CG4A Glider Parachute

[Nailbender]

From The Trunk: A Deceleration Parachute for a Waco CG4A Glider

[Guest Photographer]

Really neat item!!!! Thanks for posting it.

[Greg Sebring]

I saw this post and ask my dad about these. He flew in the CG4A's into Holland and during post war training in Germany at Ludwigslust. He told me he never saw anything like this nor did he ever knew they existed. Certainly not a definitive verdict but obviously not widely used. Maybe his gliders laden with either a jeep or a 75mm pack howitzer didn't need the extra drag to slow down.

 

Greg

[Brig]

whose trunk?

[Nailbender]

I saw this post and ask my dad about these. He flew in the CG4A's into Holland and during post war training in Germany at Ludwigslust. He told me he never saw anything like this nor did he ever knew they existed. Certainly not a definitive verdict but obviously not widely used. Maybe his gliders laden with either a jeep or a 75mm pack howitzer didn't need the extra drag to slow down.

 

Greg

 

Hi Greg

Hat off to your Dad for being there and done that. They are a rare item but they were installed on some CG4A's.

[Nailbender]

whose trunk?

About a month ago a friend of mine (Ken) asked me to come over to his house cause he had a trunk with some stuff in it that he wanted me to get rid of for him ( I do this sort of thing for a lot of people these past years) Turns out the items in the trunk are WW11. His Grandma had the trunk and before she passed on the few relatives that were left met and cleaned out her home for her cause she was going to a nursing home. This stuff belonged to her son's, they were all in WW11. All are deseased now and Ken really didn't want it in the first place and has had it for bout 15 years. So it is his trunk for me to do with as I see best.

[Brig]

nice find

[Gregory]

From The Trunk: A Deceleration Parachute for a Waco CG4A Glider

A very interesting translucent chute. I guess it was made of nylon but it had to be extremely thin material.

 

Maybe his gliders laden with either a jeep or a 75mm pack howitzer didn't need the extra drag to slow down.

All CG-4As needed tail chute dramatically because that glider was not the greatest achievement of the US aviation industry, to put it mildly. Especially the gliders with heavy equipment on board needed those chutes to avoid massacring pilot and co-pilot in the landing run phase. Between 1937 and 1941 Gen. "Hap" Arnold (and US military intelligence) never ordered to observe German DFS 230 cargo glider, its construction and flight techniques with drag chute. That was US strategic blunder.

[tenacious101010]

Thats a really nice item. I dont believe I have ever seen one before. I had a CG-4 nose section I sold a while back and recently I came across a piece of CG-4 glider nose atr. I ended up selling it but I do like the gliders and am glad to see there is more stuff out there.

Denny

 

A very interesting translucent chute. I guess it was made of nylon but it had to be extremely thin material.

All CG-4As needed tail chute dramatically because that glider was not the greatest achievement of the US aviation industry, to put it mildly. Especially the gliders with heavy equipment on board needed those chutes to avoid massacring pilot and co-pilot in the landing run phase. Between 1937 and 1941 Gen. "Hap" Arnold (and US military intelligence) never ordered to observe German DFS 230 cargo glider, its construction and flight techniques with drag chute. That was US strategic blunder.

[Gregory]

Thats a really nice item. I dont believe I have ever seen one before. I had a CG-4 nose section I sold a while back and recently I came across a piece of CG-4 glider nose art.

A very nice and rare piece of US WWII era glider history, because not all I TCC gliders had that logo on their fuselages.

 

I do like the gliders and am glad to see there is more stuff out there.

Denny

Very good. The history of American military gliding was not easy and from today's perspective is worth of attention.

 

Best regards

 

Gregory

[Gregory]

Dear tenacious101010,

 

Would not you like to show more images of the CG-4A fabric with this I TCC logo? What color is it externally and internally?

 

Thanks in advance if it is possible.

Regards

Gregory

[Greg Sebring]

I don't doubt that they existed or even were used (the glider chutes), but I find it strange to say the least that my dad who co-piloted a CG4A into Groesbeek, Holland for Market Garden and made other glider flights from the Ludwigslust, Germany airfield to maintain glider qualifications never saw nor heard of the chutes. I have to believe someone who was there and flew in them before taking written accounts as standard operating procedures. It's another WWII enigma. Dad was in an artillery unit (319th GFA) that hauled in jeeps,75mm Pack Howitzers along with cans of gasoline, ammo, and you name it. The chutes were not used in anything he flew in.

 

Greg

[Gregory]

Hi Greg,

 

What nobody wants to tell about in the USA is the fact that the CG-4As took-off for their combat missions being completely unprepared for them from professional aviation point of view. Incorrect landing systems, lack of drag chutes, incomplete instrument panels, lack of co-pilots etc., etc., etc. Lack of drag chutes although at least since 1937 it was known in the world that assault glider must be equipped with such a chute. Late 1930s/early 1940s the nazi spy and glider pilot Peter Riedel (almost loved in the USA then) could spy what he wanted in the North American continent -- on the other hand the USA did not spy nazi glider program.

 

The same goes for jettisonable landing gear -- I guess your Dad has never seen it in their CG-4As. Even in 1940 in the USSR the Americans took pictures of the best Polish gliders (stolen by the Russkies) with jettisonable landing gear and… what of that? Nothing. The USAAF and Gen. Arnold did not draw the conclusions from the world's trends of development in gliding including assault gliding.

 

You, American friends, have really big problem with all things I am writing about. You will not read about it in the American publications, especially written by military publicists as Colonels Mrazek or Larson who write about US assault gliders. Like I wrote earlier in the other USMF thread on poor military history publications nobody can be a servant of two Lords -- the objectivism on one hand, and loyalty to own armed forces on the other hand. The US military historians writing about gliding are organically unable to constructive criticism of own armed forces.

 

This is why US military historians will never write how much the CG-4As were poor and unprepared by the USAAF clerks for combat missions. It concerns also AAF clerks who never ordered sufficient number of the drag chutes for the CG-4As. They were developed much too late, but they were. They had to be ordered immediately and delivered to the ETO. Nobody did it.

 

Best regards

 

Gregory

[Greg Sebring]

Gregory,

 

Good to hear from you again. I don't doubt it in the least. probably explains the extremely high casualty rate suffered by glider outfits. You might find this interesting,...Dad has repeatedly told me that his outfit was asked by the Brass after the Normandy invasion what would make a glider assault more effective. Dad said that each man was asked to write one paragraph with his suggestion. The overwhelming reply was "Go in Daylight". Dad's inbound flight came down near Ste Mere Eglise in the dark. He said just about everyone crashed into trees, fence rows, "Rommel's Asparagus", because they just couldn't see.

 

By the way, if you haven't read this book yet, you need to,... "BATTERY!, C.Lenton Sartain and the men of the 319th Glider Field Artillery"

 

 

Regards and have a great New Year,

 

Greg

[J_Andrews]

It is/has been no SECRET that the WWII USAAF glider program was a:

Fiasco

After-thought

Embarrassment

Lesson in how NOT to do it

Farce (Tragedy?) based on human foibles

Recipe for disaster

 

There were many wrong turns, from the start. At that, the START was LATE (compared to other countries).

 

As for MATERIEL, Waco -- a NON-glider producer -- was the only company that coughed up a design (CG-4) that was even close to

what was needed/wanted. Then, for lack of alternatives (a good reason) AND to make pork-work for friends of politicians in far-flung constituencies (a bad reason), the War Dept assigned manufacture to a bunch of also-ran and/or just plain incompetent firms. If the design was so easy to build, why were no contracts let to say Canada and even Mexico ? Or prisons?

 

Keep in mind that the initial USAAF vision saw Wacos landing ONLY in daylight, ONLY in decent flying weather, ONLY on nice cow pastures and dirt airstrips, ONLY when the enemy was not shooting at them or the LZ.....

 

Management, TRAINING and PERSONNEL were no better.

 

Personnel: Caught between "open admissions" to get anybody -- any rank, from within the Army or on the street -- who MIGHT serve the purpose well enough, and the USAAC bias (serious standards to weed out all but The Best Birdmen) the NON-decision was made to waffle, lose focus and generally screw around and waste time (there is that LATE thing again). Consider for instance, if blacks (!!??) or Americans of Japanese Ancestry had been allowed in and actively recruited...

 

There were many other Sad Stories in aviation in those days, with both experimental types and actual production types. Could the efforts expended on the Beech A-38 Grizzly, Brewster A-32 and A-34/SB2A Buccaneer, Vought/Convair TBU/TBY Seawolf and Budd Conestoga been better used to develop/build gliders? NO DOUBT! The Laister-Kaufman CG-10 and Chase CG-14/18 might have absorbed what was wasted on those and the Bristol XLRQ, General XCG-16, etc. OR why was the Airspeed Horsa not made in Canada? Beech, Brewster and Budd and the Naval Aircraft Factory might well have been more efficient and productive.

[tenacious101010]

Hello Gregory, The fabric was attached to the backing in the frame and I didnt want to damage it by trying to remove it. As a matter of fact, the yellow paint had attached itself in a few places . I sold the piece so I no longer have it in my posession. If you would like a file of the picture, , send me your email address and I will send it to you.

Thanks, Denny

Denny

Dear tenacious101010,

 

Would not you like to show more images of the CG-4A fabric with this I TCC logo? What color is it externally and internally?

 

Thanks in advance if it is possible.

Regards

Gregory

[Baker502]

Hi Greg,

 

What nobody wants to tell about in the USA is the fact that the CG-4As took-off for their combat missions being completely unprepared for them from professional aviation point of view. Incorrect landing systems, lack of drag chutes, incomplete instrument panels, lack of co-pilots etc., etc., etc. Lack of drag chutes although at least since 1937 it was known in the world that assault glider must be equipped with such a chute. Late 1930s/early 1940s the nazi spy and glider pilot Peter Riedel (almost loved in the USA then) could spy what he wanted in the North American continent -- on the other hand the USA did not spy nazi glider program.

 

The same goes for jettisonable landing gear -- I guess your Dad has never seen it in their CG-4As. Even in 1940 in the USSR the Americans took pictures of the best Polish gliders (stolen by the Russkies) with jettisonable landing gear and… what of that? Nothing. The USAAF and Gen. Arnold did not draw the conclusions from the world's trends of development in gliding including assault gliding.

 

You, American friends, have really big problem with all things I am writing about. You will not read about it in the American publications, especially written by military publicists as Colonels Mrazek or Larson who write about US assault gliders. Like I wrote earlier in the other USMF thread on poor military history publications nobody can be a servant of two Lords -- the objectivism on one hand, and loyalty to own armed forces on the other hand. The US military historians writing about gliding are organically unable to constructive criticism of own armed forces.

 

This is why US military historians will never write how much the CG-4As were poor and unprepared by the USAAF clerks for combat missions. It concerns also AAF clerks who never ordered sufficient number of the drag chutes for the CG-4As. They were developed much too late, but they were. They had to be ordered immediately and delivered to the ETO. Nobody did it.

 

Best regards

 

Gregory

 

 

Gregory,

I have watched you criticize the the American glider program for several years now. I am curious if this program was so bad, why do you have such interest in it? I see another lame duck program that was pressed into service with mediocre equipment, excel and do the job due to the pilots and crews that flew these ships into battle. They called them flying coffins but the men still loaded aboard them and glided into history freeing most of Europe in their assault landings. If you are so against the US glider program why waste your time with it? The US played catch up during the first part of WWII, so the peace time Army/Air Corps had more important things to do than to spy on the German, Russian, and Polish glider programs. A question would be why didn’t the Polish armor forces spy on the German tank program so that when your country was invaded it didn’t send horse calvary against tanks? The US Army didn’t start testing the parachute until 1940 well after the Russians and Germans had deployed them in actual combat. Anyone can sit back and be an arm chair general almost 70 years after the fact, but the fact of the matter is the gliders were produced; the greatest generation was given a job and did what was asked, just as the Polish cavalry did when tasked with charging against tanks on horseback. I think some of the things you write are a slap in the face of guys who piloted these ships and are un warranted. This is a forum about the preservation of the memory of the American soldier. Please think of that when you rip off an opinionated post about the hero's of my country.. Thanks Paul

[J_Andrews]

I don't think any criticism was aimed at the PILOTS or at the PASSENGER TROOPS. Just at whoever DEALT the mess.

 

Victory has many fathers, but defeat (or fiasco, debacle, failure, or FUBAR) is forever an orphan.

[sactroop]

I don't think any criticism was aimed at the PILOTS or at the PASSENGER TROOPS. Just at whoever DEALT the mess.

 

Victory has many fathers, but defeat (or fiasco, debacle, failure, or FUBAR) is forever an orphan.

 

 

Well said.

[gliderman1]

I concur with Paul.

 

Next, let's begin with castigating "Whoever dealt the mess",

beginning at the top with the Commander in Chief:

 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

Marshall,

Eisenhower,

Arnold,

Barringer,

Dent,

R. duPont,

Dent again,

Price,

WACO,

Arcier,

Bowlus,

the officer-engineers at Wright Field and CCAAF,

all the enlisted men at Wright Field and CCAAF.

 

To start, the rules are:

1) United States Aircraft manufacturers already engaged in powered aircraft production can not be contacted for glider design or production.

2) Aluminum will be reserved for power plane construction and shall not be used in the design of gliders.

 

Questions:

Who (individual) created restrictions one and two above and what effect did the restrictions have on which companies could be contacted to design and build?

 

Did the US aircraft engineers at Wright Field really care, and why would they care, what Russia, or Germany, or England, or Poland, or Japan did with gliders and glider designs rather than rely on their own tests and experiments using what was available based on one and two above, not the designs and tests of these other countries?

 

What determines that the US glider program was a mess?

 

Some facts to opine:

 

The CG-4A glider fuselage was very sturdy, however, it was not a tank, and the nose offered very little crash protection for the pilots.

 

Once the XCG-4 acceptance tests were competed, contracts were let, and contractors actually got into production, these companies had only 30 months to produce more than 14,000 gliders of four different designs. The entire US glider program (glider design and production and glider pilot training) during WWII covered a span of only 52 months, beginning to the end of mass production deliveries in July-August 1945. (This excludes training glider (TG) contracts and production quantities)

 

Based on 6,000 trained glider pilots, approximately 3.7% were KIA and several of those were killed by enemy fire not by glider crash. Someone else needs to calculate the GP KIA (222) relative to the actual total number of pilots who flew the missions. This probably would make the percentage double or triple.

 

Using 82nd airborne numbers; the glider riders in the CG-4A suffered one tenth of one percent KIA in Market and seventy-three hundreds of one percent in Normandy. In the Horsa, in Normandy, the US rider KIA was 2.1 per cent.

 

Before Germany declared war on the US, Peter Reidel was watched and tailed by the FBI. His aircraft information sources purportedly were newspapers, magazines and radio broadcasts normally accessible by any average citizen. The US did not let him take his Kranich glider home when he was deported with the rest of the German Embassy employees.

[Quest Master]

Dear tenacious101010,

 

Would not you like to show more images of the CG-4A fabric with this I TCC logo? What color is it externally and internally?

 

Thanks in advance if it is possible.

Regards

Gregory

Gregory,

I now own the TCC logo on fabric. It can be seen here: http://www.questmasters.us/Troop_Carrier_C...emorabilia.html

[Greg Sebring]

I add this picture my dad took at the Ludwigslust, Germany airfield. It shows a glider in the distance coming in for a landing. The 319th had to make "practice" glider flights to maintain the hazard pay and stay current. Does anyone know at what point in the descent the chutes would have been deployed? The CG4A in the distance clearly doesn't have one. Dad says they weren't too keen making these flights after the surrender as smooth landings were something hoped for.

 

Greg

[J_Andrews]

Glider "pay" landings were also conducted while the 82nd was in Berlin, Sep-Dec 45. I once ran into a GP who was there and piloted such training opportunities. He said -- totally unconfirmed -- that amongst those taking the course for glider ASSAULT wings were several (dozens?) of FEMALEs, some of them nurses and some of them from HQ First Abn Army, but including a few British and French femmes. Anybody ever see photos or other evidence to support this? He also THOUGHT a few SOVIETs joined the training as well.

[Greg Sebring]

Glider "pay" landings were also conducted while the 82nd was in Berlin, Sep-Dec 45. I once ran into a GP who was there and piloted such training opportunities. He said -- totally unconfirmed -- that amongst those taking the course for glider ASSAULT wings were several (dozens?) of FEMALEs, some of them nurses and some of them from HQ First Abn Army, but including a few British and French femmes. Anybody ever see photos or other evidence to support this? He also THOUGHT a few SOVIETs joined the training as well.

 

I never heard dad mention that but I'll ask him. The Soviet issue would surprise me because there a SEVERE distrust almost bordering on hatred for the Soviets in the 82nd ABN. Dad has told me many times how 82nd ABN soldiers would go "Ruskie Hunting" whenever they could get a pass. American G.I.'s would be found dead in the streets killed by the Russians so the Americans answered in kind. Unless the babes were stone foxes or knockouts (which would have been a rarity then), The G.I.'s shunned the Russian women. But we all know, anything is possible. The attached photo might be a Berlin training exercise???

 

Greg

[gliderman1]

Does anyone know at what point in the descent the chutes would have been deployed?

 

Greg

 

Greg, quoting from the DECELERATION chute installation and use instruction manual, the chute will not be operated until the glider is released from the tow line and should not be opened when free flight indicated air speed is under 75 mph or above 140 mph. There were two handles for the chute. A chute opening handle and a chute release handle. A a safety device on the handles did not allow the release handle to be pulled before the opening handle had been pulled. When landing is made at low altitude and high rate of speed the parachute may be opened at glider indicated air speed of 80 to 140 mph to reduce forward speed of glider. When approach is made at a high altitude the chute may be opened at maximum indicated air speed of 140 mph. The velocity and attitude of the glider at the time the chute is opened determines rate of deceleration and loss of altitude. With moderate pull up to level flying position the glider can be decelerated from 150 mph indicated air speed to 75 mph indicated air speed in 30 seconds with an altitude loss of approximately 500 feet.

 

The chute was 10 foot diameter on a risor 25 feet long. This chute system was designed by Lt. Bill Milanovits at Wright Field. Bill was the primary chute and chute pack designer at Wright Field. He designed the chutes for the paratrooper training base jump towers as well as many other chutes including those used for the British system of air dropping a Weasel slung from under a bomber. The original test chutes (four different diameters) were ordered from and produced by Reliance in Chicago. Richard duPont flew the CG-4A gliders for the chute test and development at Clinton county Army Air Field shortly before he left in July 1943 for his after action, inspection tour of the Sicily glider operation.

 

The first batch of chutes were ordered from Reliance. Afterward there were others such a girdle company in Detroit that made them. The first printing (2,000) of installation and operation instructions was in March 1944 to be packed with the kits -- sent to England and Italy. There were approximately 400 kits available in England for installation just before June 6, 1944. Second printing (3,000) of instructions was dated April 1944 with a print date of June 26, 1944. The third printing (14,000+) dated 1 November 1944 was printed at Wright Field October 18, 1944.

 

This T.O. specified the serial number of gliders on which the chutes were installed in production by the manufacturer. These installations were only by Ford, WACO and Northwestern. A total of 1,075 gliders. The wording of the T.O. indicates these gliders were out the door, but because the serial are 45 contract numbers it is possible some of them had not actually been built as of 11/01/1944. Some of these gliders would have made it to England or France by early 1945. It is a guess but overall there may have been 1,500 plus CG-4A gliders in Europe equipped with the deceleration chute. A lot of them may have been destroyed in practice. The 10' parachute had a separate part number so it may have been available for replacement. I am still looking for definitive order information to determine how many were made.