General Aircraft Hotspur The General Aircraft GAL . 48 Hotspur was a military glider designed and built by the British company General Aircraft Ltd during World War II . When the British airborne establishment was formed in 1940 by order of Prime Minister Winston Churchill , it was decided that gliders would be used to transport airborne troops into battle . General Aircraft Ltd were given a contract by the Ministry of Aircraft Production in June 1940 to design and produce an initial glider for use by the airborne establishment , which resulted in the Hotspur . Although originally conceived as an " assault " glider which necessitated a compact design , a change in tactical philosophy predicated against the use of small numbers of troops being sent into battle aboard gliders . Due to limitations in its design , the Hotspur was mainly relegated to training where it excelled and became the basic trainer for the glider schools that were formed . Development . Operational requirements . The German military had pioneered using airborne formations , conducting several successful airborne operations during the Battle of France in 1940 , including the Battle of Fort Eben - Emael . Impressed by the success of German airborne operations , the Allied governments decided to form their own airborne formations . This decision would eventually lead to the creation of two British airborne divisions , as well as a number of smaller units . The British airborne establishment began development on 22 June 1940 , when the Prime Minister , Winston Churchill , directed the War Office in a memorandum to investigate the possibility of creating a corps of 5 , 000 parachute troops . When the equipment to be used by the airborne forces was under development , War Office officials decided that gliders would be an integral component , to transport troops and heavy equipment . On 21 June 1940 the Central Landing Establishment was formed at Ringway airfield near Manchester ; although tasked primarily with training parachute troops , it was also directed to investigate using gliders to transport troops into battle . It had been decided that the Royal Air Force and the Army would cooperate in forming the airborne establishment , and as such Squadron Leader L . A . Strange and Major J . F . Rock were tasked with gathering potential glider pilots and forming a glider unit ; this was achieved by searching for members of the armed forces who had pre - war experience of flying gliders , or were interested in learning to do so . The two officers and their newly formed unit were provided with four obsolete Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bombers and a small number of Tiger Moth and Avro 504 biplanes for towing purposes . As this unit was in the process of being formed , in June the Ministry of Aircraft Production contracted General Aircraft Ltd to design and produce an initial glider type for use by the airborne establishment . It would be used for both assault and training purposes , and would be capable of transporting eight airborne troops . The glider had to be capable of a long approach during landing , due to the prevailing belief at the time that gliders would have to be released a considerable distance from the target and glide in to ensure the sound of the towing aircraft did not alert the enemy . It therefore had to be aerodynamically stable , but also cheap and easy to construct as it would only be used once . The Hotspur was intended to have an operational range of when released at high altitude , although in practice this was reduced to when released from a height of . Design . The GAL . 48 was primarily designed by F . F . Crocombe ( team leader ) to the Air Ministry specification X . 10 / 40 , and was to be similar in design to the German DFS 230 assault glider which had been used in the Battle of the Netherlands . The first prototype of the glider , designated GAL . 48 and which would receive the service name Hotspur Mk I , flew in November , only four months after General Aircraft Ltd had been given the requirement for the glider . An initial order of 400 Hotspurs was placed with General Aircraft Ltd in September by the Ministry of Aircraft Production , nearly two months before the prototype first flew . The Hotspur Mark I was constructed from wood and was designed to accommodate eight fully armed airborne troops . Its wingspan was and it was in length . With a full load ( approximately ) , it weighed approximately . The Mk I was distinguished from its other variants by the addition of cabin porthole s along its fuselage , and hooks on the nose and tail to allow multiple Hotspurs to be towed together . The two pilots , and later the pilot and instructor when the Hotspurs were used as training gliders , sat in tandem in the cockpit . It had a jettisonable undercarriage , and its unusual fuselage functioned like a lid ; once the Hotspur had landed , the troops inside would throw off the top half of the fuselage and then climb out of the lower half , much like leaving a small boat . A total of 18 Hotspur Mk Is were produced , 10 by GAl and eight by Slingsby Aircraft . The first operational Hotspur arrived at the Central Landing Establishment between February and April 1941 , with 15 being delivered by 22 August . Towing trials began in February 1941 with a Boulton & Paul Overstrand bomber . Further development . Even as the initial 400 gliders were being produced , several problems with the Hotspur ' s design were uncovered , the primary one being that the glider did not carry sufficient troops . Although it had been designed to transport eight airborne troops and a cargo of , this was found to be inadequate . Tactically it was believed that airborne troops should be landed in groups far larger than eight , and the number of aircraft therefore required to tow the gliders needed to land larger groups would be unfeasible ; there were also concerns that the gliders would have to be towed in tandem if used operationally , which would be extremely difficult during nighttime and through cloud formations . Its disappointing glide ratio was also a contributing factor to reevaluate the assault glider concept . Due to the limitations inherent in the Hotspur design , the decision was made to continue with the development of several other types of gliders , including a 15 - seater which would become the Airspeed Horsa and a tank - carrying glider , which would become the General Aircraft Hamilcar . The Hotspur remained in production primarily as a training aircraft and as a " stop - gap " in case the other programmes failed . Three variants on the original Hotspur Mk I were created . The first was the heavily modified Mk II ( Specification X . 22 / 40 and X . 23 / 40 ) , which was redesigned partially to address changes in operational requirements and also to bolster the ground handling of the initial series of aircraft . In operations , rather than releasing the glider from a long distance away and allowing it to glide gently to the ground , it was decided that the towing aircraft would approach the landing zone and only then release the glider , requiring a more robust glider . The Hotspur Mk I wings had also shown considerable flex and the type had proved difficult to handle on the ground . In order to reduce stresses on the airframe , the fuselage was strengthened and wings were " shortened " by over eight ft each , resulting in a wingspan of with the tips made square - cut and ailerons moved from the end of the wings to an inset position . While maintaining its original all - wood construction and overall fuselage and empennage dimensions , the Mk II incorporated a modified fuselage which included altering the cockpit enclosure and a " deeper " canopy . Instead of using the " lid " ( where the two pilots still boarded via the hinged Plexiglass canopy ) , two side doors were added from which troops would enter and depart . The seating was re - arranged , and a braking parachute added to the rear . Its other dimensions remained the same , however , with a length of and a gross weight of approximately , with eight airborne troops and some of equipment . A total of 50 of the early - production Mk IIs were modified into trainers as the Mark III , by adding dual controls and instruments for the student pilot and an externally braced tailplane . The third variant of the Hotspur was the GAL . 48B " Twin Hotspur " , which did not progress past the prototype phase . The Twin Hotspur was a 1942 attempt to create a glider capable of carrying 15 airborne troops as an interim glider until production of the Horsa reached sufficient levels . It was created by connecting two Hotspur fuselages together , using a constant - chord centre wing section of length , and a constant - chord tailplane . Two pilots sat tandem - style in the port fuselage . In August 1942 , the sole " Twin Hotspur " prototype ( MP486 ) underwent testing , towed behind an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley tug . The project was abandoned before production could begin , primarily because the glider ' s flight characteristics were criticised by its pilots . Production . When Hotspur production ended in early 1943 , a total of 1 , 015 gliders had been produced . The primary sub - contractor , Harris Lebus was responsible for 996 Mk IIs and Mk IIIs while the parent company produced only 10 Mk Is and a single Mk II prototype . Slingsby was the only other sub - contractor involved in production with eight Mk Is completed . Operational history . Due to changing operational requirements , no Hotspurs were used in combat operations , and were instead exclusively used for training purposes ; it was the glider in which all pilots belonging to the Glider Pilot Regiment received their initial instruction . Although relatively heavy with a high sink rate , the Hotspur exhibited good flying characteristics and could even be flown aerobatically , allowing novice pilots to quickly gain proficiency . The first glider pilots were curiously named " glider coxswains " . Glider pilots first trained at an Elementary Flying Training School on de Havilland Tiger Moth s or Miles Magister s before converting to glider training . At the Glider Schools , a Hotspur MK III was first employed for dual instruction with the rear seats weighted for ballast and only the instructor and student aboard . The gliders were usually towed by Hawker Hector or Hawker Audax biplanes ( later Miles Master and Westland Lysander " tugs " ) during training . Some 8 to 11 dual - instruction flights usually preceded the student ' s first solo flight . At Operational Training Glider Schools , the flights were made with troops instead of ballast in Hotspur MK IIs . Release at high altitudes and night - flying was also part of the training . A total of 250 Hotspurs were retained for operational use if they were required , but the rest were used as training gliders . In 1942 , 22 Hotspur Mk IIs were sent to Canada , eventually six were redeployed to the United States Navy and one to the United States Army Air Forces . In the build - up to Operation Overlord in 1944 , a scheme was considered in which Hotspurs would have been used to transport cargo and equipment , but this did not get past the planning stage . At war ' s end , the type was retired and relatively few Hotspurs were preserved for display . Survivors . A Hotspur Mark II ( HH268 ) replica is on display at the Museum of Army Flying in Hampshire , England . The front fuselage of a Hotspur was preserved at the Parachute Regiment And Airborne Forces Museum in Aldershot prior to the museum ' s 2007 closing , in anticipation of a move to the Imperial War Museum Duxford .