On Jan 12, 5:56*am, bildan wrote:
It's interesting to compare the use of gliders by the Allies and
Luftwaffe. *The Allied planners seemed to regard gliders as simply
cheap flying delivery trucks. *The Luftwaffe seemed to see them as
stealth assault aircraft to carry small unit commandos on raids. *The
German DFS-230 was much more of a sailplane than, for example, the
Waco CG-4. *The DFS-230 carried only 8 lightly equipped commandos.

Wikipedia says min sink is 240 fpm and best L/D is 18.

That's really quite respectable!

I'm guessing that min sink speed will be about 40 knots (that would be
240 fpm @ 16.7:1) and best L/D at around 50 knots (which would be 280
fpm).

That's only about 30% worse sink numbers than a 2-33, at the same kind
of speeds.

It should thermal very nicely.