Waco CG-4 Hadrian
The Waco CG-4 was the standard American assault glider of the Second World War, designated CG-4A by the United States Army Air Forces and named Hadrian in British service. Designed by the Waco Aircraft Company of Troy, Ohio, after Germany's glider coup at Fort Eben-Emael in 1940, it was an unpowered aircraft of wood and metal under fabric, flown by two pilots and loaded through an upward-hinged nose with 13 troops, a jeep or a 75 mm howitzer. Sixteen American companies completed 13,909 of them. Towed into action behind C-47s, CG-4As served in Sicily, Normandy, Burma, the Netherlands, the Rhine crossing and the Philippines; most were wrecked where they landed, but a few survive, restored, in museums.