Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
This Slingsby Type 13 (T.13) Petrel ‘BGA651’ is owned and flown by Graham Saw. She was built in 1939 and is the second production airframe. She was previously British civil registered as G-ALPP and is currently the only surviving airworthy Petrel glider.
The Slingsby Type 13 was brought about by a request from a glider pilot, Frank Charles of the Furness Gliding Club, for a British built equivalent to the German Rhönadler glider, but with a gull wing. Peter Riedel wrote in the Aerokurier magazine that the true children of the Fafnir were the Rhönadler and Condor. These two machines were produced in quantity whereas the Fafnir was not. As the Petrel was a development of the Rhönadler (in fact with its gull wings one could almost say that it was more similar to the Fafnir than the Rhönadler), one can truly state that the spirit of the Fafnir lives on in the Petrel. The wing mounting differs from the Rhönadler,
which are bolted together ‘before lowering onto the fuselage,whereas the Petrel wings are mounted onto the fuselage separately.
Frank Charles gave the name Petrel to the new Type 13 and also specified for his version a different canopy of wood construction with a port-hole to the sides, similar, but larger than that used on the German Fafnir. The standard design was to use a cockpit cover similar to the one used by the Gull. Fred Slingsby intended the glider to have a pendulum tailplane, but then decided the pendulum elevator was not desirable and the standard tailplane was made for the third example which went to Ireland.
This second production Petrel (BGA651 c/n 363) was built in 1939. It had a standard elevator type tailplane with square tips, a shape entirely different to the first pendulum style. It was finished overall in varnished wood.
In 1947 a small engine was fitted on top of this Petrel fuselage by Wing-Commander K. H. Wallis, later well known for his Wallis autogyros. The engine was a starter for a German Jumo 004 jet engine from WW2 and was a tiny 2 cylinder 270cc 2 stroke, only 10” across with twin horizontally opposed cylinders. A wheel from the tailwheel of a Spitfire was added into the skid to aid the launch and was to remain in the glider until 1973. One evening at Redhill this little engine powered Petrel made ten take-offs and proved itself. Unfortunately this act was scorned by the purist glider pilots at the time, including Ann Welch, although she later became convinced of such methods.
It was based in England until 1954 when it was bought by an Irish syndicate in Dublin and given the registration of EI-101, later to become IGA-101 by the Irish Gliding and Soaring Association.
The ‘Irish Petrel’ syndicate operated at Baldonnel, an Air Corps field, where launches could be made to 1,500 feet, but following a new concrete runway installation the syndicate were forced to move to Curragh 30 miles away. Fortunately it was now possible to launch to 1,800 feet. The Petrel went on to make an Irish altitude record.
Mike Russell, who was an airline captain for Britannia Airways, had previously been a member of the British syndicate which previously owned the Petrel. In 1973 he noticed in a hanger in Dublin his dream machine, the Petrel, hanging in the rafters of what was the Aer Lingus Museum. Mike purchased the Petrel and brought it back to the Long Mynd in England, where it was again made airworthy.
In 1980 a full restoration was started on the Petrel, but it had to be abandoned by Mike Russell due to other commitments and in 1993 it was bought by its current owner Graham Saw, who completed the restoration. While doing so, he converted the square tipped tailplane to a radius tip, the shape of which was influenced by the legendary German designer Hans Jacobs.
Filmed at Old Warden during the Shuttleworth Best of British Airshow on 30 August 2025.
This Video and Audio content is
Copyright © S.Keeler (HightFlight/SkyHighFlightTV) All Rights Reserved
This Slingsby Type 13 (T.13) Petrel ‘BGA651’ is owned and flown by Graham Saw. She was built in 1939 and is the second production airframe. She was previously British civil registered as G-ALPP and is currently the only surviving airworthy Petrel glider.
The Slingsby Type 13 was brought about by a request from a glider pilot, Frank Charles of the Furness Gliding Club, for a British built equivalent to the German Rhönadler glider, but with a gull wing. Peter Riedel wrote in the Aerokurier magazine that the true children of the Fafnir were the Rhönadler and Condor. These two machines were produced in quantity whereas the Fafnir was not. As the Petrel was a development of the Rhönadler (in fact with its gull wings one could almost say that it was more similar to the Fafnir than the Rhönadler), one can truly state that the spirit of the Fafnir lives on in the Petrel. The wing mounting differs from the Rhönadler,
which are bolted together ‘before lowering onto the fuselage,whereas the Petrel wings are mounted onto the fuselage separately.
Frank Charles gave the name Petrel to the new Type 13 and also specified for his version a different canopy of wood construction with a port-hole to the sides, similar, but larger than that used on the German Fafnir. The standard design was to use a cockpit cover similar to the one used by the Gull. Fred Slingsby intended the glider to have a pendulum tailplane, but then decided the pendulum elevator was not desirable and the standard tailplane was made for the third example which went to Ireland.
This second production Petrel (BGA651 c/n 363) was built in 1939. It had a standard elevator type tailplane with square tips, a shape entirely different to the first pendulum style. It was finished overall in varnished wood.
In 1947 a small engine was fitted on top of this Petrel fuselage by Wing-Commander K. H. Wallis, later well known for his Wallis autogyros. The engine was a starter for a German Jumo 004 jet engine from WW2 and was a tiny 2 cylinder 270cc 2 stroke, only 10” across with twin horizontally opposed cylinders. A wheel from the tailwheel of a Spitfire was added into the skid to aid the launch and was to remain in the glider until 1973. One evening at Redhill this little engine powered Petrel made ten take-offs and proved itself. Unfortunately this act was scorned by the purist glider pilots at the time, including Ann Welch, although she later became convinced of such methods.
It was based in England until 1954 when it was bought by an Irish syndicate in Dublin and given the registration of EI-101, later to become IGA-101 by the Irish Gliding and Soaring Association.
The ‘Irish Petrel’ syndicate operated at Baldonnel, an Air Corps field, where launches could be made to 1,500 feet, but following a new concrete runway installation the syndicate were forced to move to Curragh 30 miles away. Fortunately it was now possible to launch to 1,800 feet. The Petrel went on to make an Irish altitude record.
Mike Russell, who was an airline captain for Britannia Airways, had previously been a member of the British syndicate which previously owned the Petrel. In 1973 he noticed in a hanger in Dublin his dream machine, the Petrel, hanging in the rafters of what was the Aer Lingus Museum. Mike purchased the Petrel and brought it back to the Long Mynd in England, where it was again made airworthy.
In 1980 a full restoration was started on the Petrel, but it had to be abandoned by Mike Russell due to other commitments and in 1993 it was bought by its current owner Graham Saw, who completed the restoration. While doing so, he converted the square tipped tailplane to a radius tip, the shape of which was influenced by the legendary German designer Hans Jacobs.
Filmed at Old Warden during the Shuttleworth Best of British Airshow on 30 August 2025.
This Video and Audio content is
Copyright © S.Keeler (HightFlight/SkyHighFlightTV) All Rights Reserved
