Colditz glider flies 65 years later

[Frank Whiteley]

http://tinyurl.com/6n3lvge

[Ralph Jones]

On Sat, 17 Mar 2012 15:14:17 -0700 (PDT), Frank Whiteley
<frank.w...@gmail.com> wrote:

>http://tinyurl.com/6n3lvge

A manned replica was flown in England back in the Nineties, though I
suppose this is the first time it's been done from the actual Schloss
with an actual bathtub-a-pult...

rj

[Martin Gregorie]

Indeed, and test flown by Derek Piggott IIRC.

Find "Colditz Castle" with Google Earth, zoom out to see across the river
and it becomes obvious why this version was flown as a UAV. The water
meadow across the river was intended landing place of the original
glider, but is now wall to wall houses, roads and trees, so these days
any more or less straight ahead flight is just a straight glide to a
crash site.

You can see from the pictures that the replica had no airbrakes and so
little ability to make a precision landing. I think the idea must have
been to prove that the launch would work and, if it did, the intention
was to crash the glider on the far side of the river to show it could fly
that far and to hope it could be done without hitting anything or anybody.

There is a possible, though rough looking, landing area on the far river
bank to the right, but that would require a 70-80 degree turn, which you
may not want to do on the first launch of a new aircraft over a built-up
area, regardless of whether it was manned or unmanned


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

[Tony]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116492/Flight-Colditz-British-PoWs-daring-glider-escape-takes-sky-67-years-late.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[Martin Gregorie]

Thanks, Tony.

Thats a better story than the one I saw, and with much better pictures:
the only one I've seen before is the second one. The first is
particularly interesting, as you can tell from the view of the castle
that they did turn right and put it on the bit of the riverbank I
described as 'rough-looking'. Its obviously much shorter grass and
smoother than I'd guessed from the Google Earth view.

I notice that their airframe was half the weight of the original, so I
have to wonder if the wing would have come off forward through the
pilot's head if the structure had as much material in it as the original
- and if it would have launched so easily.