Liaison aircraft carried in a glider?

Hello, I came across this forum when searching for info on whether a glider was ever used to carry a spotter aircraft. It seems a bit far fetched to me, but since I read this, written by an Operation Dragoon pilot, I would like to know more:

http://www.thedropzone.org/europe/Southern%20France/goldbranson.html


"....Clear of the Waco the operator climbed aboard the moving caterpillar anxious to complete his task before the arrival of any opposition. Similarly the passenger-pilot in our companion glider, which landed near by, assembled his aircraft and took off. We watched as he circled and spotted target areas for dive bombers delivering their ordinance....."


I have never heard of a glider being used to carry an observation or any other type aircraft. Can anyone confirm if this is correct, and if so, what type of observation aircraft was carried?

Thanks

Robin Colbourne
Farnham, Surrey, England

Interesting! I have not personally heard of this before, but I would suspect it to be a Piper L-4 if true.

Ryan

That's HIGHLY suspect. First of all, if any of you have ever assembled an L-4, let me tell you, it's impossible for one man to do and even with help it's going to take the better part of a day to do. He would have had to have a bunch of tools including a torque wrench, safety wire, wrenches, etc. Hell it would take him at least 2 hours just to get the wing root fairings in place and that's if he had a ladder to get up there and put them on!

You can't fit an L-4 fuselage into a CG-4 without pulling the gear, which means he has to have jacks to attach them, then he has to fill and bleed the brakes.

Then he has to run the cables and tension them, safety the turnbuckles, then hook up the airspeed indicator, mount and wire the prop-man I tell you its not like the story said- he assembled the airplane and took off. Yeah like he changed a tire and off he went.

I'm not certain you can even fit an L-4 wing in a CG-4. If you can it would take one for each wing and one for the fuselage. That sounds a lot like a war story to me.

Paul