The Colditz Glider.

The Airfix example.

Back in the days when Airfix did some really cool stuff….

Impressive looking packaging with prominent Swazzy, not sure if that could be allowed to happen these days:rolleyes:

Contents, untouched since new, yes readers, this is the very first time this uber collectable has seen the light of kitchen strip light!

Nice illustrated pamphlet about the real project

polystyrene main components, with a bag of injection moulded parts & plasticine weight.
The wings & fuselage are to covered with printed paper to match the fabric used on the real Colditz C0ck

Instruction sheet

Diagram showing the seating plan.

That’s correct. The second ‘seat’ in the original, was rear facing, back-to-back behind the pilot under the wing.

It probably would have been OK on a one-off escape flight, but as the flying replica was built with a view to flying more than once, the extra weight and structural loads of a second occupant were deemed an unnecessary complication.

These replicas all seem to be single seaters but the TV programme suggested it could take 2 people.

Some more from the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton.

I dont see why the lanching method would not work. The Wright Brothers used a weight to lanch the first flyer’s.

Dave

thanks for all the info folks, once again the forum surpasses itself !!(is that spelt correctly?)

Dont know much about gliding but whats the opinion on the planned launch method ? would it have worked ?

Colditz replica glider at Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton.

Keith.

Lorne Welch was in Colditz castle he did the stress calculations on the glider.

Dave

Lorne Welch

Lorne Welch, well known (at least in aviation circles, anyway) was involved with the Colditz glider. Lorne and Anne Welch were well-respected and expert glider pilots – Lorne achieving a world distance record flying an Oly 2B in the late forties.

That same glider is the one hanging (I think it still does unless the owners have claimed it back) in the roof of the now-defunct RAF Millom Museum in Cumbria.

Anon.

Got two of the Airfix flyable examples up in my loft. One of the boxes has been chewed into by mice.

Makes me wonder if the mice that live up there are planning to put it together glide & to freedom 😀

Not Science Museum but IWM, South Lambeth. 🙂

Roger Smith.

I believe there used to be a replica – perhaps still is – at the Science Museum.

There´s a replica hanging in the museum at the castle itself (or there was a few years ago). IIRC the guide told me the original was unceremoniously burnt after the war. It´s well worth a visit if you are ever over near Dresden or Leipzig – a really interesting place. Not famous in Germany at all.

The replica is on display at the Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton, near Bungay in Suffolk.

For more on the late Bill Goldfinch, one of the constructors of the original, check this link:

http://www.kingpinmedia.co.uk/_OtherSites/LutonMinor/LatestNews18.htm

A Colditz C**k glider was built but the late John Lee, I think the wings where built by Southdown Sailplanes? It was for a documentary on the TV. A few of the Colditz prioners who built the orignal saw it fly! It differed by only having a single seat. The plans where modifided post war to a single seat. There is another Colditz glider being built at the moment.

Dave

The flyable replica is still floating (pardon the pun!) around somewhere in Blighty, I think.

Amazing to think, though, that it could have worked! 😮

I seem to remember from a documentary interview with one of those that actually built the glider that he was left with a choice of a place on a soon departing truck back to Blighty or worrying about the incomplete glider…..no prizes for guessing what won!

The most amazing thing is that they ever managed to get the glider down from its secret loft compartment to the floor below to assemble it and take the only known photograph of it. I doubt anybody would have believed them if they hadn’t!

Made a kit and also made a replica and flew it.

Chris