The four designs proposed are of note due to having been assigned Schweizer model numbers. Due to the lack of production of these designs, Schweizer concentrated on designing and building the TG-2 and TG-3 training gliders instead. When the training glider contracts were completed Schweizer turned to subcontract work for other aircraft manufacturers. This trend continued after the war when Schweizer would increasingly turn to subcontract work to supplement the small amount of revenue realized from designing and building gliders.
The US Army had no glider pilot training program. Neither did they have any training or assault gliders when the war began. The USAAF, the US Navy and Marines all embarked on ambitious glider programs, starting in April 1941, some nine months prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor and US entry into the war.
Once the services had commenced procurement of training gliders, such as the Frankfort TG-1 and Schweizer TG-2 and schools were being set up, military attention turned to development of operational gliders for air assault use.
The low landing speed was intended to ensure that even if the gliders impacted trees or other hard obstacles on combat landings that troop survival would be likely. The specification required that the glider designs not include flaps to make the gliders cheap and simple to build and also to simplify pilot training.
The designs that were submitted complied with the USAAF specification, but were considered by the company to be impractical. In the long run, the Schweizer's concerns with the specification were taken seriously and the requirements were later changed to allow higher landing speeds and the use of flaps, making the resulting gliders smaller and more useful.
Schweizer also developed designs for six-place and single-place cargo gliders for military use. Like the earlier designs, none were put into production.
Schweizer aircraft did not submit revised designs for the new specification, but instead concentrated on production of the army TG-2 and the navy and marine LNS-1 along with the new wooden structure TG-3. The TG-3 was designed to avoid the use of strategic materials, such as aluminum and took a large measure of company resources to design and produce in numbers. The company also moved into subcontract work for other companies, producing assemblies and components.
After the war the specialization in subcontract work led Schweizer Aircraft to produce whole aircraft under sub-contract, such as the Grumman Ag Cat agricultural aircraft and the Hughes 300 helicopter, for which it later purchased the rights, renaming it the Schweizer 300.
WACO's fifteen seat design was also chosen as the winner in the competition for the modified specification. This aircraft served with great success as the Waco CG-4. Almost 14,000 were built and it played a role in the July 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily, the American airborne landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944 and in other important airborne assaults in Europe and in the China-Burma-India Theater.
Category:United States military gliders 1940-1949 Category:United States military transport aircraft 1940-1949 Category:Schweizer aircraft
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