This week in aviation history

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Week of February 18-24:

 

February 23, 1934: the Lockheed Model 10 Electra prototype flies for the first time.

 

The Electra was the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation’s first all-metal aircraft design. Before this, some of the company’s designs had been built by Detroit Aircraft Corporation with metal fuselages. The design itself was meant to compete with Boeing’s Model 247 and the Douglas DC-2 for the civilian airliner market.

 

The Electra, a twin-engine design, was designed by Lockheed president Lloyd Stearman and engineer Hall Hibbard. Stearman was an early aviation entrepreneur who founded his own aircraft manufacturing company in 1927, Stearman Aircraft, which was eventually merged with several other companies to become United Aircraft and Transport Corporation in 1929. Stearman, along with two other men, then bought Lockheed in 1932.

 

Extensive wind tunnel work on the Electra was undertaken at the University of Michigan. Much of this testing was performed by a student assistant, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson. Johnson would later go on to work on a multitude of high-profile aircraft projects as Chief Engineer for Lockheed, including the P-38, the U-2, the F-104, and the SR-71 Blackbird, the latter of which is associated with Lockheed’s highly-secret “Skunk Works” development programs.

 

Johnson was concerned about control and stability issues with the design and suggested two revisions be made: changing the single tail to double tails (later a Lockheed trademark, including the Constellation), and deleting oversized wing fillets. Both suggestions were incorporated into production aircraft.

 

As designed, the Model 10 Electra could carry ten passengers over 700 nautical miles and was one of the first commercial passenger aircraft with retractable landing gear to be fitted with mudguards as standard equipment. It was powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior radial engines, capable of producing 450 horsepower at 5,000 feet.

 

On February 23, 1934, the prototype took to the skies for the first time with Marshall Headle, a veteran airman from the First World War, at the controls.

 

The Model 10 Electra was well-suited within the commercial aircraft market after the U.S. government banned single-engine aircraft for use in carrying passengers or in night flying in October 1934. The type found usage around the world with several airlines, including KLM, Qantas, and Pan American World Airways. In Latin America, the first airline to use Electras was Cuba’s flag carrier, Cubana de Aviación.

 

In addition to airline orders, non-commercial civil operators purchased Electras, including H.T. Merrill. Along with J.S. Lambie, he accomplished the first round-trip commercial crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in an Electra in May 1937, earning the two the Harmon Trophy.

 

The most well-known aviator to fly the Electra remains American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart. Her Model 10E was fitted with additional fuel tanks to carry 1,200 gallons of fuel instead of the standard 200. During her attempted 29,000-mile round-the-world flight, she and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared somewhere over the Pacific on July 2, 1937, never to be seen or heard from again.

 

The Model 10 Electra also saw military service with the US Army Air Forces as the C-36. The first of these three planes was delivered in late 1936 but damaged beyond repair in a crash in February 1938. The other two were handed over to the Brazilians and survived the war before being lost in crashes in the early 1950s.

 

Following the outbreak of World War II, civilian Model 10s and their descendants (the Model 12 and Model 14) were pressed into military service. These included fifteen Model 10As, five Model 10Es, and seven Model 10Bs. Most of these spent their military careers operating within the Continental United States, and the surviving aircraft were returned to their owners after the war’s end.

 

Clarence Johnson with a model of the original Mdoel 10 Electra at the wind tunnel testing facility at the University of Michigan:

 

Earhart's Highly-Modified Electra:

 

Electra in USAAF service under the original designation of Y1C-36:

[LukeFF]

Week of February 25 - March 2:

 

March 2, 1945: the Henschel Hs 297 Föhn-Gerät anti-aircraft rocket system is employed for the first time in combat.

 

The Henschel Hs 297 Föhn-Gerät (from “Foehn wind,” a warm, dry fall wind) was intended to be employed in large barrages to defend targets against low-flying ground attack aircraft. Several launchers captured by the Allies at likely river crossing sites at Satzvey, Unkel, and Hahn, which were fitted with dual-purpose sights, confirm the weapon system was also intended for the ground fire role.

 

As the Föhn-Gerät was intended to be employed by the Volkssturm (Germany’s last-ditch national militia formed in the last months of the war in Europe), it was officially designated the Volksstur-Flugabwehr-Raketenwerfer (“Volkssturm anti-aircraft rocket launcher”). The launcher consisted of a square framework holding 35 launch racks (one source says 48), a pedestal mount with a shielded operator’s station, and traverse and elevation mechanisms. The launch racks were supported on pipes fitted to a metal framework, and each one was fitted with a firing pin for a percussion cap that ignited the rocket. A single charging handle on the left-rear-hand side of the launcher cocked all 35 firing pins, and so all the rockets were launched at the same time; there was no provision for single-rocket fire. Two safety devices were also fitted – one was a button on the trigger handle which had to be released before the weapon could be fired and the second was a safety lever on the rear of the racks which caused a metal surface to block the trigger linkage.

 

The launchers found by the Allies in the spring of 1945 were emplaced statically, with the pedestal bolted to a foundation, or were mounted on a circular folding platform which was carried on a two-wheeled trailer. The rockets could be fired from the trailer, but the weapon’s traverse was limited in this role. The main aiming sight was a pivoting ring-type sight that was graduated for both ground and air targets, while the secondary sight was an open sight with a rear V-notch and triangular front post sight. The maximum firing range was 1200 meters in anti-aircraft mode and 751 meters in ground-fire mode.

 

The ammunition for the Hs 297 Föhn-Gerät was a 7.3 cm rocket known officially as the 7.3 cm Raketen Sprenggranate. This rocket measured 28 cm in length and weighed 2.74 kg. It was similar to the 7.3 cm Propagandawerfer 41 but instead of being filled with propaganda leaflets, it was fitted with an explosive warhead with dual fuzes. The first fuze was a nose-mounted percussion fuze that would explode on contact while the secondary one was a time-delayed fuze that was ignited during ignition of the rocket motor. When this fuze burnt out it would flash through an orifice in the base of the warhead, which would detonate the main charge. The warhead was a preformed charge of 280 grams of RDX/TNT/wax pressed in a block and wrapped in wax paper. This rocket was also used in the Bachem Ba 349 vertical takeoff rocket interceptor.

Fifty Hs 297 units had been delivered to the Volkssturm by February 1945, which were initially used for testing. Twenty-four of these were assigned to the 3rd Battery of the 900th Antiaircraft Training and Testing Battalion in the Remagen area and were used in combat for the first time on March 2, 1945. After American forces captured the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen a few days later, some of the launchers were captured intact by the Americans. Eventually, the Hs 297 came to be nicknamed “Beercrate Flak” by American troops.

Hs 297 rockets being fired by German troops:

 

Captured Föhn-Gerät:

 

 

Hs 297 Föhn-Gerät on display at the Swedish Army Museum:

[LukeFF]

Week of March 3 - 9:

March 5, 1936: the Spitfire prototype flies for the first time.

 

Designed by Supermarine head aircraft designer Reginald Mitchell, the Spitfire's origins date back to the early 1930s, and the S.6B, a racing seaplane designed to compete in the 1931 Schneider Trophy competition. The S.6B was an all-metal and aerodynamically clean design that ultimately allowed it to reach a speed of 407 mph.

 

Eighteen days after the S.6B's victory in the 1931 Schneider race, the British Air Ministry issued Specification F7/30, calling for a modern, all-metal, land-based fighter. In response, Mitchell built the Model 224, a fixed-gear monoplane. The design was a failure, however, as its complicated cooling system did not work properly, and the Air Ministry ordered the Gloster Gladiator biplane instead.

 

Undeterred, Mitchell and his design team continued to work on the design, and by November 1934, the Type 300 was ready. This was a much-redesigned airframe with a new Rolls Royce PV-XII Merlin engine, retractable landing gear, an enclosed cockpit, and a new elliptical wing. The advantage of this wing shape was that it allowed the armament and landing gear to be fitted into the thinnest possible cross-section, thereby reducing drag.

 

On December 1, 1934, the Air Ministry issued contract AM 361140/34, which provided £10,000 for the construction of a single prototype. Following this announcement, construction of the Type 300 began. The design continued to evolve during the early stages of construction, with the airframe gaining an oval rear fuselage, a slightly reduced wingspan, and rear-vision cockpit glazing behind the sliding canopy. Other early design features that would be modified later included a fixed pitch propeller, a stubby and partially recessed engine air intake, a diagonal edge to the rudder tip balance, and a tail skid. The PV-XII engine was still under development when the airframe was completed, so it was fitted with a Merlin C engine producing 990 hp and driving an Aero-Products "Watts" two-blade fixed-pitch propeller.

 

The Type 300 received the serial number K5054 and was officially named Spitfire before its maiden flight. On March 5, 1936, Captain Joseph Summers, chief test pilot for Vickers (Supermarine's parent company), took off in K5054 from Eastleigh Aerodrome with the landing gear locked for safety. The flight lasted eight minutes. After landing, Summers is quoted as saying, "Don't touch anything.” This has been misinterpreted to mean that the Spitfire was perfect as it was, but in fact, Summers wanted to report his observations before any changes were made to the airframe.

 

Interestingly, Jeffrey Quill, the famous Spitfire test pilot who was present on the day of the first flight, claimed in his autobiography that the first flight took place one day later on March 6. This point remains open to debate.

 

After the first flight, K5054 was fitted with a new propeller, which dramatically increased the top speed to 348 miles per hour, making it faster than the latest Hawker Hurricane, which was also going into production at the time. The planned armament was also doubled from four to eight Browning .303 machine guns.

 

Flight testing of K5054 continued for the next several years before coming to an inglorious end on September 4, 1939, three days after the start of World War II. Flight Lieutenant Gilbert White crashed while landing at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, causing the plane to flip on its nose and the fuselage to break up. White died of his injuries the following day.

 

Spitfire K5054 was the only Spitfire prototype built before the aircraft was ordered into full production on June 3, 1936. After the crash, the prototype was not rebuilt; parts of the wreckage were later used to test the installation of reconnaissance cameras, and today only one piece of the airframe is known to have survived: a wing bolt that an engineer kept and turned into a sheet-metal worker's hammerhead.

 

The Model 224: 

 

 

Spitfire prototype K5054:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of March 17 - 23 (delayed due to events in Moscow last week):

 

March 18, 1945: the XBT2D-1 Dauntless II, the prototype of what would become the AD (and later A-1) Skyraider, flies for the first time.

 

The aircraft that ultimately became known as the A-1 Skyraider originated from a United States Navy decision in 1943 to combine dive-bombing and torpedo missions into one aircraft, as a follow-on to designs such as the SBD Dauntless, SB2C Helldiver, and the TBF Avenger. The prototypes for this new carrier-based aircraft, designated the XBT2D-1 were ordered on July 6, 1944.

 

Design work on the XBT2D-1 was headed by Ed Heinemann, Chief Engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company. Heinemann was already known for designing the SBD Dauntless, the A-20, and the A-26 and would go on to design several other military aircraft in the postwar era. The first four prototypes had a maximum weight of 17,500 pounds and were powered by an air-cooled, supercharged, Wright Cyclone 18 rated at 2600 r.p.m. for takeoff power. With this engine, the prototypes could reach 375 miles per hour at 13,600 feet and a normal cruise speed of 164 miles per hour.

 

On March 18, 1945, at the Naval Airplane Factory, El Segundo, California (situated at the southeast corner of Los Angeles Airport, now commonly known as KLAX), the XBT2D-1 was flown for the first time. At the controls was LaVerne Ward Browne, Director of Test Flight for Douglas. Browne learned to fly in 1928 and was a commercial airline pilot for Transcontinental and Western Airways (TWA), flying the Douglas DC-2. He was also a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps Reserve and from 1931 to 1941, under the pseudonym “John Trent”, performed in sixteen Hollywood movies. He went to work for Douglas in 1942 and would remain with the company until 1957.

 

Following the first flight of the XBT2D-1 (identified as Bureau No. 9085), Browne later commented, “I wish I could tell of some dramatic incident that occurred. There wasn’t any. I just floated around up there for an hour and a half and brought her down. But I did do something that’s unprecedented, I believe, for a first trip. The airplane handled so well that I put it through rolls and Immelmanns to check it for maneuverability.”

 

The following month, the U.S. Navy began evaluation of this first XBT2D-1 at the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland. Following a change in designation to AD-1, delivery of the first production aircraft to a fleet squadron was made in VA-19A in December 1946.

 

Ultimately, 3,180 Skyraiders in 11 variants were built at Douglas’s El Segundo plant from 1945 to 1957. Seeing widespread service in both Korea and Vietnam, the type was used for many purposes but is best known for its close support missions during combat rescue operations. As part of the Tri-Service aircraft designation system implemented in 1962, the Skyraider was redesignated A-1.

 

Today, there is one XBT2D-1 survivor, Bureau Number 9102. After its flight days were over it was first placed on display at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia before being transferred to The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City for restoration and preservation.

 

Bu. No. 9085, the first prototype:

 

LaVerne Browne in the cockpit of 9085:

 

9102, the sole surviving prototype:

[LukeFF]

April 4, 1943: the Lady Be Good, a B-24D-25 Liberator bomber, disappears without a trace over North Africa on its first combat mission.

 

The Lady Be Good was a brand-new airplane flying with a brand-new crew assigned to the 514th Bombardment Squadron, 376th Bombardment Group, Ninth Air Force, when it departed Soluch Field (near Benghazi, Libya) on its first combat mission on the afternoon of April 4, 1943. On board was the crew led by the pilot, 1st Lieutenant William J. Hatton.

The target for the 376th on this mission was the harbor of Naples, Italy. The first wave of twelve B-24s was followed by a second wave of thirteen planes, including Lady Be Good. This plane was one of the last to take off at 1415 hours from Soluch. However, high winds and poor visibility broke up the 25-plane formation, and eventually only two (including Lady Be Good) made it to Naples, arriving over the target at about 1950 hours. The bad weather made accurate bombing difficult, so these two bombers dropped their bombs into the Mediterranean, while two others attacked their secondary target on the return trip.

 

By now, Lieutenant Hatton and his men were now on their own. At 0012 hours Hatton radioed to say his automatic direction finder was not working and asked for the location of their base. At some point the crew apparently overflew Soluch but failed to see the flares fired to attract their attention. The B-24 flew on, southward, over North Africa, deeper into the Sahara Desert, for the next two hours. At about 0200 hours, as fuel became critically low, the crew bailed out of the plane. The abandoned Lady Be Good, trimmed to fly on two engines, flew a further 16 miles before it crashed into the Calanscio Grand Sea, in the Libyan Sahara Desert.

 

As it was believed the Lady Be Good had crashed into the Mediterranean, a subsequent search and rescue mission from Soluch Field failed to find any trace of the aircraft or crew. The disappearance of the plane and its crew would hence remain a mystery for the next fifteen years.

 

It was not until November 9, 1958, that a British oil exploration team working for British Petroleum located the crash site, some 440 miles south of Soluch. Authorities at Wheelus Air Base were notified, but no attempt to examine the aircraft was made as no records existed of any plane believed to have been lost in the area. Ultimately, after further sightings in February 1959 by British geologists and later by the crew of a DC-3 airliner, a recovery team from Wheelus made initial trips to the crash site on May 26, 1959.

 

Although the plane was broken into two pieces, the wreckage was well-preserved, with functioning machine guns, a working radio, and food and water. No human remains were found aboard the plane nor in the surrounding crash site. A thermos of tea was also found to be drinkable. The logbook of the navigator, 2nd Lieutenant Dp Hays, which was still on board, made no mention of the aircraft’s moments after the crew began their return trip from Naples.

 

Ultimately, the remains of all but one crewman – Staff Sergeant Vernon Moore – were recovered. Moore’s body may have been buried by a British Army patrol in 1953. As they were unaware of any Allied air crews missing in the area, the remains were recorded but then buried without further investigation. The remains of other crew members were recovered by US military crews and by another British Petroleum oil exploration team. A diary recovered from the pocket of co-pilot Robert Toner says the group survived for eight days in the desert before succumbing to the desert heat.

 

The wreckage of Lady Be Good was ultimately recovered in 1994 by a team from Libya and taken to a Libyan military base in Tobruk, where it has been in storage ever since. Some pieces of the plane, including a propeller, various cockpit instruments, as well as personal items, are on display at various locations throughout the United States.

 

The crew of Lady Be Good:

 

The wreckage of Lady Be Good in 1958:

 

The remains in storage at Tobruk:

[LukeFF]

Week of April 7 - 13:

 

April 11, 1945: the flight crew of a Piper L-4 observation plane shoots down a Fiesler Fi 156 Storch liaison plane.

 

The L-4, originally designated the O-59, was the military version of the Piper J-3 Cub, with over 20,000 built between 1938 and 1947. The U.S. Army Air Forces ordered their first O-59s in 1941 to evaluate their possible usage in the liaison and observation roles as a way of directly supporting the ground forces. The USAAF eventually procured almost 6,000 planes of the type between 1941 and 1945, using them for pilot training, glider pilot instruction, artillery fire correction, and front-line liaison work.

 

On April 11, 1945, 1^st Lieutenant Merrit Francies and forward observer Lieutenant William Martin, both of the 71^st Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 5^th Armored Division, were flying an L-4H Grasshopper on a reconnaissance mission near Dannenberg, Germany. The 71^st had landed on Utah Beach on the French Normandy coast on July 28, 1944, and since then had been guided by spotter aircraft flying hazardous missions over enemy territory in 65-horsepower aircraft. Francies had been with the 71^st since the start of the unit’s European campaign and was on his 142^nd combat mission on this day.

 

The L-4H flow by Francies and Martin on this way was serial number 43-29905 and was named Miss Me!? As he later remarked, “I named my plane ‘Miss Me!?’ Because I wanted the Germans to do that, the reason for the exclamation point, but I also wanted someone back home to ‘miss me’, so there was the question mark.”

 

As the plane was flying ahead of the 5^th Armored, about 100 miles west of Berlin, Francies and Martin noticed a German motorcycle and sidecar speeding along a side road, not far from the head of the 5^th’s column. As they moved in to get a closer look, they noticed a Fi 156 Storch flying at about 700 feet above some trees.

 

Abandoning the motorcycle, Francies and Martin closed in on the Storch to try to prevent it from reporting on the 5^th’s positions. While the Storch was faster than the L-4, Francies and Martin had the advantage of altitude, and they radioed “We are about to give combat.”

 

The plan, according to Francies, was to try to force the Storch into the fire of the waiting tanks of the 5^th. Instead, the German plane began circling, so Francies dove down and, with the L-4’s side doors opened, he and Martin emptied their M1911 .45-caliber pistols into the Storch, hitting it apparently in the right wing. Francies then gripped his plane’s control column between his knees while he reloaded. In his later report, he wrote, “The two planes were so close I could see the Germans’ eyeballs, as big as eggs, as we peppered them.”

 

After reloading, Francies approached again, coming to within about 30 feet of the German plane. Hits were scored on the windscreen and fuel tank, after which the Storch went into a turn too low to the ground. After its wingtip struck the ground, it spun around, cartwheeling, with its right wing and landing gear coming apart before finally coming to a rest right-side up.

 

Francies set his plane down and he and Martin ran to the wreck. The two-man German aircrew had stumbled from the machine, with the pilot jumping behind a pile of sugar beet in an attempt to hide while the observer – who had been wounded in the foot – quickly surrendered after Martin fired a warning shot. Both men were turned over to an American tank crew about 15 minutes later.

 

Following this air-to-air battle with the Storch, Francies was recommended for the Distinguished Flying Cross on April 24, 1945. However, in the intervening years the recommendation was forgotten about, during which time Francies served during the Korean War and before becoming a commercial pilot. After historian Cornelius Ryan wrote about his exploits in his book “The Last Battle” in 1966, Francies was finally presented with his DFC by Major General Walter Jensen on March 13, 1967. He eventually passed away on May 5, 2004.

 

Lt. Merritt Duane Francies (left) and Lt. William S. Martin with a Piper L-4J Grasshopper, 44-80699:

 

Francies and Martin with their kill:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of April 21 - 27: 

 

April 26, 1939: the Messerschmitt Me 209 V1 sets a new world record with an average speed of 755.14 kilometers per hour.

 

The Me 209 was designed in 1937 by Willy Messerschmitt, the head aircraft designer of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW) specifically to break speed records. While it was hoped its name would associate it with the Bf 109 already in service, it was an entirely new design that only shared its Daimer-Benz DB 601 V-12 engine with the Bf 109. The DB 601A engine fitted to the Me 209 was a highly modified version called the DB 601ARJ. This V-12 engine was rated at 970 horsepower at 2300 rpm at 3600 meters and 1050 rpm at 2400 rpm for takeoff (limited by a clockwork mechanism to 1 minute). Various sources state the engine could produce 1800 horsepower at 3000 rpm and 2300 rpm with methyl alcohol injection for very short periods.

 

Other distinguishing features of the Me 209 included steam cooling, which was implemented to reduce drag. Specifically, surface coolers employed in Schneider Cup races were fitted to the wings. The airframe also featured a very short fuselage with the cockpit well aft of the wing and a cruciform tail section.

 

On April 26, 1939, BFW test pilot Fritz Wendel flew the Me 209 V1, registration D-INJR, over a three-kilometer course in Augsburg, Germany, setting a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world record of 755.14 km/h. This new record broke a record set just three weeks earlier by Hans Dieterle in a prototype Heinkel He 100 fighter. This new record for a piston-engine aircraft would stand for the next 30 years, until it was finally broken on August 16, 1969, by Darryl Greenmayer's highly modified Conquest I F8F Bearcat (now on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum). Meanwhile, the Me 209 V1's absolute speed record was broken thirty months later by the Me 163 V4 rocket fighter, which reached 1004 km/h in October 1941.

 

Ultimately, four Me 209s were built. In 1939, the aircraft's world speed record was used for a propaganda disinformation campaign, redesignating it as the Me 109 R, a designation ultimately never used for wartime Bf 109 fighters. Attempts were made to convert the design to the fighter role, but due to the amount of space taken up by the cooling system, conventional armament could not be fitted inside the wings. The Messerschmitt team also tried to improve the plane’s performance by giving it longer wings, a taller vertical stabilizer, and installing two 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns in the engine cowling. However, all these modifications added so much weight that the aircraft ended up slower than the contemporary Bf 109 E, and so the project was soon canceled. The type number would be revived in 1943 in a failed attempt to create an enhanced version of the Bf 109.

 

Today, the fuselage of the Me 209 V1 is currently on display at the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow, Poland. It was once a part of Hermann Goering’s personal collection.

 

The Me 209 V1:

 

Willy Messerschmitt congratulates test pilot Fritz Wendel:

 

The fuselage of the Me 209 V1 at the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow, Poland:

[LukeFF]

Week of April 29 - May 4:

 

April 29, 1945: Operation Manna, a Royal Air Force humanitarian food drop operation to relieve the Dutch famine of 1944-45, begins on this day.

 

The beginning of the Duch famine, also known as the Hunger Winter (from Dutch Hongerwinter), dates to the summer of 1944, when the Allied ground forces rapidly advanced from the Normandy beachhead and overran northern France and Belgium. In anticipation of a rapid collapse of German defenses in the Netherlands, the Dutch national railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen) complied with the exiled Dutch government’s desire for a nationwide railway strike starting in September 1944. This coincided with Operation Market Garden, which ended with southern portions of Dutch territory liberated but failed in its objective of seizing a bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem after a German counteroffensive.

 

In retaliation, the German military command imposed an embargo on all food shipments to the western Netherlands in late September 1944. This was partially lifted after three weeks and fully lifted after six weeks in early November 1944, due to German fears of the spread of chaos and disease. However, the lifting of the blockade did not result in food supplies returning to pre-embargo levels due to numerous factors. These included the increasingly harsh winter of 1944-45, shortages of vehicles and fuel, and flooding by the Germans.

 

Complicating all these factors was the slow pace of the Allied advance northward due to supply problems. The strategic port of Antwerp could not be used until its approaches were secured and cleared in the Battle of the Scheldt, which ended in early November 1944. Similarly, the capture of the French Channel ports of Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk had not been a priority and were still firmly in German hands in the fall of 1944. All these developments resulted in the Germans being more securely entrenched north of the major rivers throughout the Netherlands.

 

Finally, in late April 1945, with the express permission of Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt (along with U.S. Army Chief of Staff George Marshall), Allied agents began negotiations with German Reich Commissioner Arthur Seyss-Inquart and a team of German officers to allow Allied aircraft to drop food supplies to Dutch citizens. It was agreed that participating aircraft would not be fired upon within certain air corridors.

 

To test the feasibility of the operation, Operation Manna (named after the food miraculously provided to the Israelites in the Book of Exodus) commenced on the morning of April 29, 1945. Two Lancaster heavy bombers from No. 101 Squadron – one of which was Bad Penny, a plane crewed by Canadians, along with a second one flow by Australians – took off from RAF Ludford Magna and flew into the Netherlands barely 50 feet above the ground. Along with flying at such a low altitude, the Germans had not yet agreed to the truce.

 

However, the two planes successfully made it to their drop zone (marked by Mosquitoes using the Oboe system) near The Hague and dropped the food by simply opening the bomb bay doors and letting the food fall to the ground. At around 1400 hours the same day, another 200 Lancasters followed.

 

Beginning on May 1, the Americans followed with their own relief mission with B-17s, codenamed Operation Chowhound. Four hundred planes delivered 800 tons of K-rations from the 1st to the 3rd of May at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

 

Ultimately, by V-E Day on May 8, 1945, the Allies had dropped over 11,000 tons of food to the Dutch during both operations. The Allies lost two planes in collisions and one to engine fire. Bullet holes were discovered in several planes upon their return to base, presumably the result of either being shot at by Germans who were either unaware of the ceasefire or had decided to violate it.

 

Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster “Princess Patricia” of No. 514 Squadron at RAF Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, England, being loaded with food for Operation Manna, 29 April 1945:

 

 

Lancaster with a food drop over Ypenburg:

 

 

B-17 from the 349th BS, 100th BG dropping food parcels:

 

 

Many Thanks spelt out on the ground in tulips:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of May 5-11:

 

May 6, 1941: the prototype XP-47B flies for the first time at Farmingdale, New York.

 

The XP-47 has its origins in the Seversky P-35, designed by Russian immigrant Alexander de Seversky. First flown in 1935, the P-35 was the first U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC) single-seat fighter to feature all-metal construction, retractable landing gear, and an enclosed cockpit. Seversky was eventually ousted from his namesake company by the board of directors on October 13, 1939, and the company was renamed Republic Aviation.

 

The plane that eventually became known as the P-47 was designed by Alexander Kartveli, himself an immigrant from the Georgian region of the former Russian Empire. After World War I, in which he was wounded, the Georgian government sent him to Paris to study aeronautical engineering. After graduating in 1922, he remained in France, since Georgia had fallen to the Red Army in the Soviet-Georgian War. He worked in France for Bleriot until 1928 and then emigrated to the United States to work for Atlantic Aircraft. In 1931 he became chief engineer for the Seversky Aircraft Company in Farmingdale.

 

In 1939, Kartveli designed the AP-4 demonstrator, powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 radial engine, which eventually became known as the P-43. An alternative version, known as the P-44 Rocket, powered by an Allison V-1710 liquid-cooled engine, was also developed. The USAAC supported the AP-4 project but considered the P-43 and its variants obsolete from the start and used them only for training purposes. The remainder, supplied to Allied nations under the Lend-Lease program, were used primarily for reconnaissance.

 

Meanwhile, Kartveli and his team focused their efforts on the AP-10, which eventually became the XP-47. At the time, the XP-47B prototype was the largest single-engine fighter ever built, weighing nearly twice as much as its contemporaries. It was powered by a P&W R-2800-21 18-cylinder radial engine with a normal power rating of 1625 hp at 2550 rpm up to an altitude of 25000 feet, while its takeoff power was 2000 hp at 2700 rpm at 25000 feet. The engine weighed over 2200 pounds and drove a 12-foot, 2-inch diameter, four-blade Curtiss electric propeller.

 

To give the plane excellent high-altitude performance, a General Electric turbosupercharger was mounted in the rear of the fuselage. Internal ducts carried exhaust gases from the engine to drive the turbocharger. This supercharged air then passed through an intercooler and to the carburetor to feed the engine. The engine's mechanical supercharger further pressurized the air-fuel charge.

 

On May 6, 1941, Republic test pilot Lowery Brabham took off from the company's factory airfield at Farmingdale aboard the first XP-47B prototype, serial number 40-3051, en route to Mitchel Field, New York. During the flight, oil that had accumulated in the exhaust duct began to burn, and there was so much smoke that Brabham considered bailing out. However, he stayed with the plane and after landing at Mitchel Field exclaimed, "I think we've hit the jackpot!"

 

During flight tests, the XP-47B demonstrated speeds of 344.5 mph at 5425 feet and 382 mph at 15,600 feet; the top speed was 412 mph at 25,800 feet. However, the engine was unable to produce full power during these tests, which was determined to be the result of a cracked cylinder head. The climb rate was five minutes to 15000 feet.

 

The XP-47B continued to be used for flight tests for the next year until August 4, 1942. During a test flight on that day, the plane's tail wheel was left down. The extreme heat from the turbocharger's exhaust set the tire on fire, which then spread to the plane's fabric-covered control surfaces. Unable to control the plane, test pilot Filmore Gilmer bailed out and the plane crashed into Long Island Sound, where it was destroyed.

 

XP-47B Thunderbolt 40-3051, May 4, 1941:

 

Republic XP-47B Thunderbolt prototype 40-3051 at Farmingdale, New York, 1941:

 

 

The Republic XP-47B 40-3051 prototype in flight:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of May 12 - 18:

 

May 15, 1941: The Gloster-Whittle E.28/39, the first British aircraft powered by a turbojet, flies for the first time.

 

The E.28/39 was the result of a specification issued by the British Air Ministry for a suitable aircraft to test the new jet propulsion designs put forth by Frank Whittle in the 1930s. Gloster’s chief designer, George Carter, worked with Whittle to develop an aircraft fitted with a Power Jets W.1 turbojet engine. Power Jets had been formed by Whittle in 1936 to develop his ideas of jet propulsion.

 

Carter took a strong interest in Whittle’s project after the latter visited the Gloster Aircraft Company in late April 1939, and soon Carter had drawn up several proposals for an aircraft powered by the W.1 engine. A few months later, in September, the Air Ministry issued its specification for an aircraft powered by one of Whittle’s turbojet designs. As such, the E.28/39 designation for the aircraft originates from it being the 28th “Experimental” specification issued by the Air Ministry in 1939.

 

On February 3, 1940, a contract for two E.28/39 prototypes was signed by the Air Ministry. Production was slow, most likely due to the Battle of Britain as the area around nearby Coventry was subject to high levels of German bomber activity. The first of the two prototypes had been completed by early April 1941, but as a flight-worthy W.1A engine was not available, a ground-use-only W.1X unit was fitted for taxiing tests only.

 

Finally, a W.1A engine was ready and fitted to the aircraft for flight testing in May 1941. This turbojet used a single-stage, centrifugal-flow compressor, ten reverse-flow combustion chambers, and a single-stage axial-flow turbine fitted with 72 blades. Powered by kerosene, the W.1A could produce 860 pounds of thrust at 16,500 rpm.

Other features of the E.28/39 included its single large air intake at the nose, which split into two ducts that passed around each side of the cockpit. After the air entered a plenum chamber, it was compressed approximately 4:1 and passed to the combustion chambers, where fuel was mixed with this heated and compressed air before being ignited. The hot gases (approaching 600 degrees Celsius) then flowed through spiral ducts to the turbine blades. The turbine drove the compressor at the front of the engine through a central drive shaft, and the exhaust gas then left the engine through a straight pipe to the rear of the fuselage, which gave the aircraft its forward velocity.

 

The E.28/39 was fitted with retractable tricycle landing gear, one of the first fighter-type aircraft with that configuration. The aircraft lacked a radio and had no pressurization or any form of climate control, such as heating. Additionally, the lack of a generator and limited battery capacity meant the test pilots would have to endure a very cold cockpit.

 

On May 15, 1941, having been delayed by weather until 7:40 pm, Gloster Chief Test Pilot Phillip Sayer took off in E.28/39 serial number W4041/G from RAF Cranwell. Acceleration was slow, but Sayer eventually took off after 600-700 yards at about 80 mph. During the 17-minute test flight, he reached a maximum speed of 240 mph. Over the next thirteen days, Sayer made fourteen flights totaling 10 hours in the aircraft, eventually reaching 25,000 feet and 300 miles per hour. During the third and final series of tests with the aircraft, Gloster test pilot John Grierson climbed to 41,600 feet in 27 minutes and an absolute maximum altitude of 42,170 feet on June 24, 1943.

 

Following these tests, W4041/G was handed over to RAE Farnborough, where, fitted with a more powerful W.2/700 engine, it was flown until 1944 to a top speed of 505 mph at 30,000 feet. W4041/G survived the war and is now on display at the Science Museum in Central London. Sayer was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in December 1941 before being killed in a flying accident on October 22, 1942.

Gloster-Whittle E.28/39 W4041/G in its original configuration:

 

Phillip Sayer:

 

 

Power Jets W.1 turbojet engine, as seen from the front:

 

W4041/G at the Science Museum:

[LukeFF]

Week of May 19 - 25:

 

May 22, 1948: Jackie Cochran, flying a P-51B, sets three new speed records.

 

Born in 1906 in Florida, Cochran first became a name in the aviation world in 1934 when she was one of three women to compete in the MacRobertson Air Race in Melbourne, Australia. Three years later, in 1937, she was the only woman to compete in the prestigious Bendix race and worked with aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart to open the race to women. The same year, on September 21, she set a new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) world speed record for women when she flew a Seversky monoplane over a 3 km course to a speed of 470.40 km/h at Detroit Wayne County Airport.

 

By the end of the 1930s Cochran had set two more world speed records for women and had won the Bendix Trophy in the 1938 Los Angeles to Cleveland race. She would set two more women’s world speed records in 1940 before America’s entry into World War II in December 1941. Before the country’s entry into the war, she was part of “Wings for Britain”, an organization that ferried American-built aircraft to Britain, becoming the first woman to fly a bomber across the Atlantic. In 1943, she became the head of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP). As the head of WASP, Cochran supervised the training of hundreds of female pilots at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas.

 

For her wartime service, Cochran was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal on March 1, 1945.  Following the war’s end in Europe, she was hired by a magazine to report on global postwar events, whereby she witnessed the surrender of Japanese General Yamashita in the Philippines and attended the Nuremberg Trials in Germany.

On May 22, 1948, Cochran flew her P-51B-15, serial number 43-24760, with the civil registration NX28388 and Nicknamed “Lucky Strike Green” over a 2,000-kilometer closed circuit from Palm Springs, California to Mesa Gigante, a point near Santa Fe, New Mexico and back. The flight as timed by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) took 2 hours, 46 minutes, and 38 seconds. According to contemporary newspaper reports, troubles with the oxygen system prevented Cochran from flying at higher altitudes, which likely would have boosted her speed even higher.

 

In any case, Cochran’s P-51 averaged 720.13 km/h, which set two FAI world records for speed and one NAA for its class. The two FAI records (speed over a closed circuit of 2000 km without payload) have since been superseded but the NAA record still stands. Two days later she would set another two new world records in the same P-51 at Santa Rosa Summit, California (speed over a closed circuit of 1000 km without payload), averaging 693.787 km/h.

 

Cochran’s speed records set on May 22, 1948, broke the previous mark, 708.59 km/h, which had been set by U.S. Air Force Lieutenant John J. Hancock two years prior in a P-80 jet fighter. (!) After later flying “Lucky Strike Green” in the 1948 Bendix Trophy Race (where she placed third), the plane was destroyed in a crash on September 8 in Oklahoma while being ferried back to the West Coast by pilot Sampson Held, who was killed.

 

Cochran joined the US. Air Force Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel on September 9, 1948, and would continue to set new aviation records in the postwar era. On May 18, 1953, she became the first woman to break the sound barrier, in an F-86 Sabre. She died at her home in Indio, California on August 9, 1980. The nearby Thermal Airport, which she regularly flew from during her career, was renamed Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in her honor in 2004.

 

Jackie Cochran with her “Lucky Strike Green” North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang, NX28388, circa 1948:

 

 

Jackie Cochran’s “Lucky Strike Green” North American Aviation P-51B-15-NA Mustang NX28388, #13, with drop tanks, at Van Nuys Metropolitan Airport, California, August 1946:

 

[LukeFF]

As an appendix to the above, all of Jackie Cochran's world records can be viewed here: https://www.fai.org/records?f[0]=field_record_sport%3A2020&f[1]=field_athlete%3Atitle_field%3AJacqueline Cochran

[LukeFF]

Week of May 26 - June 1:

 

May 28, 1935: the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke Bf 109 V1 prototype flies for the first time. 

 

The origins of the Bf 109 date to 1933, when the Technical Department (C-Amt) of the Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) completed a series of research projects into the future of air combat. Out of these studies came four broad outlines for future aircraft, known as Rüstungsflugzeug I, II, III, and IV. The first two designations covered plans for a multi-seat medium bomber and a tactical bomber, respectively; III and IV outlined plans for a single-seat fighter and a two-seat heavy fighter, respectively.

 

The Rüstungsflugzeug III was planned to be a short-range interceptor that would replace the Arado Ar 64 and Heinkel He 51 biplanes then in service. The requirements for this new aircraft were officially published by the RLM in late March 1933 in the document L.A. 1432/33.

 

Per L.A. 1432/33, the new fighter was required to have a top speed of 400 km/h at 6000 meters, which could be maintained for 20 minutes, while having a total flight duration of 90 minutes. The plane, intended to be powered by the new Junkers Jumo 210 700-hp liquid-cooled engine, was to reach 6000 meters in no more than 17 minutes and was to have an operational ceiling of 10,000 meters. The armament was to be either a single 20 mm MG C/30 engine-mounted cannon firing through the propeller hub; two synchronized 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns; or one 20 mm MG FF cannon with two MG 17s. Finally, the wing loading was to be kept below 100 kg per square meter.

 

All three competing companies - Arado, Heinkel, and BFW - signed development contracts for L.A. 1432/33 in February 1934, while a fourth company, Focke-Wulf, received a contract only in September. Each company was asked to deliver three prototypes for head-to-head testing in late 1934. One new aspect of the contracts was that the Jumo 210  had to be interchangeable with the more powerful but less developed Daimler-Benz DB 600 engine.  

 

Design work on Project Number P.1034 began at BFW in March 1934, just three weeks after the contract had been awarded. By May the basic mockup had been completed and a more detailed design mockup was ready by January 1935. The RLM then designated the new design as type “Bf 109”, which was the next available from a block of numbers assigned to BFW.

 

The first prototype, Versuchsflugzeug 1 with civilian registration D-IABI, was ready by May 1935, but as the Jumo 210 engines were not yet ready, the RLM acquired four Rolls-Royce Kestrel VI engines by trading Rolls-Royce a Heinkel He 70 fast passenger/mail plane for use as an engine test bed. Two of the engines were sent to BFW.

 

The Kestrel VI was a single overhead cam 60-degree V-12 liquid-cooled engine that could produce 695 hp at 2500 rpm. Weighing 433 kg, this engine powered a two-bladed, fixed-pitch Gustav Schwarz laminated composite propeller. 

 

The Bf 109 V1 measured 8.884 meters long and had a wingspan of 9.890 meters. It had an empty weight of 1404 kg and a maximum takeoff weight of 1800 kg. No armament was installed.

 

On May 28, 1935, BFW test pilot Hans-Dietrich Knoetzsch took Bf 109 V1 on its first flight at Haunstetten, near Augsburg, Germany. The flight lasted twenty minutes. The top speed was recorded as 470 km/h and its maximum altitude was 8000 meters.

 

This first prototype was tested for several months by BFW before it was sent to the Luftwaffe test center at Rechlin for acceptance trials, during which time its landing gear collapsed. The Bf 109 was then revealed to the public when D-IABI was flown at the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in Berlin. The V2 prototype would eventually become the first to be fitted with the Jumo 210 engine, while V3 was the first to be fitted with armament.

Bayerische Flugzeugwerke Bf 109 V1, D-IABI, Werk-Nr. 758, with engine running, September 16, 1936:

 

The two-bladed laminated composite Schwarz propeller installed on D-IAGI. The position of the exhaust ports high on the engine cowling and the large radiator intake indicate the use of the Rolls-Royce Kestrel V-12 engine:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of June 2-8:

 

June 7, 1920: 2nd Lieutenant John H. Wilson sets a new record for the highest altitude for a parachute jump.

 

On this date, Wilson and his pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Delmar H. Denton, took off around 1600 hours in a DeHavilland DH-4B from Kelly Field, near San Antonio, Texas. Wilson was at the time assigned to the 96th Aero Squadron while Denton was the engineering officer for the 1st Day Bombardment Group. As part of this flight, Wilson was wearing two parachutes.

 

It took the next two hours for the DH-4B to reach their assigned altitude of 20,000 feet. At that point, Wilson jumped out of a perfectly good airplane and then pulled the rip cord of his primary parachute, which subjected him to a significant shock.

 

Wilson later reported that he felt as if he was motionless in the sky. At one point he fell through an area of severe turbulence and was thrown in every direction - at one point he and the parachute rolled up and over through a full “loop.” This naturally caused him to become quite nauseous.

 

A contemporary report from the Air Service Newsletter - an official publication of the United States Air Service published since 1918 and in circulation today as Air Force Magazine - stated on July 10, 1920, that “The wind tossed him and his frail chute hither and yon, thither and thence, not to mention between and therabouts. He was over, under and parallel with his canvas life saver at various periods.”

 

Wilson then steered his parachute toward an open area and at about 300 feet above the ground he opened his second parachute to attempt to slow his rate of descent. He is reported to have “landed gracefully in a turnip patch.”

 

All told the duration of Wilson’s descent was about 17 minutes, and he was blown approximately 18 miles from Kelly Field. Denton followed Wilson down, picked him up and the pair returned to Kelly Field. 

 

This record-setting jump by Wilson was more than a mile higher than the previous parachute jump, although the sealed barographs carried on board the plane indicated the actual altitude at which he jumped was 19,861 feet. The record would be (inadvertently) broken a few weeks later by U.S. Army Sergeant Ralph Bottriell when a high wind opened his chute while riding in a two-seat airplane at 20,000 feet near Dayton, Ohio. Bottriell had made history the year before on May 19 when he became the first person to jump from a plane with a manually operated free-type parachute that he had developed. 

 

Aerial Age Weekly, Volume 11, No. 16, June 28, 1920:

 

 

2nd. Lt. John H. Wilson, Air Service, United States Army, 1920:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of June 9 - 15: 

 

June 9, 1928: Australian aviator Charles Edward Kingsford Smith, M.C. and his crew complete the first trans-Pacific flight from the mainland United States to Australia.

 

Kingsford Smith was born on February 9, 1897, in Brisbane, Colony of Queensland to William Charles Smith and Catherine Mary. His father was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly and mayor in both Brisbane and Cairns municipal councils. The family lived for four years in Canada, from 1903 to 1907, before returning to Australia in 1907.

 

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Kingsford Smith enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in February 1915 and served as a sapper at Gallipoli; he later served as a dispatch rider in Egypt and France. In October 1916, with the rank of Sergeant, he received a transfer to the Australian Flying Corps and after flight training in England was discharged from the AIF and transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as a Second Lieutenant.

 

Kingsford Smith joined No. 23 Squadron in France in July 1917, a SPAD VII scout unit. After being shot down and wounded in August (which required the amputation of two toes), he was awarded the Military Cross for having shot down four aircraft during his first month at the front and performing valuable work in attacking ground targets and observation balloons. After promotion to Lieutenant in April 1918 he served as a flight instructor in the newly-formed Royal Air Force.

 

Following the end of the war in November 1918, Kingsford Smith and his friend Cyril Maddocks piloted joy flights in England for a time; in 1921 he relocated to the US where he failed to attract sponsors for a trans-Pacific Flight. After flying for a time as a stunt flyer in a flying circus he finally returned to Australia in early 1921; eventually, in June 1927, he and fellow pilot Charles Ulm completed a round-Australia flight in ten days and five hours, a notable achievement with minimal navigational aids. This flight finally gave him the financial backing he needed to complete his trans-Pacif flight; he obtained a grant from the government of New South Wales as well as financial support from Sidney Meyer and Californian oil baron G. Allan Hancock.

 

The record-setting trans-Pacific flight began at Oakland Field, California on May 31, 1928, along with Ulm and two American crewmen, Harry Lyon and Jim Warner. Kingsford Smith was at the controls of a Fokker F.VIIb/3m named Southern Cross. This aircraft had been designed and built as a commercial airliner and had a cruise speed of 170 km/h and a maximum speed of 190 km/h; its service ceiling was 4,750 meters and had a normal range of 1,240 km. Power was provided by three air-cooled, normally aspirated Wright Whirlwind J-9 radial engines.

 

The Southern Cross completed the first leg of its journey in Hawaii just over 27 hours after departing Oakland. The next leg, en route to Fiji, was the longest and most arduous; it took over 34 hours of flight time and involved flying through a lightning storm near the equator. The final leg was the shortest, a 20-hour journey that ended in front of a crowd of 26,000 at Eagle Farm Airport in Brisbane at 10:50 on June 9, 1928. Kingsford Smith was hailed as a hero following this flight and was awarded the Air Force Cross and appointed an honorary squadron leader in the Royal Australian Air Force.

 

Kingsford Smith went on to fly more historic flights in the following years. On November 8, 1935, while flying Lady Southern Cross, a Lockheed Altair, from India to Singapore, he and his copilot, Tommy Pethybridge, disappeared over the Andaman Sea. Meanwhile, the Southern Cross had been donated to the Australian government to be placed on display and is now exhibited at the Kingsford Smith Memorial at Brisbane Airport.

 

Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith, M.C., A.F.C.:

 

 

Kingsford Smith’s Fokker F.VIIb/3m Southern Cross, landing at Brisbane, 10:50 a.m., June 9, 1928:

 

The crew of Southern Cross at Eagle Farm, 9 June 1928. (Left to right) Captain Harry Lyon, navigator; Charles Ulm, co-pilot; Charles Kingsford Smith, pilot; and James Warner, radio operator:

[LukeFF]

Week of June 16-22:

 

June 16, 1943: a highly modified B-17E, fitted with inline engines, crashes, effectively ending the program.

 

Production of the E, F, and G variants of the B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber was carried out by three aircraft manufacturers: Boeing in Seattle, Washington; the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California; and the Lockheed Vega Aircraft Corporation in Burbank, California.

 

To assist in the production of the B-17 an exemplar of a production B-17 was provided to Vega. This was the ninth production B-17E, serial number 41-2401.

 

At some point afterward, the United States Army Air Corps asked Vega to convert this plane to liquid-cooled engines by installing Allison V-12 engines. By doing so, it was hoped the more streamlined configuration would produce better performance than with the original Wright Cyclone R-1820-65 nine-cylinder radial engines. In support of this theory, they looked to the Curtiss P-36, which was similarly converted to the Allison-powered P-40.

 

As part of this project, designated XB-38, engine coolant radiators were placed in the leading edge of each wing between the inboard and outboard engines. These engines were the same type used in the starboard engine of the P-38.

 

The Vega XB-38 was powered by four inline, turbosupercharged, 1710-cubic-inch Allison V-1710-F-17R (V-1710-89) V-12 engines.  These engines were rated at 1100 horsepower at 2600 rpm at max continuous power to 30,000 feet and had a takeoff/military power rating of 1425 horsepower at 3000 rpm. Each engine drove a three-bladed full-feathering constant-speed propeller and weighed 1350 pounds. Also fitted to the aircraft was a remotely-operated ventral turret.

 

The converted B-17 made its first flight in this new configuration on May 19, 1943, with Vega’s Chief Pilot Bud Martin at the controls.

 

While on its ninth test flight on June 16, with Martin and former U.S. naval aviator George Archibald MacDonald on board, the experimental bomber’s number three engine caught fire while flying over California’s San Joaquin Valley. When the fire was unable to be extinguished, Marting and MacDonald bailed out. MacDonald was killed after his parachute failed to open, while Martin’s parachute opened improperly and he was severely injured when he hit the ground.

 

The doomed XB-38 crashed near Tipton, California, a small farming community west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and was destroyed on impact. At this point, although the XB-38’s flight test program had not yet been completed, enough test data had been compiled to show its performance increased only slightly over the B-17E, and so the project was canceled.

 

Martin eventually recovered from his injuries and remained with Lockheed. In early December 1943, he took the PV-2 Harpoon on its first flight and later flew the first production C-130A Hercules at Marietta, Georgia on April 7, 1955.

 

Vega Aircraft Corporation XB-38 41-2401 (ex-Boeing B-17E Flying Fortress 41-2401), circa May–June 1943:

 

 

Allison V-1710-F-17R engines on the Vega XB-38:

 

 

Vega XB-38 41-2401 in flight, circa May–June 1943:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of June 23 - 29:

 

June 24, 1943: Lieutenant Colonel William Randolph Lovelace II, M.D. of the United States Army Medical Corps, makes a record-setting parachute jump from a B-17.

 

Before World War II, Dr. Lovelace had studied medicine at Harvard and graduated in 1934. After his residencies at Bellevue Hospital in New York and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, he went to Europe for further study.

 

As he had an interest in aviation, Dr. Lovelace became a Flight Surgeon with the rank of First Lieutenant in the Army Medical Corps Reserve. As part of his studies into the problems of high-altitude flight, he was requested by the Aeromedical Field Laboratory at Wright Field, Ohio in 1938 to develop an oxygen mask for use in high-altitude aircraft.

 

Dr. Lovelace was an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and volunteered to be used as a test subject in experiments on the problems of high-altitude escape and parachuting. On June 24, 1943, he boarded a B-17E equipped with a T-5 backpack parachute, a rebreathing pressure mask, and a Type H-2 oxygen bottle. This would be his first parachute jump.

 

Over Ephrata, Washington, Dr. Lovelace jumped from the B-17 at an altitude of 40,200 feet, the highest altitude for such a jump at the time. The shock of the sudden opening of the 28-foot diameter parachute caused him to lose consciousness and one of his hands was frostbitten after a glove he was wearing was torn away. He finally regained consciousness at about 30,000 feet.

 

Twenty-three minutes and 51 seconds after jumping from the B-17, Dr. Lovelace made a safe landing. Despite the traumatic experience, valuable data was gained from his ordeal and he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for the experiment.

 

After the war’s end, Dr. Lovelace returned to private practice after the war ended, and in 1947 he founded the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He would use this clinic to promote the development of medical aerospace technology; part of this work involved testing pilots assigned to fly the U-2 spy plane of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was also involved with NASA and in 1958 was appointed the chairman of the NASA Special Advisory Committee on Life Sciences.

 

Tragically, Dr. Lovelace was killed on December 12, 1965, when the plane he was flying in along with his wife crashed into a canyon near Aspen, Colorado. His wife, Mary, and the pilot, Milton Brown, also perished in the crash.

 

Dr. Lovelace in 1943:

 

 

Lieutenant Colonel William R. Lovelace II, M.D., Medical Corps, United States Army, wearing a re-breathing pressure mask, Type H-2 oxygen bottle, and Type T-5 parachute, prior to the high-altitude jump, 24 June 1943:

 

 

Lieutenant Colonel William R. Lovelace II, M.D., Medical Corps, United States Army, lying on the ground after a parachute jump from a B-17 at 40,200 feet, 24 June 1943:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of July 7-11:

 

July 11, 1953: Major John Bolt of the United States Marine Corps shoots down two MIG-15s over Korea, becoming the only Marine to achieve ace status in two wars and the only Marine jet fighter ace.

 

John Bolt was born on May 19, 1921, in Laurens, South Carolina. His family then moved to Sanford, Florida in 1924. After graduating from Seminole High School in June 1939, Bolt enrolled at the University of Florida, where he majored in accounting. In April 1941 he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve to train as a pilot but deferred his training when the Marines offered him the chance to finish college and attend law school.

 

Bolt then left for basic training in June 1941 and enlisted in the Aviation Cadet Program of the U.S. Navy on August 28, 1941. He was then commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps and designated a Naval Aviator on August 21, 1942. Following this, he served as an instructor pilot at Naval Air Station Jacksonville from August 1942 to April 1943.

 

After completing carrier landing training in June 1943, Bolt was sent to the Pacific along with the rest of his class as part of a pool of replacement pilots intended to replace casualties in several squadrons. However, casualties were lower than expected, so he and these other pilots were used to form a new fighter squadron, VMF-214.

 

VMF-214 began flying combat missions in mid-September 1943, and Bolt, a self-described “workaholic”, scored his first two victories on the 23rd, when he shot down two A6M Zero fighters over Bougainville. By the VMF-214’s tour came to an end on January 8, 1944, he had scored six confirmed victories, one probable victory, and two aircraft damaged over the course of 92 sorties. For these accomplishments, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross twice.

 

Bolt was later reassigned to VMF-211, a unit primarily engaged in ground attack and anti-shipping missions. His tour lasted until May 1944, after which he returned to the United States and was assigned to various non-combat roles for the remainder of the war.

 

When the Korean War began on June 25, 1950, Bolt was assigned to VMF-224 at Cherry Point, North Carolina, where he flew F2H Banshees until May 1951. Following this assignment he served on the staff of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing until September 1951.

 

From September 1951 to October 1952, Bolt served as a stateside exchange pilot with the 318th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron of the U.S. Air Force. Following this, he was reassigned to VMF-115, an F9F Panther fighter-bomber squadron flying missions in Korea.

 

Bolt did not enjoy flying ground attack missions and sought out a new exchange assignment. After finally securing an assignment with the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, he angered some of his commanders in VMF-115 and he completed only six weeks of exchange duty with the 51st.

 

Eventually, Bolt joined the 39th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron in the spring of 1953. His first victory against a MiG-15 came on May 16, which was followed by three more kills in late June. Concerning his last two kills on July 11, Bolt remarked:

“We hadn't seen anything of the MiGs in over 10 days—when all of a sudden I spotted four of them taking off from an air base on the other side of the Yalu. I nosed over and hit them just as they began to gain altitude. I fired four bursts and a MiG began to smoke. It rolled over and slipped into the ground. I made the second kill when this other dude drifted my way. Pulling nose-up, I closed to within 500 feet (150 m) and started firing up his tailpipe. I saw the pilot eject himself and the action was over.”

 

For these actions, Bolt became the final Marine aviator to be awarded the Navy Cross during the war and the only non-US Air Force pilot to become an ace in the F-86.

 

Following the Korean War, Bolt remained in the Marines before retiring in March 1962. He then attended law school at the University of Florida and practiced law before retiring in 1991. He died on September 8, 2004.

Bolt in the South Pacific, 1943:

 

 

July 13, 1953, two days after scoring his final two MiG-15 kills, in the cockpit of his F-86 Sabre, an E-6, serial # 52-2852:

[LukeFF]

Week of July 14 - 20:

 

July 17, 1944: while on an armed reconnaissance patrol over Normandy, a Spitfire from 602 Squadron likely shoots up the staff car of General Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox" and commander of Army Group B in France.

 

At 15:40 hours on this day, 12 Spitfire Mark IXBs from No. 602 Squadron took off from B.11 Longues-sur-Mer, an advanced landing ground in the Normandy beachhead that had become operational on June 21. Four of the aircraft carried bombs and the formation as a whole was led by Squadron Leader J.J. 'Chris' Le Roux, DFC & 2 Bars. Per the squadron's records, near Flers Le Roux's section bounced 6 Bf 109s flying at 4,000 feet. Le Roux attacked one of the 109s, but "before he could fire the enemy a/c broke spun into the ground and burst into flames." He attacked another 109 from 200 yards and "scored strikes all over", but only claimed it as damaged.

 

What is recorded next in 602 Squadron's records has become part of an unresolved mystery: after damaging the 109, the record states that Le Roux "destroyed a staff car and a motor cyclist." Around the same time, Rommel was returning from visiting the headquarters of the I SS Panzer Corps when his staff car was strafed by a Spitfire near Sainte-Foy-de-Montgomery. The driver accelerated and tried to swerve off the main road, but a 20 mm cannon round shattered his left arm, causing the vehicle to veer off the road and crash into the trees. Rommel was thrown from the car and suffered injuries to the left side of his face from glass shards and three skull fractures. He was hospitalized, with doctors assuming his injuries were fatal.

 

Meanwhile, 602 Squadron returned to base, albeit one plane short - Flight Lieutenant D.A.W. Manson's plane was hit by antiaircraft fire while he was diving to attack a motorized transport column. With white smoke coming from his engine, he was seen to make a normal crash landing, but it was apparent his plane was traveling too fast, as it plowed through a hedge and burst into flames. His wingman did not observe him leaving the aircraft.

 

Meanwhile, the Allies assumed Rommel had been killed, and in the fall of 1944, a Reuters special correspondent wrote up a dispatch that described how Typhoon pilots from No. 193 Squadron shot up a vehicle column near Dozule after carrying out a dive-bombing of a strongpoint south of Caen. These planes were airborne between 11:00 and 12:15, and the attacking pilot was listed as Pilot Officer Len Benson. However, later research showed this attack took place much farther south than originally reported - the actual location was between Livarot and Vimoutiers.

 

As for 602 Squadron, their records do not state where the strafing attack by Le Roux took place, and a separate attack on motorized transport by Flying Officer B.J. Oliver is simply listed as taking place "near Falaise." A Hauptmann Lang, a passenger in Rommel's car, did recall later that a bomb was dropped on the column, which would point to Oliver, as he was one of the four planes carrying bombs on this mission. However, to muddy things further, Lang gives the time of the attack as around 18:00, several hours after 602 Squadron's mission took place. Flers, Falaise, and Argentan, all mentioned in the squadron's records, are varying distances from the attack location, with the latter two being closest, but still about 17 miles distant.

 

Given all this and allowing for the fog of war, it is entirely possible Le Roux or another 602 Squadron pilot could have knocked Rommel out of the battle but, given the available evidence, there is no conclusive proof of which pilot made the fateful attack.

 

As for Rommel, he survived but was implicated in the July 20 attempt on Hitler's life and later committed suicide on October 14, 1944. Le Roux, originally from South Africa, was reported missing after his aircraft failed to arrive back in England on September 19, 1944. He is credited with 23.5 aerial victories.

 

Le Roux standing in front of his motorcycle at Souk el Khemis ('Waterloo'), Tunisia:

 

 

Erwin Rommel, circa 1942:

 

[LukeFF]

July 31, 1901: German meteorologists Reinhard Süring and Arthur Berson make the first flight over 10,000 meters at Tempelhofer Felde in Berlin, the capital of Prussia and the German Empire.

 

Süring was born in Hamburg on May 15, 1866. He studied natural sciences and mathematics in and received his doctorate in 1890 with a thesis entitled “Temperature decrease in mountainous regions as a function of cloud cover.” Later that year he became an assistant at the Prussian Meteorological Institute in Berlin, and the following year he joined the Magnetic Meteorological Observatory in Potsdam. 

 

Between 1893 and 1921, Süring participated in numerous high-altitude scientific experiments conducted with many influential scientists. In 1901 he was appointed head of the "storm department" at the Prussian Meteorological Institute.

 

Berson was born on August 6, 1859, in Neu Sandez, Galicia. He studied philology in Vienna and then meteorology and geography in Berlin. Among his teachers in Berlin was Ferdinand von Richthofen, an uncle of World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen. Beginning in 1890, he worked at the Meteorological Institute in Berlin, during which time he also served as secretary of the German Association for the Promotion of Aviation, the first aviation organization in Germany. In the late 1890s, he was editor of the Magazine for Aviation and Physics of the Atmosphere. In 1900, he became the chief observer at the newly established Aeronautical Observatory in Berlin.

 

Even before his record-breaking ascent on July 31, 1901, Berson was known for his scientific ballooning expeditions. On December 4, 1894, he ascended to a German altitude record of 9,155 meters, and on January 10, 1901, he flew in a balloon from Berlin to Sweden, becoming the first to cross the Baltic Sea by air.

 

At 10:50 a.m. on July 31, 1901, Süring and Berson began their ascent in the Prussia hydrogen balloon from the Tempelhof field in Berlin. The wind blew lightly from the northwest and the air temperature was 23.4 degrees Celsius. The balloon, built in Hanover for 20,000 marks, had a maximum volume of 8,400 cubic meters in its spherical envelope. The gondola contained four 1,000-liter oxygen cylinders and 8,000 kilograms of ballast.

 

Süring and Berson reached an altitude of 5,000 meters in 40 minutes, at which time the temperature was -7 degrees and the envelope had reached its maximum volume. After three hours, the Prussia had climbed to 8,000 meters, and in four hours it reached 9,000 meters, where the temperature was -32 degrees. By this time, the two men had run out of compressed oxygen at 8,170 meters.

 

The last observed altitude the two men reached was 10,225 meters, with an air temperature of -35.7 degrees. Berson watched Süring lose consciousness, so he pulled the emergency valve to vent gas from the balloon and begin its descent. He would also lose consciousness due to hypoxia.

 

Both men eventually regained consciousness at around 6,000 meters, but were unable to regain control of the balloon's descent until 2,500 meters. At 18:25, after a flight of 7 hours and 36 minutes, the balloon returned to Earth near Briesen. 

 

Climatic data from unmanned sounding balloons launched at the same time agreed with the information gathered by Süring and Berson so that scientists such as Richard Assmann no longer had any reason to distrust temperature measurements from unmanned balloons. This factor ultimately led to the discovery of the stratosphere by Assmann and another scientist the following year.

 

Süring continued to conduct high-altitude balloon experiments in the following decades and co-authored a textbook that was used by several generations of meteorology students. He died in Potsdam in December 1950. Berson continued his pioneering research, including climatic studies with weather kits off Svalbard, meteorological observations in German East Africa, and aerological research over the Amazon Basin. He died in December 1942.

Reinhard Süring:



Arthur Berson:

 

 

The Prussia hydrogen balloon:

 

[LukeFF]

August 13, 1914: Lieutenant Hubert Dunsterville Harvey-Kelly pilots the first British airplane to arrive in France following the outbreak of World War I.

 

Lieutenant Harvey-Kelley was born on February 9, 1891, at Berry Pomeroy in Devon, England. One of five children of a Colonel in the British Indian Army, he attended the Modern School and then the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Upon graduating from Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment on October 5, 1910. Two years later he was promoted to Lieutenant on October 23, 1912.

 

Seven months later, after learning to fly, Lieutenant Harvey-Kelly was issued aviator’s license number 501 on May 30, 1913. He subsequently requested and was attached to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) as a Lieutenant in the RFC Reserve on August 14 of the same year.

 

On August 13, 1914, Lieutenant Harvey-Kelly, now with the RFC’s No. 2 Squadron, departed Dover, England at 0625 hours in a Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2.a., serial number 471, with an Air Mechanic Harris in the back seat. He landed at Amiens, France just short of two hours later at 0820, having thus piloted the first plane to land in France during the war. Major Charles Burke, his commanding officer, planned to be the first to land in France, but Harvey-Kelly took a shortcut over some woods and landed just before him.

 

B.E.2a No. 471 had been built by the Coventry Ordnance Works and delivered to the RFC at Farnborough on June 5, 1913. It was initially assigned to the Central Flying School before being transferred to No. 2 Squadron. The B.E.2 (which stands for Blériot Experimental, a designation for a tractor-type airplane), was designed by Geoffrey de Havilland and would serve as a trainer, reconnaissance aircraft, artillery spotter, and bomber.

 

Although designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory, only 6 B.E.2s were built there, with the remainder of the approximately 3,500 built by Armstrong Whitworth, British and Colonial Airplane Company, Coventry Ordnance Works, Handley Page, Hewlett and Blondeau, and Vickers.

 

Two weeks after Lieutenant Harvey-Kelly’s historic landing, he scored the first-ever British victory in air-to-air combat despite flying an unarmed aircraft. He aggressively maneuvered against a German Taube 2 as if trying to hit it and, using his pistol, he forced the aircraft to the ground. After chasing off the crew he set fire to the plane and then took off.

 

In 1915, Lieutenant Harvey-Kelly was created a Companion of the Distinguished Service Order on February 18 and was promoted to Captain on May 23. The following year, on January 30, he was promoted to the temporary rank of Major.

 

By April 1917, Major Harvey-Kelly was in command of No. 19 Squadron, equipped with SPAD S.VII scouts. He was shot down and severely injured in the head on April 25, 1917, by Oberleutnant Kurt Wolff of Jasta 11, flying an Albatros D.III. He would die in a German field hospital four days later on April 29. He was subsequently buried at Brown’s Copse Cemetery, northwest of Roeux, Pas-de-Calais, France.

Lieutenant Hubert Dunsterville Harvey-Kelly:

 

Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2.a, No. 347, of No. 2 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, at Lythe, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, June 1914. Lieutenant Hubert Dunsterville Harvey-Kelly is at the lower right of the photograph:

 

No. 2 Squadron RFC, Harvey-Kelly top left:

[LukeFF]

September 3, 1932: James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, who would earn fame a decade later as the leader of the Doolittle Raid, wins the Thompson Trophy race with his Gee Bee Supersporster.

 

Born on December 14, 1896, in Alameda, California, Doolittle grew up in Nome, Alaska where he earned a reputation as a boxer before attending school in Los Angeles in 1910.

 

After graduating from Los Angeles City College, Doolittle studied at UC Berkeley before taking a leave of absence during World War I in October 1917 to enlist in the Signal Corps Reserve as a flying cadet. In March 1918, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Signal Corps Officer Reserve of the U.S. Army and by that time was also a qualified pilot.

 

Doolittle remained stateside during World War I, serving as a flight instructor. His detachment of the 90th Aero Squadron patrolled the border with Mexico. After the war’s end, he was retained by the U.S. Army Air Service and commissioned into the Regular Army as a 1st Lieutenant on July 1, 1920.

 

Doolittle completed his studies at Berkeley in 1922 and subsequently became one of America’s foremost pioneering aviators during the interwar period. On September 4, 1922, he made the first cross-country flight in a DH.4 Florida to California in just over 21 hours - needing only to make one refueling stop along the way. For this feat, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

 

After this, Doolittle served as a test pilot and aeronautical engineer before entering the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Among many other feats, he became a leading figure in the advancement of instrument flying. In 1929 he became the first pilot to take off, fly, and land an airplane using instruments alone, without a view outside the cockpit. He also helped to develop and was the first to test the artificial horizon and directional gyroscope. 

 

Doolittle resigned his regular commission in February 1930 but remained a Major in the Reserves. He was subsequently named manager of the Aviation Department of Shell Oil Company during which time he helped bring about the first production of 100 octane aviation gasoline.

 

After winning the first Bendix Trophy race in 1931, Doolittle entered the Cleveland National Air Races on September 3, 1932, with his Gee Bee Supersporster R-1, NR2100. Purpose-built as a racing airplane, the Gee Bee was very small, with short wings and small control surfaces. A dangerous plane that killed many famous racers, Doolittle loved it, calling it the “sweetest ship” he had ever flown and “perfect in every respect.”
 

The Gee Bee was 17 feet, 8 inches long and had a wingspan of 25 feet, 0 inches. It was powered by a 22-liter, nine-cylinder Pratt & Whitney radial engine rated at 2,300 r.p.m. at sea level and was fitted with a two-bladed adjustable-pitch propeller. The plane’s rated cruise speed was 260 miles per hour and had a max speed of more than 309 miles per hour.

 

On September 3, 1932, not only did Doolittle win the Thompson Trophy race, but he also set a world speed record for a 3-kilometer course, averaging 294.12 miles per hour. The highest speed attained by Doolittle during his four qualifying laps over the course was 309.040 miles per hour.

 

The September 3, 1932 air race proved to be Dooliittle’s last, as he officially retired from the sport, saying “I have yet to hear anyone engaged in this work dying of old age.” Gee Bee NR2100 was destroyed less than a year later in a takeoff crash at Indianapolis, Indiana on July 1, 1933, killing the pilot Russell Boardman.

 

Doolittle would return to active duty during World War II, where he led the famous Doolittle Raid on April 18, 1942, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor. He later commanded the Twelfth Air Force and the Fifteenth Air Force in the Mediterranean before taking command of the Eighth Air Force in England in 1943. He was preparing to move his command to the Pacific for the war against Japan when World War II ended.

 

James H. Doolittle with his Gee Bee R-1, NR2100, at the Cleveland National Air Races, 1932:

 

 

Jimmy Doolittle crosses the finish line at Cleveland, 1932:

 

 

Jimmy Doolittle hops out of the Gee Bee R-1:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of September 8-14:

 

September 8: 1944: The first V-2 rocket hits London.

 

The V-2, or Vergeltungswaffen 2 (“Vengeance Weapon 2”), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. It was the fourth in a series of so-called "Aggregate" (A-4) rockets that had been developed since 1933 under the leadership of German scientists Wernher von Braun and Walter Riedel. 

 

After the A-4 project was postponed due to unfavorable aerodynamic stability tests of the A-3 in July 1936, Braun drew up the specifications for the A-4 in 1937, and after an extensive series of test firings of the A-5 scale test model (using a motor redesigned from the A-3 by Walter Thiel), the design and construction of the A-4 was ordered around 1938-39. 

 

The basic technologies needed to build the A-4 were ready by late 1941, but at that time Adolf Hitler was not particularly impressed with the V-2, calling it merely an artillery shell with a longer range and much higher cost.

 

By September 1943, with the tide of war now turning against Germany, von Braun promised the Long-Range Bombardment Commission that the development of the A-4 was virtually complete. Hitler, in need of a wonder weapon and impressed by the enthusiasm of the rocket's developers, authorized its use in large numbers.

 

The V-2 had an empty weight of about 4,500 kilograms and a fully loaded weight of 12,700 kilograms. The warhead weighed about 738 kilograms and consisted of a mixture of ammonium nitrate and TNT. It was propelled by a 75/25 mixture of ethanol and water with liquid oxygen as an oxidizer.

 

Stabilized by four large fins, the V-2 was just over 14 meters long and had a maximum diameter of 1,651 meters. At launch, the rocket's engine burned for 65 seconds, accelerating it to a ballistic trajectory of 5,760 kilometers per hour. The rocket's maximum range was 320 kilometers. On impact, the rocket was falling at 2,880 kilometers per hour (about Mach 2.35), so its approach to the target area was completely silent.

 

The first V-2 rocket to hit London on September 8th hit Staveley Road, Chiswick "opposite No. 5" at 1840 hours, the first of 1358 V-2s to hit London. The warhead detonated, causing extensive damage to the residential area; a crater 20 feet deep was made in the middle of the road, and gas and water mains were destroyed. Three people were killed and 17 others injured. 11 houses were demolished, 12 were severely damaged and unusable, and 556 suffered minor or moderate damage. 14 families had to be relocated.

 

This V-2 rocket was fired from Battery 2./485 in the suburb of Wassenaar in The Hague, Netherlands. In the end, more than 3200 rockets were launched against England, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. However, the V-2 could only hit a general area and was not considered militarily effective. 

 

V-2 being raised to the vertical position for firing:

 

 

V-2 crater at Staveley Road:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of September 22-28:

 

September 27: 1929: U.S. Army Air Corps pilot Lieutenant James H. Doolittle makes the first completely blind takeoff, flight, and landing using only the instruments on board his aircraft.

 

The aircraft Doolittle flew that day was a civilian two-seat Consolidated NY-2 Husky trainer, registration number NX7918. The NY-2 was a PT-1 biplane known as the Consolidated Model 2 that had been diverted to the United States Navy for a trainer competition in 1925. It beat out 14 other designs and went into production under three different variants - the NY-1, NY-2, and NY-3. The NY-2 had a longer wingspan to overcome the high wing loading problems of the NY-1, a seaplane variant. It had a top speed of 78 knots at sea level and a cruising speed of 65 knots.

 

For this flight, Doolittle had his visual reference to earth and sky completely cut off by a canopy enclosure over his cockpit. Lieutenant Benjamin Kelsey, a safety pilot, rode in the forward cockpit, but the entire flight was performed by Doolittle. He took off from Mitchel Field, New York, climbed out, flew a set course of 15 miles, then returned to Mitchel Field and landed.

 

The experimental gyroscopic compass, artificial horizon, and precision altimeter were developed by Elmer Sperry, Jr. and Paul Kollsman, both of Long Island, New York. Funding for the Full Flight Laboratory at Mitchel Field was provided by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics.

 

An April 1930 magazine article, "Astounding Stories of Super-Science," described how Doolittle was able to navigate back to the airfield:
 

“To locate the landing field the pilot watches two vibrating reeds, tuned to the radio beacon, on a virtual radio receiver on his instrument board. If he turns to the right or left of his course the right or left reed, respectively, begins doing a sort of St. Vitus dance. If the reeds are in equilibrium the pilot knows it is clear sailing straight to his field.
 

“The sensitive altimeter showed Lieut. Doolittle his altitude and made it possible for him to calculate his landing to a distance of within a few feet from the ground. . . .”

Jimmy Doolittle with the NY-2, NX7918:

 

The instrument panel of the rear cockpit of the NY-1:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of September 29 - October 5:
 

October 1, 1947: the first of three XP-86 Sabre prototypes is flown for the first time.

 

The XP-86, known internally at North American Aviation (NAA) as NA-140, was the winner of a 1944 United States Army Air Forces requirement for a medium-range, single-seat, high-altitude, jet-powered day escort fighter/bomber. For the XP-86, NAA took its FJ-1 Fury design - the first jet aircraft designed for the U.S. Navy - and modified it to be lighter and considerably faster than the Fury. However, these changes alone were not enough to meet the required top speed of 600 mph. 

 

To differentiate the XP-86 from the XP-80 and XP-84, NAA engineers radically changed the shape of the wings, over the objections of some. After analyzing test data from the German Messerschmitt Me 262, a wing was designed with a 35-degree sweep back to the leading edge. This wing tapered toward the tips, and its thickness also decreased from root to tip. To create a strong but thin wing with such a design, instead of ribs and spars, it was built with a two-layer aluminum skin, with each layer separated by "hat" sections. The result was that high-speed shock waves could form without stalling the entire wing.

 

In addition, the XP-86's redesigned wing incorporated leading edge slats, which are airfoil sections that automatically extend below 290 knots, smoothing the airflow over the top of the wing and creating more lift at low speeds. Above that speed, aerodynamic forces closed the slats, reducing drag and allowing higher speeds.

 

The XP-86 prototypes were 37 feet, 6.5 inches long with a wingspan of just over 37 feet. The maximum takeoff weight was 16,438 pounds. The XP-86 was initially powered by a General Electric J35-C-3 turbojet engine that produced 4,000 pounds of thrust. This engine was soon replaced by an Allison J35-A-5, which produced the same amount of thrust and was used in the XP-86's performance tests.

 

The XP-86 could reach a top speed of Mach 0.787 at sea level, Mach 0.854 at 14,000 feet, and Mach 0.875 at 35,000 feet. It could climb to 30,000 feet in 12.1 minutes and had a service ceiling of 41,300 feet.

 

After being completed at NAA's Inglewood, California facility on August 8, 1947, XP-86 45-59597 was trucked to Muroc Dry Lake in the high desert north of Los Angeles in mid-September. After reassembly and a few taxi tests, company test pilot George S. Welch - known for his heroics at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and an ace pilot - took the plane into the skies for the first time on October 1. He was followed in an XP-82 Twin Mustang by Chief Test Pilot Bob Chilton and a company photographer. 

 

The first flight lasted 1 hour and 18 minutes, during which Welch climbed to 35,000 feet. Welch was the first to report instrument readings that would become known as the "Mach Jump". It is possible that George Welch flew the XP-86 past Mach 1 during this flight, breaking the sound barrier two weeks before Chuck Yeager did so in the Bell X-1 rocket plane. During flight tests, it was confirmed that the XP-86 could reach Mach 1.02-1.04 in a dive, so it is certainly possible that he did so on this first flight for what became known as the Sabre.

 

XP-86 45-59597 was eventually used as a target at Frenchman Flats during nuclear weapons testing in 1953. On May 25, it was 1,850 feet from ground zero of Upshot Knothole Grable. The only part of the plane still intact after the tests was the engine, which was thrown 500 feet. Welch continued to fly as a test pilot until October 12, 1954, when he was killed after his F-100A Super Sabre broke apart in a 7 G pull-up from a Mach 1.5 dive.

XP-86, 45-59597 at NAA's Inglewood plant, August 14, 1947:

 

XP-86 in flight, with George Welch at the controls:

 

Test pilot George S. Welch, with an F-86 behind him:

 

[LukeFF]

October 18, 1922: Brigadier General William “Billy” Mitchell sets a world speed record flying a Curtiss R-6 biplane.

 

Mitchell was born in December 1879 in Nice, France to John Mitchell, a wealthy Wisconsin senator, and his wife Harriet. The elder Mitchell had served in the American Civil War as a 1st Lieutenant in the 24th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment and would serve as a United States senator from 1883 to 1889.

 

Mitchell was accepted into Columbian University in the late 1890s but eventually dropped out at age 18 to join the US Army during the Spanish-American War. He enlisted as a Private and was sent to the Philippines as part of the 1st Wisconsin Infantry Regiment in 1898. While there, he took part in operations against Filipino insurgents at the end of the Spanish-American War and during the Philippine-American War. Owing to his father’s influence, he quickly gained an officer’s commission and joined the Signal Corps.

 

Mitchell remained in the Army after the cessation of hostilities; in the following years, he toured the battlefields of the Russo-Japanese War and in May 1916 he was chosen as the temporary head of the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps. A short time later he gained his pilot’s license and in July 1916 was promoted to Major and appointed the Chief of the Air Service of the First Army. By the end of World War I, he had been promoted to the temporary rank of Brigadier General and commanded all American air combat units in France. At the war’s end, he held the title of Chief of Air Service and Chief Group of Armies.

 

In the postwar years, Mitchell occupied several senior positions and was eventually appointed Assistant Chief of the Air Service by President Warren Harding in March 1921. The following month he was reappointed as a Brigadier General. A strong advocate of the efficacy of air power, Mitchell organized the 1st Provisional Air Brigade on May 1, 1921. It was with this formation that the famous bombing and sinking of the captured German battleship Ostfriesland just over two months later on July 20-21. 

 

On October 18, 1922, at Selfridge Field, near Mount Clemens, Michigan, Mitchell flew a Curtiss R-6 biplane, Air Service serial number A.S. 68584, over a 1-kilometer course at a speed of 358.84 kilometers per hour (222.973 miles per hour), setting an FAI World Absolute Speed Record. Sources vary as to the speed he attained, but a contemporary news magazine listed the officially recognized speed as 361.43 km/h (224.58 mph). 

 

The Curtiss R-6 Racers were fully-braced biplanes developed from the U.S. Navy Curtiss CR. Powered by a water-cool Curtiss D-12 engine, the R-6 could reach a maximum speed of 240 miles per hour, had a service ceiling of 22,000 feet, and had a maximum range of 281 miles. Two R-6 Racers were built for the U.S. at a cost of $71,000, plus $5000 for spare parts. A.S. 68584 flew for two more years after Mitchell’s record-setting flight before disintegrating in flight at the Pulitzer Trophy Race on October 4, 1924, killing its pilot, Captain Burt E. Skeel.

 

Mitchell’s outspoken advocacy of air power eventually resulted in his court martial in October 1925. Consequently, he was reduced in rank and suspended for five years without pay. He resigned from the Army but continued to advocate for air power until his death in 1936. After his death, he was elevated by President Roosevelt to the rank of Major General on the retired officers list, and the B-25 medium bomber was named the “Mitchell” in his memory.

 

 

Brigadier General William Mitchell stands in the cockpit of a Thomas Morse pursuit:

 

Curtiss R-6, serial number A.S. 68564, at Selfridge Field, 14 October 1922:

[LukeFF]

Week of Oct. 20-26: 

 

October 22, 1938: Italian Lieutenant Colonel Mario Pezzi sets a new world record for altitude in a Caproni Ca.161bis, reaching an altitude of 17,083 meters (56,047 feet).

 

Mario Pezzi was born in November 1898. His one brother, Enrico, also became involved in aviation and eventually became the youngest general in the Regia Aeronautica (The Royal Italian Air Force) and the leader of the Italian air forces in Russia during World War II. Mario joined the Italian infantry during World War I in October 1917 and attained second lieutenant by the next year.

 

After the end of World War I, Pezzi earned his pilot’s license in 1926. In 1927 he became part of the General Staff of the Italian military, and in 1931 he was appointed to the Cabinet of the Defense Ministry.

 

A year before Pezzi’s record-setting flight, he took off on May 7, 1937, from Guidonia-Montecelio airfield in Rome in a Caproni Ca.161. This aircraft was powered by a 14-cylinder double radial engine and supercharged by a double centrifugal 750-horsepower compressor. Wearing a heated pressurized suit and airtight helmet not dissimilar to a modern astronaut suit, he climbed to an altitude of 15,655 meters (51,362 feet).

 

Encouraged by this flight, the engineers at Caproni set to work on an improved version of the Ca.161, which came to be known as the Ca.161bis. The cockpit of this improved design was encased in an air-tight pressure vessel, the first in the history of flight. The Ca.161bis was powered by an air-cooled, supercharged, 38.673 liter (2,359.97 cubic inch), two-row, 14-cylinder Piaggio P.XI R.C.100/2v radial engine that produced 700 horsepower and drove a four-blade propeller through a 0.62:1 reduction gear. This engine was a licensed version of the French Gnome-Rhône 14K Mistral Major.

 

On October 22, 1938, Pezzi took off from Guidonia-Montecelio in the Ca.161bis, reaching an altitude of 17,083 meters. After this record-setting flight, he was decorated with the Gold Medal of Aeronautic Valor and promoted to Colonel. In later years he became Chief of the General Staff and from 1950-1955 was the General Secretary of Aeronautics. 

 

Pezzi's record-breaking flight remains the highest altitude reached by an aircraft powered by an internal combustion engine, although it was eventually retired by the FAI due to “changes of the sporting code.”

 

Mario Pezzi:

 

Lieutenant Colonel Mario Pezzi, seated in a pressure vessel built into the cockpit of the Caproni Ca.161bis:

 

 

Mario Pezzi in his high-altitude pressure suit:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of November 17-23:

 

November 22, 1952: Major Charles Loring Jr. earns the Medal of Honor while on an F-80 fighter-bomber mission over Korea

 

Charles Loring was born on October 2, 1918, in Portland, Maine, the first of four children. He enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 23 in Portland in May 1942 as a private and was accepted as an aviation cadet into the U.S. Army Air Corps two months later. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the reserves on February 16, 1943. 

 

Loring was initially assigned to the 22nd Fighter Squadron, 36th Fighter Group, which initially flew antisubmarine patrols during WWII from Puerto Rico in P-39s and P-40s. After returning to the U.S. it was converted to P-47s and sent to Europe as part of the 9th Air Force in April 1944. The 22nd FS flew ground support missions in support of the invasion of Normandy, and by December 1944, Loring had flown 55 missions. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions under fire on June 12, 1944, destroying ten enemy armored vehicles during a dive bombing mission in the area of Coutances, France.

 

On December 24, 1944, Loring was shot down by antiaircraft fire while strafing ground targets near Hotten, Belgium, and was captured. He spent the remainder of the war in a POW camp until Germany surrendered in May 1945.

 

Loring remained in the USAAF (and then the USAF from 1947) after World War II ended, serving in a variety of administrative roles. When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, he was attached to the Air University and so was not immediately sent to Korea for combat duty. By 1952 he was in Korea, initially assigned to the 36th Fighter-Bomber Squadron as its operations officer on F-80 ground attack missions. By November 1952, he had accumulated 50 combat missions over Korea.

 

While flying with the 80th Fighter-Bomber Squadron on November 22, 1952, Loring was leading a flight of four F-80s on a patrol over Kumwha. When he radioed a forward air controller, he was told that a T-6 Texan flying over Sniper Ridge had spotted a concentration of artillery near the ridge pinning down UN ground troops on the ridge. He was also told that the artillery concentration was surrounded by a heavy presence of anti-aircraft guns. Loring ordered the flight to the location and located the artillery concentration. Immediately after Loring began his dive bombing run, he was spotted by the anti-aircraft batteries. The Chinese crews operating them fired an extremely accurate barrage that struck Loring's plane several times on the nose and fuselage. His wingmen, noting the damage, suggested that he abort the bombing mission, as the flight was not far behind the lines and Loring's plane could have attempted to return. Instead, Loring broke radio contact and resumed what appeared to be a standard bombing run. At 4,000 feet, however, Loring accelerated his plane at a 40-degree angle in what appeared to be a controlled maneuver to line up the Chinese batteries. The other pilots reported watching in stunned silence as Loring dove his damaged plane into the battery position. Loring was killed instantly on impact, but his action resulted in the complete destruction of the battery position.

 

Loring's remains were never recovered after the crash, and he was listed as "Missing in action, presumed dead." The Medal of Honor was awarded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on May 5, 1953, but this was kept secret by the Air Force “to protect him from enemy reprisal” if Major Loring had not died in the crash of his fighter, but had been captured. It was eventually given to his wife and two daughters the following year.

 

According to his father, Charles J. Loring, Sr., “Charley was a stubborn man. He said he would never be a prisoner again. He was the kind of man who kept his word about everything.”

 

Major Charles Joseph Loring, Jr., United States Air Force:

 

 

Loring during WWII in front of a P-47:

 

Loring in Korea:

[LukeFF]

Week of December 1-9:

 

December 3, 1945: Chief Naval Test Pilot Lieutenant-Commander Eric Brown of the Royal Navy makes the first takeoff and landing of a jet-powered aircraft aboard an aircraft carrier in a prototype Sea Vampire.

 

Eric Brown was born on January 21, 1919, in Edinburgh, Scotland and was adopted by Robert and Euphemia Brown; Robert was a former balloon observer in the Royal Flying Corps. He received his first formal flying instruction while attending the University of Edinburgh in 1937. The following year, under the sponsorship of the British Foreign Office, he attended the 1938 Automobile Exhibition in Germany, where he saw flight demonstrations by German aviation pioneers Ernst Udet and Hanna Reitsch. 

 

Brown eventually remained in Germany for some time, having been selected as part of an exchange student program at a boarding school on the shores of Lake Constance. He was arrested in September 1939 by the SS after Great Britain declared war on Germany and spent three days in SS custody before they escorted him and his sportscar to the Swiss border.

 

Upon returning to Great Britain, Brown volunteered for the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm on December 4, 1939. After completing refresher training, he was first assigned to No. 801 Squadron before being assigned to No. 802 Squadron, which flew Marlets (export-model F4F Wildcats) from the escort carrier HMS Audacity on Gibraltar convoys.

 

Brown shot down two Fw 200 patrol bombers while assigned to 802 Squadron, for which he was ultimately awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. The Audacity was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic on December 21, 1941; Brown was one of 24 men to escape the stricken ship but ended up being only one of two to survive the frigid conditions long enough to be rescued.

 

No. 802 Squadron was disbanded following the Audacity’s sinking. Following a number of operational assignments (including one where he joined Canadian RAF squadrons on missions over occupied France, Brown was reassigned to the Naval Test Squadron at Boscombe Down in December 1943. He was named Chief Naval Test pilot the following month and would hold that post until 1949. 

 

Brown’s flight aboard the prototype de Havilland Sea Vampire, LZ551, was conducted from the HMS Ocean, a light aircraft carrier commissioned in August 1945. This aircraft was powered by a Halford H.1 turbojet which produced 2,300 pounds of thrust and was the second of three DH.100 Vampires built. The twin-tail configuration of the aircraft was designed to provide a short exhaust path for the engine, reducing the power loss of the early jet engines available at the time.

 

For his services in these tests, Lieutenant-Commander Brown was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) on February 19, 1946. He eventually rejoined No. 802 Squadron on operations before resuming flight testing as an exchange officer at the U.S. Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland in September 1951. To this day, he holds the record for most types of aircraft flown (487). He also made more carrier landings than any other pilot in history, with 2407 fixed-wing landings and 212 helicopter landings. He made 2,721 catapult launches, both at sea and on land. He passed away at age 96 on February 21, 2016.

 

Sea Vampire LZ551 continued to be used for various flight tests for over a decade, including with an experimental “rubber” deck in 1946. Today it is on display at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Somerset, England.

 

Eric Brown:

 

 

Eric Brown with LZ551, December 3, 1945:

 

 

A landing signal officer guides Brown to land aboard HMS Ocean:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of January 5-11:

 

January 9, 1952: Future Baseball Hall of Fame outfield Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox is recalled by the U.S. Marine Corps for service in Korea.

 

Theodore Samuel Williams, commonly known as "Ted" throughout his life, was born on August 30, 1918, in San Diego, California. He started playing baseball at the age of eight and was a star player in high school and with the American Legion. Although he had offers from Major League Baseball (MLB) teams when he was still a teenager, his mother thought he was too early to leave home, so he instead signed with the San Diego Padres in 1936, a local minor league team (no connection to the team in existence today).

 

Williams's play caught the eye of the Boston Red Sox, and the team acquired him in a trade with San Diego in December 1937. After spending one year in the minor leagues, Williams made his MLB debut in 1939 and quickly became a headline player. In 1941, he batted .406, the highest batting average and the last time any player has hit over .400 in a single season. 

 

Following America's entry into WWII on December 7, 1941, Williams joined the Naval Reserve on May 22, 1942, during a season that would see him win the American League Triple Crown. He trained as an aviator and entered active duty in November 1942. After completing his training - and setting records for marksmanship, thanks in part to his remarkable 20/10 eyesight - Williams received his wings and a commission in the Marine Corps on May 2, 1944.

 

He spent most of the next two years as a pilot instructor on F4U Corsairs in Pensacola, Florida, and Jacksonville, Florida, before being discharged from active duty on January 28, 1946. He was one of only 10 percent of Navy aviators to earn their wings and graduate at the top of his class during the war. He even set a student gunnery record for aerial fire while stationed at Pensacola Naval Air Base. When he was offered the chance to be discharged after the war, he turned it down.

“When the fellows were getting out after the first war, they had us sign up for the inactive reserve,” Williams later said in an interview. “That way you held your status as a commissioned officer. I had worked hard to get mine. If we ever went to war again, I wouldn’t have wanted to go through that again. So I signed up, never thinking we’d be in war again.”

Williams returned to the MLB in 1946 and continued to be an elite player. He led the Red Sox to the 1946 American League pennant and won his second Triple Crown in 1947. By the end of the 1951 season, Williams had been selected to nine All-Star Games and had won two AL Most Valuable Player Awards.

With the Korean War still raging at the start of 1952 and with college students exempt from the draft and many career pilots serving as instructors, he was recalled to active duty - as were 1,100 other senior lieutenants and captains. He had not flown a plane in seven years, but passed his physical and was recalled to active duty as a Marine Corps captain on May 2, 1952. Following a refresher course, he was sent to Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C., to learn to fly the F9F Panther. Shortly thereafter, on February 4, 1953, he arrived in Korea as a member of VMF-311, Marine Aircraft Group 33 - the same squadron as future astronaut John Glenn.

Williams ultimately flew 39 combat missions in Korea and was hit by enemy fire on three of them. On February 16, 1953, he crashed-landed his Panther after it was set ablaze but escaped unharmed. He was later hospitalized with pneumonia and diagnosed with an inner ear infection that disqualified him from flying and so was discharged from the Marines on July 28, 1953. He was back playing baseball less than two weeks later.

 

Williams would eventually compile one of the greatest careers in the MLB and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1966. He passed away on July 5, 2002, in Inverness, Florida.

Williams being sworn into the Marine Corps in May 1942:
 

Williams aboard an F9F Panther, circa 1953:

[LukeFF]

Week of January 19-25:

 

January 19-20, 1915: the first German airship raid on Great Britain during World War I is flown by three Zeppelins.

 

The Kaiserliche Marine airship L3, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Hans Fritz and Lieutenant zur See v. Lynckner, left Fuhlsbüttel, Hamburg, Germany, at 11:00, in company with L4 and L6, for a reconnaissance flight over the North Sea. They then flew on to Great Britain, planning to attack during darkness. 

 

L3 reached the English coast at 20:50 and proceeded to the Norfolk area. By 21:20, Captain Fritz and his airship had reached Greater Yarmouth. Flying in the rain at 5,000 feet, over the next ten minutes they dropped six 110-pound bombs and seven incendiary bombs on the town below. As L3 turned to leave the area, four more 110-pound bombs were dropped. After completing the attack, L3 returned to Germany, arriving at the Fuhlsbüttel airship base at 09:30 the next morning.

 

L4, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Magnus von Platen-Hallermund and Lieutenant zur See Kruse, dropped eleven bombs on Sheringham and King's Lynn on the English coast in the Norfolk area. Meanwhile, L6 had returned to Germany before the attack. Four people were reportedly killed and another sixteen wounded.
 

In the short history of aerial warfare, this was the first time that a civilian population center was the target of an air raid.

 

Zeppelin 24 was the third airship built for the Imperial German Navy, designated L3. It was operated by a crew of fifteen. The airship was 518 feet, 2 inches long with a diameter of 48 feet, 6 inches. Buoyancy was provided by 18 hydrogen-filled gas cells with a total volume of 794,500 cubic feet. It had an empty weight of 37,250 pounds and a payload of 20,250 pounds.

 

The LZ 24 was powered by three water-cooled, normally aspirated, 22.921-liter Maybach C-X six-cylinder inline engines, each producing 207 horsepower at 1,250 rpm, giving the L3 a top speed of 47.4 miles per hour. Its maximum altitude, limited by the ability of the gas cells to contain the hydrogen as it expanded with altitude, was 6,560 feet, and its maximum range was 1,366 miles.

 

The L3 made its maiden flight at Friedrichshafen on May 11, 1914. On February 17, 1915, the loss of two engines in high winds forced it to land on the island of Fanoe, Denmark, where the crew abandoned it and Captain Fritz set it afire. The crew was interned for the duration of the war. The wind was so strong that it blew the abandoned airship, with its engines still running, out to sea.

 

L4 (Zeppelin 27) was of the same airship class as L3. It was slightly heavier and its Maybach C-X engines were slightly more powerful. It was taken out of service on February 17, 1915, the same day L3 was lost.

Zeppelin LZ 24: 



Damage at King's Lynn following the raid:

 

[LukeFF]

Week of February 16-22:

February 18, 1943: the second XB-29 Superfortress is lost while on a test flight from Boeing Field, Washington.

 

XB-29, serial number 41-0003, was the second of three such prototypes built for the Superfortress heavy bomber project. This particular aircraft first flew on December 30, 1942, with Boeing Aircraft Company Chief Test Pilot Edmund Turney Allen at the controls. 

 

The three XB-29 prototypes were powered by four 3,347.7 cubic inch, air-cooled, supercharged Wright Cyclone 18-cylinder R-3350-13 two-row radial engines (also known as Duplex Cyclones). These engines could produce 2200 horsepower at takeoff and 2000 horsepower at normal power. The XB-29s could reach a maximum speed of 368 miles per hour and cruised at 255 miles per hour, and it had a service ceiling of 32,100 feet. The maximum payload was 20,000 pounds of bombs.

 

Prior to its fatal flight on February 18, 41-003 had experienced many problems. On its initial flight on December 30, it had suffered a major engine fire; Allen's efforts to return the aircraft to the airport later earned him the U.S. Army's Air Medal, by order of President Harry Truman. Subsequent problems with the engines forced Boeing to replace them with those of the first XB-29 prototype, 41-002. By February 18, 41-003 had flown only eight times for a total of 7 hours and 27 minutes.

 

At 12:09 on February 18, 1943, 41-1003 took off from Boeing Field for the ninth time with Allen at the controls, along with co-pilot Robert Dansfield and a full complement of flight test personnel. This flight test was planned to test climb performance to 25,000 feet and to collect engine cooling data.

 

At 12:17, 41-0003 was climbing through 5,000 feet when engine #1 caught fire. The engine was shut down and CO2 extinguishers were activated. Allen began a descent and turned back to Boeing Field.

 

The wind was from the south at 5 miles per hour, so it was decided to land on Runway 13, the southeast/northwest runway. At 12:24, radio operator Harry Ralston reported that the XB-29 was 4 miles northeast of the field at 1,200 feet.

 

The plane was in the landing pattern, turning from the downwind leg to the base leg, when an explosion occurred at 12:25. Ralston was heard to say, "Allen, you better get this thing down fast. The wing spar is burning badly."

 

To save weight, various parts of the Wright R-3350 engine were made of magnesium, a flammable metal that burns at very high temperatures. With an engine on fire, the bomber's wing structure was extremely vulnerable.

 

41-003 was now shedding parts and leaving a trail on the ground. The fire was now burning inside the fuselage. Three crew members bailed out, but the altitude was too low and they were killed.

 

At 12:26, XB-29 41-0003 crashed into the Frye Meat Packing Plant, south of downtown Seattle, and exploded. Nearly 5,000 gallons of gasoline caused a massive fire. The 8 men still aboard the prototype bomber were killed, as were 20 employees inside the building. One responding firefighter was also killed.

 

After this tragic accident, employees at the Boeing plant in Wichita, Kansas, donated money to build a B-29 named in honor of Eddie Allen. B-29-40-BW 42-24579 of the 40th Bombardment Group eventually flew 24 combat missions; on its last mission over Japan, the Eddie Allen was so badly damaged that although it reached its home base on Tinian, it never flew again. 

 

Ultimately, over 3,500 aircraft of the B-29, B-29A, and B-29B production variants would be built. The bomber saw service in World War II and the Korean War and remained in active U.S. service until 1960.

 

The B-29 will be seen in the skies over Korea for the upcoming Korea. IL-2 series, scheduled for release later this year.

 

The second prototype Boeing XB-29 Superfortress, 41-0003, takes off from Boeing Field, 12:09 p.m., February 18, 1943:



Edmund Turney Allen:

 

 

The Frye packing plant on fire:

 

 

 

[LukeFF]

Week of March 2-8:

 

March 4-5, 1944: Flight Officer Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager of the 363rd Fighter Squadron shoots down his 1st enemy aircraft on March 4th, only to then be shot down the next day.

 

Charles Yeager was born on February 13, 1923, in Myra, West Virginia, a small community in the southwestern part of the state. At the age of five, his family moved to Hamlin, West Virginia, where he graduated from high school in June 1941. 

 

On September 12, 1941, Yeager enlisted as a Private in the U.S. Army Air Forces. Because of his age, he was not eligible for flight training at the time, so he became an aircraft mechanic at Victorville Army Airfield in Southern California. However, America's entry into World War II on December 7, 1941, forced the USAAF to change its recruiting standards, and he was eventually accepted into flight training after serving as a crew chief on an AT-11 twin-engine trainer.

 

Gifted with exceptional eyesight (20/10 vision), Yeager graduated from pilot training at Luke Field, Arizona, on March 10, 1943, and was assigned to the 357th Fighter Group at Tonopah, Nevada. He trained on P-39s during this time (and was grounded for 7 days after clipping a farmer's tree) and shipped overseas with the group on November 23, 1943. 

 

Yeager's squadron, the 363rd, was stationed at Leiston in East Anglia as part of the U.S. Eighth Air Force. On March 4, 1944, he led an element of White Flight, 363d Fighter Squadron, 357th Fighter Group, southeast of Kassel, Germany, flying a P-51B named Glamorous Glen and designated B6 Y. At 13:05, he intercepted and shot down a Bf 109 G for his first victory, on his seventh combat mission.

 

The next day, March 5, Yeager was back in the cockpit of Glamorous Glen. A Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-4 flown by Unteroffizier Irmfried Klotz shot him down east of Bordeaux, France. Slightly wounded in the action, Yeager spent the next few months evading enemy soldiers and escaping through France and Spain, returning to England in May 1944. Despite a regulation prohibiting "evaders" (escaped pilots) from flying over enemy territory again, the purpose of which was to prevent resistance groups from being compromised by giving the enemy a second chance to possibly capture them, Yeager was reinstated to flying combat. 

 

Yeager would end World War II with 11.5 confirmed victories. He became the first pilot in the 357th to score an "ace in a day" when he shot down five enemy planes in a single mission over Bremen, Germany, for which he was awarded the Silver Star. He was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for being one of the first pilots to shoot down a Me 262 and the Bronze Star Medal for helping to rescue a USAAF navigator after the former’s downing on March 5, 1944.

 

Yeager remained in the Air Force until he retired in 1975 with the rank of Brigadier General and 12,222 days of service. He was a world-renowned test pilot who broke the sound barrier in a Bell XS-1 rocket plane on October 14, 1947. He commanded F-86H Sabre and F-100D fighter-bomber squadrons, flew the B-57 Canberra over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and commanded the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert of Southern California. He died at the age of 97 on December 7, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. 

 

 

[LukeFF]

Exactly 75 years ago, on June 25, 1950, the Korean War began - the first military conflict of global significance of the Cold War period. China and the USSR actively supported the DPRK, while the United States and allied countries supported the Republic of Korea. The hostilities ended with an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953, without the signing of a formal peace treaty; therefore, the war continues to this day.