As the Second World War was drawing to a close the company decided to continue to make gliding part of their business plan.

[2] Many economic forecasts had predicted a post war aviation boom, with thousands of military trained airmen returning home to the US to fly civil aircraft.

By the summer of 1948 it was obvious that the boom was not going to occur and this left manufacturers with surplus inventory of powered light aircraft and, in the case of Schweizer, gliders.

[3] The 1-19 is very light, with an empty weight of just 320 lb (150 kg), but it is complex to assemble and disassemble as this requires use of many small pins.

This was attempted because the company had acquired a used Andover engine that produced 12 horsepower (9 kW) at 4000 rpm.

The combination of the low-performance 1-19 and the low-power engine left the aircraft unable to climb out of ground effect.

Other than one flight where the aircraft was auto-towed with the engine running at full throttle, this was the only time that the altitude achieved exceeded ten feet.

[1] The SGU 1-20 was issued Canadian type certificate G-53 1960-10-27 in the name of Cu Nim Gliding Club of Calgary.

Jim Hard flew an SGU 1-19 190 miles (308 km) to qualify for a Gold distance and Diamond goal flight.