Ivinghoe Beacon
IVINGHOE BEACON: Gliding site
Operated by: London Gliding Club
Location: About 5nm NE of Tring
NOTES: It appears the London Gliding Club started ‘officially’ flying from IVINGHOE BEACON on the 20th February 1930. More or less the same time the BGA (British Gliding Association) was formed.
Their activities attracted so much attention they were evicted because they, “spoilt it’s enjoyment by the public.” So, they moved to DUNSTABLE DOWNS. Incredible though it might seem today, they were probably performing only ‘bungee’ launches?
ANOTHER TAKE
Since writing those notes I discovered the book Take Up Slack by Edward Hull which describes the history of the London Gliding Club in great detail up till the year 2000. In this book Mr Hull relates the account by Mr A E Slater of the earliest days of the LGC. Needless to say my first notes are far from accurate!
It now appears the first LGC meeting took place on the 16th March 1930 from STOKE PARK FARM in Guildford, SURREY. What’s more they didn’t then move to IVINGHOE BEACON. Instead, and I’ll quote, “The following weekend saw the commencement of training at our first ‘permanent’ site. Great efforts had been made to find somewhere on the south side of London, on the ground that communications were better there. But the various landowners failed to co-operate, though we nearly fixed one at Westerham.”
“The site actually found was not far from our present one: it was in the Tring direction, a few miles north of Aldbury. Here, where a road runs up a dry valley, (presumably the B488 – my note), there are steep slopes on either side facing north east and south west respectively.” It also appears nearby Pitstone Hill was used at least once. He later comments, “The gliders were housed, and tea was provided, at Down Farm near by.”
GETTING TO KNOW THE CIRCUMSTANCES
It was certainly difficult for me to fully appreciate what was involved in most of the first gliding attempts in those early days. With flights often lasting barely seconds! For example, again from Mr A E Slater, “…one pupil, Graham Humby, soon drew ahead of the rest, and by the end of July he got his ‘A’ after a launch off the top of the Beacon into a frighteningly violent wind, in which he actually soared the Primary for nearly ten seconds.”
IVANHOE BEACON SECURED
Mr Slater then recounts, “By the middle of May 1930, the Club had secured the use of IVINGHOE BEACON.” Mr Hull’s accounts of gliding from this site are well worth taking the trouble to read, but, for my purposes I was interested to discover that in April 1957 three gliders were taken across from DUNSTABLE and bungee-launched here to commemorate the early days.
However, Mr Slater also says that in October 1930, “…we began using a field on the west side of the Tring Road, with a gentle slope towards Tottenhoe down which it was possible to glide for thirty seconds, from a vigorous launch.
AMAZING?
Is it not absolutely amazing how far the sport of gliding has come since those days. Indeed, I have flown a couple of first class gliders, and quite frankly the experience was, in many ways, not so different in flight planning terms when coming in to land, from flying a powered aircraft! Except that the glider was far more reluctant to lose height, even in very poor gliding conditions, compared to a powered aircraft with the engine revs reduced. A quite astonishing experience!
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