Anthony,

Good information!  That glider made a flight ealier in the day carrying six and had no apparent problems.  The fitting failed when the GP pulled up after cutting loose.  A St. Louis newspaper photographer took four or five photos of the glider from take-off to the final pile on the ground.  He was really fast with changing plates! 

Wright Field immediately obtained the negatives!  Lt. M. Miller, CG-4A project engineer at Wright Field, went to St. Louis to inspect.  Miller devised the hooked wire used to determine the wall thickness of the part by inserting it into a hole drilled at a specific spot on the fitting.  Jack Laister told me he (L-K) had rejected several of these parts two months prior and returned them to Gardner.  The problem was that after the part was welded into the strut tube, there was no visible way to check the thickness.  Gardner apparently sent these rejected parts to Metal Products to be welded into tubes despite their being so thin.
 
Charles Day

  

Silent Ones, WWII Invasion Glider Test & Experiment

JIm,
Forgot to add,  that this nose is a CG-15A is the reaosn the co-pilot has brake pedals.

Charles Day

Silent Ones, WWII Invasion Glider Test & Experiment

Anthony, Jim, and Charles,
                   Many thanks for your continued efforts.  Here is something I found in a set of on-line photos at http://tanxheaven.com/mbo/CG-4A-WacoGlider/CG-4A-WacoGlider.htm.  This is supposedly a Commonwealth CG-4A, 45-15009. 

But note this photo of the rear of one of the seats:

My question is this- note the number stenciled on the seat.  Is the NW prefix for Northwestern aircraft?  I know this seat could be a replacement seat put in the aircraft by the restoration team.  Also, note the straight back on the seat, with no curve at the top (this is one of the seat types I mentioned).  But did the contractors sub-contract parts for other manufacturers?  Just thought I'd add this to the debate...

John,

The number on the seat is the seat part number.  NW is the abbreviation or code for Norhtwestern as a prime contractor for gliders, but I am not sure that is the case here.

When you say curved are you talking about side to side, such as rounded rather than straight cut?  I believe all CG-4A seats were straight cut across the top. Rounded top was in the CG-13A and CG-15A.  can you point me to a picture of a curve top seat back?

The picture site is great.  I believe this is the glider at Dover, DE.  To my knowledge, except for the CG-4A at the NMUSAF on old Wright Field, this is the most complete, original, as assembled by the prime contractor, CG-4A in the US. I doubt the seats have been changed.  The L-K CG-4A at Ste. Mere Eglise was new, complete when it went to France after the war.

These pictures by Boyd at Dover show you a lot of the stuff you need to know. The glider is the 467th production article of the 520 article 1945 Commonwealth contract.

Definately some of the 16 prime contractors did sub-contract work for the other prime contractors. Gibson made a couple of glider parts for Ford.  Gibson also made some B-24 parts for Ford.  In addition, there had to be a hundred or more parts or components manufacturers.

Here is some comment on detail shown by these photos:
They definately show that the co-pilot did not have brake pedals even in late 1945 production.  Look at the trim tabs.  The round plate is riveted to a crank with three prongs (fingers) with three rivets.  In earlier production those fingers were different and there were only two rivets, one on each side. This glider did not have the "bolt-on Griswold nose protection device.  Ford 1945 production did.  I don't know why some did and some did not other than availability. Or, Ford, under Griswold license, made tools and dies to shape and form the legs of the device rather than relying on Griswold production.  One early change that was on all gliders after a point is the two piece brace clamped around the shock absorbing wheel strut.  This was added to all production after early production struts broke and the lower end punched through the side of the glider-very unfortunate for the man sitting there!
   
Besides component sub-contractors you can see that Wichita Engineering built some if not most of the wheel struts.  Several companies apparently built the wheels. Tires were at least four different treads/mfg.  Were the tires rubber or neoprene?

The finished tow lines came from at least two different rope manufacturers-none came from DuPont because DuPont did not make finished nylon product.  Look at the aluminum thimble on the tow line. I don't know who made them but probably a small company that specialized in making, shaping and flaring tubing. In the cockpit, plexiglas, instruments, safety belts, steering chain, wire rope, canvas protectors, fabric covering, bolts, nuts, pulleys, clamps, commnication stuff, trim tabs, wooden knobs on trim tab cranks, would have come from subs.  Some parts were so-called government furnished (eg., communications stuff) that was shipped to the prime contractor by the government contracted supplier.  That is, the prime glider contractor did not contract directly with that manufacturer.

The total logistics of glider parts alone is a nightmare.  Then, think of the magnitude of the logistics of the total war program of all materiels right down to the eyelets in a shoe.  Though not without problems, we as a country did a magnificent job!

Charles Day

Silent Ones, WWII Invasion Glider Test & Experiment

Photos of CG-4A # 42-78839 crashing at Lambert Field, Missouri, on 1 August 1943 can be found in a variety of publications, including Page 24 of "MILITARY AVIATION DISASTER--Significant Losses since 1908" by David Gero (Patrick Stephens Limited Publishers 1999).  Tony Mireles

Charles,
            Re the seat backs.  What I mean is a curve at the top of the seat back, which curves toward the tail of the glider.  I can't find the photo I found on-line earlier, but it looks like the seatbacks of the chairs I sat in when I went to school.  I have looked through hundreds of pages on the web, and can't find that one since I originally looked at it!  I'm sure I'll run across it again, but here is a photo I found of the "bucket" seat type which looks similar to the typical warbird seats.  Is this the type you say were attributed to later gliders? 
 

 
I sent links of these closeups of photos of the control column I have.  Note the method of addition of the co-pilot's column.  It is evidently bolted onto the single control column.  Not the safety wire on the index pin/swing over lock.  If all the dual columns are made like this, I believe they were all modified from the existing throw-over models. 



 
One last item- the only photograph of my cockpit I could get before dark at the airfield.   Note the intercom connector which was permanently attached to the airframe during manufacture. 
 

 
 

John,

Is the seat picture cropped?  It would be interesting to see more of the seat.  Is there any indication of where it was taken, etc.  If I had my druthers, I would say the pilot is an instructor who, like many, did not like the CG-4A seat and "picked up" or made his own seat.

I have never seen such a seat before in a glider photo.  In my opinion this is not a production CG-4A seat.  It also does not look like a CG-15A or CG-13A seat.


Charles Day

Silent Ones, WWII Invasion Glider Test & Experiment

Hello,

I am sure all we know rectangular instrument panel in the CG-4As. Does anybody know which manufacturer made its CG-As equipped with arc-shaped instrument panel?

Best regards

Greg

I want to withdraw my above question. Because we correspond between us with Charles L. Day, and Charles is "glider guru" he explained me in our private correspondence what masked instrument panel on the photograph I know where the panel looks like arc-shaped but in fact is standard rectangular. Thanks Charles for your valuable expertise.
 
What below can be seen is Pratt, Reed & Co.-built, FR579 serialled, CG-4A for the RAF, i.e. this is famous "Voo-Doo" glider from the period of its transatlantic flight. W/C Richard G. Seys can be seen at the controls. When it comes to controls -- take your consideration at this element. This is not car-type steering wheel as always in the CG-4As but it is classic two-handle control column with open top as known from all multiengine aircraft.
 
The question is if the RAF ordered such control columns in their CG-4As or such a column was typical for all Pratt, Reed & Co.-built CG-4As?
 
Best regards
 
Greg

Attached Image(s)

Dear Anthony,

That is some interesting history, thank you for sharing it. This week on the History Channel it mentioned how many of the German aces were glider pilots first.

Between the wars Germany had been limited to what it could produce in the way of planes. Many pilots learned to glide and it saved a number of their lives having these glider skills.

The Rocket Fighter near the end of the HAD to be glided in and the pilot they interviewed told how he learned to glide before the war as many other German pilots had.
 
It made all the difference several times for him and other German pilots whose planes had been shot up and had to try to bring their planes down.

Attached Image(s)

Sincerely yours,
PA.Dutchman

Son of T/Sgt. Ray A. Heilman, JR.
11 TH Field Artillery 1937-1940
Schofield Barracks
7 TH AAC 11 BGH 42 Sq.1940-45
Hickam Survivor 12/7/1941
AAC Armorer (P) 911
P.U.Citation1942

PA.Dutchman
This week on the History Channel it mentioned how many of the German aces were glider pilots first.
Between the wars Germany had been limited to what it could produce in the way of planes. Many pilots learned to glide and it saved a number of their lives having these glider skills.

Hello,

The History Channel vision of history is specific many times. The Germans are the champions of public relations when it comes to interwar period soaring and gliding and Western historians accept it. I do not understand why because Poland and Russia were not worse in that period. It is not truth that in 1920s/1930s there was only one "world leader" of soaring and gliding, i.e. Germany, and behind this "leader" was nothing and vacuum though such black PR are done.
 
The Germans are created as the "world’s No. 1" in soaring/gliding of interwar years but this is only half-truth and everybody may check it in the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). It is impossible to tell who was better then -- Germany or Poland because both these countries rivaled between them very hard in the field of gliding records. Why today Luftwaffe ace has good PR as a well-educated and trained glider pilot and aircraft pilot? All the Polish fighter aces of WWII were the same kind of airmen because Poland has the same paramilitary program of national glider training as Germany and Russia. These three countries were world’s "Big Three" but never Germany was sole "No. 1". Who has the FAI Lilienthal Gliding Medal stamped "Number One" for 1939? The Polish pilot Tadeusz Góra, who is 90 today and Brig. Gen. The History Channel has never visited neither him nor similar people because there is global fascination by Luftwaffe, German aces, German technology, German WWII secrets, German manner of thinking and German style of life before WWII. The anti-nazi Allied countries are not attractive for media when it comes to soaring and gliding because "Wasserkuppe über alles" and nazi glider Nationalsozialistische Fliegerkorps as well. The other glidermen from anti-nazi countries are far on the margin in the world of media.
 
The best gliderman of the world before WWII, above mentioned Brig. Gen. Tadeusz Góra, has been a glider pilot up to 85, he lives in Poland and world media could visit him. Nobody does it. During WWII only at the controls of P-51 Mustang he flew more than 800 sorties, not to mention other fighters. Half a century he was a test pilot of all possible flying machines -- gliders, aircraft, helicopters. But today nazi Luftwaffe fighter pilot who earlier was a member of glider Nationalsozialistische Fliegerkorps is like a God for electronic media and not only electronic. The Polish glider designer Antoni Kocjan (murdered by the Germans in 1944) designed not worse gliders than the Germans and the Americans know it very well thanks to Kocjan’s Orlik II advanced glider owned by the USAAF as XTG-7 and next by the American pilots as famous Paul Mac Cready. But today this is "not the subject" for the History Channel and similar media -- Luftwaffe über alles, this the subject the viewers wait for. The same goes for Richard C. Du Pont, Lewin B. Barringer and the others from Allied side of the war. They are "not interesting".
 
My two cents on the margin.
 
Best regards
 
Greg

You can be sure I will never mentioned it again.

WOW powered or glider you should blew me out of the sky.

Sincerely yours,
PA.Dutchman

Son of T/Sgt. Ray A. Heilman, JR.
11 TH Field Artillery 1937-1940
Schofield Barracks
7 TH AAC 11 BGH 42 Sq.1940-45
Hickam Survivor 12/7/1941
AAC Armorer (P) 911
P.U.Citation1942

:-)

I wanted to tell one thing only -- pre-WWII American Elmira is not worse than Wasserkuppe and pre-WWII Polish Bezmiechowa (a counterpart of Elmira or Wasserkuppe) is not worse as well. But the cult of Wasserkuppe dominated all other objective pieces of information on pre-WWII soaring and gliding. Before WWII there was a term "the Polish school of gliding" because Poland has never copied foreign methodology of the glider pilots training. Untill 1939 the Polish gliding schools trained 340 glider pilots from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, The Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Romania, Great Britain as well as N. and S. Americas. Before WWII 12 countries of the world used the Polish gliders. Who remembers about it today in such media as the History Channel and similar ones? For them only Hanna Reitsch exists and Luftwaffe aces former glider pilots. On the eve of WWII, September 1st, 1939, Poland had 52631 people trained in gliders. Majority of them fought in the UK-based Polish Air Force. The Russians had more than 100000 such people before WWII and every one their fighter ace was a glider pilot as well. Those people are not interesting for popular media however, because media are fascinated by nazi system and its representatives. German glider propaganda is still living up to this time and media distribute it very well.

Warm regards

Greg


PS.
I apologize for off-topic :-)

Greg,

This Voo-Doo cockpit image is interesting.  I have never seen before!
In addition to the steering wheel look at the seat back.  It appears to rise well above the pilot's head and appears to be padded (3 inches or so thickness).  This also was not standard. 

I would guess the wheel and seat were a customization done by the British.  It could easily have been done at the operations base after the glider was delivered.  There was only one Voo Doo but there was a sister CG-4A (Hadrian) used for training and acclimation that was flown on long trips up and down the East coast of U.S. and to the islands for about six months prior to the Voo Doo flight across the ocean. These changes were probably made at Cmdr. Seys' suggestion after flying some of those long flights.

There also is some other stuff forward of the steering gear that looks non-standard.  It would be interesting to have a high resolution image to try to determine what the stuff is.

Do you have an image that shows Cmdr. Seys' hank of bananas he was taking to England? 

Here is a good story about the Voo Doo flight.  When they came down over Scotland to land, coming out of the clouds, at one point, the glider and the tug were flying one above the other going in OPPOSITE directions.  Try that sometime, on tow, with a 350' tow line! 

Silent Ones, WWII Invasion Glider Test & Experiment