Canadian Air Cadet Gliding
I was at RAF Hawkinge doing my week's ATC gliding course in 1959, and having been sent solo on the Tuesday, was asked if I could help take a Sedburgh (T21b to some of you youngsters) with the maintenance guys to Lydd to load into a Canadian Air Force DC3. We managed to get the fuselage in and one wing! Rethink, remove everything and try again! Both wings went in and tailplane, no room for fuselage! It was obvious they were not going to get the whole glider in! So out it all came again. One wing in first this time, then the fuselage, oops no room for the other wing!
The DC3 finally left Lydd with an almost complete T21, to return at a later date to collect the other wing and tailplane👍
The Canadians had been most impressed with our Air Cadet Gliding programme and wanted to try it for themselves with a borrowed T21b.
Wow, they really made a great success of it from such a simple start.
How did our VSOs manage to so royally screw up our Air Cadet gliding for the future generations of British Air Cadets🤔 after leading the world in Air Cadet gliding all those years ago?