D-Day Gliders

[Spikes]

Originally posted by BaldEagl
Fly to 20K in a C-47, cut the engine and glide in.  Have fun.

lol bald...its the easy way

[Spikes]

no real point in gliders.....sure...fun for a while...but it will become a hanger queen, only if it carried GV, jeep or somthing, then it might be used, another thing is, it would be a risk to take one up, because you kill the glider 1st (in process of towing to 5-10K) , thats 1 kill. The c47 is another. Thats 2 right there

[ForrestS]

Thanks every1 mainly, sabre for replying to my post. Yeah i heard about the gliders on D-day. They came in under the darkness of night. I heard a lot of them wrecked though. Anyways it would be sweet to have a plane to carry vehicles, just fly in and land around 30 mph and let a m-3 out.  And if radar was a problem u could just use only troops unless you knew no one was in the area.  

Could u give me a percentage on how likely it will be for gliders to be in AH2

[Spikes]

with HTC?

id say 1% chance


idk, maybe someday

i believe they were a later invention

[Ack-Ack]

Originally posted by VooWho
It still has metal parts (the engines) and some other stuff. I'm just saying the glider wouldn't just show up on the radar, but the Mossy would.

The Mossie had a low radar signature, lower than the Spitfire due to it's wooden construction.  Some even consider it the first "stealth" plane.


ack-ack

[Serenity]

Originally posted by RAIDER14
What about the C-47 that towed it till it was a mile from landing site

w00t. I cant wait to put my 8 hours flying gliders to work here. You give me 20k, I can take that glider 25 miles. Keep in mind they had a glide ratio of like 20:1. Thats not the best but its good enough. I like this idea, that they wouldnt show up on radar OR make a base flash. That would be a great idea. Perhaps we can have B-17Gs tow them. Its not historically accurate, but picture this: 4 pilots. 3 B-17G pilots, 1 glider pilot. 3 blips on radar, climb to 28k (the blips are the 17s, one of which is towing the glider) they bomb the base and town, and appear to be n00bs bombing a base 100 miles from the front lines. They drop their bombs and release the glider. Me-163s and ta-152s intercept the bombers and kill them. Base stops flashing, they land their kills and leave. 10 minutes later, base is mysteriously captured with no flashes. Horsa Glider is t3h 1337!!! And imagine the Gigant...

[Serenity]

Also, during world war two, my grandfather was a fighter pilot, P-38s I beleive. But after they finished training, but before they were deployed, for some reason their squadron was dissasembled. They were given the option of becoming test pilots or assault glider pilots. Every one except my grandfather decided to become a Glider pilot. My granddad became a tes pilot, while all of his old buddies flew gliders into D-Day. Only one landed, and even fewer survived.

[Spikes]

Originally posted by Serenity
w00t. I cant wait to put my 8 hours flying gliders to work here. You give me 20k, I can take that glider 25 miles. Keep in mind they had a glide ratio of like 20:1. Thats not the best but its good enough. I like this idea, that they wouldnt show up on radar OR make a base flash. That would be a great idea. Perhaps we can have B-17Gs tow them. Its not historically accurate, but picture this: 4 pilots. 3 B-17G pilots, 1 glider pilot. 3 blips on radar, climb to 28k (the blips are the 17s, one of which is towing the glider) they bomb the base and town, and appear to be n00bs bombing a base 100 miles from the front lines. They drop their bombs and release the glider. Me-163s and ta-152s intercept the bombers and kill them. Base stops flashing, they land their kills and leave. 10 minutes later, base is mysteriously captured with no flashes. Horsa Glider is t3h 1337!!! And imagine the Gigant...

about the b17 thing, it could be 2 for 1, b17s could bomb the base, then the glider could come in, (if all the acks were down)

[ForrestS]

Thanks yeah the b17 wouldent be accurate but o well, it still would be really fun. Do u like gliders like i do.(I LOVE THEM) thanks for replying

[Spikes]

id be fun to fly sometimes (the c47 does get boring)

[PhatHat]

I think I saw a "Wings" on Discovery channel or History channel about German Gliders being towed by bombers. I don't recall if the bombers were loaded with bombs, though. Maybe that would even the Germans up on AH, if they had cargo and troops from the air.

[Spikes]

'Wings Over the Luftwaffe is what you saw it on, I believe.

Historicly, a B17, or later B24 towed a glider..most of the time a C47 would tow them though

[Sabre]

Originally posted by Ack-Ack
The Mossie had a low radar signature, lower than the Spitfire due to it's wooden construction.  Some even consider it the first "stealth" plane.


ack-ack

To the best of my knowledge, the claim that the Mosquito had a smaller radar signature than the Spitfire is anecdotal, rather than factual.  It is most likely based on an incomplete understanding of radar and radar signatures.  Depending on the wavelength and aspect (the direction the radar beam intersects the target from) the Mossie quite possibly had a significantly larger radar cross-section (RCS) than a Spitfire.  While the skin and frame were wood (which has a lower reflectivity than metal, but not zero reflectivity), that simply means that all the “ugly” reflectors inside the skin – such as engines, fuel tanks, fuel and hydraulic lines, wires, control cables, guns, ammo, armor plate to name but a few – are all visible to the radar, and contribute to the RCS.  Instead of getting a rather sizable but narrow specular return from the skin, all those individual reflectors inside the skin add together.  The result is a radar return that is somewhat lower in amplitude in some directions, but is on average nearly just as large.

Did the Mosquito have a lower RCS than a metal-skinned aircraft of comparable size?  Probably.  Smaller than a Spitfire?  I’ve been unable to locate any actual RCS measurements of both to compare them, but my professional opinion is that it is unlikely.  Without going into details, my thesis was, shall we say, related to the topic.

On a historical note, the Mossie’s unusual construction had nothing to due with RCS reduction (an as yet little considered question in 1938).  Rather it was a brilliant idea to tap into an under-utilized segment of the workforce, using non-strategic materials, to construct very fast and light combat plane.  The RAF didn’t want anything to do with the project…until De Havilland showed them the specs on the Mosquito.

If I ever get to another AH Con, and there is sufficient interest, I would happily host a discussion on radar and RCS measurement and reduction (a.k.a. "stealth").