the event in the middle of July. With hindsight, (I do wish I could find a way to bottle the stuff in advance and become a multi-millionaire), a gliding event in the early 1930s, during the height of the 'Great Depression' (Aka 'The Slump'), lasting over four calender months does appear to be wildly optomistic.
It could of course well be that this site was used for gliding over several more years in that era?
The first article was published in the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser on Saturday 17th June. The second article is from the North Wilts Herald, published on the 14th July.
NOTES: It appears that during the 1933 Summer School, Mr G E Collins, an instructor serving the BGA here, achieved the first soaring flights in the U.K. using a two-seater B.A.C. VII type. He was towed to around 500ft, almost certainly by a car, and then succeeded in soaring up to 2,150 feet - remaining in the air for twenty seven minutes and travelling about ten miles. It appears that later, but with a pasenger this time, he attained 1,300 feet.
These were, it is claimed, the first properly observed and recorded flights of any notable altitude in the U.K. using thermal convection as the primary source of obtaining lift. And it seems, on clear cloudless days. He being the first glider pilot in the U.K. to both appreciate and harness thermals. It is quite possible that was inspired and gained knowledge from the great strides being made in Germany at that time.
And indeed, when requested to perform glider exhibition flights by Sir Alan Cobham for his 'Flying Circus' Tours, the aircraft he used was a Slingsby T.5 Grunau Baby 2, a German Schneider design built under licence by Slingsby.
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