Military glider
These engineless aircraft were towed into the air and most of the way to their target by military transport planes, e.g., C-47 Skytrain or Dakota, or bombers relegated to secondary activities, e.g., Short Stirling.
The one-way nature of the missions meant that they were treated as semi-expendable leading to construction from common and inexpensive materials such as wood.
Landing by parachute caused the troops to be spread over a large drop-zone and separated from other airdropped equipment, such as vehicles and anti-tank guns.
The development of modern gliders was spurred by the Versailles Treaty following World War I, under the terms of which Germany was prohibited from constructing certain high powered airplanes.
[1] The early sporting objectives of gliders were quickly overtaken in the Soviet Union and in Germany by military applications, mainly the training of pilots.
[2] In 1932, the Soviet Union demonstrated the TsK Komsula, a four-place glider, designed by GF Groschev that could also be used for cargo.
Luftwaffe Colonel Kurt Student visited Moscow as part of the military collaboration programme with the Soviet Union.
He reported back to his superiors in Berlin details of a 1,500 man parachute drop and the large transport gliders that he had seen.
Further field testing convinced Student that a vehicle was needed to deliver the heavy weapons for the lightly armed parachute troops.
This idea was dismissed until October 1938 by which time Student had risen to major-general and was appointed Inspector of Airborne Forces.
On April 26, 1941, the troops from six DFS 230 gliders captured the bridge over the Corinth Canal accompanied by 40 plane-loads of German paratroopers.
Among the 350 German planes destroyed in the operation, half had been Ju 52s, which seriously depleted the force needed for the invasion of the Soviet Union shortly after.
The Blohm & Voss BV 40 was a German glider fighter designed to attack Allied bomber formations but was not used.
Among the types developed were the 28 trooper Airspeed Horsa and the 7-ton capacity General Aircraft Hamilcar cargo glider.
The Slingsby Hengist was a backup design which was not required when the similar capacity American-built Waco CG-4 (given the British service name "Hadrian") became available in large numbers through lend-lease.
Out of the 2,596 gliders dispatched for Operation Market Garden, 2,239 were effective in delivering men and equipment to their designated landing zones.
Major General Henry "Hap" Arnold, Acting Deputy Chief of Staff for Air (becoming Commanding General of the United States Army Air Forces on March 9, 1942), initiated a study with view to develop a glider capable of being towed by aircraft.
This directive was set into motion through Classified Technical Instructions (CTI-198 on 24 February 1941, and CTI-203 on 4 March 1941), which authorized the procurement of 2-, 8-, and 15-place gliders and equipment.
[2] After Barringer was lost at sea on a flight to Africa in January 1943, the program came under direction of Richard C. du Pont.
