Waco CG-4


The Waco CG-4 was the most widely used American troop/cargo military glider of World War II. It was designated the CG-4A by the United States Army Air Forces, and named Hadrian in British military service.
Designed by the Waco Aircraft Company, flight testing began in May 1942, and eventually more than 13,900 CG-4As were delivered.

Design and development

The CG-4A was constructed of fabric-covered wood and metal and was crewed by a pilot and copilot. It had two fixed mainwheels and a tailwheel.
The CG-4A could carry 13 troops and their equipment. Cargo loads could be a -ton truck, a 75 mm howitzer, or a -ton trailer, loaded through the upward-hinged nose section. C-47s were usually used as tow aircraft. A few C-46 tugs were used during and after Operation Plunder.
The USAAF CG-4A tow line was nylon, 350 feet long. The CG-4A pickup line was inch diameter nylon, but only 225 ft long including the doubled loop.
In effort to identify areas where strategic materials could be reduced, a single XCG-4B was built at the Timm Aircraft Corporation using wood for the main structure.

Production

From 1942-1945, the Ford Motor Company's plant in Kingsford, Michigan, built 4,190 Model CG-4A gliders for use in combat operations during World War II. The Kingsford plant built more CG-4A gliders than any other company in the nation at much less cost than other manufacturers. The other primary builders of the Model CG-4A gliders were located in Troy, Ohio; Greenville, Michigan; Astoria, New York; Kansas City, Missouri and St. Paul, Minnesota.
The 16 companies that were prime contractors for manufacturing the CG-4A were:
The factories ran 24-hour shifts to build the gliders. One night-shift worker in the Wicks Aircraft Company factory in Kansas City wrote,

Operational history

was originally activated on 6 August 1942. In November 1942 the installation became Sedalia Army Air Field, and was assigned to the 12th Troop Carrier Command of the United States Army Air Forces. The field served as a training site for glider pilots and paratroopers. Assigned aircraft included the CG-4A glider, Curtiss C-46 Commando, and Douglas C-47 Skytrain. The C-46 was not used as a glider tug in combat, however, until Operation Plunder in March 1945.
CG-4As went into operation in July 1943 during the Allied invasion of Sicily. They were flown 450 miles across the Mediterranean from North Africa for the night-time assaults such as Operation Ladbroke. Inexperience and poor conditions contributed to the heavy losses. They participated in the American airborne landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, and in other important airborne operations in Europe and in the China Burma India Theater. Although not the intention of the Army Air Forces, gliders were generally considered expendable by high-ranking European theater officers and combat personnel and were abandoned or destroyed after landing. While equipment and methods for extracting flyable gliders were developed and delivered to Europe, half of that equipment was rendered unavailable by certain higher-ranked officers. Despite this lack of support for the recovery system, several gliders were recovered from Normandy and even more from Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands and Wesel, Germany.
The CG-4A found favor where its small size was a benefit. The larger British Airspeed Horsa could carry more troopers, and the British General Aircraft Hamilcar could carry 7 tons, but the CG-4A could land in smaller spaces. In addition, by using a fairly simple grapple system, an in-flight C-47 equipped with a tail hook and rope braking drum could "pick up" a CG-4A waiting on the ground. The system was used in the 1945 high-elevation rescue of the survivors of the Gremlin Special 1945 crash, in a mountain valley of New Guinea.
The CG-4A was also used to send supplies to partisans in Yugoslavia.
After World War II ended, most of the remaining CG-4As were declared surplus and almost all were sold. Many were bought for the wood in the large shipping boxes. Others were bought for conversion to towed camping homes with the wing and tail end cut off and being towed by the rear section and others sold for hunting cabins and lake side vacation cabins.
The last known use of the CG-4A was in the early 1950s by the USAF with an Arctic detachment aiding scientific research. The CG-4As were used for getting personnel down to, and up from, floating ice floes, with the glider being towed out, released for landing, and then picked up later by the same type of aircraft, using the hook and line method developed during World War II. The only modification to the CG-4A was the fitting of wide skis in place of the landing gear for landing on the Arctic ice floes.

Variants

;XCG-4: Prototypes, two built, plus one stress test article
;CG-4A: Main Production variant, survivors became G-4A in 1948, 13,903 built by 16 contractors
;XCG-4B: One Timm-built CG-4A with a plywood structure
;XPG-1: One CG-4A converted with two Franklin 6AC-298-N3 engines by Northwestern
;XPG-2: One CG-4A converted with two Ranger L-440-1 engines by Ridgefield
;XPG-2A: Two articles: XPG-2 engines changed to plus one CG-4A converted also with engines
;PG-2A: Production PG-2A with two L-440-7s, redesignated G-2A in 1948, 10 built by Northwestern
;XPG-2B: Cancelled variant with two R-775-9 engines
;LRW-1: CG-4A transferred to the United States Navy
;G-2A: PG-2A re-designated in 1948
;G-4A: CG-4A re-designated in 1948
;G-4C: G-4A with different tow-bar, 35 conversions
;Hadrian Mk.I: Royal Air Force designation for the CG-4A, 25 delivered
;Hadrian Mk.II: Royal Air Force designation for the CG-4A with equipment changes

Operators

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Citations