Download or read book Glider Pilots at Arnhem written by Mike Peters and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2014-09-19 with total page 826 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fierce struggle between the British 1st Airborne Division and the superior German forces in and around Arnhem is well documented. This book tells of the role played in the battle for Oosterbeek and the bridge at Arnhem itself by the men of the Glider Pilot Regiment (GPR). These men were already experienced soldiers who volunteered to join the airborne forces and take the fight to the Germans in a totally new regiment.The men of the GPR were predominantly SNCOs trained to fly wooden assault gliders into occupied territory. Once on the ground they were expected to go into battle with the troops they had delivered onto the Landing Zone. During the Arnhem operation they were involved in the initial defense of the LZs, before fighting house to house leading mixed groups of infantrymen, engineers and medics. In so doing they suffered extensive losses from which the Regiment never fully recovered. This book tells their story in their own words from the moment they landed on Dutch soil through the fierce fighting all around the ever shrinking perimeter until the survivors of the GPR proudly marked the route out for the battered survivors of 1st Airborne Division as they escaped over the Rhine.
Download or read book World War II Glider Pilots written by and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 1991 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Glider Flying Handbook written by Federal Aviation Administration and published by Skyhorse Publishing Inc.. This book was released on 2007-07 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For both certified glider pilots and students attempting certification in the glider category, this is an unparalleled...
Download or read book Glider Pilots in Sicily written by Mike Peters and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2013-01-19 with total page 523 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The British Airborne landings on Sicily are the least known and, without doubt, the most fraught with political and technical strife. Newly formed Air landing troops were delivered into battle in gliders they knew little about. The men of the Glider Pilot Regiment (GPR) had self-assembled the gliders while living in the empty packing cases. They accomplished this complex and technically challenged task while living on fly ridden, dusty North African airfields. After only a few hours of conversion training they took off for a night flight across the Mediterranean Sea that was to end in near-catastrophe.With over three hundred soldiers drowned off Sicily that night in July 1943, the first major operation attempted by the British using gliders almost ended in total disaster. In fact a few Airborne troops reached dry land and attacked their objectives. Shining examples of collective and individual acts of courage rocked the Italian and German defenders. This book tells the controversial story of that first mass glider operation and the men who proved the GPR motto Nothing is Impossible.This is the first account of the Sicily air landing operation.
Download or read book An American Glider Pilot s Story written by Gale Richard Ammerman and published by Merriam Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hang Gliding for Beginner Pilots written by Peter Cheney and published by Lookout Mountain Flight Park, Ga. : Matt Taber. This book was released on 1992 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Brotherhood of the Flying Coffin written by Scott McGaugh and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-03-02 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major history of the American glider pilots, the forgotten heroes of World War II, by a New York Times bestselling author. A story of no guns, no engines and no second chances. This book distills war down to individual young men climbing into defenseless gliders made of plywood, ready to trust the towing aircraft that would pull them into enemy territory by a cable wrapped with telephone wire. Based on their after-action reports, journals, oral histories, and letters home, this book reveals every terrifying minute of their missions. They were all volunteers, for a specialized duty that their own government projected would have a 50 percent casualty rate. None faltered. In every major European invasion of the war they led the way. They landed their gliders ahead of the troops who stormed Omaha Beach, and sometimes miles ahead of the paratroopers bound for the far side of the Rhine River in Germany itself. From there, they had to hold their positions. They delivered medical teams, supplies and gasoline to troops surrounded in the Battle of the Bulge, ahead even of Patton's famous supply truck convoy. These all-volunteer glider pilots played a pivotal role in liberating the West from tyranny, from the day the Allies invaded Occupied Europe to the day Germany finally surrendered. Yet the story of these anonymous heroes is virtually unknown. Here it is told in full – a story which epitomizes courage and sacrifice.
Download or read book Glider Flying Handbook written by and published by Aviation Supplies & Academics. This book was released on 2003 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first official book released by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the sole purpose of glider and sailplane instruction and knowledge, this book answers all the questions related to glider flying and soaring found in the FAA's required knowledge exams for pilots. Included is detailed coverage on decision making, aerodynamics, aircraft performance, soaring weather, flight instruments, medical factors, communications, and regulations, all in relation to the world of glider flying. Through full-colour graphics and detailed descriptions, pilots are better able to comprehend and visualise the manoeuvres within the book.
Download or read book History of the Glider Pilot Regiment written by Claude Smith and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-01-09 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of this tiny, little-known British Army regiment and the daring men who piloted engineless aircraft to WWII’s major battlefields. The Glider Pilot Regiment, having been raised as the first element of the new Army Air Corps in 1942 and disbanded in 1957, can probably claim the dubious distinction of having been the smallest and shortest-lived regiment ever to form part of the British Army. Nevertheless, in those few years the regiment gained as much distinction as it has taken other units hundreds of years to achieve. Yet, strangely enough, the story of these heroic men who piloted their flimsy gliders to most of the important battlefields of the Second World War has never before been told. It is indeed a remarkable story, and no one is better qualified to tell it than Claude Smith, who himself served with the regiment and took part in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and later in the ill-fated landing at Arnhem, where he was taken prisoner. Smith tells the story of these supremely brave men factually and dispassionately, but it is impossible to read this book without being moved by their courage. As General Sir John Hackett says in his foreword: “Those who went to battle in gliders and above all those who got them there, the Glider Pilots, deserve our enduring esteem.” Includes maps and illustrations
Download or read book Danger and Poetry written by Joe Karam and published by . This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One man's discovery into soaring flight. An aviation memoir written for prospective and novice pilots as well as anyone who hasn't stopped dreaming and daring. Praised as "insightful" and "revealing" by Thomas L. Knauff, member of the United States Soaring Hall of Fame and glider pilot from the 1999 motion picture The Thomas Crown Affair.
Download or read book Build and Pilot Your Own Walkalong Gliders written by Philip Rossoni and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2012-08-05 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Go way beyond paper airplanes--with gliders you can control! Paper airplanes are designed to be built and tossed. The walkalong gliders in this book are designed to let you actually pilot them as you push them along on a wave of air. Become an accomplished glider designer and aviator with this do-it-yourself guide. Detailed step-by-step instructions illustrated with hundreds of photographs show you how to build six different types of controllable gliders. All the materials you need can be found around the house or purchased very inexpensively. Each design comes with specific instructions on how to climb and turn, from the simple paper airplane designs to handling the Jumbo's four-foot wingspan. Inside you'll find: Step-by-step instructions for building six unique walkalong gliders Tumblewing Paper airplane surfer X-surfer Jumbo Butterfly glider Baby bug Guidance on how to gracefully take off, maintain altitude, steer, maneuver, and land your creations Tips for putting on fun competitions at school or in your neighborhood
Download or read book Silent Invaders written by Gary A. Best and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-05-17 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘The guys would come into the glider like a bunch of piss-ants, skittering around, real cocky like. But they settled down in the glider. Some got airsick and they began thinking about what was ahead. One time we were fired on just as we were landing and exiting the glider and one of the boys was hit. His friends dragged him to cover beneath a tree. He looked up at me and said, “Take my rifle, I’m dying.” I reached down and took his weapon, and he slumped back and died. That was pretty tough...’ Combat gliders were called by some as ‘Death Crates’, ‘Purple Heart Boxes’, ‘Flying Coffins’ and ‘Tow Targets’. They were not pretty and had no graceful lines. Viewed from the front, they had a pug nose and a sloping Neanderthal forehead. Their wings looked like the heavily-starched ears of a jackrabbit placed at right angles on a canvas-covered frame. Twice the length of the body, these wings were eighty-four feet in length, 70 per cent as long as the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight at Kitty Hawk. They could not become airborne, let alone fly, unless assisted by an engine-powered tow plane. And for those riding in the back, it was like flying ‘through the gates of hell’. The men who were trained and assigned to guide gliders into battle were said to be the only pilots who had no motors, armament, parachutes and no second chances. Like the aircraft they commanded, they were called inglorious names such as The Bastards Nobody Wanted, Glider Gladiators in Wooden Chariots; Hybrid Jackasses and Glory Boys. Beautifully written, profoundly illustrated and researched, Silent Invaders: Combat Gliders of the Second World War is a work that is dedicated to those brave men under impossible odds from the British and American servicemen on D-Day, the doomed Operation Market Garden in Holland and Hitler’s radical commando raid to rescue Mussolini. Illustrations: 80 black-and-white photographs
Download or read book Theory of Flight for Glider Pilots written by Raymond Claude Stafford Allen and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the student glider pilot.
Download or read book Glidermen of Neptune written by Charles J Masters and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2021-06-09 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the word gliderman does not appear in the dictionary, a brave group of World War II soldiers known as glidermen flew into combat inside unarmed and unarmored canvas-covered gliders known as "flying coffins." Charles J. Masters points out that because World War II was the first truly mechanized and armored global conflict, the role of the glidermen and their combat gliders was at best anachronistic. Fighter planes exceeded speeds of 400 miles per hour and were heavily armed with multiple machine guns. Dogfights had taken on new dimensions, eclipsing the tactics, speed, and firepower first evidenced by the fragile biplanes of World War I. Tanks achieved a lethal efficiency barely dreamed of even five years before the war. An array of weaponry never seen in any previous military engagement confronted the combat soldier during World War II.And yet there were gliders. And glidermen. Masters tells of these men and of their fragile aircraft in a war of mechanized chaos. In copious detail, he describes the gliders and the Americans who boarded them during the American D-Day glider attack, a mission that was part of the overall cross-channel plan code-named "Operation Neptune." The son of a gliderman with the 82nd Airborne Division, Masters had unique access to the surviving glidermen and comrades of his father. During the course of his research, he located and interviewed 106 of the men who had flown the D-Day mission in gliders. As an insider—in a sense almost a member of the family and fraternity of glider-men—Masters was cordially received by the members of the American airborne divisions that participated in D-Day, many of whom told him stories they had seldom told their own friends and families. Often harrowing and always riveting, the stories these men told an eager listener and researcher are very much a part of this narrative. Masters has also assembled the finest existing collection of photographs of the American D-Day glider attack. These photographs—many of which have never before been published—provide a spectacular photographic record of a little-known aspect of this war. In fact, because of the short military history of the American combat glider, most readers, including veterans of World War II, will not have seen one of these "flying coffins," even at a distance. These photographs afford the opportunity to actually examine the inside of the combat gliders used on D-Day, to observe the glidermen in action, and to witness the often tragic consequences of the glider attack.
Download or read book Glider Pilots in Sicily written by Mike Peters and published by Pen & Sword. This book was released on 2012 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The British Airborne landings on Sicily are the least known and, without doubt, the most fraught with political and technical strife. Newly formed Air landing troops were delivered into battle in gliders they knew little about. The men of the Glider Pilot Regiment (GPR) had self-assembled the gliders while living in the empty packing cases. They accomplished this complex and technically challenged task while living on fly ridden, dusty North African airfields. After only a few hours of conversion training they took off for a night flight across the Mediterranean Sea that was to end in near-catastrophe. With over three hundred soldiers drowned off Sicily that night in July 1943, the first major operation attempted by the British using gliders almost ended in total disaster. In fact a few Airborne troops reached dry land and attacked their objectives. Shining examples of collective and individual acts of courage rocked the Italian and German defenders. This book tells the controversial story of that first mass glider operation and the men who proved the GPR motto - Nothing is Impossible. This is the first account of the Sicily air landing operation.
Download or read book Establishment of a National Glider Program written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Education and Labor and published by . This book was released on 1941 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Glidermen of Neptune written by Charles J Masters and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 1995-12-22 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masters has also assembled the finest existing collection of photographs of the American D-Day glider attack. These photographs - many of which have never before been publishedafford the opportunity to examine the inside of the combat gliders used on D-Day, to observe the glidermen in action, and to witness the often tragic consequences of the glider attack.
