Updated March 12, 2006

Cirrus No. 24, N3441

Currently Owned by: Roger Bard

STATUS: In Service

LOCATION:  Watseka, IL 

According to the original bill of sale on June 27, 1968, Schempp-Hirth sold the ship to John C. Slack of Naperville, IL, and he registered it on July 20. John was a captain with American Airlines. John took out a mortgage for $5,000 that included the plane as collateral, but it’s not known what the sale price was.

This is the ship that John Slack crashed on landing at Marfa on June 24, 1970, at the U.S. Nationals championship. "At eight in the evening, a Cirrus with the contest letters SJ passed over the finish line very low and slow. He angled over the line directly into the wind; then instead of turning 90 degrees left for his landing, he started to come around 240 degrees to the right. He completed a 180 degree turn and was traveling straight downwind, straight toward the cyclone fence and the hangar. The sailplane was staggering. To miss the fence he steepened his turn - then his right wingtip caught. The sailplane cartwheeled, hit the concrete apron, and scraped, and suddenly the fuselage broke in two right aft of the trailing edge of the wing. The pilot was not hurt."* The crash was captured on film in the movie "The Sunship Game". (Note: that film also has lots of footage of No. 4, flown by Gleb Derujinsky, and No. 23, flown by George Moffat.)

In the words** of the Pilot, John Slack: "My accident took place on the first day of the contest.The task for the day was a triangle course and the last leg of the course was into a rather stiff headwind. After fighting the headwind on the final leg, I crossed the finish line very low, I'm guessing about 100 feet. There was not a suitable landing place straight ahead except for a taxiway or old runway running to the southeast which was occupied by a sailplane being disassembled along with a trailer.The finish line was oriented so that we crossed it headed southwest. I thought I could pull off a turn and land on the ramp behind me. During the turn the wing tip struck the ground and and the glider did a little pivot on the tip and struck the ramp going sideways, sliding along and severing the fuselage behind the wing. The wing obviously took a good share of the load as it bent on contact and flexed up, scraping a good deal of material off of the bottom of the wing several feet in from the tip. I finally slid to a stop and climbed out completely unscathed, the canopy having departed the glider during the course of the slide. Hans Holighaus was there with the German team and was most helpful. He advised me to take the glider to Rudy Zimmerman in New Jersey to be repaired and he would send him the necessary parts from Germany. Rudy put it back together and it looked like new when he had finished."

John sold it on November 11, 1972 to Theodore Clausing of Milwaukee, WI, who also mortgaged the ship for $4,903.56.

Ted sold it to James Lynn Johnson of Skokie, IL on June 25, 1977. He apparently ran afoul of the FAA, as did so many others, by not sending in a timely "Triennial Aircraft Registration Report" and the certificate was revoked on May 21, 1982 - - it was reinstated on August 6.

Harold "Fred" Fredine and John Gerth of Clinton, IN bought the plane from James on July 25, 1992, and Fred bought out John’s share on July 13, 1995. Fred is a flight instructor with the club.

In July, 2001 it was sold to its present owner.
 

*SOARING, Vol. 33 No. 9, September, 1969, page 10

** Thanks to Jon Clarke, who got this description from Slack.