What another great presentation. Kevin really knows his stuff and communicates it well. utter respect for the day job too - that last assignment listed would be beyond my limits of self-control. My hairdresser friend offers professional respect to the flattest flat top she's ever seen. One bit I can add is that the rivalry between RAF pilots and The Glider Regiment hinted at doesn't seem to be a regular thing - explained by one saying that they rarely met the type who would think like this and the two services got on very well when at work as they depended on each other.
I would like to add a few corrections. The benches could fold up although when a cargo was transported the seat if still in the horsa would be removed entirely (weight saving) In practice they designated some MKI for vehicle or troops, according to some original documents I have, had a colour code painted were the tail meets the fuselage. An airlanding platoon during Market they made an emergency landing. Back at the airfield if they wanted to join the second airlift, they had to remove the seats from an unserviceable troop glider and converted a glider reserved for vehicles back to troop. 35:29 The floor of the Horsa was made out of wood not corrugated metal. Over the entire length of the floor there were wood "ribs' that give a corrugated look. Later during the war (Market) the glider pilots were allocated a part of the landingzone were if possible, they should land their glider. This way in the right circumstances more gliders could land and put on a landing zone. The first gliders at the edge the next wave more behind and more glider behind them. 1:01:30 The Forgotten battle. Yes they had 1 full size Horsa made, duplicated with CGI on the ground. Also a full scale cockpit and forward fuselage used for some partical effects. On a jig outside to film with real air /daylight background. And later attached to a huge zipline for the water crash scene. The fullsize horsa is preserved in the Dutch Wings of liberation museum Best, repainted and many details added. There is also a Waco CG4a from the movie Saving private Ryan in this museum. The seperate cockpit / fuselage restored and housed in the (Belgium) For Freedom museum Ramskapelle. From Normandy some Horsa have been recovered and from Germany after Varsity I know Hamilcars were taken apart by the RAF and tranported back by road. postwar the Belgian army bought a few newmade MKII horsas but never used them.
I flew with an instructor many times when I was 14-16. I followed tow planes, experienced winch launches, learned how to thermal, soared with hawks off the glider's wing peering in at us, and landed. My instructors were WW2 and Vietnam war pilots. What a time that was.
I first read about the D Day gliders in 1961. The movie THE LONGEST DAY was coming out. I had already read the Cornelius Ryan book and studied the pictures of the glider/airborne troops. I remember that author Ryan interviewed as many D Day vets that he could find. There was Boston attorney named Murphy who was one of the few Pathfinder paratroops available for commentary. That let me know of the high casualty rate for paratroopers. They died in a far away land battling a psychopathic , oppressive enemy bent on a violent world conquest. God bless their souls.
As a sailplane pilot, I think it would b virtually impossible to keep several thousand glider pilots properly trained for any period of time. You need tow planes, which affects their training for other missions, and gliders which would suffer high attrition during training due to landing damage. A special missions force could be kept proficient but not much beyond that.
One of my grandfathers jobs in England he was a check pilot to make sure the British pilots where ready for combat in the horsa. He said after release you would nose straight down to gain speed before landing.
Excellent presentation by Kevin....Knowledge is power. looking forward to Glider & Troop Carrier week and The Battle for Isurava with David Cameron. Thanks Kevin Getz.
Great presentation by Kevin. I had the pleasure of meeting him at Arnhem last September. His passion about the subject is very engaging so great to see him sharing that with you all.
Thanks for the nice comment Ted, and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? ruclips.net/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin
Superlative presentation by Kevin Getz! His journalist education really comes through as he is well spoken, and has done his homework on the subject. I think we all learned a great deal from him and enjoyed his enthusiasm. It was also quite entertaining as well.
I was involved with the Horsa Glider four 3 weeks as an reenactor wen it was in Oosterbeek during the 75th anniversary in 2019 We sat with 28 guys in it and Geof Roberts KOSB was one off them he sat at the place were he sat 75 years ago and started telling his story that was the best evening I have ever had and learned so mutch more aboud the Batle near the white house Keep up this great channel Regards Michael from Holland Ps maybe do an show on the Dutch Commando s that were involved at Arnhem would be nice to bring that part up as well 😊
Howdy folks. This is one of the best presentations ever on RUclips. Great info on the horsa, a great airplane that was fit for its purpose. It took guts to fly or ride in one of these as people on the ground tried to shoot you out of the sky. Stories like this is why WW2TV is the best thing on this site.
This is EXCELLENT! We have to remember today these are 80 Year old GLDERS. NO POWER…very limited options for steering, no runways, several of them coming down in a very limited area; basically one on top of the other. These guys were bad asses. Kevin, love all the details as to their training and your insights that no one thinks about.
Fantastic presentation by Kevin. Love the Horsa and glad to see an episode dedicated to it. Great detail and research, Look forward to seeing more from Kevin
WOW, lots of great information on the Gliders used during our WWII Troops transport. I never knew that they used more than one type of Glider. The Operators and Troops had to be really brave courageous men! Very risque transport type landings. WWII Military, our Greatest Generation! ❤️🙏🇺🇸
Brilliant stuff - watching this on the run up the the 80th Anniversary of Market Garden and while helping a friend delve in to the history of a relative who died on the 18th on the landing zones at Arnhem. Sjt Cyril Gell, 410229, Glider Pilot Regiment. We're still on open-source info at the moment as she hasn't got his military records as yet. One thing that jumped out of your video, and that I hadn't pieced together yet, was the comment Kevin made near the end of the talk where he mentioned if the pilots had a artillery piece in the glider, when they landed they were expected to know how to use it. We already knew of the 'total soldier' concept, but our interest in this comment is that Cyril was originally Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry (TA) before the war, and at the outbreak - but the DLOY were retrained as part of the Royal Artillery. So , I'm speculating that they might have used Cyril's skills when he joined The Glider Pilot Regiment and had him allocated to transporting artillery pieces?
01:09:10 post WW2, the glider is decommissioned pretty quickly by the Allies. The last US airborne exercise to involve gliders takes place in 1949 (the last glider trained infantrymen got their badges around this time as well). Interestingly, the Soviets (the first army to raise a glider unit in the late 30s) will keep 3 glider regiments in training till 1965. The last attack to use gliders was in Israel on 25th November 1987 when one of their bases on the Lebanese border were hit up by Palestinian fighters using motorised hand gliders. Reference: Silent Skies: Gliders at War 1939-45 (Lynch)
Great talk. Kevin: the finest aircraft of WW2. Me: Eyes dart from Spitfire to Zero to P-51 to Hellcat and an endless list of fighters, bombers, ground attack aircraft. I appreciate his passion for the subject but I can't think of a glider that highly.
Very interesting presentation. I was relatively ignorant regarding glider technology so I had no horse in the Horsa vs WACO race but Kevin makes a strong case for the Horsa. I think I would avoid being in a glider in WW2 if at all possible. Hitting someone’s plowed field at nearly 100mph in a wood and fabric airplane does not sound like my idea of fun.
Late to the show, but as for a 'what if' on the helicopter, the Fairchild C-123 transport was initially designed as an assualt glider, with engines added.
Thanks for the nice comment Greg, and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? ruclips.net/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin
The C-123 looked like a two engined C-130 abeit smaller. One version had a Jet Assist Take Off (JATO) engine either side of the wing. When I went through Ft Benning jump school in June 1972, the Alabama Air National Guard was flying our drops with these. The JATO made these aircraft very noisy on take off!
Kev, felt awful I wasn’t able to be there as this was happening. Brilliant work all the same, I had little doubt in that. I thought I knew a decent amount about all this, evidently not!
Thanks for the nice comment Victor, and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? ruclips.net/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin
Really excellent Kevin ,thankyou very much for your detailed talk on this glider ,your passion and your energy for such an aircraft just says it all .., massive thanks .
I am a Pilot and i have flown the route to Pegasus Bridge and I take my hat off to the pilots of 1944 a night flight and landing so close is remarkable i am not sure i could do it in daylight in 2023
Thank you Kevin and Paul for the interesting show. I always found the name Horsa intriguing. Wasn't Horsa an ancient celtic tribe chief who is mentioned by Caesar? Looking forward to the following shows, best greetings, Peter
Thanks for the nice comment Peter, and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? ruclips.net/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin
@@WW2TV Hi Paul, I have subscribed already several weeks ago. About the membership: I will become a member. What is better for you: Patreon or RUclips? Best greetings, Peter
I wish that a New Airspeed Horsa Glider could be build up with the same landing gear but this time with a Double tire nose gear and be towed up to the sky again and this time by the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.
Just liked and Sub'd. My Favorite Job if I was in WWII? Glider Pilot or Medic ("Aid Man"). Why Glider Pilot? I LOVE the concept of being a Pilot, then fighting as an Infantryman. Best of both worlds in my view.
JUST TO CORRECT A POINT THAT HORSA WAS NOT USED IN ASIA, MY FATHER WAS GPR AND SENT TO INDIA WITH 2 HORSA GLIDERS AS PART OF TIGER SQUADRON. I CANT ELABORATE MORE AT THE MOMENT AS MY INFO IS IN STORAGE AS I HAVE JUST MOVED HOUSE. I WILL TRY DIG IT OUT BEFORE THE WEEKEND AS ITS A REALLY INTERESTING STORY AS HE CRASHED ON A TEST FLIGHT POSSIBLY DUE TO TO THE AIR CONDITIONS NOT BEING GOOD FOR PLANES. BARE WITH ME WHILST I GET THE INFO TOGETHER, YOU WILL BE AMAZED BUT I HAVE PHOTOS OF THE MOMENT OF THE CRASH. NOT SURE HOW TO POST THE CRASH PHOTOS ON HERE
John Masters mentions using gliders in Malaya/Burma to land supplies and take away wounded men in his book "The Road to Mandalay". Gliders were snatched from the ground by C47s. Imagine, 0 to 100 mph in a second or two
In my 20+ years of being an engineer supporting US Army Aviation I have come to the conclusion that it is never good for pilots to discuss aircraft issues over beer. The misconceptions and folklore will spread like wildfire. This is probably what created the dislike of the Horsa.
The thing about the helicopter...they don't have the range. Even today (without aerial-refueling) helicopters don't have the range. And gliders are much cheaper (by a factor of maybe a 100). Gliders are dangerous, but so are helicopters. Gliders disappeared a lot like longbows...still superior in some ways to the thing that replaced them.
Hmmm . . . . I admit to having a significant rotary wing bias (Dustoff Europe 77-80) but mission overlap between gliders and helicopters is vanishingly thin. I winced when this came up. I have no quibble with the sad fact that military helicopters are dangerous during wartime missions and in peacetime training. Nine 101st Medevac crew members aboard 2 Blackhawks were recently lost during night training in Kentucky.
@@davidk7324 It does seem like most of the crashes I hear about are rotary wing, but that could be just that they are what is used in training. I don't know, I have no expertise in anything. One of the many differences between gliders and rotors is that gliders can't evacuate you if shit goes sideways. Something I speculate about is applying new technologies to older technologies. Might be a way out of the cost spiral, as technological progress seldom saves money (okay, sometimes it does). Cheap gliders on autopilot can carry a lot of stuff, and not just troops. Cut loose at 35,000 feet, they could go a long way. And if you're partial to rotary, I wonder what fly-by-wire can do for gyrocopters? How's that for wince-causing?
Question: Given that industrial plastics or nylons fabrics (Being both light & waterproof themselves, as possible alternatives for gliders’ fuselage & wings cladding) development & applications were then (In the 1940s) in their rudimentary or nascent stages. Hence, were any of these types of materials actually considered or applied for experimental use either in the UK 🇬🇧, the 🇬🇧 Commonwealth or in the USA 🇺🇸 for producing gliders (As opposed to the actual linen or cotton fabrics then being utilized), particularly for usage or deployments in tropical climes (or in similar areas of either high heat, rainfall &/or humidity), especially for the Far Eastern or Pacific Theatres of war operations during the Second World War?
@@WW2TV :Maybe Kevin or someone else might know the answer? It might have then been possible to manufacture them in Australia, South Africa or India during the war?!
Airspeed Horsa..??? It has very little airspeed nor is it a horse..so I'm confused..all I can say is to each his own and all history has significance, even tho some might be best forgotten...
I don't understand your comment to be honest. Airspeed was the company name and Horsa the Germanian Warrior who invaded Britain in the 5th Century. Nothing to do with horses!
@@WW2TV Oh..like the movie A Man Named Horse...?? I didn't know..but why would the company who makes these things call itself Airspeed?? Airslow or Aircrash maybe would be a lot more descriptive..oh well history is what history is...
What another great presentation. Kevin really knows his stuff and communicates it well. utter respect for the day job too - that last assignment listed would be beyond my limits of self-control. My hairdresser friend offers professional respect to the flattest flat top she's ever seen. One bit I can add is that the rivalry between RAF pilots and The Glider Regiment hinted at doesn't seem to be a regular thing - explained by one saying that they rarely met the type who would think like this and the two services got on very well when at work as they depended on each other.
I would like to add a few corrections. The benches could fold up although when a cargo was transported the seat if still in the horsa would be removed entirely (weight saving) In practice they designated some MKI for vehicle or troops, according to some original documents I have, had a colour code painted were the tail meets the fuselage. An airlanding platoon during Market they made an emergency landing. Back at the airfield if they wanted to join the second airlift, they had to remove the seats from an unserviceable troop glider and converted a glider reserved for vehicles back to troop. 35:29 The floor of the Horsa was made out of wood not corrugated metal. Over the entire length of the floor there were wood "ribs' that give a corrugated look. Later during the war (Market) the glider pilots were allocated a part of the landingzone were if possible, they should land their glider. This way in the right circumstances more gliders could land and put on a landing zone. The first gliders at the edge the next wave more behind and more glider behind them. 1:01:30 The Forgotten battle. Yes they had 1 full size Horsa made, duplicated with CGI on the ground. Also a full scale cockpit and forward fuselage used for some partical effects. On a jig outside to film with real air /daylight background. And later attached to a huge zipline for the water crash scene. The fullsize horsa is preserved in the Dutch Wings of liberation museum Best, repainted and many details added. There is also a Waco CG4a from the movie Saving private Ryan in this museum. The seperate cockpit / fuselage restored and housed in the (Belgium) For Freedom museum Ramskapelle. From Normandy some Horsa have been recovered and from Germany after Varsity I know Hamilcars were taken apart by the RAF and tranported back by road. postwar the Belgian army bought a few newmade MKII horsas but never used them.
Horsa is a gorgeous machine indeed.
It's great to see people as excited about any aspect of history as Kevin genuinely demonstrates.
I flew with an instructor many times when I was 14-16. I followed tow planes, experienced winch launches, learned how to thermal, soared with hawks off the glider's wing peering in at us, and landed. My instructors were WW2 and Vietnam war pilots. What a time that was.
I first read about the D Day gliders in 1961. The movie THE LONGEST DAY was coming out. I had already read the Cornelius Ryan book and studied the pictures of the glider/airborne troops. I remember that author Ryan interviewed as many D Day vets that he could find. There was Boston attorney named Murphy who was one of the few Pathfinder paratroops available for commentary. That let me know of the high casualty rate for paratroopers. They died in a far away land battling a psychopathic , oppressive enemy bent on a violent world conquest. God bless their souls.
Yep, Bob Murphy was a cool dude. I met and chatted to him a few times in Normandy
What an amazing presentation by Kevin. It is great seeing a Yankee geek out over a British glider!!
That was a very good presentation by Kevin - He's a natural. Despite his passion, I wouldn't get on one of those things.
As a sailplane pilot, I think it would b virtually impossible to keep several thousand glider pilots properly trained for any period of time. You need tow planes, which affects their training for other missions, and gliders which would suffer high attrition during training due to landing damage. A special missions force could be kept proficient but not much beyond that.
One of my grandfathers jobs in England he was a check pilot to make sure the British pilots where ready for combat in the horsa.
He said after release you would nose straight down to gain speed before landing.
Great show, Woody. Sorry I missed the live.
This was absolutely brilliant! Exactly the sort of specialist deep dive that this channel does so well. Thanks very much Kevin and Paul.
Excellent presentation by Kevin....Knowledge is power. looking forward to Glider & Troop Carrier week and The Battle for Isurava with David Cameron. Thanks Kevin Getz.
Great presentation by Kevin. I had the pleasure of meeting him at Arnhem last September. His passion about the subject is very engaging so great to see him sharing that with you all.
Nice work Kevin! Love the passion. Good to see another "amateur" make the transition to presenter!
Love it! I'm another GPR fan. I was trained as a Paratrooper - but my respect and admiration is really reserved for the Glider bourne guys.
Thanks for the nice comment Ted, and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? ruclips.net/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin
Superlative presentation by Kevin Getz! His journalist education really comes through as he is well spoken, and has done his homework on the subject. I think we all learned a great deal from him and enjoyed his enthusiasm. It was also quite entertaining as well.
I was involved with the Horsa Glider four 3 weeks as an reenactor wen it was in Oosterbeek during the 75th anniversary in 2019
We sat with 28 guys in it and Geof Roberts KOSB was one off them he sat at the place were he sat 75 years ago and started telling his story that was the best evening I have ever had and learned so mutch more aboud the Batle near the white house
Keep up this great channel
Regards Michael from Holland
Ps maybe do an show on the Dutch Commando s that were involved at Arnhem would be nice to bring that part up as well 😊
What a talk. Something I knew very little about. My favourite thing about ww2 tv is learning something new
Howdy folks. This is one of the best presentations ever on RUclips. Great info on the horsa, a great airplane that was fit for its purpose. It took guts to fly or ride in one of these as people on the ground tried to shoot you out of the sky. Stories like this is why WW2TV is the best thing on this site.
This was excellent thanks Kevin & Woody. Really interesting, well researched and very engaging.
This is EXCELLENT! We have to remember today these are 80 Year old GLDERS. NO POWER…very limited options for steering, no runways, several of them coming down in a very limited area; basically one on top of the other. These guys were bad asses. Kevin, love all the details as to their training and your insights that no one thinks about.
Fantastic presentation by Kevin. Love the Horsa and glad to see an episode dedicated to it. Great detail and research, Look forward to seeing more from Kevin
WOW, lots of great information on the Gliders used during our WWII Troops transport. I never knew that they used more than one type of Glider. The Operators and Troops had to be really brave courageous men! Very risque transport type landings. WWII Military, our Greatest Generation! ❤️🙏🇺🇸
Brilliant stuff - watching this on the run up the the 80th Anniversary of Market Garden and while helping a friend delve in to the history of a relative who died on the 18th on the landing zones at Arnhem. Sjt Cyril Gell, 410229, Glider Pilot Regiment. We're still on open-source info at the moment as she hasn't got his military records as yet. One thing that jumped out of your video, and that I hadn't pieced together yet, was the comment Kevin made near the end of the talk where he mentioned if the pilots had a artillery piece in the glider, when they landed they were expected to know how to use it. We already knew of the 'total soldier' concept, but our interest in this comment is that Cyril was originally Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry (TA) before the war, and at the outbreak - but the DLOY were retrained as part of the Royal Artillery. So , I'm speculating that they might have used Cyril's skills when he joined The Glider Pilot Regiment and had him allocated to transporting artillery pieces?
The video game, Band of Brothers, Road to Hill 30, has Horsas in it
01:09:10 post WW2, the glider is decommissioned pretty quickly by the Allies. The last US airborne exercise to involve gliders takes place in 1949 (the last glider trained infantrymen got their badges around this time as well). Interestingly, the Soviets (the first army to raise a glider unit in the late 30s) will keep 3 glider regiments in training till 1965. The last attack to use gliders was in Israel on 25th November 1987 when one of their bases on the Lebanese border were hit up by Palestinian fighters using motorised hand gliders.
Reference: Silent Skies: Gliders at War 1939-45 (Lynch)
Wonderful show today gents. I learned a great deal. Looking forward to further AB/Glider content.
Brilliant bid...Kevin awesome job
Awesome talk Kevin, thank you 👏
Great talk.
Kevin: the finest aircraft of WW2.
Me: Eyes dart from Spitfire to Zero to P-51 to Hellcat and an endless list of fighters, bombers, ground attack aircraft. I appreciate his passion for the subject but I can't think of a glider that highly.
Very interesting presentation. I was relatively ignorant regarding glider technology so I had no horse in the Horsa vs WACO race but Kevin makes a strong case for the Horsa. I think I would avoid being in a glider in WW2 if at all possible. Hitting someone’s plowed field at nearly 100mph in a wood and fabric airplane does not sound like my idea of fun.
Wonderful knowledge. Total enjoyment
Always interesting videos ✔️
Late to the show, but as for a 'what if' on the helicopter, the Fairchild C-123 transport was initially designed as an assualt glider, with engines added.
Thanks for the nice comment Greg, and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? ruclips.net/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin
The C-123 looked like a two engined C-130 abeit smaller. One version had a Jet Assist Take Off (JATO) engine either side of the wing. When I went through Ft Benning jump school in June 1972, the Alabama Air National Guard was flying our drops with these. The JATO made these aircraft very noisy on take off!
Really interesting & l agree about the Horsa, what a magnificent aircraft.
Kev, felt awful I wasn’t able to be there as this was happening.
Brilliant work all the same, I had little doubt in that. I thought I knew a decent amount about all this, evidently not!
Be obsessed. Great stuff!
Very nice post, thank you both.
Thanks for the nice comment Victor, and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? ruclips.net/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin
Really excellent Kevin ,thankyou very much for your detailed talk on this glider ,your passion and your energy for such an aircraft just says it all ..,
massive thanks .
Really interesting, thanks.
I am a Pilot and i have flown the route to Pegasus Bridge and I take my hat off to the pilots of 1944 a night flight and landing so close is remarkable i am not sure i could do it in daylight in 2023
glides like a rock
Jim Wallwork said it was the most graceful aircraft he ever flew
Thank you Kevin and Paul for the interesting show. I always found the name Horsa intriguing. Wasn't Horsa an ancient celtic tribe chief who is mentioned by Caesar? Looking forward to the following shows, best greetings, Peter
Thanks for the nice comment Peter, and if you haven't already, please make sure you subscribe to WW2TV and perhaps consider becoming a member? ruclips.net/channel/UCUC1nmJGHmiKtlkpA6SJMeAjoin
@@WW2TV Hi Paul, I have subscribed already several weeks ago. About the membership: I will become a member. What is better for you: Patreon or RUclips? Best greetings, Peter
@@peterfriedenspfeife9230 Either is fine thank you Peter
@WW2TV OK, done. You are doing such a great work, thank you very much for this.
Thank you very much Peter
the glider weight endangers the stall speed of the tow aircraft!
I wish that a New Airspeed Horsa Glider could be build up with the same landing gear but this time with a Double tire nose gear and be towed up to the sky again and this time by the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.
Just liked and Sub'd. My Favorite Job if I was in WWII? Glider Pilot or Medic ("Aid Man"). Why Glider Pilot? I LOVE the concept of being a Pilot, then fighting as an Infantryman. Best of both worlds in my view.
Welcome aboard
WAY-KO. WAY-KO.
JUST TO CORRECT A POINT THAT HORSA WAS NOT USED IN ASIA, MY FATHER WAS GPR AND SENT TO INDIA WITH 2 HORSA GLIDERS AS PART OF TIGER SQUADRON. I CANT ELABORATE MORE AT THE MOMENT AS MY INFO IS IN STORAGE AS I HAVE JUST MOVED HOUSE. I WILL TRY DIG IT OUT BEFORE THE WEEKEND AS ITS A REALLY INTERESTING STORY AS HE CRASHED ON A TEST FLIGHT POSSIBLY DUE TO TO THE AIR CONDITIONS NOT BEING GOOD FOR PLANES. BARE WITH ME WHILST I GET THE INFO TOGETHER, YOU WILL BE AMAZED BUT I HAVE PHOTOS OF THE MOMENT OF THE CRASH.
NOT SURE HOW TO POST THE CRASH PHOTOS ON HERE
John Masters mentions using gliders in Malaya/Burma to land supplies and take away wounded men in his book "The Road to Mandalay". Gliders were snatched from the ground by C47s. Imagine, 0 to 100 mph in a second or two
Any more information to add?
In my 20+ years of being an engineer supporting US Army Aviation I have come to the conclusion that it is never good for pilots to discuss aircraft issues over beer. The misconceptions and folklore will spread like wildfire. This is probably what created the dislike of the Horsa.
The thing about the helicopter...they don't have the range. Even today (without aerial-refueling) helicopters don't have the range. And gliders are much cheaper (by a factor of maybe a 100). Gliders are dangerous, but so are helicopters. Gliders disappeared a lot like longbows...still superior in some ways to the thing that replaced them.
Hmmm . . . . I admit to having a significant rotary wing bias (Dustoff Europe 77-80) but mission overlap between gliders and helicopters is vanishingly thin. I winced when this came up. I have no quibble with the sad fact that military helicopters are dangerous during wartime missions and in peacetime training. Nine 101st Medevac crew members aboard 2 Blackhawks were recently lost during night training in Kentucky.
@@davidk7324 It does seem like most of the crashes I hear about are rotary wing, but that could be just that they are what is used in training. I don't know, I have no expertise in anything. One of the many differences between gliders and rotors is that gliders can't evacuate you if shit goes sideways.
Something I speculate about is applying new technologies to older technologies. Might be a way out of the cost spiral, as technological progress seldom saves money (okay, sometimes it does). Cheap gliders on autopilot can carry a lot of stuff, and not just troops. Cut loose at 35,000 feet, they could go a long way. And if you're partial to rotary, I wonder what fly-by-wire can do for gyrocopters? How's that for wince-causing?
@@mliittsc63 Ouch!
Piloting at night with turn and bank only would be extremely tiring. Should have been provided with Gyro- Artificial Horizon.
Question: Given that industrial plastics or nylons fabrics (Being both light & waterproof themselves, as possible alternatives for gliders’ fuselage & wings cladding) development & applications were then (In the 1940s) in their rudimentary or nascent stages. Hence, were any of these types of materials actually considered or applied for experimental use either in the UK 🇬🇧, the 🇬🇧 Commonwealth or in the USA 🇺🇸 for producing gliders (As opposed to the actual linen or cotton fabrics then being utilized), particularly for usage or deployments in tropical climes (or in similar areas of either high heat, rainfall &/or humidity), especially for the Far Eastern or Pacific Theatres of war operations during the Second World War?
That I don't know
@@WW2TV :Maybe Kevin or someone else might know the answer? It might have then been possible to manufacture them in Australia, South Africa or India during the war?!
The heaviest weight must be at the centre of the balance.
Does anyone know of my grandad Huw Parry born 1908 a horsa pilot in 2nd airborne Division.
Do you mean 82nd Airborne?
@@WW2TV 2 para raf
Ah 2 Para Regiment. Gotcha. I don't any specific info sorry
Airspeed Horsa..??? It has very little airspeed nor is it a horse..so I'm confused..all I can say is to each his own and all history has significance, even tho some might be best forgotten...
I don't understand your comment to be honest. Airspeed was the company name and Horsa the Germanian Warrior who invaded Britain in the 5th Century. Nothing to do with horses!
@@WW2TV Oh..like the movie A Man Named Horse...?? I didn't know..but why would the company who makes these things call itself Airspeed?? Airslow or Aircrash maybe would be a lot more descriptive..oh well history is what history is...
@@oilsmokejones3452 Airspeed didn't just make gliders though
@@WW2TV I wonder if anyone tried talking to these gliders..you know..because no one can talk to a horsa ofcoursa...LOL