Fletcher BG-2 twin-fuselage bomb glider project

[Vahe Demirjian]

I have a copy of Bill Norton's book American Military Gliders of World War II and it talks about a little known USAAF bomb glider design of the World War II era, the Fletcher BG-2. I've attached a three-view drawing of the BG-2 (seen on page 210 of Norton's book), if anyone is interested. Andrade (1979) lists the BG-2 as a CG-1 derivative, but the drawing of the BG-2 shows a twin-fuselage bomb glider similar in design to the Fletcher BG-1, and Norton (2008) identifies the BG-2 as a derivative of the CQ-1 target control aircraft (the description of the BG-2 in the 1945 edition of Model Designations of Army Aircraft is consistent with the BG-2 drawing). It is therefore clear that Andrade's (1979) listing of the BG-2 as being derived from the CG-1 is due to a Q→G typo in CQ-1, because the BG-2 (as well as the BG-1) had the same tail empennage design as the CQ-1, and was a fundamentally different design from the CG-1 (only one CG-1 prototype was ordered along with one static test article, but was never built or flown). (The description given for the BG-2 in the 1946 edition of Model Designations of Army Aircraft is the same given for the Frankfort CG-2 and scripted by mistake.) Specifications for the BG-2 project from Norton's book are as follows:

Length: 23.3 ft (7.1 m)
Wingspan: 45.0 ft (13.7 m)
Wing area: 208 sq ft (19.3 m2)
Empty weight: 2,431 lb (1,103 kg)
Gross weight: 6,531 lb (2,962 kg)
Stall speed: 84 mph (135 km/h, 73 kn)
Maximum glide ratio: 10.9:1
Armament: two 2,000 lb bombs