Airspeed Horsa (1 Viewer)

[EwenS]

Ewen, thanks for the info. I find it very frustrating that I never asked more info from my parents and grand-parents regarding war service, both in WWI and WWII!
So they were at last to send out Horsas to the Far East for Japan operations, but I don't see the problem with sending them out as they were delivered to the Maintenance Units in semi-kit form from the manufacturers (see attached pic). Do you know how the Wacos got there as the problems were even greater getting them to China than getting the Horsas to India. Were they also transported in kit form and from where?

As background info you might find the CG-4A manual of interest.

Waco CG-4A Glider Pilots Flight Operating Instructions.pdf

View and download Waco CG-4A Glider Pilots Flight Operating Instructions.pdf on DocDroid

www.docdroid.com

This article, while based on US experience in Europe, contains a few snippets about the difficulties your father would have faced flying a glider behind the tow aircraft.

Operation Varsity: Flying Gliders Across the Rhine

By Christopher Warner March 24, 1945. The green light flashed from the C-47 tug plane, prompting the glider pilot being pulled behind it to release his tow rope over Landing Zone N, just east of the Rhine River. A steady barrage of German antiaircraft flak blackened the sky as tracer bullets...

warfarehistorynetwork.com

Another of the scarier things he might have had to practice. The glider snatch!

NWWIIGPA-GliderPickup

National Association of World War II Glider Pilots

www.ww2gp.org

As I recall, the CG-4A, in kit form would fit into a C-46.

New one on me. I haven't checked the dimensions but I think it must have involved multiple aircraft if it was possible. Any more details?

Can't immediately think why you would even want to do it. The C-46 & C-47 were capable of towing several CG-4A simultaneously. So why try to pack a single one inside the C-46? And when it came to recovering them from the battlefield they were considered expendable if damaged, or there was always the glider snatch method I referred to above.

 

[Technik1]

Maybe a bit late but to shed some info as I did a lot of the research into the paint schemes and markings for the Horsa model collection in the original post.

The Horsa had two basic schemes - the training scheme and the operational scheme. The training scheme is what we lovingly refer to the "bumble bee" scheme which is based on the RAF target tug markings and the operational scheme which was black with the colours of the upper camouflage changing depending on the theater of operations. Airspeed prepared drawings for both schemes - 601011 for training and 601012 for operational.

Of the original batch of 200 gliders they started to leave the production line painted in the training scheme - some of the earlier ones having their serials under the wings in red as per the Airspeed drawing but they removed them fairly soon after. These are the ones you often see in photos used by the Glider Pilot Exercise Unit at Netheravon/Thruxton and Heavy Glider Conversion Unit at Brize Norton up to around 1943.

Where things get a bit muddy is around the various changes in the Air Ministry Orders for aircraft camouflage - in short it stated that all training gliders should have the striped scheme and all Operational/OTU gliders should have the same camouflage as their heavy bomber tugs.

The Heavy Glider Conversion unit was considered for all intents and purposes an operational unit - because it was doing type conversion for pilots from the Hotspur to the Horsa plus operational refresher training. Hence, after about mid 1943 all their striped Horsa gliders got repainted.

So at 23 HGCU Peplow they would have had the black operational colour scheme with a training aircraft ident number on the fuselage. I can't tell you which position and colour they were - it seems 21 HGCU used white preferring the front of the fuselage, other units put it in front of the rear roundel. Officially it was meant to be red but empircally it seems not - though the remaining Mk.II fuselage at Middle Wallop does have a painted over red ID on the loading door.

Do you have the serial of the glider he flew? If not I can offer RX647 or RX660 which where Horsa Mk.I at the unit in November '44.

Also, there were two camouflage paint schemes, depending on whether the a/c serial number was an odd number or an even one; the odd-numbered ones used "scheme A", while the even numbered used "scheme B". The difference was that the colours (either brown & green or grey & green) were reversed or "mirrored".

 

[Wavertree]

Also, there were two camouflage paint schemes, depending on whether the a/c serial number was an odd number or an even one; the odd-numbered ones used "scheme A", while the even numbered used "scheme B". The difference was that the colours (either brown & green or grey & green) were reversed or "mirrored".

Thanks, Tecknik 1. Difficult to know what is meant by an odd or even serial number - The one glider my dad flew was RN364/3 - is this an odd (/3) or even (364)? After he flew this one five times (in one day!!) he then flew others where the a/c serial was not used, just a a single or double digit - this would have been the large number painted by the main door. These varied from "05" to "18" (five different a/c). The same applied to the Hadrian he flew that was recorded as "49". Your information on the paint schemes is especially interesting as I am proof reading and editing a book on the various paint schemes of the South African Air Force aircraft from 1913 through to 1941. This will be the first in a series up to around 1984 and I am wading through the technicalities of the Temperate Land (and other) Scheme colours. I did not know that Thruxton was used for glider training - I used to be at boarding school very near there, visited it often, and knew the Doran-Webb family very well who owned it! The Thruxton Jackaroo was built there, but the biggest thrill as an Air Force Cadet was guarding a twin-seater Spitfire!

 

[SaparotRob]

It is an example of Air Chief Marshal Leigh-Mallory's forward thinking to confound future aviation modelers.
A cunning plan.

 

[EwenS]

Also, there were two camouflage paint schemes, depending on whether the a/c serial number was an odd number or an even one; the odd-numbered ones used "scheme A", while the even numbered used "scheme B". The difference was that the colours (either brown & green or grey & green) were reversed or "mirrored".

AIUI the A / B mirror paint schemes were phased out in 1940/41 in order to simplify production. Given that the Horsa didn't fly until Sept 1941, I would have thought that there was only the one pattern applied to them. A quick trawl of the 'net seems to show them all with the same pattern. Happy to have someone point me in the direction of others.

Many US types supplied to the RAF and FAA retained the US camouflage scheme of Olive Drab over Neutral Gray. While some CG-4A Hadrians in Britain seem to have acquired RAF style disruptive pattern camouflage, those in India seem to have retained their US colours.

 

[Technik1]

AIUI the A / B mirror paint schemes were phased out in 1940/41 in order to simplify production. Given that the Horsa didn't fly until Sept 1941, I would have thought that there was only the one pattern applied to them. A quick trawl of the 'net seems to show them all with the same pattern. Happy to have someone point me in the direction of others.

Many US types supplied to the RAF and FAA retained the US camouflage scheme of Olive Drab over Neutral Gray. While some CG-4A Hadrians in Britain seem to have acquired RAF style disruptive pattern camouflage, those in India seem to have retained their US colours.

I used "Aircraft of the Fighting Powers" 1943 (Vol.3, I think), where the A/B paint schemes were stated. The Horsa's definitely did use this scheme. Also, Airspeed, who designed (and built) many of these, were wholly owned by de-Havilland, who were absolute sticklers for "getting things right". I have seen photos of Portsmouth and Christchurch (U.K.) airfields with large numbers of them picketed in the open air.

Hope this helps!

 

[Technik1]

Thanks, Tecknik 1. Difficult to know what is meant by an odd or even serial number - The one glider my dad flew was RN364/3 - is this an odd (/3) or even (364)? After he flew this one five times (in one day!!) he then flew others where the a/c serial was not used, just a a single or double digit - this would have been the large number painted by the main door. These varied from "05" to "18" (five different a/c). The same applied to the Hadrian he flew that was recorded as "49". Your information on the paint schemes is especially interesting as I am proof reading and editing a book on the various paint schemes of the South African Air Force aircraft from 1913 through to 1941. This will be the first in a series up to around 1984 and I am wading through the technicalities of the Temperate Land (and other) Scheme colours. I did not know that Thruxton was used for glider training - I used to be at boarding school very near there, visited it often, and knew the Doran-Webb family very well who owned it! The Thruxton Jackaroo was built there, but the biggest thrill as an Air Force Cadet was guarding a twin-seater Spitfire!

It may be that the serial was RN364/G - the "G" indicating that the aircraft was to be kept guarded by an armed guard at all times. If so, it would have been an odd-number serial.
A single or double large digit was used by the Army, to identify which troops were to board which glider (normally, but not always, this was the last/last two digits of the serial. Interestingly, my dad (a young lad at the time) was evacuated to Carshalton!

All the best with your research and getting the books published!