AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 51 / 109

Plate 51 of 109 · Second World War · Assault and transport glider

Waco CG-4A Hadrian

CG-4A Hadrian, painted as a Waco CG-4A Hadrian troop and cargo glider at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, recorded as CG-4A-FO 42-37123 with the tail of 45-6576 and rebuilt around an original steel-tube fuselage frame, displayed as it is there in the colours of ‘319764’ of the US Ninth Air Force: olive drab overall with five black and white invasion stripes on the lower rear fuselage, the star and bar on the rear fuselage, a white chalked ‘329’ on both sides of the nose, ‘BONJOUR Julie’ on the port side, a yellow ‘319764’ on the fin, the starboard cabin covered in clear film to show the orange steel-tube frame, benches and cockpit, the glazed nose, four portholes and the cargo door on the port side, fixed main wheels, nose skids and tail wheel; it is displayed with short stub wings and no lift struts, and is shown that way, the stub length is estimated from photographs and the chalk lettering is approximated.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as a Waco CG-4A Hadrian troop and cargo glider at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, recorded as CG-4A-FO 42-37123 with the tail of 45-6576 and rebuilt around an original steel-tube fuselage frame, displayed as it is there in the colours of ‘319764’ of the US Ninth Air Force: olive drab overall with five black and white invasion stripes on the lower rear fuselage, the star and bar on the rear fuselage, a white chalked ‘329’ on both sides of the nose, ‘BONJOUR Julie’ on the port side, a yellow ‘319764’ on the fin, the starboard cabin covered in clear film to show the orange steel-tube frame, benches and cockpit, the glazed nose, four portholes and the cargo door on the port side, fixed main wheels, nose skids and tail wheel; it is displayed with short stub wings and no lift struts, and is shown that way, the stub length is estimated from photographs and the chalk lettering is approximated. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (879 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (gliders); engine, crew and dimensions are for the CG-4A Hadrian modelled here.

History

The Hadrian

Germany’s glider assault on the Belgian fort of Eben-Emael in May 1940 persuaded the US Army Air Corps that it needed troop-carrying gliders of its own. Of the designs it ordered in 1941, only one went into production: the Waco Aircraft Company’s fifteen-seat XCG-4, built at Troy, Ohio, and first flown in 1942. It was a high-winged braced monoplane with a box-section fuselage of welded steel tube covered in fabric, a wooden wing, fixed main wheels and plywood skids under the nose for landing in rough fields.

The whole nose, cockpit and pilots included, hinged upwards so that a jeep, a 75 mm pack howitzer or a small bulldozer could be rolled straight into the cabin; otherwise it carried two pilots and thirteen fully equipped troops. The CG-4A was simple enough to be built by firms that had never made aircraft, and sixteen contractors, among them Ford, Cessna and the Gibson Refrigerator Company, delivered nearly 14,000, more than any other glider. The RAF received a smaller number and named it the Hadrian, after the Roman emperor.

Its first operation, the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, was costly: British glider pilots flying Hadrians were released too early in high winds, and many came down in the sea. It went on to carry Chindit columns into Burma in March 1944 and American airborne troops into Normandy on D-Day, southern France, the Netherlands during Operation Market Garden and across the Rhine in March 1945. Most were used once and abandoned where they landed, and after the war thousands of surplus gliders were sold off, often for the value of the crates they were shipped in.

This airframe

CG-4A Hadrian, displayed as ‘319764’ “Bonjour Julie”

319764The airframe modelled

The Yorkshire Air Museum’s Hadrian has been rebuilt around an original CG-4A steel-tube fuselage frame; survivor lists record it as CG-4A 42-37123, with a tail from 45-6576. It is displayed at Elvington in the colours of the US Ninth Air Force’s troop carriers in 1944, marked ‘319764’ with a chalked “329” on the nose and “Bonjour Julie” on the port side. The model shows it as displayed: olive drab overall with black and white invasion stripes on the lower rear fuselage, the star and bar on the rear fuselage, the yellow serial on the fin, and on the starboard side the cabin covered in clear film to show the orange-painted steel-tube frame, the benches and the cockpit. It stands on its main wheels and tail wheel with short stub wings fitted in place of the full 25.5 m wing, and the model shows it that way; the length of the stubs is estimated from photographs and the chalked lettering is approximated.

See it at Yorkshire Air Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Hadrian in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 109 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.