Streamlined as they were, the 58 aircraft gathered outside the little Burgundy village of Saint-Yan (pop. 859) seemed remnants of an earlier eraa time when flying was still for the birds or for men who wished to emulate them. No stub-winged jets waited to scream aloft, riding the thrust of a man-made thunderclap. These were sleek sailplanes, slim-winged, frail, and built to soar on the least suspicion of a breeze. Their pilots had come from 25 countries for the fifth postwar international gliding championships.
Most of the pilots were scientistschiefly meteorologists, electronics engineers,...
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