Luftwaffe Gliders while diving

[Stijn David]

Hello,

The Glider planes might be known towards a few persons, however how the pilots who flew these "Leukoplast Bomber" where trained is quite often less known.

After the Crete campaign there where made practices in dive flights and using a parachute to hold the plane in line. These practices where more and more common and it was the goal to make a so called point landing .

This had advantages and one of the major ones was: landing in a very small area and being as quick as possible through the critical zone of Anti Aircraft, etc ... FOr the pilots who had to do it it was very exiting but also very dangerous. The pilot had to make a good count how high he still was before pulling the plane up again,e tc ... (or serious acidents could happen)

Pictures of DFS 230's (glider plane) when diving with are quite hard to find, but we are proud to be able to present such a risky training session.

Enjoy

Cordial greetings,

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And here we do see another DFS 230 after a succesfull "Sturzflug mit Bremsfallschirm", almost landing

Cordial greetings + enjoy

[Tony]

Stijn,

I don't know anything about gliders but keep the pictures and info coming.

Tony

[David Gregory]

Stijn,

Images like that give the modern logistics expression "just-in-time delivery" a whole new meaning.

They are excellent photos and I look forward to seeing more.

David

[Stijn David]

Gliders,

Thank you both for the reply, IMHO you do not have to know anything => being interested is just more then enough, that way a person can learn

The Sturzflug was used in different effective missions, with some glider pilots who have survived and otehrs who simply crashed into a building etc ... I have had the honour to taat mission was lk to several German glider pilots and they do confirm that such trainingw as already quite a adrenalin rush. The actual combat mission and diving towards the point of no return was a extreme feeling.

I have knowledge of several training flights that did not end good, but due to the wartime needs of trained personel there was not thinking of stopping the training flights.

Cordial greetings,

ps: not a "Sturz" but a interesting picture non the less/ the inside of a DFS 230 glider. The pilot had to do it with this when diving into action

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And here is a vieuw (rather dangerous looking with the machine guns) of a DFS 230 when freshly landed. Note that it is not a action picture but a training one. However it is very nice

Cordial greetings,

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And here we have a very same vieuw, this time from the side

Cordial greetings,