Rescue From Shangri-La

"RESCUE FROM SHANGRI-LA" 1945 C-47 PLANE CRASH SURVIVOR DOCUMENTARY 70564
I finished Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff. In 1945, the survivors of the C-47 crash in the middle New Guinea were big news. Alexander Cann parachuted into this lost valley with a 35mm camera and made this film, though it doesn't appear in IMDB.

Being who I am, I wanted to know more about snatching a glider out of the jungle.


Training Film Glider Pickup by C 47
This training film shows us all the switches, widgets and do-dads involved in setting up the winch in the tow plane. It also includes some slow motion footage of the of the pickup (just after the 11 minute mark).

The winch's main job is not reeling in the tow rope, but rather paying it out in a controlled manner so the glider is subjected to a tolerable amount of acceleration over a few seconds of time. The nylon rope stretches, but not enough to absorb the entire shock. Without the braking action of the winch, the tow rope would snap or rip it's attachment points out of the tug or the glider.


Glider Snatching (1949)
This clip shows the winch brake in action (50 second mark), smoking to beat the band, which explains why they need the ventilators shown in the previous clip.

Here's another video that has a brief shot of what happens to a glider should the tow rope snap on pickup (1:50 mark).

This story and the cloud cover that impedes air operations reminds me of the film The Valley (Obscured by Clouds) that I saw about a zillion years ago. This valley could be the same one as the one in the book or it could be a completely different one. New Guinea is a big place, full of mountains and valleys.