Originally Posted by
POBJOY
Chev The Slingsby Grasshopper (or primary glider) was a crib of the German design but built specifically for the ATC/CCF
The name Dagling was what people actually called them no doubt because of the original German name Zogling.
Everyone knows what a Dagling is even though it covers the range of primary gliders.
Elliots of Newbury built a version but they are ALL cribs off the original German design and all look similar.
The Germans used them as proper primary trainers and 'pinged' them off mountain slopes on your own.
The ATC (before they had two seaters) used to give instruction in the single seater Tutor which consisted of ground slides followed by low and high hops. The instructor would also be the winch driver in many cases. The original ATC A&B badge was in fact a BGA certificate given after 3 solo's and the ability to do turns in both directions.
I'm sure I've seen pics of a 'primary' which didn't have the 'A' frame fuselage of the Grasshopper/Eton and that this was the Dagling. The 'fuselage' as far as I recall was 'V' shaped in planform ie when you look down on it and it had a 'pod' rather than an open cockpit.
They were phased out of VGS before I took my 'A & B' course in 1964, but one of the weekend volunteer staff was a Chief Tech Godfrey, who used to tour round CCF schools on weekdays servicing the 'primarys' and instructing on them too. He kept a bungee in the boot of his car, so when 613 (Halton) were issued with a T38, if the weather wasn't suitable for winch launching we would get the T38 out and bungee it backwards and forwards across the airfield.
When the 'primarys' were withdrawn from CCF use, several were stored at Halton and my Squadron commander (we were about 10 miles from Halton) asked if we could have one and we got it! Alas we could do nothing with it as the doors to the standard ATC Hut weren't big enough to lug it in and out in order to assemble it, so it was eventually passed on to another squadron.