Our glider-specialist Bob Verhegghen gave us the following information on this twin seat glider. The Schleicher ES 49 was a kind of twin seat Grunau Baby, designed by the engineer Edmund Schneider in 1949 of which eight copies were build by the Schleicher Company between 1951 and 1953. The Belgian Club Militaire de Vol à Voile at Butzweilerhof (D) purchased one copy in November 1952, the ES 49 V3 n°17/52, which was, in late 1957, allocated Belgian military serial PL-70. This machine is seen here after a landing mishap by instructor-pilot Bantuel at Koksijde air base on July 16th, 1959 during a Belgian Air Cadets Summer camp. The machine has been destroyed at Spa on August 1st, 1962.

Bob Verhegghen Collection

Last updated 31/12/11 09:00   Daniel Brackx

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