WWII Glider in Minnesota

Pima Air Museum, Spring 2009

An interesting sequel to our April 2009 museum visit was watching my husband Al fly his hand launch radio controlled glider. The rain and wind that day, never friendly to glider pilots, let up just in time for Don and Chuck to watch the glider catch a thermal and fly about 500 feet over the dessert.

My husband and I were given a tour of the Pima Air and Space Museum by Chuck Foreman and Don Manke during a vacation trip to Arizona in April, 2009. Because of my husband's life long interest in aviation, and my much shorter interest in WWII gliders, we visit aviation museums whenever we can.

We attended our first WWII Glider Pilot Reunion in Dayton, Ohio, in 2008 and met the organization leader, George Theis. Last spring George kindly put us in touch with Chuck and Dan, association members who live in Phoenix. The two gentlemen took us to the Pima Museum to see the glider exhibit, the training gliders and Chuck's own plane. The small glider exhibit today has a CG-4A glider cockpit with every feature of the original, thanks to volunteers Chuck and Don.

Later we enjoyed the many stories told around the sandwich shop table. Chuck heard that I didn't have the Air Medals my uncle earned for Normandy and Holland, although I did have the documentation. He promised to send them to me and he did just that, so the glider pilot decorations will be the subject of a future log. My husband and I appreciate the friendship and help Chuck and Dan gave us at the museum an last fall at the WWII glider Pilot reunion in New Orleans.

Our first visit to the Pima Air and Space Museum was in 1997 a few years after I received the scrapbook my grandmother had made of my uncle's WWII glider pilot memorabilia. Knowing absolutely nothing about cargo gliders, my interest was captured by the wall photographs and especially the partial CG-4A displayed at the museum. Seeing the egg shell fragile cockpit of a Waco glider such as the one my uncle piloted, led me to want to know more. Flight Officer Sylvan Lucier died in a glider accident shortly after returning from the Holland mission called Market Garden. My research began because of my 1997 visit to this museum and I continue today to seek details of his life from January 1942 to October 1944. What a transformation for a quiet 25 year old accountant to become a highly experienced glider pilot and a survivor of D-Day in France and D-Day+1 in Holland!

In 1997 the Pima Air Museum had no books on gliders. I found some used books on the internet and spoke by phone to Rex Shama, author of Pulse and Repulse. Rex's book is about all the eight glider missions including his experiences in the 49th Squadron of the 313 Troop Carrier Group. He confirmed for me that Sylvan was in one of the earliest glider training programs in 1942 and in 1943 he was assigned to the 49th squadron stationed in Africa and then in Sicily. In my earlier blog there are some photographs from that period.

Rex Shama, however, could not confirm for me the family stories that Sylvan had been in D-Day or Market Garden. He did not know what assignment Sylvan was given after leaving the 49th Squadron in Sicily. I reached a dead end. It took my examination of a returned V-mail, to learn about his transfer to the 36th Squadron. My grandmother's scrapbook carried little documentation to aid my research until the occasion of his death nine months later!

To see a complete CG-4A, our trip a few years later was to the Silent Wings Museum in Terrill, Texas. There we donated a copy of Sylvan's glider pilot memorabilia and bought more books. Some years later we visited the Silent Wings Museum in its new home in Lubback, Texas. This is where the 2010 Glider Pilot Reunion will be held.

Glider Cockpit Photo Shows Load Adjuster Stick below instrument panel

Charles Day, author, writes me about the stick given me from my uncle's crashed glider. The arrow points to one end, the leather case of the load adjuster mounted on he stick, is behind the red knob.
The problem with comparing your stick to the museum gliders is that they all have been rebuilt and none are original wood parts.

Your stick is from a Pratt Read glider. Some of their wood components were made by Steinway. In any case, I theorize that the finish of your stick potentially was done (and maybe not standard to all production of P-R or Steinway) only on P-R gliders. That is, Ford, WACO or NW and others did not necessarily finish the stick that well.

Because the stick was bolted to a special bracket welded to the steel tubing of the nose and was loose on the other end, I still believe the function of the stick was a guide for fitting up the wood nose assembly to the steel. Being P-R made piano keys and piano hammers and the linkages to the keys, they had some men who were real craftsmen with wood, as did Steinway.

Henry Z. Steinway was an Associate member of the WWII Glider Pilot Association. He passed away in September 2008. His widow said he always enjoyed getting the newsletter telling the stories about the gliders. I am not sure what his position was, what with the Steinway brothers, uncles, etc.

Charles Day and I would appreciate learning more details of that particular piece of wood and why my uncle's glider had a unusually shaped and finished stick.

Schweizer Glider On A Winch

Here are some pictures you might find interesting. This picture shows a plane being taken off by use of a motor driven wench. We did not use this method as it is faster to use power planes to tow the gliders off the ground.
Glider Pilot in Training, Sylvan R. Lucier, wrote this note on these five pictures sent to parent from Twenty-nine Palms Air Academy, Summer, 1942. He was one of the first to earn glider wings!

Triple Tow of Schweizer Gliders

Three Schweizers being towed off by a Vultee 0-49. In this type launching, odd cable lengths are used, making collisions impossible. Shortest length is 400 fee. Center glider gets the longest line. Using gliders as air barges, the 295 hp. “tug” is capable of transporting over three times its self-contained capacity at about 70 per cent of its normal speed. Experts say post-war freight will be carried thus.

Sylvan Lucier writes on picture of glider triple tow:
This is the method we used except that we towed only 2 gliders instead of three at one time. They take us up to about 3,000 feet and then we release and can stay up from 15 minutes to 3 or 4 hours dependin on the air conditions. It is possible to soar around the mountains all day if the wind is just right. Of course, our training consists mostly of tow work and making landings on a certain spot.

(Inserted with arrow to glider on far left.)
Put a lot of time in this particular glider.

Learning the controls.
Twenty-nine Palms School has acquired the services of some of the nation's leading glider experts in instructing the first few groups of Army glider cadets. Most of the initial group of power plane pilots, were selected to act as instructors in the most widespread glider-pilot instruction plan ever projected. Enlistment and selection for glider pilot training has already begun.

3 Glider Tow of Schweizers

"This is the method we used except that we towed only 2 gliders instead of three at one time. They take us up to about 3,000 ft. and then we release and can stay up from 15 minutes to 3 or 4 hours depending on the air conditions. ;It is possible to soar around the mountains all day if the wind is just right. Of course, our training consisted mostly of tow work and making landings on a certain spot." The pilot wrote that he "Put a lot of time in this particular glider"-the one on the far left. Sylvan R. Lucier, Twenty-nine Palms School
Picture Caption: Three Schweizers being towed by a Vultee 0-49. In this type launching, odd cable lengths are used, making collisions impossible. Shortest length is 400 feet. Center glider gets the longest line. Using gliders as air barges, the 295 hp."tug" is capable of transporting over three times its self-contained capacity at about 70 per cent of its normal speed. Experts say post-war freight will be carried thus.

PT-17 Stearman Basic Trainer

This is the plane that we have at this school and so far it is the only kind I have flown.
April 25, 1942

BT-12 Basic Trainer, Fleetwings