Check this out! Has the yellow stripe for loading purposes.

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The yellow stripe is the centre of gravity line . All vehicles that were to be put in gliders were givin this mark at the point of balance in order to help with loading and working out the weight and balance of the aircraft. Cheers John

Hi all

I beleive that the engine is listed as a flying flea engine, if thats the case they were obviousley for the paratroopers and the yellow line was indeed the centre of gravity. But this was for tying the line around them for parachuting them in with the soldiers. In a glider, you would not need the centre of gravity as it just went off weight with smaller items.

The Army did much the same with the armstrongs/Harleys Mt500's and 350's, it was always a good bet to check the straightness of the frames if you found this yellow line as they often had heavy landings!

Darren

email (option): dwrudd@lineone.net

Darren, sorry but you are not correct. The Flying Flea was dropped in a purpose made drop cradle to which the parachute was attached. I also have this marking on my original James ML which was never dropped by parachute. CheersnJohn

I stand corrected, my apologies for misleading anyone.

I have seen the Mt350's dropped by parachute and loaded by crane using the yellow line system and assumed (wrongly) that this was the same,
Why would you think that the yellow line was on it then?
If indeed it was for loading in the glider then I am surprised, I would think that they would be too small to warrant this for CofG, ( you would need to paint each paratrooper also ! ) but I would be interested to know if that is the case. Does anyone know where in the glider they were stored to be so crucial?

I will go and lie down in a dark room now and thrash myself with birch twigs!

Darren

email (option): dwrudd@lineone.net

I have often wondered about this myself...The glider itself would also have a theoretical point of 'balance'...for sake of arguement across the centre at 90 degrees to the axis of its length. So any 'yellow lines' on vehicles that were positioned over this point would have equal proportions of their weight on each side of the gliders 'balance point' However..in any other position within the glider they would just represent a weight and would not be in a 'balanced' situation in relation to the glider. So, if you put 2 MLs forward of the gliders center of balance point you would have to put 2 MLs aft of the point as well..and by the same distance..to maintain equilibrium. And that is without going into the 'side to side' weight distribution within the aircraft.
It would seem therefore that in that situation the yellow line had virtually no function...perhaps it was just for 'slinging' the bikes when being lifted using straps and a crane and not for loading.
Does anyone have any more information, another theory etc.?....Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

The yellow line seems to have been factory applied, and I've only ever seen this line on 1944 - 1945 bikes.





In Rob van Meel's book "British Airborne Jeeps" this line is also mentioned:





I also believed that this yellow line had more to do with "slinging" the bikes using straps and a crane than with loading a glider, but the documentation above seems to prove the glider theory...

Jan

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