Escape from Colditz

TX: Summer

This film is about the most audacious plan ever devised to escape from a prison camp. In 1945, two British prisoners of war were to be catapulted from the roof of notorious Colditz Castle in a homemade glider. The ‘Colditz Cock', as the glider was called, represents an incredible feat of aeronautical engineering, particularly since it had to be built in secret in a tiny attic using homemade tools and improvised materials like bed boards, sleeping bags, gramophone springs and porridge!

The war ended before the Cock ever flew and no one knows if the crazy idea would have worked... until now. A team led by engineer extraordinaire Dr Hugh Hunt (Dambuster: Building the Bouncing Bomb) attempts to rebuild the glider in the same loft in Colditz. Then the team will take an almighty leap into the unknown; special permission has been granted to launch the glider from the roof of Colditz to find out whether the plan would have flown.

The team will construct a 20-metre runway on the roof, and contrive a launching mechanism to fire the glider into the air. It's hardly surprising the feat has never been attempted before; it's barmy!

Production company
Windfall Films