> The story I hear is that this rope was used to tow three gliders full of =
soldiers behind a DC-3 over France
> near the end of WW2. The gliders cut loose one at a time and had soft(cra=
sh) landings behind enemy lines.
> The rope has three insulated wires embedded in it that were used for comm=
unication between tow=20
> plane and gliders. A crazy wartime mission that probably wasn't very succ=
essful.

'Crazy wartime mission' ??? haven't you heard of the glider troops that wer=
e an essential part of d-day, capturing Pegasus Bridge and others putting o=
ut of action some of the batteries of big guns that overlooked the landing =
zones, before the ships arrived?

I have never heard of more than one glider per tug plane, the likelihood of=
 gliders hitting each other would be too great, remember that practically e=
very glider based mission by the allies was carried out at night. I could e=
nvisage the three wires being used for ground, supply and bidirectional aud=
io between the tug and glider, as they would save as much weight as possibl=
e in the glider to maximise the amount of payload carried, so having a batt=
ery to power comms with the pilot would be something to do away with. It wo=
uld need to be a large (probably car battery size) to last long enough for =
the trip across the channel and that would be quite a weight penalty, and i=
n the event of a crash landing it would become a fire hazard as the gliders=
 were all wooden construction.



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