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zzodr -> Glider snatching (4/29/2012 12:31:41 PM)
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I was looking up the 5318th PAU air unit online, and found this:
The air commandos practiced glider tow with men, equipment, and mules aboard. The mules were stubborn about getting on the airplanes at first but they adjusted, and according to their handlers, they even learned to bank in the turns.
For the main insertion operation, the tow planes and the gliders would take off in tandem from the airstrip, but the air commandos were also proficient in a dramatic “snatch” variation in which low-flying aircraft could grab a glider off the ground. The glider was hooked to a towline, which was strung to a loop held 12 feet high between two poles.
A C-47 transport swept by at treetop level, trailing a catch line with a hook on the end. The hook snagged the loop, the C-47 accelerated, and the glider was yanked into the air. Inside the airplane, the line was attached to a steel cable wound around a drum, which absorbed some of the shock.
In January, the air commandos and the Chindits performed 16 practice snatches. In one instance, 300 soldiers and their mules were inserted by glider into a demonstration site and grabbed out again. Wingate, who was aboard the first glider snatched, had a message for the doubters: “Tell the RAF that I have not only seen it but I have done it.”
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2009/November%202009/1109burma.aspx
Having flown gliders myself, all I can say is these guys had brass cojones!
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