US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

How Hitler scared the crap out of the Allies with gliders

https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list? ... ion_504426

Oleg Antonov
Oleg Konstantinovich Antonov
wiki

I have not yet found his "Pigeon" glider.

From the wiki:

wiki wrote:Early engineering career
At the age of 17, Antonov founded the "Amateur Aviation Club" and later joined the "Organization of Friends of the Air Force". Later he designed the OKA-1 "Pigeon", a glider that was entered in a competition in Moscow where he won the first prize, a flight on a Junkers 12 aircraft.[1]
In 1930, Antonov graduated from the Kalinin Polytechnical Institute in Leningrad. He continued to design gliders and in 1931 Antonov became the chief designer at the Moscow Glider Factory. During the next eight years, he designed 30 different gliders including the Standard-1, Standard-2, OKA-6 and the large "City of Lenin" glider. Due to a requirement that all pilots in the Soviet Union had to begin their flight training on gliders, Antonov was able to produce up to 8,000 gliders per year.[1]
In 1938, after an incident when an instructor defected to the West using a glider, the Soviet Stalinist government reversed its decision regarding glider training, banned the sport of gliding and shut down the Moscow Glider Factory

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AN-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_A-1 is a wiki

AN-2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_A-2 is a wiki

OKA-2

Glider art: 1932 stamp featuring who and what?

WW2 Second World War Military Gliders (Documentary)
43 min video


Clip:

Who, what?

I am always amazed by the beautiful finish on some of those old gliders. Look at the bracing on that OKA-2. Two vertical surfaces! And what a perfect-looking airfoil. The covering was often made of paper. What wonderful craftsmen, woodsmiths and wingsmiths these men were.

According to Wikipedia, this was the second glider that O.K. Anatov designed. It was built with members of the Saratov Aero Club. The photo was taken in 1927 during club flights off Zharenyj Boogor hill.

This book recounts the lives and adventures of the aviators of those times.
The Sky Remembers by Vladimir Kazakov. (It is in Russian but that language translates quite well tith Google Translate.)
http://grokhovs.chat.ru/sky/sky.html
The book's photos are here
http://grokhovs.chat.ru/sky/sky1.html

Here's a spooky "historical glider" story for you -

When I was between the ages of 2 and 4 years old I had a frequently reoccurring dream where I was standing next to a large flat paneled building with a large (slide?) opening door. I would go into the building where there was this pretty big looking airplane(?) like thing - but it had no engines.

When I was ~ 4 1/2 years old I saw an episode of "The Twentieth Century" a documentary based program on TV at the time. The particular episode was about the US Glider invasion that took place the night before D-Day. The glider images they showed were essentially identical to the object (I was really too young to even know it was an aircraft) that I saw in my repeating dream. The odd building in my dream was a hanger.

This topic strikes close to my heart. I still wonder why as a VERY young kid I had dreams about WW II style military gliders.

The picture below is close to what I remember from my dream. Lots of windows in the front. -

It wasn't this one, was it?

http://d1kqib0uq4v1gs.cloudfront.net/wp ... est-15.jpg

No. That one is TOO big! The windows in the front of the glider (in my dream) took up almost 80 - 90% of the "nose" and front sides of the fuselage. The glider in the picture I chose is close but still not exact (to the dream image).

The story I've "made up" (in my 30s or so) to explain/understand my early dreams is that I was a WW II glider pilot who died (at too young an age) during the D-Day glider invasion.* That unfortunate glider pilot woke up to find himself in my new, but small, body. And there must have been a long waiting list because that was 11 years after D-Day!


* A high percentage of the glider pilots were killed upon landing!

A high percentage of the glider pilots were killed upon landing!

Charles Day, author of The Silent Ones, replied to a fellow who made a similar comment: "You have read too many novels or generalized, exaggerated statements about the CG-4A glider. Not including glider pilot casualties, 82 AB trooper KIA in the CG-4A for Normandy were .73 of one percent (that is, less than 3/4 of one percent) of 1,363 total men. For Market, the KIA was one tenth of one percent for 5,233 men."

The story I've "made up" (in my 30s or so) to explain/understand my early dreams is that I was a WW II glider pilot who died (at too young an age) during the D-Day glider invasion.

Then it had to be a CG-4A if you were American or a Horsa MK1 if you were British. Both had a lot of plexiglas.


Horsa MK1


Waco CG-4A


Waco CG-4A


Waco CG-4A

BTW, I don't discount the reincarnation stuff but we, as humans, are probably hobbled by an anththropocentric viewpoint and we leave out all the other creatures we would cycle through. I've met a lot of hang glider pilots who thought they were pilots or eagles in a previous life - but if you work out the likelihood percentage-wise, they were probably flying bugs. Gnats, most likely.



Could these have been the windows you were seeing out of?

Rick,

I like your bug reference!

However it wasn't my eyes that had many lenses - but the unknown to me as a 2 year old - LARGE object inside an even larger (hanger like) structure that had lots of front window area. I didn't mention it, but I have a clear (but more vague over the years) memory of another (adult) person being with me. He didn't look anything like a gnat. However, his name may have been Nate!

As to the Author's reference, his quote includes:

"Not including glider pilot casualties, . . . "

I certainly don't want to exaggerate WW II glider pilot fatalities, and I would admit to not having investigated the detailed facts. However, this author seems to sidestep the pilot figures - and goes with overall troop fatality numbers. In other words, those who were passengers within the gliders.

As far as the my CERTAINTY that, in a previous life, I was a WW II glider pilot, . . . well for me it's simply an imagined/invented "explanation" for that vivid repeating dream I had as a young child. I wasn't walking around at the age of 3 or 4 thinking I was (or once was) an aircraft pilot.