Gliding stories and famous flights are the stuff of après gliding club house talk fests well into the night. Nothing wrong with that either.

What's here is a place holder until we twist some arms for other stories.

We're always hearing that the best flights are the ones you walk away from. Here's one of those.

The flight took place at Bruschal airstrip which the DG factory backs onto on April 24th 1988. The glider was a club glider flown by a pilot of a certain age who had experience dating back many decades. Spectators claim that when the glider was aerotowed off the  strip, the air-brakes were seen to be slightly open. Whatever the case, the glider and tow plane struggled to gain height, and when the glider released from tow, the pilot saw he was not going to make it back to the strip.

To begin with, the pilot decided his best bet for an outlanding was the main square in front of the railway station in Bruschal. Gutsy call and all that, but fairly soon, he realised that he would not make even that small square. He skimmed over the railway station signal box and he hit the overhead power lines above the railway track like an jet landing on an aircraft carrier and connecting with the arrestor wire.

The glider carried on for some distance and struck a goods wagon and broke open its wooden side. The wagon contained sheep. The glider then catapaulted backwards and the sheep, realising their good fortune, squeezed out through the opening. 

The nose of the glider remained caught on one set of wires, and the tail ended up supported by wires on the other track, leaving the wing dangling in space…

Where it hit the car transporter travelling on the main Strasbourg to Frankfurt line. The transporter was carrying 50 new Volkswagen Golf cars. One by one they whacked into the low wing of the glider, flicking it upwards until it fell onto the next car. The train driver had seen the glider approaching and braked as hard as he could, so the impacts between wing and cars got slower and slower until the train stopped. Which is about what you see in the picture.

Rail traffic was stopped for around 4 hours on the main line while the fire brigade freed the pilot and the sheep were rounded up. Needless to say it cost a pretty penny in insurance pay-outs on the cars.

Fortunately the pilot was relatively unhurt. Hopefully he dined out on the story for many years as it passed into legend.

And the glider? Apparently it was repaired and is still flying somewhere.