Discussion DFS-230 Attack Glider

[No Step]

Oh baby! I'm excited about this one. Is this great or what?! Simple construction all around will mean it will build very fast and very light,... should fly well. I'm still ankle deep into the build of my Mue-123 motor glider - http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=960090 . But when it's done , about mid January, this will get my full attention. Until then this is just a discussion thread. Right now, I'm collecting pics, 3-views, and plans. I have a set of plans coming from flyingscalemodels.com, but they are for a 98" model. I will blow them up to 133" ws and 66" fuselage length. I'm not counting on them being very good plans, scale wise, and I'll be double checking everything against 3-views and making necessary changes.

The only down side is choice of color schemes. I've have my choice of green camouflage with a grey lower fuselage or green camouflage with a blue lower fuselage. UGH! I did see a variation all white, but it was converted to a low wing'd bird,.. talk about instantly ugly!

It has wheels,... or not, a very robust landing skid. The fuselage is narrow, and the wings are large. It has a drag parachute option. And, it has machine guns for crying out loud! Also a commando can pop out of the top of the fuselage and fire and/or there's a side mounted machine gun fired by the pilot by sticking his hand through a slit in the fuselage. It even an option for reverse fired ROCKETS in the nose, fired in to assist in short field landings! I can't resist this one. This baby is going to get built and I'll terrorize the local aerotow events.

I've spent >way< too much time researching pics on the internet this past week. I'm sure I have them all. I have a couple 3-views, plans coming from the UK, and a book that will arrive in a few days about German wartime gliders. I'm set. This will turn into a build thread mid-winter, until then I'll post pics and use as a place to discuss the model. Oh Man! I'm going to enjoy this one.

It's an Attack Glider,..... An attack glider!!

Fred Guilfoyle
https://home.comcast.net/~guilfoyle72/

[GeeW]

Fred
Why not either a winter camo scheme or a desert scheme?

Gordon

[No Step]

....

[ShredAir]

Fred, this plane used a drop-off dolly for take-off -- that's the wheels in the photos -- and it landed on its skid. Why stop at 133"? I think a 5- or 6-meter version would terrorize more... : )
4-piece wing and 2-piece fuse. How about it?

Dieter Mahlein, ShredAir

[No Step]

Haha,.. tempting, but I think I already scare most of them by just showing up at the field. I wouldn't need a bigger sailplane. 133" is just about right for me. It transports easily. It's the fuselage that is the problem. 70" is just about as big as I can go. Two piece fuserlage?... too much work to build and set up.

Oh, so all takeoffs are with the wheels, makes sense. Probably would be hard to get the glider moving on a dirt strip when you have 8-9 men inside. I could maybe do a servo operated drop off dolly. That'd be kinda fun.

Then maybe a drogue chute to keep me from overshooting the landing zone? .
... or nose mounted rockets to hit those short runways. Oh man that'd take nerve to hit the ignition button a few feet off the ground, or as you touch down. I suppose AMA would take a dim view of that trick .

Nah! I'll keep it simple

[Ren DiLeo]

Looks like there are several DFS-230s that are in museums in Europe.
http://www.preservedaxisaircraft.com...fe/dfs/dfs.htm

[ShredAir]

This is an attack glider? Maybe this battery of 48 is meant to fire R4M 55-mm rockets into approaching bomber streams? Toward the end of WWII, Germany became quite desperate, and this idea might have been considered and tested? Anybody know?

Dieter Mahlein, ShredAir

[slopemeno]

The Germans attacked some fort with them in Belgium in the beginning of the war, IIRC. Eben Email (sp?)I think. The glider didn't hold very many troops, for sure.

They also landed the group of soldiers that freed Mussolini in DFS 230's. He was taken away in a Feisler Storch that they landed on a tennis court.

[Ben D Wing]

This Blohm und Voss 40 was used as a true attack glider.http://www.luftwaffe-reich.co.uk/ima...-figther-1.jpg

[prodjx]

The fort had a ready made glider landing field on top. The glider raid used a fraction of the soldier's that would've been used in a land based attack.

[MTT]

Eben Email (sp?)I think. The glider didn't hold very many troops, for sure.

It was Eben Emael, they used 11 DFS230 gliders, landing a total of 78 troopers on the fort.
The assault on Eben Emael was part of a much lager operation, which involved a total of 400 Junkers Ju52's deploying paratroopers and 50 DFS230 gliders.
==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Emael
==>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Eben-Emael

[moocowfish]

Hey Fred, fantastic glider, sorry ATTACK glider, ive been gathering some info on this glider too, i saw the plans available on flaying scale models, i didnt know whether they would be worth buying? Accuracy on these sometimes just isnt any good. When you get yours id love to know how accurate they are.
I figured with such a simple shaped plane, nice and boxy i could draw up my own plans to the size i want too!!!
My goal is to get the DFS 230 on the way and then eventually build a FW-56 as in the picture have it carry the Attack glider into the blue sky and then drop it, imagine how spectacular that would be !
Can you tell me which 3 view in your opinion youve found is the most accurate.
Have you been to Bobs air docs, he ahs a 3 view too, ill probably get this, his stuff is usually only the good stuff.
kind regards
Rob

[No Step]

Rob, 3 view drawings seem to vary by several inches in wingspan when I scale the fuselage to 66" length. Assuming 66" fuselage length, I get anywhere from 118.4" to 129.7" in wingspan. The actual text below translates to 129"ws and the more detailed 3-view scales to 129.7. So I'm going with 129" ws. I received a set of plans drawn by Mike Hawkins (which I'm sure is the 101" ws Flyingscalemodels plan). When enlarged to 66" fuselage,... it's wing is 123.5". So I can justify anywhere from 118" ws to 129" ws with a 66" fuselage length. Since a written statement and the most detailed 3-view comes out at 129" ws, that's what I'm going with. It will mean extending the Hawkins wings one rib bay at the tip (thus needing to shorten the inbrd end of the aileron one rib bay). And extending the wing root one rib bay, and probably leaving the spoiler where it's at Who will know? Geez, am I'm taking this too seriously!?

Btw, the Hawkins drawing is excellent as far as I'm concerned. Definitely not what I was expecting. I haven't tried, or seen, Bob's 3-view. I figured the one's on line, and the Hawkins drawings are good enough to get me a decent looking model.

Nice pic, that's a new one for me. And here's an Me109 piggyback.

[Ren DiLeo]

I dug up a couple of photos I took at Los Banos in 2005 of an Attack Glider.
I don't remember the builder. But here they are to share.

[No Step]

Very nice, thanks for taking the time to contribute those. I'd guess that's from the the 102" plan.