Barographs that Tick
I have always found fascination in the analog, the manual, the elegantly simple. From the film that I take pictures with, to my years of working on bikes that any respectable cyclist would consider either public art or recycling, to the standard shift 1991 VW Golf that I successfully nursed from life to death last year, veins of idiosyncratic old-fashionedness seem to always percolate through my life - a life so defined by the rapidly changing technology of today.
It seemed, then, on a warm evening last July, that there was no possible course of action than to bid when a pair of mid-1980’s analog barographs were brought up by FEFY auctioneer Bob Messner. A barograph, in case you’re unfamiliar with the term (as I was, until a short conversation with Tom Anderson earlier in the evening), is a mechanical instrument used to record the altitude of a glider over a period of time - typically cross country flight, flight in competitions or races, or, most notably, to verify that record altitudes are reached by glider pilots. The word barograph, while not exactly rolling off the tongue, perfectly conveys the device’s function to anyone familiar with Greek roots, the baro- meaning weight (of the air, or air pressure), and -graph being writing. In short - a barometer that makes a graph. A barograph.
Of course, I am neither a cross-country pilot, nor a racer, nor a high-altitude competitor, but I decided to put my money where my mouth is, and about 30 seconds later, I was regretful and incredibly excited when I became the top bidder of the forlorned instruments. So I took the barographs home that evening and began examining them. But these devices, relics though they were, were not destined to become collection pieces, pawned off after months of neglect on eBay for a few dollars. Sure, I wouldn’t hold on to them forever, but the dedicated retrophile, aspiring engineer, and sailplane pilot in me decided without a sliver of doubt that these barographs would fly again.
Jackson working on his 1991 VW Golf.
When I headed off to be a Junior Counselor at the second Sugarbush Soaring Youth Camp, I brought one with me. Before embarking, I had combed through the boxes that the barographs came in, making sure to fully familiarize myself with all of the parts it came with, as well as any records of flights long ago. I opened the barographs and closely analyzed them to discern their functions, as well as taking a few test “flights” up and down my steep street to check the calibration. When I left for camp, I was satisfied, for I felt that I understood my purchase well, save for the identity of a man in a striped shirt in some circa-2003 photos from one of the barographs’ boxes.
At camp, it turned out, I was quite busy running here, and bringing this there, and instructing how to do that. So I didn’t have much time to fly, but as soon as I did get a chance, I immediately ran to grab my new instrument. I would be flying the new 1-26, and as I discovered, this glider had a velcro strap directly behind the seat which, if not designed for a barograph, worked as well as if it had. I wound the barograph, strapped it down, and took off in the late afternoon heat, as several campers roamed
the sky in two-place ships, in search of an elusive thermal, or at least some knowledge. After getting off tow near Blueberry Lake, I headed off to the east ridge, where I began to gently drift down in classic Schweizer fashion, reveling in the cadent ticking of the barograph and the buttery-smooth controls that made it feel as if I had simply strapped a pair of wings beside me and a tail behind me. But I didn’t drift for long, as I soon found a thermal, which I coaxed nearly 5000 feet out of, bringing me to near 8,000 feet in 20 minutes. Immensely satisfied, I considered the flight a success, and as the thermal petered out, I found little more in the dying evening heat, and began to gradually meander back to 0B7 to land.
However, just as I was about to enter the pattern, the variometer leapt up without warning like a grasshopper in the sun. I found myself once again climbing at three knots, making it back to 7,500 feet, just as I had done an hour ago. This time, though, the thermal didn’t die out. Instead, fellow camper had caught on to my good fortune and entered the same thermal as me. This camper, however, flew the club’s Schleicher ASK-21, which, with its gigantic (to a 1-26 pilot) turning radius, and its meteoric (to a 1-26 pilot) airspeed, motivated my hasty departure from the vicinity. But I didn’t give up. Like clockwork, I again slowly descended to pattern altitude and then, like clockwork, climbed five thousand feed on a thermal, not once, but two more times, before finally coming in for the evening, having completely neglected my duties as junior counselor of helping put things away.
While this flight may pale in comparison to the grand achievements of some of the more venerable members of Sugarbush Soaring, it was no small feat for me, a new pilot who was (and is) still pushing my skills further with every flight, especially in a solo flight in this glider I loved. So naturally, I was incredibly glad that I had bought the barograph and taken it along with me, and as soon as I had pulled aside and the wing had rested down on the grass, I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned around. While I may like to think that I defied the laws of gravity that August afternoon, there was one law, however, that I did not defy: Murphy’s Law. What can go wrong, will go wrong, and it seems what had gone wrong that evening was that I had not pressed a button which affixes the needle on the barograph paper. Thus, the barograph drum had ticked around the past two hours, but what was drawn on it was little more than a polar bear in a snowstorm.
Later that month, I did take the barograph, needle inscribing, on a much more mundane flight. After towing up to 4500 feet, I drifted around in very weak thermal for half an hour before fluttering back down to earth in the 2-33. The barograph worked beautifully, of course, but I couldn’t shake the fact that I had robbed it of an incredible opportunity. And a few months later, after my senior year in high school had begun, I had earned my private pilot’s certificate, the tragic windstorm at Sugarbush, and the season’s close, into the closet the barographs went. But the story wasn’t over yet.
The following April, I met the pioneer who played a role in ending the reign of the mechanical barograph. I spoke to Dave Ellis, former owner and manager of Cambridge Aero Instruments, a company which revolutionized competitive soaring by designing a new generation of GPS flight computers from Jim Parker’s hangar at 0B7, virtually obsoleting the mechanical devices of the past with greater flexibility, accuracy, and reliability. The subject of the conversation was reflected in its circumstance - I reached Ellis, who lives two thousand miles away in Arizona, through Duo, a video calling app made by Google, about the rapid technological change he helped to create and its impacts on the sport we both love. If there was one thing I took away from the conversation, though, it was that we all should have a passion, and stick with it, for we will get the most out of life that way. While Ellis does love soaring, and misses it from time to time, his passion, he confessed, lies in creating, building, and fixing technology, something which ultimately led him to a career in a wide range of endeavours and to a life he looks at as successful.
On the path that these barographs have taken me, there have been some things that I have not yet learned - how high I really flew that day last August, what will become of the barographs, and who the man in the photo with the striped shirt was. But there are many things I have learned. I got a little insight into what the world was like decades ago, which fascinates me, and that the Warren-Sugarbush Airport is layered thick with history. Perhaps most of all, I held onto, and strengthened, my belief that while modern technology is essential, useful, and often fantastic, there is a certain joy that comes from having a little antidote here and there in the simple, old-fashioned machines which once made the world tick. They can teach us about who we are and where we came from, and give us a sense that the world isn’t quite as complex and scary as it’s made out to be.
