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Title: The Story of American Aviation
Author: Ray, James G.
Language: English
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[Illustration]
_The Story of_
AMERICAN AVIATION
_by_ JIM RAY
ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR
[Illustration]
The thrilling story of
how the airplane grew
and the part it has played
in the war and peace-time history of the United States of America
OVER 150 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR
OF AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS AIRPLANES--OLD AND NEW
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA · TORONTO
[Illustration]
_Copyright, 1946, by_
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
Copyright in Great Britain and in
The British Dominions and Possessions
Copyright in the Philippines
FIRST EDITION
MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOREWORD
In the following pages, Jim Ray, talented in his work of presentation
and a conscientious student of aviation, presents a chain of highlights
in the progress of American aëronautics. The work as a whole is directed
toward a sound conception of the steps which have been taken in aircraft
development. In so far as possible, without being exhaustive, Mr. Ray
has portrayed the engineering advancement which underlies the structure
of our swiftly developing air age. The reader who thoroughly digests the
text and illustrations of this book will find that it is an orderly and
faithful guide.
GILL ROBB WILSON
_Aviation Editor,
New York Herald Tribune
Director of Aviation
State of New Jersey_
INTRODUCTION
It is difficult to believe that, just a little over thirty years ago, I
was a high-school student watching the pilots at the Wright Brothers’
exhibition of the world’s first flying machine. That machine weighed
about eight hundred pounds. Its engine developed thirty horsepower. It
flew at the then astounding speed of forty-two miles an hour, which is
equal to the landing speed of our slowest light plane today. High-school
students now are accustomed to the sight of giant airplanes whose weight
is measured in tons and whose horsepower mounts to the thousands.
December, 1945, marks the forty-second anniversary of the first flight
of an airplane. The progress of aviation since that first flight still
seems unbelievable, even to one who has followed its development
closely. The purpose of this book is to trace the progress of aviation
in America and to tell the story of the men and machines that have given
this country supremacy in the air.
In telling the story of American aviation from Kitty Hawk to the present
day, I have been able to touch only the high spots in its dramatic
progress. Space limitations prevent me from giving personal credit to
the hundreds of pioneer airmen, engineers, and mechanics who have
contributed so greatly to the progress of American aviation. Lack of
space also makes it impossible to give the complete story of the great
Government research organization, the National Advisory Committee for
Aëronautics, whose work has been most fruitful in the advancement of
civil and military aëronautics in the United States.
As we look over the record of the astounding progress of American
aviation in forty-two years, let us salute our military leaders who have
visualized the need for air power; the men who have designed and built
our great engines and airplanes, and the leaders of commercial aviation
who have made air travel fast, safe, and economical.
JIM RAY
_Ottsville, Pennsylvania,
1945_
CONTENTS
The Beginnings of American Aviation 6
Aviation in America in Its Early Days 9
First Army Airplane 23
America Becomes Air-Minded 24
The Army and Navy Spread Their Wings 28
United States Military and Naval Aviation, World War I 32
The First Transatlantic Flight 34
Men and Machines, World War I 36
The First Air Mail 38
Precision Bombing Is Born 40
The U. S. Navy’s First Aircraft Carrier 41
The First Flight Around the World 42
Air Progress 44
America’s First All-Metal Transport 46
Better Power for America’s Airplanes 49
Record-Making Fokker Tri-Motor Transport Plane 50
Air Transport Grows 52
Donald Douglas’ Dream Comes True 54
Safety in Flight 56
Luxury Airliners and Skysleepers Make Air Travel an Accepted Fact 58
Pan American Clippers Conquer Pacific Skies 60
Pan American Clipper Inaugurates America’s
First Transatlantic Air Transport Service 62
Private Planes 64
Superchargers and Super-Airliners 65
Air Power for World War II 67
Naval Aviation, 1922-1935 68
Shipboard Fighters 69
Battleship of the Air 70
Naval Aviation Gets Ready 72
The U. S. Navy’s First Long-Range Flying Boats 74
Technical Progress in the U. S. Army Air Corps in the Thirties 76
Army Attack Aviation and Training 80
Superfighter 82
Man-Made _Thunderbolts_ Rip Wide a Path to Victory 84
Superfortress 86
Naval Aviation in the Early Months of World War II 88
The U. S. Navy’s Deadliest Fighter Plane 90
Dive-Bomber 93
Our Flying Navy 94
Aërial Armada 96
Postwar Aviation 100
Index of Persons 103
[Illustration]
THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN AVIATION
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT OF ETANA]
THE DREAMERS
The idea of human flight has excited man’s imagination for thousands of
years. From stories and legends handed down through the years, we know
that even from earliest times people dreamed of flying. There are
visions of conquering the air in the colorful legends of winged men and
beasts found in ancient folklore. The winged statuary of the Egyptians
was no doubt inspired by the desire to imitate the flight of birds. In
Greek mythology Hermes, the messenger of the gods, is clothed with
winged sandals and helmet.
Historians have unearthed stories in cuneiform writing of man’s attempts
to fly. Some of these inscriptions date back more than five thousand
years, to 3500 B.C. Perhaps the most famous of these stories is the
ancient Babylonian tale of the shepherd boy, Etana, who rode on the back
of an eagle.
The story of Dædalus and Icarus also tells us that man believed flying
was somehow possible. Dædalus was a very clever man who lived with his
son Icarus on the Island of Crete. The king of this island requested
Dædalus to build a labyrinth or maze for him. Dædalus constructed the
labyrinth so cleverly that only the king, who had the clue to the
winding passages, could find his way out. One day the king became very
angry at Dædalus and threw both him and his son Icarus into the
labyrinth, intending that they should perish. Dædalus, who had been
dreaming of flying, fashioned wings from wax and feathers, with which he
and Icarus could fly to freedom. He cautioned Icarus that he must not
fly too high or the sun would melt the wax in his wings. Icarus,
impatient to escape, scarcely listened. Like birds the two flew into the
air, quickly leaving the walls of the labyrinth. Dædalus, flying low,
safely crossed the sea and reached Sicily. Icarus, unfortunately, failed
to heed his father’s warning. Flying was so much fun that he rose higher
and higher. Suddenly feathers began to drop one by one. Too late Icarus
realized that the sun had melted the wax in his wings. Down, down he
fell into the sea.
Another ancient myth of flying concerns Pegasus, the winged horse.
Bellerophon, a Corinthian hero, rode Pegasus and with his help killed a
horrible monster called the Chimera.
Not only did men of long ago dream of flying--some of them firmly
believed it could be done. Archimedes, a great Greek mathematician born
in 287 B.C., was one. In the year 1250 an Englishman, Roger Bacon, had
the idea that a large hollow globe of thin metal could be made which,
when filled with an ethereal air or liquid fire, would float on the air
like a ship on water.
[Illustration: DÆDALUS AND ICARUS]
Leonardo da Vinci, the great Italian artist and scientist, who lived in
the fifteenth century, spent years experimenting with the idea of
flying. He made a number of sketches of wings to be fitted to the arms
and legs of man. His plan for a parachute was soundly worked out and his
idea that the wings of a flying machine should be patterned after the
wings of the bat found expression in the doped fabric covering of our
early airplanes.
[Illustration: LEONARDO DA VINCI’S GLIDER AND PARACHUTE IDEA]
Aviation today is such an accepted fact that we sometimes forget how men
from different parts of the world had to work, suffer hardships, face
ridicule, and even give their lives that flying might become possible.
In 1678, Besnier, a French locksmith, constructed a curious flying
machine consisting of two wooden bars which rested on his shoulders. At
the ends of the bars he attached muslin wings, arranged to open on the
down stroke and close on the up stroke. The wings were operated by
moving the arms and legs. Although Besnier failed to realize that no man
had sufficient muscular strength to fly as the bird flies, he did sense
part of the truth--that gliding with the air currents was possible.
During his experiments he is said to have jumped from a window sill,
glided over the roof of a near-by cottage, and landed on a barge in the
river.
[Illustration: BESNIER AND HIS WINGS]
In 1799 an Englishman, George Cayley, conceived the idea that a kite
could be built large enough to carry him up into the air. Instead of a
string to hold the kite against the wind he decided to use the weight of
his own body. He built a huge kite with a sustaining surface of three
hundred square feet. When he held on to it and ran against the wind, the
kite did indeed lift and carry him some distance through the air.
Cayley’s kite was the first glider and also the very beginning of the
modern airplane.
Wonderful though it may have seemed to him, no one paid any attention to
Cayley’s discovery until 1867, when F. H. Wenham, also an Englishman,
came to the conclusion that if a glider were attached to a propeller
driven by an engine, it would fly. Wenham was right, of course, but he
left his fine logic for other men to use. He did, however, leave
something else by which we may remember him. He coined the word
_aëroplane_. He took the Greek _aëro_, meaning air, and joined to it the
Latin _planus_, meaning flat. The British still use the world
_aëroplane_, but we in America use the simpler form _airplane_.
The first successful attempt to fly was made in France on June 5, 1783,
when the Montgolfier brothers demonstrated their hot-air balloon. It
rose to the height of one thousand feet and remained aloft for ten
minutes. Benjamin Franklin, then in France, witnessed a flight of the
Montgolfier balloon and referred to it in his chronicles. (As this book
tells the story of the airplane, we shall not describe in detail the
free balloon.)
In Germany, another man interested in flying was experimenting. Otto
Lilienthal, in the year 1890, built for himself a queer-looking glider
which resembled nothing so much as a bat with huge wings. Remember
Leonardo da Vinci’s idea? To his bat wings Lilienthal attached a
tail-like rudder for steering. For his own support on the glider he
provided a pair of struts similar to the arm rests of crutches.
Lilienthal would run down a hill into the wind with his glider. When
sufficient speed had been attained, the glider and Lilienthal would rise
triumphantly into the air. He learned to travel fair distances and was
fired with the ambition to put an engine on his glider. He did design a
2½-horsepower engine, weighing ninety pounds and mounted on a biplane.
Before trying his new machine, Lilienthal decided to make a short flight
in his old glider. Somehow the glider stalled, one wing dropped off, and
the whole thing fell to the ground, carrying Lilienthal to his death.
His powered machine was never tried. Other men, however, believed that
Lilienthal had been correct in his idea of flying, and his death did not
stop their experiments.
About this time in America, a young man, just out of college, built a
glider patterned after a sea gull. This young man was a Californian,
John J. Montgomery. He worked alone and was so timid that he tried out
his glider from a near-by hill at three o’clock in the morning. He was
afraid that onlookers would laugh at him if his glider failed. It did
not fail. He made a flight of six hundred feet--the first of many
successful flights. Montgomery solved many of the problems of flight
with little or no funds or encouragement. Because he worked alone and
was until recently almost unknown, few written records of his work are
available.
All through the nineteenth century men continued their experiments in
order to bring to a reality the dream of human flight. With each
generation, they moved ever closer to the fringe of the secret but never
quite grasped it.
In 1842 an Englishman, W. S. Henson, was optimistic enough to patent his
monoplane _Ariel_ for a flight from Britain to India. Though his design
had a cambered, or slightly curved, wing, tricycle landing gear, and
excellent bracing, it never got beyond the model stage. Another
Englishman, John Stringfellow, worked for four years on his steam-driven
monoplane. It also did not progress beyond a few model flights. In 1876,
a young Frenchman, Alphonse Penaud, read an article that ridiculed man’s
presumptuous attempts to fly. This angered the boy and he determined
forthwith to conquer the air. Though lack of money balked his ambition,
he constructed a number of models which contained many features found in
present-day airplanes. Incidentally, Penaud was the first to use an
elastic band to propel his model, as boys do. Laurence Hargrave, an
American, was the first man to make a study of the cellular or box-kite
type of wing construction. He confined his efforts to building models.
His ideas influenced the work of Lilienthal, who incorporated them in
the powered airplane he was building at the time of his death.
AVIATION IN AMERICA IN ITS EARLY DAYS
The story of the heavier-than-air machines that flew really begins in
the United States in the early 1890’s. Octave Chanute, born in France
and reared in America, was one of the first men to make a scientific
approach to the problem of flying machines. A thorough scientist, he had
followed the progress of all flight experiments the world over. He built
gliders with one, two, and even five pairs of wings and tested all of
them on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan. His most successful glides were
made with a biplane glider. In 1894, he published a book called
_Progress of Flying Machines_, which covered all the efforts of men like
himself who had experimented with man-carrying gliders and flying
machines. This book, without doubt, was responsible for bringing to this
country the honor of being the birthplace of the first successful,
man-carrying, power-driven, flying machine. A copy of Octave Chanute’s
book fell into the hands of two ambitious and enterprising young bicycle
makers of Dayton, Ohio--Orville and Wilbur Wright.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
At the time when Octave Chanute was experimenting with his gliders on
the Michigan sand dunes, another aviation pioneer was hard at work in
his laboratory in Washington, D. C. This man was Professor Samuel
Pierpont Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In this
position he had the opportunity to pursue his studies in the
aëronautical side of physics.
After much study and experimentation, he succeeded in building a tiny,
steam-powered model which flew for six seconds. Langley was so much
encouraged by the performance of his first model that he built a larger
one. This model, weighing 26 pounds and powered with a one-horsepower
steam engine, made a flight of three thousand feet in 1896.
After this flight Professor Langley felt that he had proved his theory
of flight. The public became interested and the government appropriated
$50,000 for Langley’s use in the construction of a full-size airplane.
Langley built his plane without much difficulty, but could not find
anyone to make an engine large enough for it. Finally, Charles Manley,
an expert engineer, asked for permission to build the engine. Manley’s
engine was a five-cylinder, radial gasoline engine that developed 51
horsepower and was far ahead of its time. It was years before American
radial engines were used successfully in airplanes.
Professor Langley called his machine the _Aerodrome_, and by October,
1903, the plane was ready for its test flight, with Manley to guide it.
The _Aerodrome_ was to be launched from a catapulting platform built on
the roof of a houseboat. The houseboat was anchored on the Potomac River
near Washington. As it left the platform the machine crashed into the
river, and the trial was a dismal failure. The newspapers and the public
ridiculed Langley, but he and Manley, who was unhurt in the crash,
repaired the machine for another trial. This test took place on December
8, 1903, and again the _Aerodrome_ crashed into the river. Manley once
more escaped injury, but Langley and the government were abused by the
public for wasting money. Langley was out of money himself, the
government could not furnish funds for further trials, so the
experiments were ended. The professor, discouraged and brokenhearted,
gave up.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE DREAM FULFILLED
Out in Dayton, Ohio, there were two small brothers, who dreamed, as
countless other children before them had dreamed, of flying like birds
through the air. Their dreams were heightened by a small toy given to
them by their father, the pastor of a local church. This toy was to lead
to an idea which had a profound effect on the world. You would probably
call it a flying propeller. It consisted of a wooden propeller which
slipped over a notched stick. By placing a finger against the propeller
and rapidly pushing it up the notched stick, the propeller was made to
whirl up off the end of the stick and fly into the air. The brothers,
young as they were, never quite forgot this little toy as they continued
to dream of flying like birds through the air.
Though the brothers continued to dream of flying, they were not the kind
of lads who spent all their time in dreaming. They made kites which flew
a little better and a little higher than those made by the other boys in
the neighborhood. They built a press to print their own little
newspaper, and they dabbled in woodcuts. To carve out porch posts for
their father’s home they built an eight-foot wood-turning lathe. Indeed,
they were the sort of boys who caused the neighbors to say, “What will
they think of next?”
Small town pastors in the early 1890’s did not receive princely
salaries. The brothers knew that if they ever wanted to see their dreams
come true they must earn their own capital. In the early nineties
America was in the midst of the bicycle craze. Everyone who could
possibly afford to do so owned a bicycle of some sort and belonged to a
cycle club. Being mechanically minded, the brothers did the logical
thing. They set themselves up in a small bicycle shop in Dayton, next
door to their home.
The bicycle shop in Dayton prospered, for the brothers were careful and
expert mechanics, and cyclists in need of repairs made their way to the
Wright Brothers’ shop.
[Illustration: WRIGHT BROTHERS’ BICYCLE SHOP]
The two boys who had never forgotten the little toy helicopter which
their father had given them years before, were Orville and Wilbur
Wright. Although their bicycle shop prospered the brothers continued to
dream of flying. Unlike others, who, all over the world, had been
dreaming of the same thing, the dreams of the Wright Brothers persisted.
They read everything that had been written about experiments in flying.
Every spare moment of their time was spent in thinking about flight.
Soon after Octave Chanute’s book _Progress of Flying Machines_ was
published in 1894, Orville and Wilbur Wright read a copy. Although they
had long discussed the idea of flight, it was not until they read
Chanute’s book that they were able to consider seriously any experiments
of their own.
Chanute’s book did not give the answers to the questions in the minds of
the Wright Brothers. It was primarily a record of man’s attempts to fly
and of his failures. However, it served its purpose because it created
many more questions in the minds of Orville and Wilbur Wright. They
wrote to Chanute for further information on what man had to do in order
to fly.
[Illustration: THE WIND TUNNEL BUILT BY THE WRIGHT BROTHERS TO TEST WING
DESIGNS]
The noted scientist answered the questions of the Wright Brothers as
best he could and sent them a set of tables derived from his studies of
air pressure in relation to wing surfaces. The Wrights saw in these
figures a possible clue to the mysteries of flight, and in 1900 they
built an experimental glider based on the information they had received
from Chanute. What followed this first glider experiment is the key to
the problem of why the Wright Brothers eventually succeeded while other
men failed. When the glider they constructed on the principle of the
then most perfect data failed to fly, they were capable of realizing
that the scientific research--and not their own efforts--had been at
fault.
[Illustration: ELECTRIC FAN(A) FURNISHED AIR PRESSURE WHICH ACTED ON
WING SECTION(B). WING SECTION(B) WAS MOUNTED ON A SWINGING FRAME(C). THE
MOVEMENT OF(B) CAUSED(C) TO MOVE A POINTER ON DIAL(D) WHICH INDICATED
THE AMOUNT OF MOVEMENT OF(B). (E) ARE WEIGHTS ATTACHED TO WING(B). (E)
REPRESENTED _WEIGHT_ AND _DRAG_. THEY REGISTERED THEIR EFFECT ON WING
LIFT.]
The Wright Brothers were not only inspired mechanics (as many people
still believe today) but serious scientists, working along the soundest
lines. In their keen desire to know what air pressure on wings really
was, they cleared a corner of their bicycle shop and built a small wind
tunnel with spare lumber and an old electric fan. They built small wing
sections of various shapes and experimented with them in their wind
tunnel. The electric fan was used to create the moving air around the
wing section. By attaching the wing sections to a supporting frame and
connecting the frame with a pointer and dial, they were able to keep a
record of the effect of moving air on each experimental wing section.
Through their wind tunnel research the Wright Brothers discovered the
four forces that control all heavier-than-air flight: _lift_, _thrust_,
_weight_, and _drag_. They found that a slight curve or camber in the
wing section would cause the moving air to travel farther over the top
of the wing surface than along the under side. This made the air
pressure greater under the wing, gave a suction effect above the wing,
and caused it to rise, creating _lift_. They discovered that a wing
section of the proper camber would counteract the _weight_ of gravity.
Thus, a wing must be so designed that, with a certain amount of air
flowing around it, it would lift a certain _weight_. They also
discovered that air flow against any surface attached to the wing would
cause a resistance or _drag_. Hundreds of experiments in their wind
tunnel with various types of wing shapes gave the Wrights a series of
tables from which to design a wing that would create the _lift_ for a
designed weight.
[Illustration: THE FOUR FORCES THAT CONTROL THE FLIGHT OF THE AIRPLANE
LIFT
TRUST DRAG
WEIGHT]
Then, after testing more than 200 wing designs and plane surfaces in
their wind tunnel, the Wright Brothers found out how to figure correctly
the amount of curve, or camber, that was essential to weight-carrying
wings. They discovered, too, that before man could be flown through the
air, he must have his wings attached firmly to a body or platform which
was firm and controllable. The Wrights in their earliest experiments had
realized that to be practical their machine must be built not only to
fly in a straight line, but also in order that it could be steered to
the right or to the left. One day, Orville was twisting a cardboard box
in his hand when Wilbur noticed it. Immediately he saw the solution to
the problem of steering their airplane. The result was a design which
changed the _lift_ of either end of the wing by warping its surface. If
one end of the wing was warped to give it more _lift_, the machine would
_lift_ on that side and fall off into a turn. Thus the problem of
steering was solved by the Wrights.
[Illustration: THE WRIGHT BROTHERS’ EXPERIMENTAL GLIDER]
FIRST FLIGHT
After a year of exhaustive study and experiments with models in their
wind tunnel, the Wright Brothers were ready to experiment with a
man-carrying glider. With the thoroughness that was typical of every
move of the Wrights, the brothers asked the government to let them have
information on meteorological conditions all over the country. By
studying the weather charts they were able to find a locality where
there was a continual flow of wind. This would be nature’s wind tunnel
where they could test their glider day after day. Through their study of
the charts they found that the wind conditions at Kitty Hawk, on the
North Carolina coast, seemed to offer the best possibilities for their
glider test.
Orville and Wilbur Wright began their experiments with a small
man-carrying glider at Kitty Hawk in 1900. From that time until 1903
they made hundreds of successful glider flights and kept accurate
records of each flight. They recorded wind velocity, angle of flight,
duration of flight, time of day, temperature, humidity, and sky
conditions overhead with the typical Wright attention to detail. Each
year the Wrights constructed new gliders which embodied principles they
had discovered for themselves during their flights at Kitty Hawk. Each
glider was larger and had longer and narrower wings than the one before.
During the fall of 1902 the brothers recorded nearly a thousand flights
in a glider with a wingspan of thirty-two feet. It had a front elevator
and a vertical tail which helped to maintain lateral stability.
By 1903 the Wright Brothers were ready to build a powered man-carrying
flying machine. Their experiments had shown them just how much moving
air was necessary to create lift in such a machine. To create the needed
thrust, an engine having eight horsepower and weighing not over 200
pounds had to be fitted into the machine. Such an engine was not
available, so the Wrights built one in their shop at Dayton, Ohio. They
were ready to ship their airplane to Kitty Hawk, N. C., in the fall of
1903.
[Illustration: 1903
WINGSPAN 40 FEET
LENGTH 19 FEET
THE WRIGHT BROTHERS’ AIRPLANE WAS THE FIRST HEAVIER-THAN-AIR
MACHINE THAT WOULD REALLY FLY UNDER ITS OWN POWER.
ONE 4-CYLINDER
16-HP. GAS ENGINE
IT WAS POWERED WITH A 4-CYLINDER WATER-COOLED ENGINE, DESIGNED AND
BUILT BY THE WRIGHT BROTHERS.
ONE HOUR
30½ MILES
THE FIRST WRIGHT AIRPLANE HAD A TOP SPEED OF ABOUT 30 MILES PER
HOUR.
RANGE
120 FEET
THE LONGEST FLIGHT IT MADE ON THE FIRST DAY’S TRIALS WAS 120 FEET,
LESS THAN THE WINGSPAN OF OF THE MODERN _SUPERFORTRESS_.
CEILING
20 FEET
IT FLEW AT LOW ALTITUDES. MOST OF THE FLIGHTS WERE AT ALTITUDES OF
FROM TWELVE TO TWENTY FEET.
ONE PERSON
IT CARRIED BUT ONE MAN, THE PILOT.
ALTHOUGH THE FIRST FLIGHTS OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS WERE NOT
SPECTACULAR FROM A POINT OF SPEED, HEIGHT OR DISTANCE, THEY DID
PROVE THAT MAN COULD FLY AND THAT THE WRIGHTS HAD DISCOVERED THE
SECRET. FROM THAT TIME FLIGHT HAS BEEN BASED ON THEIR ORIGINAL
IDEAS.]
[Illustration]
A cold wind whipped across those buff stretches of Kitty Hawk on
Thursday, December 17. A coin was tossed into the air between Orville
and Wilbur Wright. Orville won the toss, climbed up and stretched prone
on the wing of the flying machine. He clutched the controls.
There were no cheering crowds; a mere handful of people were there.
Running along its launching track, the 750 pounds of plane, engine, and
passenger shot up into the air so fast that Wilbur, at the wing-tip,
could not keep up. For three and one-half seconds the plane was in the
air. It came to rest 105 feet from the take-off. Powered flight was
born!
WRIGHT BROTHERS’ AIRPLANE
Three more flights were made on that epochal day at Kitty Hawk. The last
flight of the day, with Wilbur at the controls, proved to be a
breath-taking adventure. For fifty-nine seconds the roaring,
white-winged craft pitched and rolled in the fitful wind. Flying low
with its pilot tense at the controls, it covered a distance of 852 feet.
There was no question now in the minds of Orville and Wilbur. They had
proved conclusively their theory and were anxious to get back to their
shop to continue improving their first flying machine.
Except for the handful of spectators who were present, the world treated
the first powered flight coldly. Only a few days before the first flight
of the Wright Brothers the highly publicized Langley _Aerodrome_ had
crashed into the Potomac for the second time. People just would not
believe that the Wrights actually had flown. The newspapers refused even
to print the story. Had not most newspaper editors just proved
conclusively from Langley’s disaster that the heavier-than-air flying
machine could never work? Most scientists agreed with the newspaper
editors, and the Wright Brothers were ignored by both press and public.
Immediately after their initial flight, the Wrights offered their
invention to the government. The criticism aroused by the government’s
investment of $50,000 in the disastrous Langley experiment was too fresh
in the minds of the authorities, and no encouragement was given to the
brothers’ offer. The Wrights returned to Dayton, where they housed their
machine in a closed barn on the flat land a few miles east of the city.
They admitted that they had flown, but they were among the first to
state that they had only uncovered the barest physical facts associated
with flight.
The brothers continued to make flights over the flat lands. They made
105 flights during the year 1904 and gained a considerable amount of
experience and skill. They mastered the art of flying in a complete
circle and landing the plane in the same field from which it had taken
off.
[Illustration: THE CURVED WING FORCES MOVING AIR AWAY FROM ITS UPPER
SURFACE.]
[Illustration: THIS CREATES LIGHT AIR ABOVE THE WING. THE AIR FLOWING
UNDER THE WING IS NOT DISTURBED. AS A RESULT IT IS HEAVIER THAN THE AIR
ABOVE THE WING. THE HEAVIER AIR PUSHES THE WING UPWARD, CREATING
_LIFT_.]
[Illustration: ELEVATORS ARE SMALL WINGS. WHEN THEY ARE SET TO CREATE
_LIFT_, (E) ABOVE, THEY LIFT THE NOSE OF THE PLANE. THIS RAISES THE
LEADING EDGE OF THE WINGS OF THE PLANE.
THE WINGS ARE DESIGNED FOR LEVEL FLIGHT. WHEN THE LEADING EDGE RISES,
THE WING HAS A GREATER LIFT. THIS MAKES THE PLANE CLIMB. WHEN THE
LEADING EDGE IS LOWERED THE WING LOSES _LIFT_ AND THE PLANE DESCENDS.
WHEN THE WING IS WARPED IT LOSES SOME OF ITS _LIFT_ AREA (A). THE LOSS
OF _LIFT_ CAUSES THE WING TO DROP. THIS MAKES THE PLANE TO TURN TOWARD
THE LOW SIDE.
THE RUDDERS ARE MOVABLE SURFACES THAT REACT TO MOVING AIR. WHEN THEY ARE
SWUNG INTO THE AIRSTREAM OF THE MOVING PLANE, THE AIR STRIKING THEIR
SURFACES TURNS THE PLANE TO THE RIGHT OR LEFT.]
Early in the winter of 1905 the Wrights began work on a new machine,
incorporating many improvements resulting from their flying experience.
They continued to work quietly, and the only news of them that reached
the world came from the reports of farmers who lived near the flat-land
flying field. Confirmed reports showed that the Wrights had now covered
a distance of twenty-four miles in thirty-eight minutes.
[Illustration]
THE FIRST AIRPLANE
Many people speak of the Wright Brothers’ first airplane as a flimsy
contraption of sticks, cloth, and wire. Although it was indeed built of
wood, cloth and wire, it was, like everything else the Wrights built,
thoughtfully and painstakingly constructed. Its wings were efficient
lifting surfaces and the entire airplane was sound structurally. The
main force that went into it was the result of years of sound research
in aëronautical science. Orville and Wilbur Wright had solved all the
fundamental problems of flight before they built their first powered,
man-carrying airplane. They discovered the basic forces that control all
heavier-than-air flight: _lift_, _thrust_, _drag_, and _weight_. Today,
little more than forty years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk, those
_four forces_ discovered by the Wright Brothers still control the design
of every airplane built.
Equally important was their solution of the problem of controlled
flight. Their knowledge of the effect of air on the surfaces of the
wings helped the Wrights solve the problem of control. By warping the
wings they were able to turn the plane to the right or to the left. When
a wing-tip was warped downward it increased the lift of the wing,
causing it to rise. The opposite wing-tip warped upward lost lift and
the plane would fall off toward the low side. The effect was that of
dragging one oar of a boat in the water. To aid in turning the plane,
the machine was provided with a vertical rudder attached to the lateral
control. When the wings were warped, the rudder automatically swung to
enforce the turn.
The pilot’s right hand was on the lever which controlled the wing
warping and rudder. His left was on the lever which raised and lowered
the elevators. The lever at the extreme left also was attached to the
elevators, providing dual control. All movements of the controls were in
the direction of the desired attitude of the plane.
[Illustration: The Wright plane was mounted on skids and launched from a
monorail platform running on a track. The platform was attached by means
of cable and pulleys to a heavy weight swung from a tripod mast. When
the propellers were whirling and the weight was dropped, the plane shot
down the track and into the air.]
[Illustration]
The story of American aviation began in a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio.
It continued in the shop of a daredevil motorcycle racer and gasoline
engine builder at Hammondsport, New York.
While the Wright Brothers were quietly flying their plane on the flat
lands in Ohio, another self-taught, young Yankee was combining bicycles
and gasoline engines to create speedy motorcycles. Speed fascinated this
young man. He had started to build motorcycle engines of his own design
in order to win races and break speed records.
It was not long before the name of this young mechanic began to appear
repeatedly in connection with new motorcycle speed records. His name was
Glenn H. Curtiss, and he won race after race. His prize money was not
spent foolishly, but put into his experiments with gasoline engines.
In 1904, the pioneer American dirigible balloon builder, Captain Tom
Baldwin, saw a Curtiss motorcycle in California. One look at the engine
sent him scurrying to Hammondsport, New York, where he begged Glenn
Curtiss to build him an engine for a new dirigible he was building.
Curtiss built the engine, the first Curtiss engine to function in the
skies. He also flew Tom Baldwin’s dirigible, but he was not enthusiastic
over the idea of flying. “Not bad sport,” he remarked the first time he
flew the dirigible, “but there’s no place to go.” Curtiss had heard of
the flights of the Wright Brothers, but he was skeptical.
Before long Glenn Curtiss had another visitor. Dr. Alexander Graham
Bell, the inventor of the telephone, had long been interested in the
problems of flight, and had organized the Aërial Experiments Association
to encourage aëronautical efforts in this country. After talking for
hours, Dr. Bell converted Curtiss to a belief in the future of flying
and persuaded him to join the experimental group.
[Illustration: 1908
WINSPAN 40 FEET
LENGTH 20 FEET
GLENN H. CURTISS WAS THE NEXT AMERICAN TO FOLLOW THE WRIGHT BROTHERS IN
BUILDING SUCCESSFUL AIRPLANES.
POWER
ONE 4-CYLINDER 40-HP. ENGINE
CURTISS’S EXPERIENCE IN BUILDING MOTORCYCLE ENGINES LED HIM TO DESIGN
AMERICA’S BEST AIRCRAFT ENGINES.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
40 MILES
RANGE
1,000 FEET
CEILING
500 FEET
PAYLOAD
ONE PERSON
CURTISS WAS ABLE TO STUDY THE WORK OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS, AND AS HE WAS
A NATURAL MECHANIC, HE BUILT SUCCESSFUL PLANES FROM THE START. HIS
ENGINES WERE WELL BUILT AND HE SOON BEGAN TO TAKE THE LEAD IN MAKING
SPEED RECORDS. CURTISS USED BAMBOO FOR THE FRAMEWORK OF HIS EARLY
AIRPLANES. HE WAS THE FIRST TO DEVELOP A TRICYCLE LANDING GEAR, USING
WHEELS INSTEAD OF SKIDS.
FROM THE TIME OF HIS FIRST FLIGHTS CURTISS WAS A LEADER IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN AVIATION. HIS FIRST GREAT CONTRIBUTION TO THE
SCIENCE OF FLIGHT WAS THE INTRODUCTION OF THE INTER-WING LATERAL CONTROL
SURFACES, THE FORERUNNER OF THE AILERONS.]
[Illustration]
In November, 1907, Glenn H. Curtiss, in company with two young Canadian
engineers, F. W. Baldwin and J. A. D. McCurdy of Dr. Bell’s group, and
an official Army observer, Lieutenant Tom Selfridge, started to work on
a new airplane. Using all of the available existing flight research and
the ingenuity of Glenn H. Curtiss, the group finished their first plane
in March, 1908. On March 12 Baldwin flew it 300 feet. Curtiss then
designed an improved plane, the _June Bug_. With it he won the
_Scientific American_ contest by flying over a measured kilometer course
on July 4.
[Illustration]
AMERICA’S SECOND PLANE
In 1909, Glenn H. Curtiss, in a plane of his own design, again won the
_Scientific American_ award, by flying 24.7 miles over a closed course.
The plane he flew was built on order for the New York Aëronautical
Society. This was the first airplane order ever received by an American
aircraft manufacturer.
On July 25, 1909, a Frenchman, Louis Bleriot, flew his monoplane
twenty-five miles to cross the English Channel. Immediately there was
furor in Europe and golden prizes were posted for new airplane
developments and designs. The first big air race, the James Gordon
Bennett Cup race, was held at Rheims, France, in 1909. Glenn Curtiss
flew his machine against the pick of foreign pilots including Bleriot,
whom he beat by six seconds to win the Cup. His speed was forty-six
miles an hour.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: CURTISS CONTROL SYSTEM
CLIMB
BANK
TURN
ELEVATOR
RUDDER
ELEVATOR AND RUDDER CONTROLS
AILERON
AILERON CONTROL YOKE]
Glenn Curtiss had the benefit of the aëronautical research of the Wright
Brothers to aid him in designing his first airplanes, but he could not
use the wing warping method of control invented by them. This was
thoroughly protected by patents. As a result, Curtiss was forced to work
out a new system of lateral controls. He developed the aileron method of
control for use in turns or circular flight. He did this by mounting
small winglike planes on the rear struts of the plane, between the upper
and lower wings. These ailerons were hinged to swing up or down and were
attached by cables to a yoke which encircled the pilot’s shoulders. The
banking of the plane was produced by the movement of the flier as he
leaned against the yoke, pushing it in the direction of the desired
bank. Vertical motion was achieved by a fore and aft pressure on the
control column by the flier. The wheel on the control column was
attached to the vertical rudder by cables. Right or left steering was
produced by turning the wheel in the desired direction. To make a
climbing turn to the right, the flier would lean against the yoke,
pushing to the right. At the same time he would turn his wheel gently to
the right and pull the control slightly toward himself. Curtiss’ method
of control led the way to the modern type of wing aileron and the
general system of control was basically the same as that in use today.
POWER FOR THE AIRPLANE
Going back to the four forces that govern the flight of a plane, we find
_thrust_ pulling the plane forward. _Thrust_ is the force that keeps the
plane in the air; without it the airplane could not leave the ground for
sustained flight. _Thrust_ is created by the propeller. The propeller
blades function in the same manner as the wings. Just as the wing of a
plane bites into the air to cause _lift_, the propeller blades,
patterned after wing camber, bite into the air to create _thrust_. Their
action on the air is similar to a screw biting its way into wood.
The propeller is whirled by the engine. Without the engine to whirl it
the propeller is useless, for without _thrust_ we would have no _lift_.
That makes the engine the governing factor in flight. _Weight_ also is a
serious force in flight, and the Wrights and Curtiss found from the
beginning that the four-cycle gasoline engine would give greater power
for its weight than would a steam or electric engine.
The principle of the airplane engine is the same as the one used in the
automobile engine. However, weight always has been a problem to aircraft
designers. The automobile engine always has been too heavy for use in a
plane. When the Wrights built their first plane, automobile engines
weighed 25 to 35 pounds per horsepower. The Wrights built one that
weighed 13 pounds per horsepower and produced 12 horsepower. They used
this engine in 1903 to power their first plane. Since that time all
practical airplanes have been powered with gasoline engines, designed
specifically for use in heavier-than-air machines. Since the first
flight, engineers constantly have strived to produce engines with
greater power and less weight per horsepower. How well they have
succeeded is proved by the progress of the airplane.
[Illustration: HOW THE FOUR-CYCLE ENGINE WORKS
FOUR MOVEMENTS PRODUCE THE ENGINE’S POWER STROKE
1. Valve (1) opens for the INTAKE of gasoline and air vapor, and
the piston sucks it into the cylinder.
2. Valve (1) closes and the piston pushes up, producing a
COMPRESSION of the gas vapor in the cylinder.
3. Valves are closed and an electrical spark from the sparkplug
explodes the gas, forcing the piston down in the POWER stroke that
turns the crankshaft. This whirls the propeller.
4. Valve (2) opens and the piston rushes up, forcing out the
EXHAUST gases.]
It was in 1905 that the Wright Brothers had first offered to the Army a
license to use their patents; but nothing came of it. Reports coming
from Dayton during the next two years, concerning their flying
activities, caused the newspapers to publish a number of articles about
them.
Theodore Roosevelt, then our President, was a diligent reader, and
several articles about the Wrights attracted his attention. One day he
clipped one of these articles from a newspaper and scribbled across it
one word: “Investigate!” He passed it along to his Secretary of War,
William Howard Taft. In a short time the almost forgotten Wright
Brothers had a call from Brigadier General James Allen, U. S. Army
Signal Corps. In the autumn of 1907 Wilbur Wright appeared in Washington
to confer with the War Department.
A few months later, in July, 1907, an aëronautical division was
established in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army. In
December of that year the Army asked for bids on the construction of an
airplane. The specifications called for a machine that could carry a
weight of 350 pounds. It had to be able to remain in the air
continuously for one hour with two passengers. During the flight the
machine was required to remain under perfect control and to be capable
of being steered in all directions. Its speed should be 40 miles per
hour. The machine had to be built so that it could be taken apart and
packed for transportation in army wagons. Then it had to be reassembled
and put in flying condition in one hour.
By this time inventors everywhere were working on flying machines, but
the Wright Brothers were the only ones who put in an appearance with an
airplane for the Army trials in September, 1908.
Unfortunately the trial was a failure. The huge crowd gathered at Fort
Meyer, Virginia, was horrified to see a propeller fly off and the
machine crash, killing Lieutenant Tom Selfridge, the Army observer, and
injuring Orville Wright. Tom Selfridge thus became the first American
air martyr, and the future dimmed for the Wright Brothers and the
airplane.
[Illustration: 1909
WINGSPAN 36 FEET
LENGTH 28 FEET
THE 1909 WRIGHT BIPLANE BOUGHT BY THE UNITED STATES ARMY WAS THE WORLD’S
FIRST MILITARY AIRPLANE.
POWER
ONE 4-CYLINDER 30-HP. IN-LINE ENGINE
THE WRIGHTS DESIGNED AND BUILT THE FOUR-CYLINDER, VERTICAL, IN-LINE,
WATER-COOLED ENGINE THEMSELVES.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
44 MILES
RANGE
75 MILES
CEILING
3,000+ FEET
PAYLOAD
A PILOT AND ONE PASSENGER, TOTAL WEIGHT 350 LBS.
THE WRIGHT ARMY PLANE OBTAINED ITS _THRUST_ FROM TWO OPPOSITE-TURNING,
EIGHT AND ONE-HALF-FOOT PROPELLERS. ITS FRAME WAS CONSTRUCTED OF SPRUCE
WOOD AND WAS COVERED WITH UNDOPED FABRIC. THE GROSS WEIGHT OF THE WRIGHT
MACHINE WAS 1,200 POUNDS. THE PLANE WAS OF THE FINEST WORKMANSHIP AND
ITS PERFORMANCE EXCEEDED THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE ARMY OFFICERS WHO
OBSERVED ITS RIGID TESTS.
THAT THE U.S. ARMY WAS THE FIRST IN THE WORLD TO OWN A MILITARY AIRPLANE
WAS DUE TO THE LONG AND PAINSTAKING WORK OF THE WRIGHT BROTHERS. THEIR
SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEMS OF FLIGHT AND THEIR CAREFULLY DEVELOPED PLANS
GAVE THE WORLD A PATTERN FOR THE FUTURE OF AVIATION.]
[Illustration]
FIRST ARMY AIRPLANE
Fortunately, the Army considered the crash a result of material failure
rather than a basic fault of the airplane. A year later, in July, 1909,
Army trials again were held at Fort Meyer, with only the Wrights
appearing on the scene. On July 30, Orville Wright, accompanied by
Lieutenant (now Brigadier-General, retired) Frank Lahm, as the Army’s
observer, flew around the course, and fulfilled with ease the Army’s
speed and endurance specifications. The Army had its first plane, and on
August 2 formal acceptance was made--just six years after man had first
flown in a heavier-than-air machine. Thus the U. S. Army was the first
in the world to own a military airplane.
[Illustration: GLENN L. MARTIN’S FIRST AIRPLANE]
AMERICA BECOMES AIR-MINDED
The United States Navy also had been giving an occasional glance toward
the airplane. It had been represented at the Army trials by Lieutenant
G. C. Sweet and Naval Constructor William McIntee. These observers were
enthusiastic and reported: “The Navy must have airplanes.”
Another interested spectator was a young midshipman who had robbed his
savings bank in order to witness the Army airplane trials. The young man
was Donald Douglas. He, too, was most enthusiastic, but he left the
trials with a vision, not of Army planes, but of giant passenger planes
flying all over the world. We will hear more of him later.
On the day after the Army trials at Fort Meyer another young man far
away in California headed his homemade airplane into the wind and took
off on his first flight. This young fellow was Glenn L. Martin who, with
the help and encouragement of his mother, had built a plane in an
abandoned church in Santa Ana, California. He not only designed and
built his airplane but, in addition, taught himself to fly. We will also
hear more of Glenn.
As the summer of 1910 rolled around, the flights of F. W. Baldwin and
Glenn Curtiss, as well as the recognition accorded the Wrights by the
Army, kindled at last the public imagination. All over the country
people started clamoring for a chance to see an airplane in action. As a
result the Wrights and Curtiss were swamped by requests from daring
young men who wanted to fly. People even wanted to buy airplanes for
sport.
[Illustration]
For the first time in its history, America had become air-minded.
The conservative Wright Brothers at last realized that the only way in
which the public could be taught to understand the possibilities of the
airplane was through seeing it perform. They picked a group of
intelligent young daredevils and formed a flying team. This Wright
flying team and a similar group under the banner of Glenn Curtiss toured
the county fairs and brought aviation to the American public. In
California, the twenty-year-old Glenn Martin was giving flying
exhibitions to earn money with which to build bigger and better
airplanes. Truly 1910 was a great year for aviation.
On May 29, 1910, Glenn Curtiss won the _New York World_ prize of $10,000
for the first flight from Albany to New York City. He flew 137 miles at
a speed of 54.8 miles per hour. In August another chapter in aërial
history was written by the sending of a wireless message to the ground
from an airplane in flight.
[Illustration: GLENN CURTISS FLIES FROM ALBANY TO NEW YORK]
In September, 1910, 20,000 Bostonians had their first sight of the
airplane in action when the Harvard Aëronautical Society sponsored a
great aviation exhibition at Squantum, Massachusetts. The prizes,
amounting to $100,000, attracted the largest group of pilots and planes
ever to assemble in the United States. Claude Graham-White, the
Englishman, flew a French Farman biplane and a speedy Bleriot monoplane.
Another Englishman, A. V. Roe, who today builds the Avro-Lancaster,
exhibited his big triplane, and the spectators were thrilled as the
daring Wright and Curtiss pilots demonstrated America’s best planes.
[Illustration: THE HARVARD-BOSTON AIR-MEET. FRENCH FARMAN(1) WRIGHT
BIPLANE(2) BLERIOT’S MONOPLANE(3) SANTOS-DUMONT’S MONOPLANE(4) WRIGHT
PILOT DROPS BOMB ON A DUMMY BATTLESHIP(5) GLENN CURTISS BIPLANE(6)
A.V.ROE’S ENGLISH TRIPLANE(7)]
[Illustration]
The Boston air meet was followed by an equally successful one at Belmont
Park, N. Y., in October, 1910. Here daring pilots flew their planes in
rain and wind, and tried many new stunts.
Ralph Johnstone, a daring Wright pilot, thrilled the crowds when he
turned his plane sidewise to an almost vertical angle and then descended
in a tight spiral. Walter Brookins, another Wright flier, performed his
famous “short turn” in which he stood his plane vertically in the air
and revolved about one wing as on a pivot. Though these pilots
constantly endeavored to create new thrills for the crowds, they
unconsciously were testing the capabilities of their airplanes. They
also were creating the technique of flying. These early meets were the
testing laboratories of aviation.
[Illustration]
The meetings at Boston and Belmont Park served another purpose in
addition to thrilling the crowds and testing the airplanes. They paved
the way for the beginning of United States naval aviation. Lieutenant
Charles A. Blakely, U.S.N., was ordered by the Navy Department to attend
the Boston meet as an official observer. He not only observed, but he
flew with Charles Willard in a Curtiss airplane. His report on the
possibilities of the airplane was so enthusiastic that the Navy ordered
Captain Washington Irving Chambers to keep the Navy Department informed
concerning the progress of aviation in relation to its use in naval
tactics.
Many of the older naval officers of that period were aligned against the
airplane. They could not visualize a land airplane being used in
connection with a sea-going Navy. Captain Chambers was interested in
engineering and, furthermore, he was somewhat of a dreamer. But his
dreams were practical. He came away from the Belmont Park air meet with
the firm conviction that the airplane was satisfactory once it was in
the air, and that it could be of great value to the Navy for scouting,
gunfire observation, and bombing. However, to be of any great value, the
airplanes must go to sea with the fleet. The airplane would offer the
captain of a ship or the admiral of the fleet a magic power capable of
revealing to them what lay beyond the horizon. This was Captain
Chambers’ dream. The Navy was fortunate in having such a farseeing
officer.
As there was available at that time no airplane capable of operating
from the water, the Navy was forced to adopt the idea of using a
landplane. There had been considerable talk in 1910 of flying a
landplane off the deck of an ocean liner for the purpose of speeding
transoceanic mail delivery. In fact, arrangements were then being
completed for such a test from a Hamburg-American ocean liner in New
York. But Captain Chambers was not a man to allow the United States Navy
to come in second in such an experiment. If an airplane could be flown
from the deck of a vessel, let it be a Navy ship. The cruiser U. S. S.
_Birmingham_ was placed at the Captain’s disposal and he went to work
immediately preparing for the first attempt to fly an airplane from the
deck of a ship. He had a temporary platform erected on the fore deck of
the _Birmingham_. It was built of planks, was eighty-three feet long and
twenty-eight feet wide, and sloped downward toward the bow of the ship.
[Illustration]
As the Navy had no pilots, a civilian flier, Eugene Ely, was lent for
the test by Glenn Curtiss, whose plane was being used. On Monday,
November 14, 1910, in the most unfavorable weather, Ely rolled across
the platform into the rain and mist. At the end of the platform his
plane dived toward the water. Ely pulled up on his elevators and flew
on. He landed on a sand bar after a flight of two and one-half miles,
and another chapter in naval history was made.
[Illustration]
THE ARMY AND NAVY SPREAD THEIR WINGS
Although successful, Eugene Ely’s flight from the deck of the
_Birmingham_ had little effect on the Navy’s conservative attitude
toward aviation. At times, as the skeptical comments of naval officers
continued, it appeared that Captain Chambers was being dared to prove
the value of the airplane to the Navy. It was fortunate for the United
States that the Captain was an officer willing to accept the challenge.
Captain Chambers asked for funds to purchase several of the existing
types of airplanes for the purpose of training navy personnel in the art
of flying. As no money was available, the Captain had to continue his
experiments in co-operation with aircraft manufacturers and civilian
fliers. Spurred by the successful flight of Ely, Glenn Curtiss willingly
aided Captain Chambers. Curtiss was so enthusiastic about the future of
naval aviation that he approached the Navy Department with the offer to
train, without cost to the service, an officer to fly. After
considerable discussion in the Department, Lieutenant Theodore G.
Ellyson, U. S. Navy, was ordered to join Curtiss.
Curtiss moved his flying activities to San Diego, California, in 1910,
and it was there that Lieutenant Ellyson became the first American naval
officer to learn to fly. This was eight years after the first flights of
the Wright Brothers.
[Illustration]
Curtiss had collected a group of skilled pilots to fly under his
direction. In this group were McCurdy, Willard, Witmer, Ely, and the
famous Lincoln Beachey. With this assemblage Curtiss was able to make
great strides in the progress of flying and aircraft development.
Curtiss and Captain Chambers, working closely together, laid their plans
for proving to the Navy Department the capabilities of the airplane.
Both men were convinced thoroughly that it was possible to take off in
an airplane from the deck of a ship, fly to a designated spot, fly back,
and land on the deck. There was a great amount of ridicule at this idea,
but Curtiss and Chambers went ahead with their plans and erected a
120-foot platform on the deck of the cruiser U. S. S. _Pennsylvania_. On
January 18, 1911, a Curtiss landplane, with Eugene Ely at the controls,
soared from the deck, circled out over the water, and approached the
cruiser. Twenty-two pairs of fifty-pound sandbags were attached to lines
drawn taut across the deck platform. The plane was equipped with steel
hooks for use in catching the deck lines. Ely flew in at the speed of
thirty-nine miles an hour. Sailors aboard the _Pennsylvania_ ducked for
cover, expecting the plane to overshoot the platform. Just as he reached
the end of the platform, Ely pulled up the nose of his ship, and cut off
the engine. The plane settled to the deck. Then and there were the
beginnings of what eventually was to become the most effective weapon of
the United States Navy--the _aircraft carrier_.
During the winter of 1911, Curtiss designed the first American seaplane,
or hydroplane as it was then called. On January 26th, he made a flight
of thirty-one seconds and landed smoothly on the water. That afternoon
he made a number of flights, to the delight of the crowds that lined the
Coronado shores of the Spanish Bight off San Diego. Little did the
onlookers dream that years later flying boats of the United States Navy
would fly over the Seven Seas, even remaining aloft for a day at a time.
In addition to Lieutenant Ellyson, Captain Chambers succeeded in having
Lieutenants John H. Towers and John Rogers ordered to report for flight
instruction. These three men became Navy Pilots One, Two and Three.
Pilot Number 3 was Lieutenant (now Vice Admiral) John H. Towers, who
ever since has made his name synonymous with the progress of naval
aviation. In July, 1911, the United States Navy took delivery of its
first airplanes, one Wright and two Curtiss landplanes. Later that year
the Navy established its first aviation camp on the banks of Severn
River just across from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
[Illustration]
During this time the United States Army was making some progress with
military aviation. In March, 1911, Congress was prevailed upon to
appropriate $125,000 for aëronautics. The Army bought three more
airplanes, the first since the purchase of one Wright airplane in 1909.
In July, 1911, the first military aviation school was established at
College Park, Maryland. The Army’s first instructor was Army Pilot
Number 1, Lieutenant Frank Lahm. The first students were Lieutenants
Benjamin Foulois, Thomas DeW. Milling, and the man who was destined,
thirty-two years later, to lead the world’s greatest air force, Henry H.
(“Hap”) Arnold, Commanding General, United States Army Air Forces during
World War II.
[Illustration]
Flying in two Wright and one Curtiss biplanes, the fledgling Army fliers
conducted experimental work in aërial photography and radio. But these
forward-looking young men, even then, saw the airplane as a weapon and
began seeking ways of dealing out destruction to an enemy. They fired
machine guns at ground targets, tested a bomb sight, and dropped small
bombs from their planes.
[Illustration]
In 1905 a newspaper in Salina, Kansas, had carried a story of two
brothers named Wright. This story robbed the budding “auto” industry of
a promising young mechanic, Glenn L. Martin by name.
As a boy, Glenn Martin built and flew the very best kites in Salina. As
he grew older he was thrilled by the appearance of the horseless
carriage. As soon as he was old enough he took a job in Dave Methven’s
garage, convinced that there was a future in the noisy “gas-buggies.”
In the surge of interest in automobiles, Glenn Martin had all but
forgotten the stories of Chanute and Lilienthal and the old urge of the
winds in his kites. In 1905, after reading the newspaper story
concerning the Wrights, he excitedly told his mother, “I am going to
fly, too!” And he did.
A short time after he made that remark, Glenn’s family moved to
California and he soon became a successful automobile salesman. But he
did not forget his decision to fly. With his mother’s support, he began
to build his plane by night, after selling cars all day. With his mother
holding a lantern for him, he often worked most of the night in the
abandoned church that served as his workshop. In spite of neighborly
criticism, Glenn finished his plane and flew it from a Santa Ana cow
pasture, on August 1, 1909.
[Illustration: 1909-1910
WINGSPAN 30 FEET
LENGTH 20 FEET
GLENN L. MARTIN DESIGNED HIS OWN AIRPLANE AND BUILT IT HIMSELF WITH
MONEY EARNED BY SELLING AUTOMOBILES.
POWER
ONE 4-CYLINDER 20-HP. FORD ENGINE
MARTIN USED A SECONDHAND FORD AUTOMOBILE ENGINE TO CREATE THE POWER FOR
HIS FIRST PLANE.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
30 MILES
RANGE
75 MILES
CEILING
3,000+ FEET
PAYLOAD
ONE PERSON
GLENN MARTIN’S FIRST AIRPLANE, BUILT WITH THE HELP OF HIS MOTHER IN AN
OLD ABANDONED CHURCH, WAS A LANDPLANE OF THE PUSHER TYPE SIMILAR IN
APPEARANCE TO THE CURTISS AIRPLANE. MARTIN BUILT BOTH LANDPLANES AND
SEAPLANES OF VARIOUS SIZES AND POWER. HE SOLD HIS PLANES MOSTLY TO
EXHIBITION FLYERS AND WEALTHY SPORTSMEN. IN THOSE EARLY DAYS NO ONE
WOULD HAVE EVER DREAMED THAT HE WAS LATER TO BUILD AN 80-TON PLANE.
GLENN L. MARTIN WAS ONE OF AVIATION’S MOST ENERGETIC PIONEERS. HE BUILT
MANY AIRPLANES OF VARIOUS TYPES. THEY WERE ALL SUCCESSFUL. HIS GREATEST
CONTRIBUTION TO EARLY AVIATION, HOWEVER, WAS THAT HIS FLYING EXHIBITIONS
INTRODUCED THE AIRPLANE TO THE PUBLIC ON THE PACIFIC COAST.]
[Illustration]
As soon as he had successfully flown his first airplane, Martin began to
plan better machines. He gave flying exhibitions all over southern
California to earn the money to build more Martin planes. In January,
1912, he flew the first mail from Dominguez, California, to Compton,
California. In April of that year he flew twenty-four miles in
twenty-five minutes, to deliver newspapers from Fresno, California, to a
neighboring town. On May 10, 1910, Martin flew thirty-three miles over
the ocean from Newport Harbor, California, to Catalina Island. This
first trans-Pacific flight was made in a hydroplane of Martin’s own
design.
UNITED STATES MILITARY AND NAVAL AVIATION WORLD WAR I
Although America was actually the birthplace of the airplane, many years
passed after the first flight of the Wright Brothers before there was
any real consideration of the military or civil values of aviation. That
aviation did progress at all in its early years was due to the efforts
of a few fledgling military fliers, a group of barnstormers, and a
handful of aircraft builders.
Working closely together, these men flew and experimented with our first
flying machines. They risked their lives time and again in order to
learn everything possible about flying and the flying machine. As a
result of crashes and hairbreadth escapes, these men discovered many
faults and set about correcting them.
Each make of plane had a different control system, and an all-around
flier had to master several varieties of levers and wheels in order to
be able to fly all types of machines. A pilot originally was forced to
fly his plane while sitting on an exposed and uncomfortable perch at the
edge of the wing. Just back of his seat was mounted the heavy engine
ready to topple over on him in case of a crash.
[Illustration]
The first step in correcting some of the faults of the early airplane
came with the development of a body, or fuselage. The first fuselages
were built of spruce frames covered with fabric and strengthened with
wire. They were mounted between the wings and braced to them. The engine
and propeller were housed in the front of the fuselage. Farther back an
enclosed compartment, or cockpit, was provided for the pilot. Thus he
was moved from his perch on the wing with the engine at his back into a
safer and more comfortable location.
The development of the fuselage caused the elevators to be taken away
from the front of the machine. These were combined with the stabilizer
and rudder attached to the rear of the fuselage. The Wright method of
wing warping to produce lateral control was dispensed with and the
Curtiss type of aileron was moved up from the wing struts and hinged to
the trailing edge of the wings. This established the ailerons as part of
the _lift_ surfaces of the wings, giving them a more direct influence on
the lateral movements of the airplane.
With the new positions of the control surfaces came the second important
step, the standard control system. This system made use of a single
control column, or stick, and a rudder bar. The stick was attached by
means of cables and pulleys to both the ailerons and the elevators. A
hinged arrangement allowed the stick to be moved forward and backward,
and to the right or to the left. The forward and backward movement of
the stick controlled the up and down position of the elevators. The
right and left movement of the stick raised or lowered the ailerons.
Steering to right or left was accomplished by pressure of the pilot’s
feet on a bar that was attached to the rudder by cables. All positions
of the airplane were caused by gently pressing the control stick and
rudder bar in the direction of the flight movement desired by the pilot.
By 1915, American airplane builders had adopted a standard biplane
design with an enclosed fuselage and a two-wheel and tail-skid landing
gear, typified by the Curtiss _Jenny_ at the left.
The beginning of World War I, in Europe, saw the first use of the
airplane by the military. At first, warring pilots flying over the
battle lines actually exchanged friendly waves in passing. This was the
expression of brotherly feeling among men who already had risked their
lives to conquer the flying machine.
But this knightly feeling did not last long. One belligerent flier
carried a rifle aloft. This rifle inspired the thought of the machine
gun, and war in the air, as in the trenches, became a survival of the
fittest.
In the United States, the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, U. S. Army,
was just two weeks old. When it was created on July 18, 1914, the
Aviation Section had an authorized personnel of 60 officers and 260
enlisted men, and a few airplanes. In Europe, every major power boasted
of hundreds of planes.
The year 1916, two years after the start of World War I, saw Army
aviation in its first offensive action. Eight low-powered planes engaged
in a punitive expedition against Mexican bandits. The chief result of
this expedition was the severe newspaper criticism of the poor showing
made by our fliers and America’s lack of improved types of combat
planes.
As the result of the criticism created by the Mexican expedition,
Congress, in June, 1916, voted funds for the expansion of Army aviation.
But aviation development required time and, actually, when the United
States went into World War I on April 6, 1917, Army aviation consisted
of but 65 officers (including only 35 fliers), 1,087 enlisted men, and
55 airplanes. All of the planes were obsolete and none carried machine
guns.
Thus, with no military planes suitable for use against a well-equipped
enemy, no fliers trained in the use of high-powered fighting planes and
aërial machine guns, and with few factories that had had any previous
experience in the production of airplanes, America plunged into the
midst of World War I.
Although a little late, America went to work. Having no good combat
designs of our own, our fliers fought in British and French airplanes.
We developed the best training plane in the world, the Curtiss
JN-_Jenny_ (page 32), and trained 15,000 flying cadets. By March, 1918,
our Army Aviation strength was 11,000 officers and 120,000 enlisted men.
At the time of the Armistice we had 757 pilots, 481 observers, with 740
planes at the front and 1,402 pilots and 769 airplanes in the Zone of
Advance, ready for combat. Our pilots were credited with the destruction
of 491 enemy airplanes, of which 462 were accounted for by 63 airmen. We
had produced 26 aces, each of whom had destroyed five or more enemy
aircraft.
[Illustration: FIGHTING PLANES OF WORLD WAR I
BRITISH DH-4
BRITISH _CAMEL_
GERMAN _ALBATROS_
GERMAN FOKKER
FRENCH _SPAD_]
[Illustration]
THE FIRST TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT
United States naval aviation had made slow but steady progress in the
years just preceding World War I. Bombing and scouting practice was
engaged in by naval planes and considerable headway was made in the
development of larger flying boats and amphibians.
When war was declared in 1917, naval aviation consisted of 54 airplanes,
38 pilots, and 163 enlisted men. By rapid expansion it had reached the
strength of more than 50,000 men and over 2,000 airplanes by the end of
the war. Some 17,000 men and 540 airplanes were sent abroad during the
conflict. Extremely successful anti-submarine and patrol operations were
carried on throughout the war, and our naval aviators served with great
distinction.
Our early models of big flying boats, like the F5-L above, were so
successful that the Navy ordered even larger ones. The “big boats” as
they were termed, were giant four-engine planes with a wingspan of 126
feet, the largest built to that time. Their size created a difficult
shipping problem and it was decided that they were to be flown overseas.
Commander John H. Towers, pioneer naval operator, was assigned to the
task of supervising their construction and flight tests. The planes were
ordered in December, 1917, and ten months later the first of the “big
boats” proved its ability in a series of test flights. The planes were
designated the NC’s, Navy Curtiss. With everyone rushing madly to finish
the NC’s for their overseas flight, the war ended abruptly.
[Illustration: 1919
WINGSPAN 126 FEET
LENGTH 68 FEET
POWER
FOUR 12-CYLINDER 400-HP. _LIBERTY_ ENGINES
THE GIANT CURTISS NC FLYING BOATS WERE THE LARGEST PLANES THAT HAD BEEN
BUILT AT THAT TIME. THEIR BIG WINGS SPANNED A DISTANCE GREATER THAN THAT
COVERED IN THE FIRST AIRPLANE FLIGHTS.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
100 MILES
RANGE
2,000+ MILES
CEILING
5,000+ FEET
PAYLOAD
SIX-MAN CREW
THE BIG BOATS HAD A GOOD TOP SPEED CONSIDERING THEIR SIZE. THEY COULD
CARRY 1,800 GALLONS OF GASOLINE, AND ON A TEST FLIGHT ONE NC FLYING BOAT
SOARED ALOFT WITH 51 PASSENGERS.
THREE PROPELLERS WHIRLED IN FRONT OF THE NC’S WINGS AND ONE OTHER, A
PUSHER, TURNED BEHIND THE CENTER OF THE WINGS.
THE HUGE NC FLYING BOATS WERE THE FIRST FOUR-ENGINED AIRPLANES BUILT IN
THE UNITED STATES. THEY NOT ONLY PROVED THAT WE COULD BUILD BIG
AIRPLANES, BUT THAT SHIPS OF THIS TYPE WERE PRACTICAL FOR OVER-OCEAN
FLIGHTS. THEY ALSO SHOWED THE POSSIBILITIES OF GIANT, LONG-RANGE NEW
PATROL PLANES.]
[Illustration]
After the Armistice the NC’s were not needed in Europe, but they were
ready and the Navy felt sure that they could fly the Atlantic. On May 6,
1919, three NC’s took off from Far Rockaway, New York, on one of the
most significant flights in history. After making a stop at Trepassey
Bay, Newfoundland, the NC’s with “Jack” Towers in command, flew through
the stormy Atlantic night to land the following morning on the water
near Horta in the Azores. The planes were badly battered, and the crews
were weary. Only the NC-4 Lieutenant Commander A. C. Read in charge,
flew on to Lisbon, Portugal, and finally to Plymouth, England, in the
first transatlantic flight.
[Illustration]
A month after the first transatlantic flight of the U. S. Navy NC boats,
two Royal Flying Corps pilots, Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur
Brown, flying a two-engined Vickers Vimy biplane, flew nonstop from
Newfoundland to Ireland. To those two hardy adventurers goes the credit
for the first nonstop crossing of the Atlantic by airplane.
MEN AND MACHINES WORLD WAR I
Slow as she had been in starting, America picked up speed and finished
World War I with a record definitely creditable. American aviation
discarded its swaddling clothes forever. At the time of the Armistice,
American fliers had flown more than 3,500,000 miles in battle and
dropped 275,000 pounds of explosives on the Germans. In plane-to-plane
combat our military pilots showed a courage and initiative unequaled by
ally or foe.
With our entry into the war, our infant aviation industry also picked up
speed. With typical American energy it built up an enviable production
record before the end of the war. As America had no combat airplane
designs at the start of the war, our industry turned out planes and
engines of foreign design. Aircraft factories built English DH-4
observation planes, Handley-Page bombers, and SE-5 fighter planes. We
did build one plane of American design, the Curtiss JN-4 _Jenny_
training plane. The _Jenny_ was the best training plane in the world at
that time. Our factories built hundreds of them in 1917 and 1918.
Practically all American and many Allied fliers received their flight
training in the famous old _Jennies_.
The science of flight was only slightly more than ten years old when men
decided to use the airplane as a military weapon in actual warfare.
Therefore it can be understood that the fighting planes of World War I
were fairly elementary in every way. They were fairly standard in design
and construction--all biplanes with enclosed fuselage and two-wheel and
tail-skid landing gear. The French Nieuport-27 fighter plane, brought
out in 1915, was considered the outstanding aërial achievement of its
day. The first of the British fighters was the Sopwith _Camel_. The
Nieuport-27 was followed in 1916 by the famous French Spad and in 1917
by the Nieuport-28. The Germans used the Fokker fighter designed by
Anthony Fokker, a Hollander.
Fighter planes of World War I had an average wingspan of 28 feet, and a
ceiling of about 20,000 feet. They were powered with engines of 150
horsepower, their speeds ranged from 100 to 125 miles per hour. Their
average weight was 1,500 pounds and they carried enough gasoline for a
two hours’ flight and were armed with two .30-caliber machine guns. All
of these planes had the habit of shedding parts under stress of battle
and more pilots were killed during the war because of defective
equipment, lack of parachutes, and inexperience than as a result of
enemy action.
The long-range heavy bomber also came into being during World War I.
Before the conflict was over many farsighted military men visualized it
as the most important military weapon produced by the science of flight.
Our own General “Billy” Mitchell was one of the first to visualize its
possibilities.
The British two-engined Handley-Page bomber carried the brunt of heavy
bombardment action during the war. It carried a one-thousand-pound bomb
load, with its bombs ranging from 15 to 600 pounds each. It had a range
of 250 miles and was credited with a great deal of destructive work
behind the German lines. At the end of the war a new and larger
Handley-Page bomber with a range of 650 miles and a 2-ton bomb load
capacity was ready to carry the war far beyond the enemy’s lines. While
the Germans relied mainly on their big Zeppelins for long-range
bombardment, they also used the big two-engined _Gotha_ bomber for raids
on French cities.
Whether the airplane had any real effect on the outcome of World War I
is questionable. It did, however, set keen-minded military men to
thinking in a manner that made the airplane the key weapon of World War
II.
During World War I, American aviation production was centered around the
three great names that had typified the airplane since its earliest
days--Wright, Curtiss, and Martin. Wilbur Wright died on May 30, 1912,
from typhoid fever, and in 1915 Orville disposed of his interests in the
Wright Company. He continued, however, to act as a consultant for the
company. In California, young Glenn L. Martin’s company had prospered
with war orders from the United States and foreign governments. His
chief engineer was the young midshipman who, not so many years before,
had robbed his penny bank to watch the trials of the first Wright Army
plane--Donald Douglas. Larry Bell, of whom we will hear more in
connection with another great war, was Martin’s general manager. In
1916, the Martin Company and the Wright Company were joined in
partnership, as the Wright-Martin Company. This organization was a heavy
contributor to the war effort, turning out hundreds of airplane engines
for the Allies. The Curtiss company produced the famous Jenny training
plane and many flying boats for the Navy, including the big NC flying
boats. America also produced the celebrated 12-cylinder, 450-horsepower
_Liberty_ engine. It was the lightest per horsepower aviation engine in
the World and was used to power the American-built DH-4 observation
plane used by the Army in the latter part of the war. Considering the
fact that it was only a dozen years since man had first flown in a
powered airplane and that our knowledge of aërial warfare was extremely
limited, both manufacturers and aviators did a splendid job in the First
World War.
It was in terms of men rather than in aërial victories that America
profited. As the result of the foundation laid by men like Wilbur and
Orville Wright, Glenn H. Curtiss, Glenn L. Martin, E. J. Hall and J. G.
Vincent (inventors of the Liberty engine), Guy Vaughn of Curtiss, Donald
Douglas, and others, America gained world leadership in the production
of aircraft engines and airplanes.
Many of the young men who flew the “crates” of World War I for the
American Army and Navy are the men whose names make headlines in
commercial air transport and on the world-wide battlefronts today. Many
a pilot who got his first flying training in a _Jenny_ or a Curtiss
flying boat is now an airline executive or a world-famous flying general
or admiral. It was the steadfast efforts of such veteran airmen as
Mitchell, Arnold, Spaatz, Eaker, Rickenbacker, Harold L. George, Artemus
Gates, Bob Lovett, Louis Brereton, Jimmy Doolittle, Frank Lahm, Gill
Robb Wilson, Jack Jouett, John H. Towers, and others, who have built
American air supremacy.
The famous Curtiss _Jenny_ that served the Army so well as a training
plane also helped keep aviation alive in the days following World War I.
Ex-Army fliers used them for pleasure and business, and a few of them
used them to start some of the country’s first airlines.
[Illustration]
THE FIRST AIR MAIL
On May 15, 1918, America’s first official airplane mail service was
inaugurated. The man in charge was Major Reuben H. Fleet, U. S. Army Air
Service. We will hear more of Major Fleet later on in our story.
Piloted by Army aviators, airplanes took off from Washington, D. C.,
bound for New York, via Philadelphia--and from New York bound for
Washington, by the same route. Twenty minutes after Lieutenant George
Boyle took off from Potomac Park, Washington, with 350 pounds of mail,
he lost his course, and in landing near Waldorf, Maryland, the plane
nosed over, breaking the propeller. Lieutenant Leroy Webb, who took off
from the old Belmont Race Track near New York City at 11:40 A.M., had
better luck, however, and reached Philadelphia an hour and twenty
minutes later. Lieutenant J. C. Edgerton took over the controls and flew
on from there, landing in Washington at 4:00 P.M. Within another half
hour Boy Scouts had completed delivery of the 500 letters and parcels
consigned to Washington, and air mail service in the United States had
begun.
Wartime Curtiss _Jenny_ training planes were used for the first air mail
service. They could carry about 300 pounds of mail and had a top speed
of 90 miles per hour. In August, 1918, the air mail service was taken
over by the Post Office Department.
[Illustration: THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT PASSENGER COMFORT. A TWO-PLACE CABIN
INSTALLED IN A DH-4 BY AIR MAIL MECHANICS IN 1920.]
[Illustration: 1918-1920
WINGSPAN LENGTH
THE DH-4 BIPLANE, ORIGINALLY AN OBSERVATION SHIP IN WORLD WAR I,
WAS CONVERTED FOR PEACETIME USE AS A MAIL PLANE BY THE POST OFFICE
DEPARTMENT.
POWER
ONE 12-CYLINDER, 400-HP., LIQUID-COOLED ENGINE.
THE DH-4 MAIL PLANE WAS POWERED WITH A _LIBERTY_ ENGINE FROM THE
ARMY’S SURPLUS WAR STOCK.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
100 MILES
RANGE
350 MILES
CEILING
4,000
FEET
THE DH-4 HAD A CRUISING SPEED OF APPROXIMATELY 100 MILES PER HOUR
AND A RANGE OF AROUND 350 MILES UNDER GOOD WEATHER CONDITIONS.
=ALTHOUGH IT WAS ABLE= TO REACH A HIGHER CEILING, ITS BEST
PERFORMANCE WAS AT ALTITUDES FROM 2,000 TO 4,000 FEET.
PAYLOAD
2 PERSONS OR 1 PERSON AND 350 POUNDS OF CARGO.
IN ADDITION TO THE PILOT, THE DH-4 COULD CARRY ONE PASSENGER OR A
350-POUND LOAD OF MAIL OR EXPRESS.
THE DH-4 WAS ORIGINALLY BUILT FOR WAR SERVICE WHERE THE COST OF
OPERATION WAS A SECONDARY MATTER. IT WAS A COMPARATIVELY SLOW SHIP AND
DID NOT FLY WELL IN BAD WEATHER. IT HAD A VERY SMALL PAYLOAD CAPACITY
AND WAS COSTLY TO OPERATE. POSTAGE RATE FOR AIR MAIL THEN WAS 24 CENTS
PER OUNCE.]
[Illustration]
The original air mail route of 1918 was only 218 miles in length, but it
was not long before the Post Office Department extended the service. By
September, 1920, transcontinental air mail service was in operation
between New York and San Francisco, California.
Flying in single-engined, open-cockpit Army _Jennies_ and DH-4’s, the
unsung pioneers of our early air mail service were Army aviators. They
had no reliable flight instruments. Roads, rivers, and railroad tracks
were their only airway markers, and the family wash on a clothes line
was the means by which the fliers ascertained their wind direction.
PRECISION BOMBING IS BORN
The end of World War I found Army aviation with a personnel of 18,000
officers and 135,000 enlisted men. Aircraft manufacturers with expanded
production facilities were proceeding at full speed. Within a very short
time the aviation strength of the Army was reduced to 1,000 officers and
10,000 enlisted men. Aircraft contracts were canceled and soon after the
close of the war many aircraft firms were forced out of business. As a
result, the Army was left to carry on with reconditioned wartime
airplanes and engines.
Men like General “Billy” Mitchell fought to keep the Army from
forgetting aviation. This was a peace-loving country and most people
felt that the United States had fought its last war. Mitchell organized
a transcontinental air race. He tried to persuade the Government to
build lighted airways across the country for commercial aviation, but
met with little support. Ex-Army aviators bought discarded Army planes,
barnstormed the country, carried passengers at five dollars a hop, and
tried in every way possible to keep aviation alive. But the early
twenties saw aviation in an almost hopeless struggle for existence.
The three big names of aviation continued to lead in the struggling
airplane manufacturing field. The Wright-Martin Company separated. The
Wright interests became the Wright Aëronautical Corporation and those of
Martin became the Glenn L. Martin Company. The Wright organization made
airplane engines, and the Martin Company, with Glenn L. Martin still its
director, began to build a big two-engine bomber. The Curtiss Company
continued to build airplanes.
The devastating raids made by our big bombers on enemy lands, led many
people to believe that the heavy bomber of the Army Air Forces was a
“miracle” weapon born of World War II. Airmen know better. In World War
I, General Mitchell believed that heavy long-range bombers could have
bombed Germany to a more decisive defeat. However, we had no heavy
bombers in 1918. It was not until 1921 that General Mitchell had an
opportunity to prove the destructive power of aërial bombs.
In July of that year, using six Martin BM-1 bombers, the Army sank the
giant 22,000-ton, ex-German battleship _Ostfriesland_ with aërial bombs
in 25 minutes. “Billy” Mitchell’s theory was proved and America’s policy
of long-range, precision bombing was born.
[Illustration: MARTIN BM-1
AMERICA’S FIRST TWO-ENGINED BOMBER. POWERED WITH TWO 400-HP. _LIBERTY_
ENGINES, ITS SPEED WAS 118 MILES PER HOUR. ITS WINGSPAN WAS 71 FEET.]
[Illustration]
THE U. S. NAVY’S FIRST AIRCRAFT CARRIER
Ever since that morning in January, 1911, when Eugene Ely took off from
a platform on the deck of the cruiser _Pennsylvania_, flew around, and
landed back on the deck, farsighted naval leaders had dreamed of taking
the airplane to sea with the fleet.
World War I and the use of naval aviation in anti-submarine and patrol
duties had stopped progress in experiments along this line. It was not
until the end of the war that Navy men began to consider the idea of
building a surface vessel capable of carrying airplanes to sea. It was
soon recognized that such a ship must be devoted exclusively to the
carrying and handling of airplanes. It must be literally an aircraft
carrier.
The idea of the carrier created several problems. Assuming that the
pilots could land on the bobbing deck of a vessel, how were the planes
to be stopped? Then there was the question of training flying boat
pilots to handle landplanes. While some Navy pilots had obtained
landplane experience overseas during the war, the majority had never
been aloft in any type of machine other than a seaplane.
Nevertheless, the entire idea appealed to our Navy men and the project
was undertaken. The Army agreed to provide landplane training facilities
for Navy pilots. Under the command of Lieutenant Commander G. DeC.
Chavalier, U.S.N., the Navy pilots first mastered the technique of
flying landplanes. They learned to land their planes in small areas
marked out on the ground to represent the deck of a ship. Then a
platform one hundred feet long and forty feet wide was constructed on a
coal barge at the Washington Navy Yard for use in deck landings. The
barge platform proved dangerous, since no arresting gear had yet been
developed, and the training was continued at the Navy Yard in
Philadelphia. Here a platform was erected on the ground and a number of
arresting gear ideas were tested. Finally there was developed a simple
and reliable arresting gear, an outgrowth of the original taut line and
sandbag idea, used by Ely.
In the meantime, the secretary of the Navy had authorized the conversion
of the old collier, _Jupiter_, into an aircraft carrier. A platform, or
flight deck, was built covering the entire top of the ship and the
arresting gear was mounted on it at the stern. The ship’s smokestacks
were set to one side of the deck so as not to interfere with the
landings. The carrier, commissioned the _Langley_, in memory of the
inventive professor, first steamed to sea in October, 1922. At a spot
near Old Point Comfort, where eleven years before Ely had made his
flight from the _Birmingham_, Commander V. C. Griffin soared up from the
deck of the _Langley_.
Out from Norfolk roared Commander Chavalier, to set his plane down in a
perfect landing on the _Langley’s_ deck. The United States Navy had its
first aircraft carrier.
THE FIRST FLIGHT AROUND THE WORLD
Do you remember the young midshipman who spent his savings to go to see
the Wrights fly their plane for the Army at Fort Meyer? After that it
was not long before he decided to leave the Naval Academy to take up a
career in the new field of aviation. By 1920 Donald Douglas was one of
America’s most promising aircraft engineers. At the age of twenty-eight
he was vice president of the Glenn L. Martin Company. At that age most
young men would have been happy to be even close to a position like
that. But not Don Douglas. He still had his dream of great commercial
airliners and he thought that California was the place to build them. He
left his job with Martin and started in business for himself, at a time
when half the aviation industry was struggling for its very existence.
Douglas went to Los Angeles, but friends and bankers alike could see no
future in aviation, and advised him to get out of it. Discouraged but
not beaten, he kept on trying. A chance meeting with a wealthy man in a
barber shop gave him his starting capital and before long the former
midshipman was building planes for the U. S. Navy. In 1924, his Army
Douglas World Cruiser circled the globe, but his great airliners still
were a dream.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: 1924
WINGSPAN 50 FEET
LENGTH 38 FEET
THE U. S. ARMY’S DOUGLAS DWC _CRUISERS_ WERE THE FIRST AIRPLANES TO
CIRCLE THE GLOBE.
POWER
ONE 12-CYLINDER 450-HP. _LIBERTY_ ENGINE
THE DWC’S WERE POWERED WITH WORLD WAR I TYPE OF _LIBERTY_
WATER-COOLED IN-LINE ENGINES.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
100 MILES
RANGE
800+ MILES
CEILING
8,000+ FEET
THE DOUGLAS DWC WAS NOT A VERY FAST AIRPLANE, BUT IT WAS A STURDY
SHIP FOR ITS TIME. IT WAS DESIGNED FOR THE WORLD FLIGHT AND STOOD
UP WELL. THE DWC WEIGHED 6,000 POUNDS EMPTY. FULLY LOADED WITH
GASOLINE AND OIL, IT WEIGHED 8,200 POUNDS. THE TWO CREW MEMBERS
RODE IN SEPARATE, OPEN COCKPITS THE ENGINES WERE THE WEAK SPOT IN
THE SHIP. THE FLIGHT PROVED THE NEED FOR BETTER ENGINES.
PAYLOAD
TWO-MAN CREW
TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO THE FIRST AROUND-THE-WORLD FLIGHT WAS A DARING
OPERATION. CREW MEMBERS TOOK SPECIAL TRAINING. A WORLD-WIDE GROUND
ORGANIZATION WAS SET UP TO SERVICE THE PLANES. THE DWC’S WERE EQUIPPED
TO USE EITHER WHEEL OR PONTOON LANDING GEAR.]
[Illustration]
It was between April 6 and September 28, 1924, that the first flight
around the world was made. Four Douglas Cruisers, each carrying two men,
started the flight from Seattle, Washington. A world-wide organization
was set up to service the planes as they circled the globe. Two of the
planes completed the trip 175 days later. The total distance flown was
26,345 miles and the total flying time was 363 hours, 7 minutes. A third
plane was destroyed in a crash in Alaska early in the flight, and the
fourth sank after a crash in the Atlantic on the last lap of the trip.
The DWC’s used in the flight were powered with 450-horsepower _Liberty_
engines, and the average speed was about 72 miles per hour. This
round-the-world flight was truly a daring operation.
[Illustration]
AIR PROGRESS
In the early twenties the design of the airplane underwent very little
change. The biplane with an enclosed fuselage remained standard in both
military and civil aircraft. With the exception of a few Navy flying
boats, the biplane was a two-place plane capable of carrying the pilot
and one passenger, or 300 pounds of cargo or mail. There were some
attempts at streamlining to eliminate drag, but they consisted mainly of
using fewer wing struts and wire bracings.
Landing gears were made stronger and the oleo landing strut was
introduced. The oleo landing strut was made by two sleevelike cylinders
which operated as does a piston. The upper cylinder was filled with
heavy oil. The landing wheels were attached to the lower cylinder. On
landing, the weight of the airplane caused the cylinder to push up, as a
piston, into the oil-filled upper cylinder. This produced a pressure on
the oil. A small opening in the cylinder allowed the oil slowly to slip
out of the cylinder. This reduced the pressure gradually as the gear
absorbed the landing shock. If you take a bicycle pump and hold your
finger over the valve, then build up pressure in the pump and at the
same time allow just a little air to escape from under your finger, you
will readily see how the oleo landing works. The oleo shock-absorbing
type of landing gear is standard with all modern planes.
Fuselage construction of wooden stringers and posts, with the wire
bracing so familiar in all early airplanes, gave way to the use of
veneered wood covering. The first Douglas planes, the DH-4’s, the
Curtiss Orioles, and the L. W. F. of the early twenties used veneer
covering instead of fabric for their fuselages. This was followed by the
introduction of welded steel tubing for fuselage framework. Several
attempts were made to develop a monoplane in those days but none was
very successful. In Germany, in 1922, the Junkers JL6 was the first
plane successfully to use an internally braced monoplane wing. In this
country it was several years before an aircraft designer dared to
attempt to overcome the prejudiced aviators against the monoplane
design.
[Illustration]
During the middle twenties the names of Wright, Curtiss, and Martin were
still to the fore. The Wright Aëronautical Corporation was the leader in
its field. Its liquid-cooled engines had grown from 120-horsepower to
300-, 400-, 675-horsepower. It also had begun to experiment with and
develop an air-cooled radial airplane engine. This engine, invented by
Charles L. Lawrance, was a result of his study of the Manley radial
engine built for Professor Langley’s _Aerodrome_. The Manley engine was
far ahead of its time. What might have happened had the first Wright
plane and the Manley engine come together in the early days is pure
guesswork. The original Manley radial engine weighed only 3.6 pounds per
horsepower. In the early twenties, when Lawrance started to work with
the Manley engine as a guide, airplane engines weighed about 10 pounds
per horsepower. The Manley engine used in the _Aerodrome_ was
water-cooled and Lawrance went to work to eliminate the extra weight
caused by radiator and water-cooling equipment. So successful were his
first experiments that he joined the Wright Aëronautical Corporation to
collaborate in developing an aircraft engine that was to have a
profound influence on world aviation.
During this time the Curtiss Company continued to build successful
airplanes for both the Army and the Navy, including the first of the
famous Hawk fighters, completed in 1923. Martin worked on improved types
of Army bombers and Douglas built planes for both branches of the
service. In Seattle, Washington, the Boeing Company had started its
first aircraft for the Army. New names such as Beech, Cessna, Sikorsky,
Vought, Fairchild, Northrop, and others began to appear on the
nameplates of new planes.
In the early twenties, with transcontinental mail service well under
way, there were many attempts made to establish air transport and cargo
services. Most of these ventures were undertaken by former military
aviators, using cast-off Army airplanes. Their airports usually were cow
pastures. They planned their own air routes and got their weather
reports from the newspapers. Bad weather would often ground a flight and
passengers were almost as uncertain as the weather. Many of those
pioneer operators had to depend on the dollar-a-ride hops of Sunday
sightseers to “keep the wolf from the door.” One service operated
14-passenger converted Navy seaplanes on a route between New York and
Havana, and another route between Cleveland and Detroit. Most of these
pioneer air transport Operations lasted for only a short time, due to
the heavy cost of maintaining the planes and the lack of properly marked
air routes.
[Illustration]
Difficulties had arisen in the air mail service by 1921. It had become
apparent that air mail would not be valuable to the Government unless it
could be flown by night as well as by day. It had been standard practice
for the mail to be flown only during daylight hours and to be carried by
train at night. The Government was about to abandon the air mail service
when the pilots pointed out that all that was needed was a chain of
airway beacons and lights for the landing fields and planes.
[Illustration:
REVOLVING
BEACON
51-FOOT
TOWER
POWER
HOUSE
COURSE LIGHTS
CONCRETE ARROW
POINTING TO
NEXT BEACON
ROUTE DESIGNATION
BASED ON TERMINAL
CITIES
ROUTE NUMBER
BASED ON MILEAGE
AIRWAY BEACON LIGHT]
To prove their point a group of pilots volunteered to make a continuous
night-and-day flight from San Francisco to New York. Flying in relays
and guided at night by bonfires tended by friendly farmers along the
route, the pilots flew the mail across the country in 33 hours and 21
minutes. The Post Office Department immediately arranged for the
installation of lighted airways and the planes were equipped with
navigation and landing lights.
By July, 1924, a continuous chain of lighted airway beacons marked the
air mail route from coast to coast. Lighted landing fields were
established at 250-mile intervals and through transcontinental air mail
service, with night-and-day flying, was an accomplished fact.
AMERICA’S FIRST ALL-METAL TRANSPORT
We have spoken of the fact that in the early twenties aircraft designers
were hesitant about attempting to overcome the prejudice of aviators
against the internally braced monoplane design. However, there was one
young man who had never been timid about the idea. He was a tall,
scholarly fellow who, as a youngster, was designing and flying model
planes before the Wright Brothers made their first flight. Like the
Wrights he was the son of a minister. This young man, William Bushnell
Stout by name, worked his way through the University of Minnesota by
firing a furnace. After graduation he worked for a newspaper and edited
a boys’ page, one of the first in America that gave complete directions
for building model airplanes.
With the outbreak of World War I, Bill Stout became technical adviser to
the Aircraft Board in Washington. His first advice to the aviation
experts there was to scrap all existing designs and build a streamlined
monoplane with an internally braced wing without struts or wires. They
said it could not be done. Bill promptly sat down and drew workable
plans for such a ship.
Eventually the Government bought Bill Stout’s design and with the money
he set up his own engineering laboratory in Detroit, Michigan. He
decided that wood and fabric were not suitable to stand the strain
required in a modern plane. His first all-metal plane, a Navy torpedo
bomber, flew successfully in test flights, but a Navy pilot wrecked it
on its official trial. The Navy would not order another one, so Bill had
to raise more money. He got it and built America’s first all-metal
transport plane. It carried eight passengers in addition to the two-man
crew. Bill knew it was a good plane and he was satisfied with it, but he
did not want to be a manufacturer. He wanted instead to stay at his
engineering work, so he sold his airplane company to Henry Ford, and the
famous Stout-designed, Ford tri-motor, “Tin Goose” was born.
[Illustration: 1925-1929
WINGSPAN 70 FEET
LENGTH 40 FEET
THE FORD TRI-MOTOR WAS AMERICA’S FIRST ALL-METAL TRANSPORT PLANE. IT
PROVED THE VALUE OF METAL IN AIRCRAFT CONSTRUCTION.
POWER
THREE 9-CYLINDER 200-H.P. RADIAL ENGINES
POWER FOR THE FORD PLANE WAS FURNISHED BY WRIGHT _WHIRLWIND_
AIR-COOLED, RADIAL ENGINES.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
100 MILES
RANGE
500 MILES
CEILING
8,000 FEET
PAYLOAD
8 PASSENGERS OR A CARGO LOAD OF EQUAL WEIGHT.
ALTHOUGH THE FORD DID NOT INCREASE THE RATE OF SPEED OF AIR
TRANSPORT, ITS ROOMY, ENCLOSED CABIN DID OFFER GREATER COMFORT FOR
AIR TRAVELERS. ITS THREE ENGINES GAVE IT A GREATER FACTOR OF
SAFETY. AS THE CABIN WAS HEATED ONLY BY ENGINE EXHAUST GASES, ITS
PRACTICAL SERVICE CEILING WAS UNDER 4,000 FEET. IN ADDITION TO ITS
PASSENGERS THE FORD CARRIED SEVERAL HUNDRED POUNDS OF AIR MAIL IN
ITS WING COMPARTMENTS.
THE _WHIRLWIND_-POWERED FORD TRANSPORT WAS ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL
EARLY PASSENGER AND CARGO CARRIERS. ONLY A FEW OF THEM WERE BUILT, AS
HENRY FORD DID NOT WISH TO CONTINUE IN THE AIRPLANE BUSINESS. MANY 1926
FORD TRANSPORTS ARE STILL IN USE IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD.]
[Illustration]
Just about the time the Ford tri-motors were proving themselves in tests
an important law was passed by Congress. It was the Kelly Air Commerce
Act of 1925. It authorized the Post Office Department to contract with
private firms to fly the air mail routes maintained by the Department of
Commerce. This law was designed to encourage private capital to enter
the aviation field, with the objective of carrying not only mail but
passengers. In February, 1926, officials of one of the newly formed air
transport firms proudly watched their first big air transport plane take
off from the Detroit airport. The big plane was a Stout-designed,
all-metal Ford, the first of a series of airliners that were destined to
make aviation history.
[Illustration: WATER-COOLED IN-LINE ENGINE]
By the end of 1926, there were sixteen air transport operators holding
air mail contracts. Most of the flying was still done in single-engined
planes. Up to that time the weight of the big water-cooled engines in
multi-engined transports left little to spare for pay loads. It was not
until the development of the radial engine that commercial aviation
really started.
[Illustration: AIR-COOLED RADIAL ENGINE]
The in-line engine required a long, heavy crankshaft with sections for
each cylinder. This required that separate crankshaft bearings be used
for each cylinder. The whole crankshaft assembly was heavy and
cumbersome. When extra cylinders were added, the engine’s weight
increased and it became longer. In the radial engine a single crankshaft
hearing was used.
The radial air-cooled engine immediately showed many advantages over the
in-line, water-cooled engines of that time. The use of aluminum in its
construction made it lighter. It was cooled by allowing air to rush
through finely spaced fins on cylinder heads and barrels. The weight of
the cooling liquid (water) and the pump and mechanism to circulate it
was avoided.
[Illustration:
THE ACTION OF THE CRANKSHAFT IS THE SAME AS WINDING UP THE WELL
ROPE THAT HOISTED THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET. THE CRANKSHAFT’S JOB IS TO
TRANSLATE STRAIGHT-LINE MOTION INTO ROTARY MOTION.
IN THE RADIAL ENGINE, ALL HANDS TRANSMIT THEIR POWER TO ONE MASTER
ROD
IN THE IN-LINE ENGINE THE POWER OF EACH CYLINDER IS TRANSMITTED BY
A SEPARATE CRANK. THIS MAKES THE CRANKSHAFT GROW LONGER WITH EACH
ADDITIONAL CYLINDER.
SHORT, LIGHT, 9-CYLINDER, RADIAL CRANKSHAFT
LONG, HEAVY CRANKSHAFT OF A FOUR-CYLINDER IN-LINE ENGINE
EACH ADDITIONAL CYLINDER NOT ONLY INCREASES THE LENGTH OF THE
CRANKSHAFT, BUT IT ALSO MAKES IT NECESSARY TO CONSTRUCT A HEAVIER
BASE TO SUPPORT THE CYLINDERS, CRANKSHAFT, AND CRANKSHAFT BEARINGS.
THE RADIAL ENGINE, THE POWER OF ALL CYLINDERS IS TRANSLATED INTO
ROTARY MOTION BY RODS CONNECTED TO THE MASTER ROD, WHICH TURNS THE
SHORT CRANKSHAFT.]
[Illustration: LINDBERGH’S RYAN MONOPLANE _SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS_]
BETTER POWER FOR AMERICA’S AIRPLANES
The Wright Brothers’ first airplane engine had weighed 170 pounds and
had produced 12 horsepower. It had used twenty-five per cent of its
energy propelling itself. With the introduction of the air-cooled,
radial engine twenty years later, a pound and a half of engine had been
made to produce one horsepower. Thus the new 350-pound radial engine of
200 horsepower put all but a fraction of weight into load-carrying
power.
While we are discussing horsepower, it might be well to find out just
what we mean by the term. In connection with steam and gasoline engines
it is used for the reason that the horse had for years been man’s most
common power plant. One horsepower represents the power ascribed to a
heavy dray horse in the days of horse-drawn vehicles. This “standard”
one-horse’s-power includes the three factors, time, weight, and
distance, or the length of time it takes to move a certain weight a
certain distance. One horsepower in these factors amounts to the ability
to lift 33,000 pounds one foot in one minute. Actual brake tests, where
an experimental engine shows its ability to lift a certain number of
pounds so high in one minute, gives the engineer a series of tables to
be used in designing other engines. Each cylinder produces an equal
share of the engine’s total horsepower. Thus each cylinder of the
nine-cylinder, 200-horsepower, Wright radial engine produced slightly
over 22 horsepower, or eight more than the entire four cylinders of the
Wright Brothers’ 1903 engine.
With the introduction of the first practical, light-weight, air-cooled,
radial engine, American aviation underwent a great change for the
better.
The Lawrance-designed Wright J engines promptly began to put a long
succession of famous fliers and famous airplanes in the books for one
record after another. The Stout-designed Ford tri-motor transport plane
was powered with Wright J3 radials. The J3 was adapted for use by the
United States Navy and led the Navy to discontinue entirely its use of
liquid-cooled power plants in favor of air-cooled radial engines for all
its service airplanes. Wright J4 engines powered the flight of Admiral
Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett over the North Pole in 1926. Tony
Fokker, who had designed Germany’s fighters in World War I, began to
make records with his American-built planes powered with Wright radials.
With the arrival of a suitable engine, fliers all over the country began
to think of the Raymond Orteig prize of $25,000 for the first nonstop
flight from New York to Paris. This offer had been standing since 1919.
Admiral Byrd was ready to try for it when a slim, quiet, young air mail
pilot hopped off from Long Island, N. Y. Flying a Ryan monoplane powered
with a Wright J5 radial, this young fellow flew the Atlantic nonstop to
land, some thirty-three hours and thirty-nine minutes later, in Paris
with the quiet announcement, “I am Charles Lindbergh.”
RECORD-MAKING FOKKER TRI-MOTOR TRANSPORT PLANE
The best fighter planes used by the Germans in World War I were not of
German design. They were designed and built under the supervision of a
young man from Holland. Tony Fokker had offered his airplane designs to
his native Holland. They were refused. In turn, Fokker tried to interest
the British, French, and Belgians in his airplanes, but none of them
took him seriously. Just before World War I, the Germans “tied up”
Fokker with a contract that kept him practically their prisoner until
the war was over.
After the Armistice, Fokker fled from Germany with much of his equipment
and established himself in an airplane factory in his homeland. The
United States bought some of his airplanes, and in 1923 he established
an aircraft factory in this country.
In April of the same year, two Army lieutenants, Oakley Kelly and John
Macready, flying a Fokker T-2 powered by a _Liberty_ engine, set a
world’s endurance record by remaining in the air for thirty-six hours.
Later, in the same Fokker, they flew nonstop from Long Island to
California at a speed of nearly one hundred miles an hour. In 1925,
Fokker began building his famous Fokker tri-motor transport plane.
Among the first private firms that were successful in winning an air
mail contract was the Colonial Air Transport, operating between New York
and Boston. This airline was started in 1925 by a young ex-Navy flyer
named Juan Trippe, descendant of an old New England whaling family.
Young Trippe’s airline used a small fleet of Tony Fokker’s tri-motor
transport planes. In December, 1925, Juan Trippe, Tony Fokker, Harry
Bruno, and George Pond, the pilot, climbed into one of the Fokker
tri-motors on what Trippe called a survey flight. The “survey” included
some flying around the Florida coast and climaxed with a record nonstop
flight from Miami, to Havana, Cuba.
[Illustration: 1925-1928
WINGSPAN 70 FEET
LENGTH 40 FEET
THE FOKKER WAS ONE OF THE FIRST MULTI-ENGINED TRANSPORTS AND THE FIRST
TO USE WOOD VENEER FOR WING AND FUSELAGE COVERING.
POWER
THREE 9-CYLINDER 200-HP., RADIAL ENGINES.
ANY TWO OF THE FOKKER’S THREE ENGINES WOULD ENABLE IT TO STAY IN THE
AIR, A STEP FORWARD IN SAFETY.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
100 MILES
EVEN WITH THREE 200-HP. ENGINES, THE BIG FUSELAGE CAUSED A _DRAG_ THAT
HELD ITS CRUISING SPEED DOWN TO 100 MILES PER HOUR.
RANGE
500 MILES
ITS NORMAL RANGE WAS 500 MILES, BUT WITH EXTRA GAS TANKS INSTEAD OF
PAYLOAD IT COVERED RECORD DISTANCES.
CEILING
8,000 FEET
THOUGH CAPABLE OF HIGHER ALTITUDES, ITS MOST PRACTICAL CRUISING ALTITUDE
WAS FROM 2,000 TO 4,000 FEET, DUE TO THE LACK OF A GOOD HEATING SYSTEM.
PAYLOAD
8 PASSENGERS OR
A CARGO LOAD OF
EQUAL WEIGHT.
THE FOKKER TRI-MOTOR WAS DEFINITELY AN ADVANCEMENT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF
LARGE MULTI-ENGINED TRANSPORT PLANES. THOUGH FAR FROM PERFECT, IT WAS A
GREAT IMPROVEMENT OVER THE SINGLE-ENGINED, OPEN-COCKPIT SHIPS THAT WERE
FIRST USED IN AIR TRANSPORT.]
[Illustration]
The idea behind Juan Trippe’s “survey” flight to Florida and Havana was
to extend Colonial Air Transport’s route from Boston to Florida, then on
southward. His board of directors could not see his point, so Trippe
left Colonial. In a matter of weeks he had rounded up a few ex-war flier
friends with money, and had organized his own airline under the title,
Pan American Airways. Before it was completely set up Trippe had a
contract to fly the mail from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba. That
was in 1928. From that time on, Juan Trippe’s Pan American Airways
continued to move just as fast as it had in its first few weeks of
organization. Less than two years after the first Key West-Havana
flight, Pan American was flying the mail to the Argentine.
[Illustration: STEARMAN AJ-5]
AIR TRANSPORT GROWS
While Tony Fokker was producing his famous tri-motor transports for
budding airlines like Juan Trippe’s Pan American Airways, Admiral Byrd
and three companions had flown a tri-motored Fokker to France. Clarence
Chamberlain and Charles Levine flew a Bellanca radial-powered monoplane
to Germany; Army Lieutenants Maitland and Hegenberger flew 2,400 miles
nonstop from Oakland, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, in a
radial-powered Fokker; Amelia Earhart and Wilmer Stultz flew a Fokker
from Newfoundland to England. Amelia thus became the first woman to
cross the Atlantic in an airplane. Later she was to fly the Atlantic
alone.
Tony Fokker’s tri-motors and Wright radial engines predominated in the
famous flights of the late twenties, but other American planes and
engines were coming into prominence. The first Wright 200-horsepower
radial engine was called the _Whirlwind_. It was soon followed by a more
powerful Wright radial, the 400-horsepower _Cyclone_. At the same time
the Pratt & Whitney organization of Hartford, Connecticut, made the
425-horsepower air-cooled _Wasp_ radial engine. Wright _Cyclones_ and
Pratt & Whitney _Wasps_ were destined to power American airplanes for
many years to come.
[Illustration: BOEING 40-B4]
During 1927 and 1928 the map of the United States showed a continually
increasing number of lines marked “Air Mail Route.” In 1926, the sixteen
companies holding air mail contracts flew about 1,700,000 air miles.
Much of this mileage was flown in single-engined, open-cockpit
airplanes. Mail was the principal source of revenue. The few passengers
who first braved the rigors of early air transport either rode on mail
sacks or in small, cramped cockpits. Pilots and Operation men alike
frankly admitted they were not keen about carrying passengers.
The Boeing Aircraft Company of Seattle, Washington, set up the Boeing
Air Transport and took over the operation of the air mail service from
Chicago to San Francisco. National Air Transport handled the Chicago-New
York route, to complete the transcontinental route. Jack Frye and others
established an air mail and transport service between Los Angeles,
California, and Phoenix, Arizona. Western Air Express operated between
Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, Utah. A number of short lines operating
routes from the Great Lakes and down through the south were soon to be
merged to create American Airlines.
In 1928, an air traveler making an extensive trip would be likely to fly
in seven or eight different types of planes. He might step into a Fokker
tri-motor, change to a single-engined Boeing, ride for some distance in
a Ford tri-motor or a Whirlwind-powered _Travel Air_, and finish his
trip in a Curtiss _Carrier Pigeon_. The planes usually flew low, at
between one and two thousand feet. Here the air was usually rough and a
good percentage of air travelers were troubled with airsickness. The
planes landed every few hundred miles to refuel. They were noisy and
heated only by exhaust gases from the engines, which usually furnished
more sickly fumes than heat. Little food, if any, was served, and a
coast-to-coast journey took thirty-three hours.
Though 1926 was the official start of American air transport, the first
two years of its existence were years of experimentation. It was not
until the country’s imagination had been fired by the flights of
Lindbergh, Byrd, Chamberlain, and others that air transport emerged from
its experimental stage. By 1927 the bigger minds in airline services had
realized that the time was coming when provisions must be made to carry
passengers on a large scale. It was not until 1928, with the arrival of
powerful radial engines and better airplane designs, that air transport
began to show real prospects. It was two years after the first
beginnings of air transport that John Monk Saunders, the author, paid
over $400 for an air passage from Los Angeles to New York, and became
the first transcontinental air passenger.
Although its aircraft production had been mainly for the Army and Navy,
the Boeing Aircraft Company also was in the air transport business
through its Chicago-San Francisco air mail route. Boeing’s inventive
genius was turned to air transport problems and created, first, the
Boeing 40-B4 four-passenger and mail plane. Then came the big
twelve-passenger, radial-powered, tri-motor plane, called the “Pioneer
Pullman of the Air.” This ship, Boeing 80-A, helped to reduce the
coast-to-coast transport time to twenty-seven hours. When the 80-A was
introduced the Boeing Air Transport and the National Air Transport had
been merged to form United Air Lines, the first transcontinental
airline.
[Illustration: BOEING 80-A]
With air transport five years old, by 1930 the speed of planes was only
about 100 miles per hour. Engineers and transport men agreed that the
air transport plane must be faster. The planes of that day still had a
considerable amount of external bracing and many of them were biplanes
with strut and wire wing bracings. This caused the drag that was holding
down the speed of the transport. Many of these planes had so many
bracings that they whistled as they flew. To make a profit, the air
transport operators had to have faster, quieter, and yet more
comfortable airplanes. They must also be more easily maintained.
In 1921, Boeing came up with a plane that, while not the final answer to
the air transport problem, was to point the way to the modern all-metal,
monoplane type of air transports. This plane was the Boeing _Monomail_.
The _Monomail_ was big, fast, and comfortable, and it carried a big pay
load. It was the first practical low-wing, all-metal transport to be put
into service in this country. It carried five passengers, their baggage,
and 1,750 pounds of mail or cargo, at a cruising speed of 140 miles per
hour. The _Monomail_ was the sensation of air transport in 1931, and set
the pace for future transport planes.
[Illustration: THE BOEING _MONOMAIL_ WEIGHED 4 TONS EMPTY AND CARRIED A
1,750-POUND PAYLOAD. IT HAD A SMOOTH ALUMINIUM COVERING AND THE LANDING
GEAR RETRACTED INTO THE WINGS.]
DONALD DOUGLAS’ DREAM COMES TRUE
The Boeing people, though pleased with the reception and performance of
the _Monomail_, knew that the single-engine plane was not the final
answer. If the engine failed, the plane must land. If the plane was over
rough or mountainous country, forced landings meant danger. A big plane
must have two engines, one of which could keep the plane flying if the
other failed. Boeing went to work with this in mind.
Near Los Angeles, the young man who had been dreaming of big commercial
transport planes since the Wright Brothers’ trials at Fort Meyer, also
was thinking of two-engined transports that could fly on one engine.
From the time Donald Douglas’ _World Cruisers_ had circled the globe,
his aircraft had grown larger and larger. His orders, however, were for
Army, Navy, and Coast Guard planes; not for great commercial airliners.
Although Donald Douglas had achieved a great deal of international fame
as the result of the round-the-world flight and was highly respected in
military circles, few other people knew him. A quiet, industrious young
man, he had put all his earnings back into his business and had
continued to work on his dream of big, roomy, smooth-flying airliners.
He visualized air transport flying from coast to coast and from country
to country in a great network of airlines that would link the whole
world.
On a hot, dry day in the summer of 1933, in Winslow, Arizona, a new
two-engined transport took off from one of the highest airports on the
Transcontinental & Western Airways route. Gaining altitude, the pilot
cut off one of its two engines, then flew more than 200 miles over the
Rockies to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Returning, the pilot cut off one
engine on the take-off. With one _Cyclone_ radial roaring, the transport
took off easily and climbed steadily. The first Douglas DC-1 transport
had proved itself and a dream had come true.
[Illustration: 1933-1934
WINGSPAN 85 FEET
LENGTH 62 FEET
THE DOUGLAS DC-2, THE FIRST OF THE WORLD’S LUXURY AIR TRANSPORTS, WAS A
LOW-WING, ALL-METAL PLANE WITH RETRACTABLE LANDING GEAR.
POWER
TWO 9-CYLINDER 700-HP. RADIAL ENGINES
THE DC-2’s WRIGHT _CYCLONE_ ENGINES RAN ON HIGH OCTANE GAS AND WERE
COVERED WITH METAL COWLING TO REDUCE _DRAG_.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
180 MILES
RANGE
1,200 MILES
THE DC-2 USHERED IN A NEW PHASE OF AIR TRANSPORT. IT CRUISED AT 180
MILES PER HOUR AND CROSSED THE COUNTRY WITH ONLY A FEW STOPS FOR
REFUELING.
CEILING
12,500 FEET
IT COULD FLY AT HIGHER ALTITUDES THAN PREVIOUS TRANSPORTS, THUS AVOIDING
THE MORE TURBULENT AIR OF THE LOWER ALTITUDES. IT WAS EQUIPPED WITH A
GOOD HEATING AND VENTILATING SYSTEM.
PAYLOAD
14 PASSENGERS
PLUS 1,000 POUNDS
OF MAIL AND CARGO.
THE DC-2 WAS SOUND-PROOFED AND THE PASSENGERS RODE IN ADJUSTABLE
UPHOLSTERED SEATS THAT GAVE THEM PULLMAN-LIKE COMFORT.
THE DC-2 TRANSPORT PLANE COMBINED PASSENGER COMFORT WITH ECONOMICAL
OPERATION COSTS AND HELPED TO LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR FASTER, SAFER, AND
CHEAPER AIR TRAVEL. MANY OF THE EARLY DC-2’S ARE STILL IN SERVICE WITH
AIRLINES AND THE U.S. ARMY AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND.]
[Illustration]
The DC-l was an experimental model of the new Douglas two-engined luxury
air transport plane. On the night of February 18, 1934, six months after
the first DC-l was tested over the Rockies near Winslow, a new
Cyclone-powered Douglas took off from Los Angeles for Newark, New
Jersey. This plane was the first of the famous DC-2’s. It was flown by
Jack Frye of TWA (Transcontinental & Western Airways) and Captain Eddie
Rickenbacker of Eastern Air Lines. They roared into Newark ahead of a
snowstorm which had blotted out all the airports along the route, and
were three hours ahead of schedule for a new transcontinental record of
13 hours, 4 minutes. This flight made obsolete all existing transport
planes.
[Illustration: WILEY POST’S LOCKHEED WINNIE MAE]
SAFETY IN FLIGHT
The new Douglas DC-2 transport plane combined all the knowledge of
thirty years of flight. In the early “thirties” air transport began to
come into its own. Plane-to-ground radio was put into use. The radio
range, or radio beam, pioneered by “Shorty” Schroeder with Henry Ford in
1927, was guiding our airliners on their course. The radio beam flashed
the Morse code letters “A” and “N” along the flight path of the
airliner. The dot-dash of the “A” signal was flashed on one side of the
route and the dash-dot of the “N” signal was on the other. In the center
of the flight path the two signals blended into a steady hum. This hum
notified the pilot that he was “on course.” Regardless of fog, rain, or
darkness the pilot got his course through his earphones.
The application of the gyroscope to aircraft instruments was a great
step in the advancement of flying. First experimented with by Lawrence
Sperry in the early days of the airplane, the constant action of the
gyroscope was used to register the changes of attitude of aircraft in
flight. It was first used in the Turn and Bank Indicator, then in the
_Gyro-Horizon_ and _Directional Gyro_. Power-driven gyros constantly
whirled in the direction in which they were set. They were attached to
dials on the instrument panel and to the plane itself. The position or
attitude of the gyro was indicated on the dial in relation to the
attitude of the airplane. As the plane changed, the constantly spinning
gyro remained in its correct attitude. The gyro position and the
position of the plane shown on the dial told the pilot the actual
attitude of the plane in the air so that he could correct in relation to
the true position indicated by the gyro. This allowed the pilot to keep
his plane on a true compass course and in the proper flight attitude
without having to see the horizon. Thus a pilot could fly through fog or
total darkness with both ease and safety.
[Illustration: WHEN THE GYROSCOPE IS SET SPINNING WITH ITS AXIS POINTED
TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH IT WILL RESIST ANY FORCE THAT ATTEMPTS TO
CHANGE ITS POSITION.]
[Illustration: THE GYROSCOPE AUTOMATIC PILOT
CONTROL CABLES
THE GYRO UNIT CONTROLS MOTORS THAT OPERATE THE CONTROLS OF THE
PLANE.
THE GYRO PILOT AUTOMATICALLY FLIES A PLANE IN ANY POSITION THAT THE
PILOT DESIRES. WHEN THE GYRO IS SET TO FLY A PLANE IN A LEVEL
POSITION, IT WILL RESIST ALL ATTEMPTS TO CHANGE ITS POSITION. IF
THE SHIP SHOULD NOSE DOWN, THE GYRO STARTS THE CONTROLS TO WORK, TO
BRING THE NOSE UP. THIS IS TRUE IN ALL FLIGHT MOVEMENTS.]
The gyro instruments soon proved their value and were installed in the
cockpits of transport planes the world over. The Sperry Gyropilot then
was perfected. This remarkable instrument, based on the gyroscope
movement, was developed actually to manipulate automatically the
controls of even the largest airplane, keeping it directly on the
desired course and leaving the human pilots free for their many other
duties.
In 1933, Wiley Post flew around the world alone, but the Gyropilot
piloted the _Winnie Mae_ over most of the route. This relieved the
fatigue of constant flying and allowed Wiley to keep a continual check
on his maps. His successful use of the automatic pilot soon caused its
adoption by most of the major airlines of the country.
Thus, with the aid of the radio beam, better flight instruments, special
octane gasoline, two-way radio, sound-proofing, wheel brakes, and
adjustable pitch propellers, the airlines of America were fast emerging
into a safe and comfortable means of travel.
While the DC-2 was coming into prominence in the air transport field,
Boeing engineers had gone on with their idea of a two-engined plane and
had built an all-metal bomber for the Army.
In building the two-engined, all-metal B-9, Boeing engineers learned how
to build another plane with a more peaceful purpose. This ship was the
famous Boeing 247-D commercial transport plane. The 247-D was an
all-metal, low-wing monoplane, powered with two 550-horsepower Pratt &
Whitney Wasp radial engines. It had a top speed of 200 miles per hour
and a cruising speed of 180 miles per hour. It was America’s first
three-mile-a-minute air transport plane.
In designing the speedy 247-D, the Boeing did not forget the comfort of
the passengers. The plane was fully heated and ventilated. Its seats
were deeply upholstered and had reclining backs. There were broad
windows at each chair. There were dome lights and individual reading
lamps; and the plane was equipped with a tiny galley and a complete
lavatory. Insulation kept the 247-D quiet and comfortable in any sort of
weather.
The 247-D carried ten passengers, a pilot, co-pilot, and stewardess,
plus baggage and mail. It was first put into service by the United Air
Lines in 1933, on their coast-to-coast route. Incidentally, it was
United who had introduced to the airlines the third member of the air
transport’s crew, the stewardess. The pretty young stewardesses were all
trained nurses. They looked after air-sick passengers, served food en
route, and looked after the comfort of the air travelers.
[Illustration: BOEING 247 TRANSPORT
POWERED WITH TWO 550-HP. PRATT & WHITNEY RADIAL ENGINES, THE 247
CRUISED AT 180 MILES PER HOUR. ITS TEN PASSENGERS RODE IN DEEPLY
CUSHIONED SEATS WITH RECLINING BACKS. ITS WELL-VENTILATED, HEATED
CABIN WAS SOUND-PROOFED TO DEADEN THE ROAR OF THE ENGINES, AND THE
PASSENGERS RODE IN QUIET COMFORT.]
LUXURY AIRLINERS AND SKYSLEEPERS MAKE AIR TRAVEL AN ACCEPTED FACT
With the Boeing 247’s, United Air Lines in 1933 cut the coast-to-coast
air trip to twenty-two hours. As DC-2’s and the fast two-engined
Lockheed _Electras_ were speeding up air transport schedules on the
airlines throughout the country, differences arose between the
government and some air transport firms over mail contracts. The result
was the cancellation in February, 1934, of all air mail contracts.
The air mail revenue was the life of the air transport operators and the
cancellation of the mail contracts suddenly darkened their future. An
attempt to put the transportation of air mail into the hands of the
United States Army resulted in a tragic failure. This was due mainly to
the unfamiliarity of Army pilots with air mail routes and their lack of
proper equipment. In June, 1934, the air mail was turned back to the
airlines.
The return of the air mail contracts to private operators saw the
introduction of the new Douglas DC-3. This was the plane that brought
Donald Douglas’ dream to complete fulfilment. His big, all-metal,
low-wing, two-engined DC-3 completely revolutionized air transport. By
1935, the name Douglas had come to mean fast, comfortable, and safe air
transport.
[Illustration: 1934-1940
WINGSPAN 95 FEET
LENGTH 64 FEET
THE DC-3, A LARGER AND MUCH IMPROVED VERSION OF THE DC-2, ACHIEVED
INSTANT POPULARITY ON ITS INTRODUCTION IN 1934.
POWER
TWO 9-CYLINDER 800-HP. RADIAL ENGINES
THE FIRST DC-3’S WERE POWERED WITH 800-HP. ENGINES, BUT LATER MODELS
USED RADIALS UP TO 1150 HORSEPOWER.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
180 MILES
THE DC-3 HAD A TOP SPEED OF 212 MILES PER HOUR, BUT ITS MOST PRACTICAL
CRUISING SPEED WAS 180 MILES PER HOUR.
RANGE
1680 MILES
ITS LONG CRUISING RANGE MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR THE DC-3 TO MAKE THE
COAST-TO-COAST TRIP WITH ONLY THREE STOPS.
CEILING
21,000 FEET
ITS MOST PRACTICAL ALTITUDE WAS FROM 8,000 TO 10,000 FEET, THOUGH THE
DC-3 WAS CAPABLE OF REACHING AN ALTITUDE OF OVER 21,000 FEET.
PAYLOAD
21 PASSENGERS
PLUS 2,000 POUNDS
OF MAIL AND CARGO.
THE DC-3 WAS STEAM-HEATED AND SOUND-PROOFING MADE IT AS QUIET AS A
PULLMAN CAR. IT WAS EQUIPPED WITH EVERY KNOWN SAFETY DEVICE.
NOW, THIRTY-ONE YEARS AFTER THE INVENTION OF THE AIRPLANE, WE BEGIN TO
SEE THE RESULTS OF THE EFFORTS OF AMERICAN ENGINEERS AND AIRCRAFT
BUILDERS. LIGHTWEIGHT, POWERFUL ENGINES; LIGHTWEIGHT, METAL
CONSTRUCTION; RETRACTABLE LANDING GEAR AND SAFETY DEVICES PLAYED A VITAL
PART IN MAKING THE DC-3 A SUCCESS.]
[Illustration]
The Douglas DC-3 was produced in 21-passenger day planes, 14-passenger
de luxe _Skylounges_, and 14-passenger _Skysleepers_. The DC-3 put
“sleeper planes” on an acceptable basis. Coast-to-coast schedules were
cut to three stops and an overnight trip. Fares were cut in half and air
travel became an accepted fact.
[Illustration: THE SIKORSKY S-42, PATHFINDER OF THE PACIFIC, HAD A
WINGSPAN OF 118 FEET AND WAS 64 FEET LONG.]
PAN AMERICAN CLIPPERS CONQUER PACIFIC SKIES
While the DC-3’s were cutting to an overnight hop the air journey from
coast to coast, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker had pushed his Eastern Air
Lines from New York to Miami, Florida. Here it connected with Juan
Trippe’s Pan American Airways. By this time Trippe’s Pan American
_Clipper_ planes regularly were covering a route from Miami down through
the West Indies to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and to Buenos Aires in the
Argentine. At Buenos Aires Pan American Airways connected with Harold R.
Harris’ Pan American-Grace Airways to complete a route over the Andes
and back up the west coast of South America.
The story of Harold Harris and his airway is a book in itself. Harris, a
veteran flier of World War I, had been an Army test pilot. In 1922 he
became the first member of the “Caterpillar Club” when he used a
parachute to escape from a plane which had failed. Later, as a
crop-dusting pilot in Peru, he visualized and founded the Pan
American-Grace air route.
By the time Juan Trippe’s Pan American Clippers were flying over every
country in Central and South America, his active mind was busy planning
another “survey.” Though his company at that time was operating the
world’s largest airline, Trippe was planning new worlds to conquer.
Pan American had been using Igor Sikorsky’s four-engined flying boats on
his route to Rio and Buenos Aires, and Trippe sent one of them, with
veteran Edwin Misick in command, on a “survey” flight westward across
the Pacific.
[Illustration: 1935
WINGSPAN 130 FEET
LENGTH 90 FEET
THE GIANT MARTIN 130 WAS DESIGNED AND BUILT FOR THE LONG-RANGE FLIGHTS
THAT WERE NECESSARY ON PAN AMERICAN’S TRANS-PACIFIC ROUTES.
POWER
FOUR 14-CYLINDER 750-HP. RADIAL ENGINES
IT WAS POWERED WITH PRATT & WHITNEY TWIN-ROW, WASP RADIAL ENGINES AND
HAD A TOP SPEED OF 180 MILES PER HOUR.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
130 MILES
RANGE
3,200 MILES
CEILING
10,000 FEET
PAYLOAD
46 DAY PASSENGERS
OR 26 SLEEPING
BERTHS, A CREW
OF SIX, AND A
TON OF MAIL
OR CARGO.
THE MARTIN 130, CALLED THE _CHINA CLIPPER_, WAS THE FIRST OF A GROUP OF
MARTIN FLYING BOATS THAT PIONEERED PAN AMERICAN’S TRANS-PACIFIC MAIL,
PASSENGER, AND CARGO SERVICE FROM AMERICA TO HAWAII, THE PHILIPPINES,
CHINA, AND AUSTRALIA. THE GIANT, ROOMY PLANE WAS EQUIPPED WITH EVERY
LUXURY FOR AIR TRAVELERS. IT COULD CLIMB TO AN ALTITUDE OF OVER 17,000
FEET, BUT CRUISED MORE ECONOMICALLY AND COMFORTABLY AT 10,000 FEET.
THE MARTIN 130 WAS THE LARGEST FLYING BOAT OF ITS TIME. IT WAS OF VERY
RUGGED CONSTRUCTION AND WAS EQUIPPED WITH TWO-WAY RADIO AND OTHER SAFETY
DEVICES. THE ORIGINAL _CHINA CLIPPER_ BUILT UP A RECORD OF 12,000,000
MILES OF OCEAN FLYING FROM 1935 TO 1945.]
[Illustration]
On November 22, 1935, Pan American Airways’ _China Clipper_ took off
from San Francisco Bay on its first scheduled trans-Pacific flight to
Manila, Philippine Islands. One hundred years before, to the day, the
first Yankee clipper ship had sailed into the same bay. Twenty-five
years before, a young man had made America’s first trans-Pacific
flight--a flight of 33 miles from the California shore to Catalina
Island. The 26-ton _China Clipper_ heading into its 8,000-mile
trans-Pacific flight was a Martin 130 flying boat built by Glenn L.
Martin, the young fellow of the Catalina flight. In just 59 hours and 48
minutes of flying time the first _China Clipper_ landed in Manila Bay.
PAN AMERICAN CLIPPER INAUGURATES AMERICA’S FIRST TRANSATLANTIC AIR
TRANSPORT SERVICE
With the sweep of its wings the first _China Clipper_ ripped out weeks
of slow surface travel to the rich markets of the Far East. By 1936 a
trip from this country to China was measured by a matter of sixty or
seventy flight hours instead of by weeks.
It was not the big clipper planes alone that built the far-flung Pan
American Airways. Juan Trippe visualized his world airways system and
then picked the finest experts in every field to carry out his plans.
Former diplomats covered the proposed routes long before the Clippers
flew them. There was, of course, no freedom of the air. No plane could
fly over a foreign country without permission. Trippe’s emissaries had
to get franchises. Germany, France, Britain, and Holland were after
franchises in South America too. There, as in the Far East, they got the
rights to fly, not by government pressure, but by selling aviation as a
valuable business asset to any nation.
Once Trippe had his franchises, he sent experts to explore and lay out
routes. They carved airports out of jungles and Arctic wastes, and in
places where no white man ever had penetrated. The supply problems
overcome and the engineering marvels performed by Trippe’s advance men
would furnish plots for a dozen movie thrillers. In laying out the bases
at Wake and Guam on the Pacific route, more than one million separate
items were bought, shipped, and installed before the first _China
Clipper_ took off from San Francisco.
Pan American’s map added another blue line after the Pacific route was
under way. This time it was to Alaska, and another distant travel time
could be reckoned in flight hours rather than ocean days.
Then came the Atlantic and the giant Boeing 314 Pan American _Clippers_.
[Illustration: 1939-1945
WINGSPAN 152 FEET
LENGTH 106 FEET
THE HUGE LONG-RANGE BOEING _CLIPPER_ WEIGHED 41-TONS.
POWER
FOUR 14-CYLINDER 1,500 HP. RADIAL ENGINES
FOUR 3-BLADED PROPELLERS WITH A DIAMETER OF 14 FEET FURNISHED THE
_THRUST_ FOR THE PLANE.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
175 MILES
RANGE
3,100 MILES
CEILING
15,000+ FEET
PAYLOAD
PAYLOAD
74 DAY
PASSENGERS.
OR 40 SLEEPER
PASSENGERS,
A CREW OF 8 TO
15 PLUS 2 TONS
OF MAIL
THE BOEING _CLIPPER_ HAD A TOP SPEED OF 190 MILES PER HOUR AND COULD FLY
NONSTOP FOR 3,100 MILES WITH 40 PASSENGERS. IT WAS OF ALL-METAL
CONSTRUCTION AND DIVIDED INTO ELEVEN SECTIONS BY BULKHEADS. IT HAD AN
UPPER DECK FOR THE FLIGHT CREW AND STORAGE SPACE. THE MAIN DECK WAS
DIVIDED INTO TEN COMPARTMENTS FOR PASSENGERS. BELOW THIS DECK WERE A
SERIES OF WATERTIGHT COMPARTMENTS. A PASSAGE THROUGH THE WINGS PERMITTED
THE SERVICING OF THE ENGINES DURING FLIGHT.
THE FIRST BOEING _CLIPPER_ TO SPAN THE ATLANTIC WAS THE LARGEST
COMMERCIAL AIRPLANE IN THE WORLD. THE _CLIPPER_ WAS EQUIPPED WITH EVERY
AVAILABLE SAFETY DEVICE AND LUXURIOUSLY FITTED FOR THE DAY AND NIGHT
COMFORT OF THE PASSENGERS. THE STURDY, SAFE _CLIPPERS_ OPENED A NEW ERA
OF AIR TRAVEL.]
[Illustration]
Boeing achieved such excellent results with its two-engined planes that
its engineers went on to plan four-engined super-planes. When Juan
Trippe wanted a plane for his Atlantic service, Boeing was ready with
the 41-ton Boeing 314. The 314 _Atlantic Clippers_ carried 74 passengers
and boasted of compartments that could be converted into berths,
dressing rooms, a dining salon, and a real kitchen for serving hot meals
aloft. On May 20, 1939, just twenty years after the first transatlantic
flight of the Navy NC’s, the _Atlantic Clipper_ took off on the trip
that inaugurated Pan American Airways service to Europe. Juan Trippe’s
dream was reaching around the world.
[Illustration]
PRIVATE PLANES
In the very early days of aviation, before the start of World War I,
most of the airplanes, with the exception of a few military ships, were
sold to private owners. Those buyers were either barnstormers or wealthy
sportsmen. Some advertising in national magazines even tried to create
sales, for private planes. This activity ceased with the beginning of
the war in 1914, and owners turned their planes over to the Government
for training purposes.
At the end of the war there were hundreds of young men who had learned
to fly. This situation brought about a considerable amount of private
flying. However, most of the ex-service men bought surplus war
equipment, such as the Curtiss _Jenny_, so that there was not a large
market for the manufacturers of new private planes.
Following the Lindbergh flight to Paris and other spectacular aviation
achievements, the American public really became air-conscious. It was at
that time that the private plane came into its own.
People began to find that airplanes were of practical value, and
business firms began to use them in various ways. Sales and service
representatives could cover vast areas in a short time. Essential
equipment could be carried swiftly by airplanes over stretches of
country which before had been almost inaccessible. Ranchers used planes
to cover far-flung ranges. Explorers and scientists alike used the
airplane to search for hidden treasure and precious minerals in spots
which before had been impossible to reach by land transportation.
All this activity brought about the development of more comfortable
cabin planes and led to a demand for large and small private ships. The
small, light plane field expanded with amazing speed once there was a
demand. In the late twenties Aëronca, Taylor, and Piper began to bring
out safe, comfortable, and inexpensive planes. By the middle thirties
flying schools and private landing fields were a common sight throughout
America.
As the light planes became popular, the training of private pilots
developed into a big business. Flying lessons became an important source
of income to aviators who heretofore had operated their little airfields
on the revenue derived from sightseeing hops and an occasional charter
trip. Student pilots became logical prospects for
[Illustration: PIPER _CUB_ TWO-PLACE PERSONAL LIGHT PLANE.
LAMINATED BIRCHWOOD PROPELLER
FOUR-CYLINDER AIR-COOLED ENGINE
METAL COWLING
DUAL CONTROLS
LANDING GEAR
METAL WHEEL “PANTS”
LIFT STRUTS
WELDED STEEL TUBE FUSELAGE FRAME
FABRIC FUSELAGE COVERING
TAIL WHEEL
RUDDER ELEVATOR
ALUMINUM RIBS
FABRIC COVERING
STABILIZER]
light planes and the more successful flying schools became sales
agencies for the aircraft manufacturers. Students became expert fliers
and graduated to instructors’ jobs. A number of these young instructors
in turn bought light planes and started flying schools of their own.
Thus, light plane flying spread like wildfire over the country.
The light planes of the late thirties were mainly high-wing monoplanes.
They were powered with light, air-cooled engines and were so designed
that they had a high factor of safety. They were sturdily built and easy
to fly. The average student was able to solo after eight or ten lessons,
though real flying ability came only through constant practice. Light
planes cost from $1,500 to $2,000. Many of them were equipped with
accessories such as heaters, radios, navigation lights, and flight
instruments. All of them had comfortably upholstered, enclosed cabins.
In the years just before World War II light plane flying for business
and pleasure was an accepted mode of travel for boys and girls as well
as men and women of all ages.
SUPERCHARGERS AND SUPER-AIRLINERS
High above the earth, 14,000 to 20,000 feet, lies a region of smooth air
called the substratosphere.
[Illustration: BOEING 307 _STRATOLINER_]
Pioneer fliers had reached this region years before, but its thin, rare
air made life and movement impossible. Men had long looked to this
smooth-air region as the ideal flight path--a path without rough air, or
fog, or storm to slow their progress. But both they and their engines
needed plenty of air for operation.
It was not until 1939, when Dr. Sanford Moss invented the
turbo-supercharger, that high engine performance at altitudes above
30,000 feet became a matter of fact. The turbo-supercharger, a simple
machine driven by the force of the engine exhausts, pumped air into the
engines to give them sea-level pressure at high altitudes. This took
care of the engines in the smooth-air substratosphere regions.
Next came the human element. Human beings, like engines, cannot live
without sufficient air. This brought about the development of the
supercharged cabin for airplanes. In 1936 “Tommy” Tomlinson, a brilliant
ex-Navy flier, started making experimental substratosphere flights for
TWA in a specially designed plane. He found that the speed of a properly
equipped airplane would increase some 36 per cent at 30,000 feet. At the
same time Army engineers were experimenting with a Lockheed plane having
a supercharged cabin.
The Boeing Company, working in co-operation with Tomlinson,
Transcontinental and Western Airways, and Pan American, developed the
Boeing 307. The 307 was a big all-metal, low-wing monoplane with a
pressurized, high-altitude cabin, which made possible flight at
altitudes up to 20,000 feet. This was accomplished in a manner similar
to that used in supercharging the engines. Engine-driven superchargers
pumped air into the cabin-ventilating system and the atmosphere in the
plane was kept at normal low-level pressure regardless of how high the
plane flew. The Boeing 307 _Stratoliner_ was put into service by TWA and
Pan American Airways in 1940 and marked a tremendous step forward in the
speed and comfort of modern air travel.
In 1941, fifteen years after the operation of the nation’s airlines had
been turned over to private firms, air transport was approaching
perfection. The first single-engined, two-passenger mail planes,
cruising at 100 miles per hour, took thirty-three hours to make the
coast-to-coast trip. Now giant luxury airliners were doing it in fifteen
hours. In contrast to the frequent stops of the low-flying plane of the
early days, the high-flying air transports of 1941 were making the
journey with only three stops. Where the air traveler of the twenties
rode in an uncomfortable seat in a cold, gas-smelling plane, and was
lucky if he got a box lunch, the modern passenger rode in luxuriously
upholstered chairs in a heated salon, and dined on hot fried chicken or
steak with all the “trimmings.”
Even more significant was the change in flight and safety aids. No
longer did the pilot fly with his eyes on the railroad tracks and the
family wash on the line below. Radio communication with the ground,
continual weather information, and precision navigation and flight
instruments changed all that and brought safety to air transport.
With domestic airline routes covering America from coast to coast and
from border to border, and with the wings of Pan American’s _Clippers_
casting their shadows over 75,000 miles of the earth’s surface, the Japs
struck at Pearl Harbor.
[Illustration: DOUGLAS DC-4]
[Illustration] AIR POWER FOR WORLD WAR II
In September, 1939, when the first Nazi Stukas screamed down on Poland,
we produced only 117 military aircraft. Our Army Air Corps could muster
only some 21,000 officers and men, and the Navy could not boast of even
that many. Neither the Army nor Navy had more than a thousand planes
each. That meant all types: trainers, transport planes, and fighters.
The Nazi _Luftwaffe_ at that time was composed of more than a million
men and 15,000 warplanes, and the Japanese had many more planes than we
ever had thought they could build. This was the beginning not only of
World War II, but of _Air War I_.
This was not the first time that the United States got off to a late
start. The same thing was true in World War I. Nevertheless, with
typical American confidence, we thought we could do it again.
Consequently, in 1940, we set as our goal the building of 50,000
warplanes.
We lost the first rounds of the fight while we were getting started. In
the South Pacific it was ten Jap planes to our one; at Wake Island, four
obsolete Marine Corps fighters flew gallantly to meet a hundred of the
foe. At Pearl Harbor hangars full of planes were caught on the ground.
At Corregidor there was a cry of “No planes!”
But a typical American once said, “We have not yet begun to fight.” As
in World War I, our military and industrial aviation leaders “rolled up
their sleeves” and began to fight. As a result, in less than three
years, they produced the greatest aërial fighting force that the world
ever has known.
Let us go back to 1920 and review the progress of our Army and Naval
aviation up to the start of World War II. We shall find out why we were
able to create unbeatable air power when the crisis came.
[Illustration] NAVAL AVIATION 1922-1935
From its earliest beginnings United States naval aviation made progress
far out of proportion to the small amount of money appropriated by the
Government. But it was a young and eager organization with a constant
desire to do things--to stretch its wings. An aërial world remained
unexplored and naval aviators were an inquisitive lot.
The first carrier, the _Langley_, with a complement of six airplanes,
became the training ground for the young naval aviators who were to lay
the foundation for the world’s greatest seagoing aërial task force.
While the _Langley_ was primitive by today’s standards, experiments with
it pointed the way for the development of improved types of
carrier-based fighting planes. However, the enthusiasm of the young
naval aviators was not shared entirely by other Navy men based on
surface craft. To them airplanes were just something to be fished out of
the sea when an engine failed. It was some time before the aviators were
able to convince these others of the exceptional value of planes in
spotting gunfire and scouting for an enemy.
Regardless of the fact that they were the Navy’s orphans, the young
pioneers kept at it. They flew the crude machines available and
developed tactics for carrier-based airplanes. They improved the
arresting gear and solved many technical problems in ways that enabled
aircraft builders to design airplanes especially suitable for use on
carriers. At the same time, it was natural that flying boats should
appeal to Navy men. The flight of the NC flying boats inspired the
development of long-range patrol boats. Naval aviators also went ahead
with experiments which were to lead to the creation of flying boats with
a range of 2,000 miles and more.
While the naval aviators were busy with their early experiments on the
_Langley_, the Disarmament Conference of 1922 had changed this country’s
plans for the construction of new battleships. However, the United
States and Great Britain were permitted, by the terms of the conference
agreement, each to have 135,000 tons of airplane carriers. Two of the
big cruisers under construction at that time were converted into
carriers. These two, our first specifically designed-aircraft carriers,
were the _Lexington_ and the _Saratoga_. When commissioned in 1927, the
_Lexington_ and the _Saratoga_ were the biggest and best aircraft
carriers in the world. Weighing about 35,000 tons and capable of
carrying sixty to eighty airplanes,
[Illustration: VOUGHT VE-7 FIGHTER]
[Illustration: CURTISS F6C-1 FIGHTER]
[Illustration: CURTISS T5 FIGHTER]
[Illustration: BOEING F4B-4 FIGHTER]
[Illustration: CURTISS BF2C-1 FIGHTER-BOMBER]
they were the fastest ships of their type afloat. The ships--the “Lex”
and the “Sara,” as airmen called them--became the twin mothers of
carrier fighter tactics and operational techniques.
The U. S. Navy pioneered in the development of aircraft as a military
weapon and spared no effort to develop it and fit it into naval
organization. The _Lexington_ and the _Saratoga_ were the proving
grounds for the ideas of our imaginative leaders of naval aviation. The
lessons learned in maneuvers with the _Lexington_ and _Saratoga_ were
well embedded in the minds of the men who were someday to command the
greatest carrier task force the world has ever seen. The old _Lexington_
and _Saratoga_ were in the thick of the fight in the Pacific from the
day after Pearl Harbor. The “Lex” went down in the gallant fight that
stopped the Japs in the Coral Sea. Within two years a new and more
powerful _Lexington_ was hammering the Japs in the Pacific. The
_Saratoga_, damaged severely several times, lived through the heroic
struggle to see victory. The “Lex” and the “Sara” will always live in
the hearts of the Navy’s veteran airmen.
SHIPBOARD FIGHTERS
[Illustration: GRUMMAN FF-1 FIGHTER]
The Curtiss TS-1 was the first carrier fighter built to Navy
specification. It was followed by the Boeing FB-l. Carrier fighters
offered one of aviation’s most difficult problems. A carrier fighter had
to have a short takeoff run, necessitated by the carrier’s short deck.
Another requirement was a short wingspan to permit the storage of a
number of planes in the limited space of the carrier’s hangar deck. As a
result, small light biplanes were used on the carriers for many years.
The Curtiss BFC-l and BF2C-l were the first carrier-based aircraft to be
equipped with retractable landing gear. The Boeing F4B-4, though it did
not have a retractable landing gear, was a very fast, all-metal fighter
and was popular as a carrier-based fighter. Grumman came into the
picture in 1935 with a stubby, fast, two-place fighter, the FF-1. It was
highly successful, but was later re-designed as a scout plane, the SF-1.
The FF-1 was the fastest fighter yet to appear in service and, after
several modifications, it became the F3F-1, a design standardized by the
Navy and used throughout by the carriers’ fighter squadrons.
[Illustration: U.S. AIRCRAFT CARRIER _LEXINGTON_]
BATTLESHIP OF THE AIR
In line with its strategic policy the Army Air Corps continued to
develop aviation around long-range bombardment. Long-range bombers would
stop an invader far from our shores and therefore the aim of our Air
Corps leaders was to develop a bomber that could be used for that
purpose.
The Martin BM-1, the Barling bomber, and the Keystone LB-6, developed in
the twenties, were all biplanes made of wood, metal, and fabric. What
the Army airmen really wanted was an all-metal, low-wing, multi-engined
bomber capable of flying far out to sea, dropping its bombs, and
returning to its base on land. Naturally at that time our only thoughts
were of weapons for defense and the protection of our coastline from an
invader.
The Martin B-10 two-engined bomber seemed to fill the Army requirements.
It was a low-wing monoplane capable of carrying a ton of bombs a
thousand miles at a speed of nearly 200 miles per hour. It became the
Army’s standard bomber in 1934.
In the same year ten Martin B-10’s, under the command of (then)
Lieutenant Colonel Henry H. Arnold, made an historic flight to Alaska.
This Alaskan trip was climaxed by a nonstop flight from Juneau, Alaska,
to Seattle, Washington, 943 miles over water in five hours and forty
minutes. Alaska’s nearness became apparent and American airpower was
needed to defend it. Army officials and top air strategists went to
work. The answer was a call for bigger bombers with greater range,
greater bomb capacity, and greater speed.
The Boeing Company, whose B-9 all-metal, low-wing, two-engined bomber
had proved sensational in 1932, produced the answer to the Army’s
problem of 1935. The answer was the giant four-engined model 299,
America’s first four-engined bomber. It was a mid-wing, all-metal
monoplane with a wingspan of 104 feet. With a top speed of over 250
miles per hour its performance was more than sensational.
[Illustration: 1935-1939
WINGSPAN 105 FEET
LENGTH 70 FEET
THE BOEING 299. THE _FLYING FORTRESS_, WAS AMERICA’S FIRST ALL-METAL,
LONG-RANGE, HIGH-ALTITUDE, FOUR-ENGINED “BATTLESHIP OF THE AIR.”
POWER
FOUR 9-CYLINDER 750-HP. RADIAL ENGINES
THE FIRST _FORTRESS_ WAS POWERED WITH PRATT & WHITNEY 750-HP. RADIAL
ENGINES. LATER MODELS USED 1,000-HP. WRIGHT CYCLONES.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
230 MILES
RANGE
2,000 MILES
CEILING
20,000 FEET
PAYLOAD
9 CREW MEMBERS, ONE
TON OF BOMBS, AND FIVE
30-CALIBER MACHINE GUNS.
THE 299, OFFICIALLY DESIGNATED THE XB-17, WEIGHED 16 TONS. ITS GREAT
WINGS WERE CONSTRUCTED OF ALUMINUM ALLOY METAL BRACED INTERNALLY BY A
BRIDGE-LIKE TRUSS STRUCTURE. THE 299 WAS HIGHLY STREAMLINED AND ITS
LANDING GEAR RETRACTED INTO WELLS IN THE ENGINE NACELLES. ITS ENGINES
WHIRLED 3-BLADED CONSTANT-SPEED PROPELLERS. IT WAS EQUIPPED WITH WING
FLAPS TO REDUCE ITS LANDING SPEED. GUNNERS WERE PROTECTED BY PLASTIC GUN
BLISTERS AND BOMBS WERE CARRIED INSIDE THE FUSELAGE.
THE INTRODUCTION OF THE _FLYING FORTRESS_ MARKED A GREAT STEP FORWARD IN
THE DESIGN OF BIG MILITARY AIRPLANES. IT CAME AS THE RESULT OF THE
BOEING COMPANY’S DEVELOPMENT OF LOW-WING, ALL-METAL, MULTI-ENGINED
PLANES. IT ALSO PROVED THAT PROPER STREAMLINING REDUCED _DRAG_ AND
INCREASED SPEED.]
[Illustration]
The pioneering of unusual airplanes like the _Monomail_, the B-9, and
the 247 transport were steps toward the Boeing 299. It was a courageous
step from two-engined to four-engined bombers, but the Boeing Company
made it so successfully that almost instantly the United States Army Air
Corps won world leadership in long-range, heavy bombardment aviation.
The exceptional speed, range, armament, and bomb capacity of the 299
quickly resulted in the dramatic name _Flying Fortress_. As the B-17 it
flew across the country at 232 miles per hour. In 1938, six B-17 _Flying
Fortresses_ set unofficial world records for speed and range in a mass
flight from Langley Field, Virginia, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and
return.
[Illustration: GRUMMAN F3F NAVY FIGHTER]
NAVAL AVIATION GETS READY
From 1930 to 1940 the small but efficient air arm of the United States
Navy continued to make progress. Since the introduction of the radial
engine, the Navy had worked closely with manufacturers of this type of
power plant. All types of Navy airplanes were powered with either Wright
or Pratt & Whitney air-cooled, radial engines. Many problems peculiar to
naval aircraft were worked out through the close co-operation of Navy
technicians and manufacturers. Corrosion-resistant metals were developed
for cylinders. Stronger engine parts were introduced to withstand the
stress of dive-bombing. Continual progress was made in increasing the
power of the engine without increasing its weight per horsepower. Thus
engine power increased from 200 horsepower in 1925 to 1,000 horsepower
in 1940.
[Illustration: GRUMMAN F4F _WILDCAT_ NAVY FIGHTER]
Naval aviators, encouraged by pioneer flying officers such as Jack
Towers, Marc Mitscher, Reeves, Bellinger, Read, and others, flew
continually to improve their flying and tactical techniques. They
flight-tested experimental planes, invented and perfected the technique
of dive-bombing, and improved their skill in the difficult task of
carrier operations. A young lieutenant, Frank D. Wagner, who invented
dive-bombing almost twenty years ago, a rear admiral in World War II,
had the satisfaction of seeing his invention, at the peak of perfection,
operating with deadly effect against our enemies in the Pacific. In
fact, many of the young naval aviators who fifteen years before were
conducting a continual competition to see whose squadron could excel the
rest in flying, dive-bombing, and gunnery, commanded the greatest naval
air force in the world.
In addition to the development of carrier-based aircraft operation, the
Navy perfected a catapult device which simplified the launching of
planes from all types of surface vessels. In 1912 the air-minded Captain
Chambers had made a successful experiment with a catapult-launching
device. This device, made of material salvaged from a scrap heap, laid
the foundation for catapult-launching of aircraft from surface vessels.
In Captain Chambers’ device the plane rested on a small car running on
the catapult rail. A cylinder filled with compressed air contained a
piston. When a valve was opened, the escaping air pushed the piston
against the car with a force that sent the car down the catapult rail
and the plane into the air.
The basic idea developed by Captain Chambers is still used in Navy
catapults. In the modern device, the airplane rests on a car riding on a
catapult rail which can be mounted on all types of surface craft. The
rail is so constructed that it can be swung in any direction, permitting
the plane to be launched into the wind. The power that shoots the
catapult car and sends the plane off the rail is furnished by a
five-inch shell fired in a mechanism at the rear of the rail. It was
this idea of Captain Chambers’ that originally gave the Navy a start on
the device enabling our battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to take
observation planes to sea with them. This was the idea which furnished
the “eyes of the fleet” and gave admirals and captains the power to see
what lay beyond the horizon.
The development of naval aviation marched step by step with the
development of aircraft. The year 1940 saw the introduction of one of
the best carrier-based fighters ever built, the Grumman F4F _Wildcat_.
This stubby-winged craft was a radical departure from previous
carrier-fighter design and became the first successful monoplane to go
to sea on the carriers. Wing-flaps lowered landing speeds and shortened
take-off runs. This permitted the use on the carriers of the fast
fighter, since the flaps acted as brakes and reduced the plane’s speed
for deck landings. The F4F had a wingspan of 38 feet but this was
decreased by the folding of its wings to 14 feet 6 inches. This device
reduced the space necessary for storage in the carrier’s hangar deck and
permitted the use of additional fighters on the ship. The F4F’s landing
gear retracted completely into the fuselage, thus aiding in streamlining
and increasing the speed of the fighter. It was powered with a
1,200-horsepower Pratt 81 Whitney air-cooled radial engine and had a
speed of about 350 miles per hour.
[Illustration: CATAPULT LAUNCHING]
Experiments with the use of aërial torpedoes brought about the
development of the Douglas TBD-1 torpedo plane. Though not so fast as a
fighter, the three-place TBD-1 _Devastator_ carried a deadly torpedo
load. The Douglas SBD _Dauntless_ was designed for dive-bombing and was
the first low-wing monoplane to be used as the standard dive-bomber on
our carriers.
The Douglas SBD _Dauntless_ was the first Navy dive-bomber to get into
action in World War II. In fact it went into action a few minutes after
the first Jap shot was fired at Pearl Harbor, on the morning of December
7th, 1941. SBD’s from the carrier Enterprise, steaming toward Hawaii,
were the first planes in action on that fateful morning. From that day
on our war in the Pacific was one of attack. The dive-bomber is an
attack weapon and the sturdy SBD’s led the attack from Pearl Harbor down
to Guadalcanal and on up the Pacific to the Philippines and victory.
While other types of planes were under consideration at the beginning of
the war, the airplanes just discussed were the ones that bore the brunt
of the fighting in the early months following the attack on Pearl
Harbor. Their work in the hands of gallant Navy airmen in the
heartbreaking first year of our struggle against terrific odds in the
Pacific would in itself furnish material for a book many times the size
of this one.
[Illustration: TWO FAMOUS DOUGLAS NAVY AIRPLANES
SBD _DAUNTLESS_ DIVE BOMBER
TBD _DEVASTATOR_ TORPEDO PLANE]
THE U. S. NAVY’S FIRST LONG-RANGE FLYING BOATS
In the early twenties the memories of the famous transatlantic flight of
the NC flying boats persisted in the minds of naval aviators. Much of
the Navy’s interest was centered in the Pacific, and the vision of
flying boats that could quickly link Hawaii to the mainland was an
enticing one.
On a trial flight from San Francisco, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii,
in 1925, Commander John Rogers, flying a Navy patrol plane, was forced
down after twenty-five hours in the air. He was within four hundred
miles of Hawaii when he landed on the sea. After drifting for nine days,
Rogers was picked up by a submarine. Although the flight had failed, it
had established a seaplane record of over 1,800 miles, and the trail was
blazed.
It was the development of the famous Consolidated PBY flying boats that
eventually put our West Coast within twenty-four hours’ flying distance
of Hawaii. You will remember the Army officer who had charge of our
first air mail service back in 1918--Major Reuben H. Fleet. Major Fleet
resigned from the service in 1922 and in the year following organized
the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation. His firm manufactured many types
of airplanes, including the Army’s PB-2A fighter and the 0-19
observation plane. In 1928 Consolidated built the XBY-1, a flying boat
with a wingspan of 100 feet. This was the first Consolidated flying boat
purchased by the United States Navy. Following this came the big
thirty-two-place Consolidated _Commodore_ flying boat.
The _Commodore_ led to the development of the P2Y type of flying boat.
This was a two-engined plane with a wingspan of 100 feet and a length of
62 feet. This was the plane which was to lead to the world-famous PBY
_Catalina_ flying boats. In January, 1934, six P2Y’s in the service of
the United States Navy made the first successful mass flight from San
Francisco to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a distance of 2,414 miles.
[Illustration: 1934-1945
WINGSPAN 104 FEET
LENGTH 65 FEET
THE _CATILINA_ WAS THE FIRST LONG-RANGE FLYING BOAT TO BE BUILT IN
QUANTITY FOR THE U.S. NAVY.
POWER
TWO 9-CYLINDER RADIAL ENGINES
THE FIRST MODELS WERE POWERED WITH 600-HP. ENGINES, LATER THEIR POWER
WAS INCREASED TO 1050 HP.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
198 MILES
RANGE
2,000+ MILES
THE _CATALINA_, WITH A RANGE OF OVER 2,000 MILES, GAVE THE NAVY A
LONG-RANGE PATROL BOAT CAPABLE OF CONNECTING OUR MAINLAND WITH THE CANAL
ZONE, HAWAII, AND ALASKA.
CEILING
18,000+ FEET
PAYLOAD
A CREW OF SEVEN
TO NINE MEN AND
A TON OF BOMBS.
THE POWERFUL, STURDY _CATALINA_, WITH ITS ABILITY TO CRUISE FAR OUT OVER
THE OCEAN, GAVE THE NAVY A VALUABLE DEFENSE WEAPON. SCOUTING FAR OUT
FROM OUR SHORES, IT COULD PROTECT OUR COASTLINE.
WHEN THE _CATALINAS_ WENT INTO SERVICE IN 1934, NOT EVEN THEIR
STAUNCHEST ADMIRERS VISUALIZED THAT, YEARS LATER, THEY WOULD BE ONE OF
THE NAVY’S MOST DEPENDABLE WEAPONS IN DEFEATING THE NAZIS AND THE JAPS
IN WORLD WAR II.]
[Illustration]
First introduced in 1934, the Consolidated PBY _Catalina_ was one of the
world’s first all-metal flying boats. Powered with two 600-horsepower
radial engines, the PBY was for six years the fastest airplane of its
class. In January, 1937, twelve Navy PBY’s flew in nonstop formation
from San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a distance of 2,553
miles, in 21 hours and 43 minutes. In June of the same year twelve PBY’s
flew in nonstop formation from San Diego to Coco Solo, Canal Zone, or
3,087 miles in 27 hours and 21 minutes. In 1937 Sir Hubert Wilkins flew
a commercial version of the PBY over 19,000 miles of Arctic wastes.
[Illustration: BOEING P-12 FIGHTER
BOEING P-26 A FIGHTER]
TECHNICAL PROGRESS IN THE U. S. ARMY AIR CORPS IN THE THIRTIES
Although prevented from any great expansion in the years following World
War I, the Army led the way in many phases of aviation. United States
Army planes were the first to fly around the world. Army aviation also
pioneered night flying and the use of the lighted airfield, refueling in
the air, and radio communication between ground and plane. It made great
advances in aërial photography. In 1929, Captain Albert W. Stevens
photographed Mount Rainier from an airplane 227 miles away, establishing
a record of long-distance aërial photography. The same year, Lieutenant
“Jimmy” Doolittle, in a demonstration of instrument-flying, accomplished
a take-off and a landing solely through the use of instruments. This was
the beginning of “blind flying.” The Army Fokker _Question Mark_ under
the command of Carl Spaatz and Ira Eaker, generals commanding our heavy
bomber forces in Europe in World War II, established an endurance record
by staying aloft for 150 hours. Their plane was refueled in the air
during the record flight. Army aviators were trained in the use of
oxygen at high altitudes and in the use of instruments for “blind
flying.”
[Illustration: CONSOLIDATED PB-2A FIGHTER-BOMBER
CURTISS P-36 _HAWK_
CURTISS P-40 _HAWK_]
In 1927 the great Matériel Division of the Air Corps was established in
its new home at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, close by the birthplace of
Orville and Wilbur Wright. The Air Corps Matériel Division was the
testing laboratory for all Army aviation equipment. Here all types of
new engines, planes, and instruments were developed and tested. Aircraft
manufacturers co-operated closely with Army technicians in developing
ideas which would help to further the advancement of military aviation.
New types of planes were taken to Wright Field, where Army technicians
and test pilots put them through grueling tests before releasing them
for Army service. Here the Army research engineers worked with oil
companies to develop fuels which would increase the performance of
aircraft engines. Clothing and equipment for pilots were tested.
High-speed aërial cameras were developed, and it was through the efforts
of the men at Wright Field that aërial photography in general was
perfected to so high a degree.
Many of the features developed for the Army at Wright Field also were
applied to commercial aviation and contributed greatly to the safety of
air travel. From the earliest postwar days, Army aviation leaders had
been insistent that safety was the most important factor in the
development of airplanes and of aviation equipment. The experts at
Wright Field have contributed greatly to the high record of safety which
consistently has prevailed in Army aviation.
THE ALLISON ENGINE
For several years after World War I, all Army airplanes were powered
with water-cooled, in-line engines. In the majority of cases it was the
_Liberty_ engine developed during the war, but some water-cooled Wright
engines also were used. As late as 1927 the Army still was experimenting
with the _Liberty_ engine and trying to increase its horsepower. James
A. Allison became interested in this project and, when the job was given
up as hopeless, went on to create his own engine. He died before he had
completed his engine, but his assistant, Norman H. Gilman, continued its
development in conjunction with General Motors. The first successful
Allison engine was completed in 1932, and the following year the Navy
used it to power the dirigibles _Akron_ and _Macon_.
The Army became very much interested in the Allison engine. Although a
number of Army fighters were equipped with radials following the early
successes of that type of engine, Air Corps men believed that, due to
its narrow frontal area, the in-line engine could help to streamline
fighters. Finally, in 1939, after many changes, the first Allison
engines were installed in Curtiss P-40 Army fighters. The first Allison
engine had developed 1,090 horsepower. By 1940 its horsepower was
increased to 1,150 and the Army adopted it as standard. It was installed
in all P-40’s and later in Lawrence Bell’s P-39 _Airacobra_. In the P-39
the engine was installed in the fuselage behind the pilot. A ten-foot
shaft carried the power to the propeller in the nose of the ship. This
installation permitted the housing of a 37-millimeter cannon and two
machine guns in the nose of the _Airacobra_. The Lockheed P-38
_Lightning_ was powered with two Allison engines, making it the first
fighter with more than two thousand horsepower.
[Illustration: LOCKHEED P-38 _LIGHTNING_]
[Illustration: ALLISON LIQUID-COOLED, V-TYPE, IN-LINE, 1,150-HP.
12-CYLINDER ENGINE.]
[Illustration: BELL P-39 _AIRACOBRA_ WITH THE ALLISON ENGINE INSTALLED
BEHIND THE PILOT’S COMPARTMENT.]
BATTLESHIPS OF THE AIR LEAD THE WAY TO VICTORY
Regardless of the fact that this country was at peace and our military
policy a defensive one, our farseeing Air Corps leaders continued to
build American air power around the heavy, long-range bomber. As the
heavy bomber was primarily an offensive weapon, many Americans believed
the Army’s development of it to be contrary to our declared policy. As a
result, we did not build great numbers of bombers. However, with the
small number that we did have, our Army aviators made great progress in
the technique of high-altitude bombing.
As in all branches of the United States Army, great stress was laid on
good marksmanship. Army aviators were trained to hit the mark with their
bombs just as the infantryman does with his rifle. Other countries
developing heavy bombers were satisfied if their airmen dropped a great
many bombs in a given target area. In this country the development of
the bombsight enabled our aviators to hit a target with great accuracy
from high altitudes. This is called precision bombing. It was also known
as pin-pointing a target, because of the ability of our bombardiers to
score direct hits on small targets. It was the B-17 _Flying Fortress_
that gave Army airmen the greatest help in perfecting high-altitude,
precision bombing. The broad wings of the _Fortress_ furnished a steady
platform from which to aim the bombs, and the great plane was able to
fly smoothly in the higher altitudes. The bombardier riding in its
transparent nose could carefully line up his target and drop his bombs
with precision accuracy.
It was not until the outbreak of World War II that most Americans came
to realize the value of the airplane in modern conflict. As the fighting
grew to global proportions, Americans began in particular to appreciate
the farsightedness of our Air Corps leaders in developing the long-range
bomber.
By 1940 the original Boeing 299 or B-17 had grown from a sixteen-ton
ship to a giant twenty-two-ton bomber. The new version, the B-17D, was
powered with two 1,200-horsepower radial engines, giving it a speed of
more than 300 miles per hour. Continual improvements were made on it and
by the spring of 1942 a still more formidable member of the _Fortress_
family, the B-17F, was in production.
The B-17F was the most powerful bomber yet produced. It was armed with
eleven .50-caliber machine guns and manned by a crew of ten. It could
carry more than three tons of bombs to targets over seven hundred miles
distant. Its oxygen system permitted its crew to fly the _Fortress_ at
altitudes above 35,000 feet. With its eleven heavy machine guns in the
hands of a perfectly trained crew, the _Fortress_ was capable of
defending itself with deadly effectiveness.
The first _Flying Fortresses_ went into action with the United States
Army on the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although this country
had then only a limited number of _Fortresses_, they and their
successors quickly began to distinguish themselves on the battlefronts
of the world.
[Illustration: THE CONSOLIDATED B-24 _LIBERATOR_ IS POWERED WITH FOUR
1,200-HP. 9-CYLINDER RADIAL ENGINES. IT CARRIES A CREW OF TEN FOUR
POWER-OPERATED GUN TURRETS, MOUNTS FROM TEN TO FOURTEEN .50-CALIBER
GUNS, AND CARRIES FOUR TONS OF BOMBS 1,500 MILES AT A SPEED OF 300 MILES
PER HOUR.]
[Illustration:
THE TWIN GUNNER OPERATES TWO .50-CALIBER MACHINE GUNS AND AN AËRIAL
CAMERA TO RECORD RESULTS OVER THE TARGET.
TWO-WAIST GUNNERS HANDLE .50-CALIBER GUNS, ONE IN EACH SIDE OF THE
FUSELAGE.
RADIOMAN HAS ONE .50-CALIBER GUN.
TOP TURRET GUNS SHOOT IN A CIRCLE AND OVERHEAD.
THE POWER-OPERATED BALL-TURRET, MOUNTING TWO .50-CALIBER MACHINE
GUNS, REVOLVES SO THAT THE GUNNER CAN SHOOT DOWNWARD, TO THE RIGHT,
LEFT, OR REAR.
BOMBARDIER HANDLES TWO .50-CALIBER GUNS IN THE SWINGING CHIN
TURRET.
PILOT AND CO-PILOT
1,200-HORSEPOWER, SUPERCHARGED, 9-CYLINDER WRIGHT _CYCLONE_ RADIAL
ENGINES.
NAVIGATOR HAS ONE FLEXIBLE .50-CALIBER GUN MOUNTED IN WINDOWS IN
EACH SIDE OF THE NOSE.]
By the summer of 1942 _Flying Fortresses_ had begun what was to be the
greatest sustained aërial invasion the world had ever known. Starting
with a small group of _Fortresses_, the United States Army Air Forces
went to work to wreck Adolf Hitler’s “Fortress Europe” and clear the
path for an Allied invasion.
From small raids by a dozen _Fortresses_ the number of bombers grew
until the raids became huge aërial invasions involving hundreds of
bombers and thousands of airmen. That the path for invasion was cleared
and victory brought nearer was due in no small measure to our big
bombers and the farsighted American airmen who had brought them into
being against almost insurmountable obstacles.
[Illustration: MARTIN B-26 _MARAUDER_ HIGH-SPEED, TWO-ENGINED, ARMY
MEDIUM BOMBER]
ARMY ATTACK AVIATION AND TRAINING
Although the airplane in World War I had been used mainly as an
observation and a plane-to-plane combat weapon, wise American airmen,
such as General “Billy” Mitchell, visualized the craft as a means of
destroying the enemy’s ability to fight. These men saw his weapons
destroyed as they were being built and his transport stopped before it
reached the battlefield. As the result of this thinking, our doctrine of
air power was established.
With this much accomplished, the need for various types of airplanes was
clearly defined. It called for three distinct types of warplanes: the
long-range bomber, the observation plane, and the pursuit plane. Air
strategy was built around the long-range bomber. This was the weapon
which would destroy the enemy’s war plants and military establishments
on his home grounds. The observation plane was to be used to seek out
the enemy’s movements and to locate his installations. As aërial
photography was perfected, the observation planes were to be equipped to
bring back a record of their findings. These records would establish the
targets for the long-range bombers. In the beginning, the pursuit plane
was considered a weapon to protect our own military establishments, our
cities, and our war plants. Its mission was to intercept any enemy
planes attempting to attack us.
On the preceding pages we have seen the bomber develop from a
single-engined DH-4 into the giant four-engined B-17. This development
was the result of the careful study of aërial strategy by our Army
airmen. When the big bombers with a range of thousands of miles were
built, our strategists saw them as weapons to be used only against an
enemy’s most distant military establishments. The smaller two-engined
bombers which had once been our long-range bombers
[Illustration: NORTH AMERICAN B-25 _MITCHELL_ TWO-ENGINED, ARMY MEDIUM
BOMBER
THE B-25 MOUNTS EITHER FOURTEEN .50-CALIBER MACHINE GUNS AND ONE
3-INCH CANNON OR EIGHTEEN .50-CALIBER GUNS, EIGHT OF THEM IN THE
NOSE.]
were delegated to the destruction of targets closer to the battlefronts.
In time, the use of the two-engine bomber led to the development of
attack aviation. This was built around very fast, two-engined planes
which could carry both bombs and guns. These medium bombers were to be
used to attack targets of medium range with both bombs and guns. They
were to be used to destroy enemy troops, transports, and gun
emplacements. In the few years of World War II, attack bombers were
developed from comparatively slow planes to ships with the speed of
fighters. They are capable of carrying more than a ton of bombs, and of
mounting cannon and as many as fifteen machine guns.
With the establishment of a definite policy of air strategy, plans were
worked out for the training of personnel to man and service our fighting
planes. The training plans set up in the early twenties are essentially
the same as those in effect at the present. The system consisted of two
training schools, Primary and Advanced. In the Primary School cadets
received their preliminary flight training and studied construction of
planes, radio, weather observation, and other technical problems
concerning flight. The qualities shown by the cadets in the primary
training helped to determine the branch of combat aviation for which
they were best fitted.
At the Advanced School, cadets were trained in larger and more powerful
airplanes and received instruction in gunnery, formation flying,
cross-country flying, and night flying. Graduates of the Advanced School
received their wings and, by joining tactical units, completed their
training as members of regular service squadrons. In 1928 all Army air
training activities were consolidated at one great training center at
San Antonio, Texas. This great headquarters for the training of United
States Army airmen was dedicated in June, 1930, as Randolph Field, in
memory of Captain William M. Randolph. Captain Randolph, a native of
Texas, had lost his life in an airplane crash a few years before. It was
fitting that the first great Army aviation training program was under
the direction of Brigadier General Frank P. Lahm, the Army’s pioneer
aviator.
[Illustration: CURTISS A-18 _FALCON_ THE ARMY’S FIRST TWO-ENGINED ATTACK
PLANE.
DOUGLAS A-20 _HAVOC_ FAST, DEADLY WORLD WAR II ARMY ATTACK PLANE.
DOUGLAS A-26 _INVADER_ THE ARMY’S 1945 ATTACK PLANE, THE FASTEST AND
DEADLIEST PLANE OF ITS CLASS IN THE WORLD.]
SUPER-FIGHTER
In the Pacific American fighters dropped down from 25,000 feet, screamed
across an enemy airfield, guns blasting, and indicators showing a speed
of over eight miles a minute. If the Japanese had not been “dug in,”
they probably would have been sucked into the planes’ airscoops. Later
one of the pilots expressed the sentiments of the entire raiding group
when he said, “It’s a wonderful feeling to watch that air speed
indicator climb. It makes you feel that nothing on this earth can catch
you.”
That pilot was talking about the North American P-51 _Mustang_. He was
not exaggerating when he made his remark, for there has been no fighter
in action that could equal its speed. In the _Mustang_ we see
streamlining at its best. Its in-line, liquid-cooled engine offers only
a very small frontal area and allows the _Mustang_ to have the narrow
fuselage of the fastest racing plane. This narrow fuselage and the
high-speed wing practically eliminate all drag that reduces speed. The
landing gear retracts completely into the fuselage and also eliminates
drag. Even the airscoop is placed far back under the fuselage where it
offers practically no resistance. The reduction of drag to a minimum
eliminates vibration to such an extent that the pilot of a _Mustang_
flies at terrific speeds with no ill effects.
[Illustration: THE P-51 MOUNTS SIX 4.5-INCH ROCKETS IN TUBES UNDER THE
WINGS FOR ATTACKS ON GROUND TARGETS.]
[Illustration: 1942-1945
WINGSPAN 37 FEET
LENGTH 32 FEET
THE NORTH AMERICAN P-51 _MUSTANG_ IS THE FASTEST AND DEADLIEST FIGHTER
PLANE THAT HAS YET BEEN IN ACTION IN WORLD WAR II.
POWER
ONE 12-CYLINDER 1,520-HP. V-TYPE ENGINE
THE P-51 IS POWERED WITH THE AMERICAN-BUILT, ROLLS-ROYCE _MERLIN_
ENGINE. IT IS AN IN-LINE, V-TYPE, 12-CYLINDER, LIQUID-COOLED,
SUPERCHARGED ENGINE.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
425+ MILES
THE _MUSTANG_ IS THE FASTEST GASOLINE-POWERED FIGHTER IN THE AIR TODAY.
RANGE
600+ MILES
WHILE THE NORMAL RANGE OF THE P-51 IS 600 MILES IT CAN BE EQUIPPED WITH
DROPPABLE AUXILIARY GASOLINE TANKS THAT INCREASE ITS RANGE TO 1,500
MILES FOR LONG-RANGE ESCORT MISSIONS.
CEILING
40,000+ FEET
IT IS CAPABLE OF FLYING AND FIGHTING AT ALTITUDE ABOVE EIGHT MILES IN
THE AIR. IT IS EQUALLY EFFECTIVE WHEN USED AS A FIGHTER-BOMBER AT LOW
ALTITUDES.
PAYLOAD
ONE PILOT, TWO
1,000-LB. BOMBS,
AND SIX .50-CALIBER GUNS.
THE P-51 _MUSTANG_ WAS DESIGNED AND DEVELOPED FROM A THOROUGH STUDY OF
AËRIAL WARFARE IN THE EARLY MONTHS OF WORLD WAR II. IN THE P-51 WE SEE
_DRAG_ REDUCED TO A MINIMUM AND STREAMLINING REACHING PERFECTION.
THEREIN LIES THE SECRET OF THE EIGHT-MILES-A-MINUTE SPEED OF THE P-51.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
BULLET-PROOF SEAT BACK
OXYGEN SUPPLY
FULL-VISION COCKPIT ENCLOSURE
1,520-HORSEPOWER V-TYPE ENGINE
FOUR-BLADED PROPELLER
SUPER-SPEED LAMINAR-FLOW WING
1,000-POUND BOMB UNDER EACH WING
THREE .50-CALIBER MACHINE GUNS IN EACH WING
AIR SCOOP FOR ENGINE COOLANT
SELF-SEALING SAFETY GAS TANKS]
The _Mustang_ was designed and built as the result of a careful study of
modern fighter tactics. It grew out of the need for high-speed,
high-altitude fighters to serve as escorts for our heavy bombers. As our
bomber attacks against Germany grew in strength, the Nazis in
desperation threw in hundreds of their fighters to hinder us. The
_Mustang_, with its tremendous speed and ability to fight at high
altitudes, proved a sensation as an escort fighter. Two _Mustang_ groups
alone have accounted for the destruction of almost two thousand Nazi
fighters. With a speed of over 425 miles per hour and capable of great
range, _Mustangs_ spelled doom to Nazi air power.
MAN-MADE _THUNDERBOLTS_ RIP WIDE A PATH TO VICTORY
The Republic P-4-7 _Thunderbolt_ was planned in 1940 as the result of
the Air Corps’ desire to strengthen our fighter squadrons. A study of
the Nazis’ use of crushing air power in their attacks on Western Europe
hastened our plans to build heavier and more powerful fighters.
At one of the Air Corps meetings with aircraft manufacturers at Wright
Field in 1940, Alexander Kartveli sketched on the back of an envelope an
idea for a super-fighter. Eight months later his idea had grown into the
fastest and most powerful fighter ever built in this country.
Alexander Kartveli was chief engineer for Republic Aviation
Corporation. His sketches were developed by his firm to produce the
six-and-one-half-ton, 400-mile-an-hour P-47 fighter. The P-47 was the
answer to the Army’s demands for a big, powerfully armed fighter which
could out-fly and out-fight any warplane put into the skies by an enemy.
More than 10,000 _Thunderbolts_ have been built since 1940 and they have
taken a terrific toll of Axis planes, both in Europe and in the Pacific.
Pilots of one group of _Thunderbolts_ that operated in the Pacific shot
down Jap planes at the rate of 52 to 1.
[Illustration: THE NEW P-47N, A TEN-TON FIGHTER CAPABLE OF STAYING ALOFT
FOR 16 HOURS.]
[Illustration: 1941-1945
WINGSPAN 40 FT. 9 IN.
LENGTH 36 FT. 1 IN.
WEIGHING SIX AND ONE-HALF TONS, THE REPUBLIC P-47 _THUNDERBOLT_ FIGHTER
IS EQUALLY DEADLY AT HIGH OR LOW ALTITUDES.
POWER
ONE 18-CYLINDER 2,000-HP. RADIAL ENGINE.
THE GIANT PRATT & WHITNEY RADIAL ENGINE IS ONE OF THE LARGEST AND MOST
POWERFUL IN THE WORLD AND IS SUPERCHARGED FOR HIGH-ALTITUDE FLIGHT.
SPEED
ONE MILE
400+ MILES
CAPABLE OF A SPEED IN EXCESS OF 400 MILES PER HOUR, THE _THUNDERBOLT_ IS
THE U.S. ARMY’S HEAVIEST AND MOST POWERFULLY ARMED SINGLE-ENGINED
FIGHTER.
RANGE
600+ MILES
CEILING
40,000+ FEET
PAYLOAD
ONE PILOT. TWO
1,000-LB. BOMBS.
EIGHT .50-CALIBER GUNS.
ORIGINALLY DESIGNED FOR HIGH-ALTITUDE BOMBER-ESCORT MISSIONS, THE
_THUNDERBOLT_ HAS PROVED TO BE EXCEPTIONALLY WELL SUITED FOR
FIGHTER-BOMBER ATTACK MISSIONS. IT MOUNTS EIGHT .50-CALIBER MACHINE GUNS
AND CAN CARRY HEAVY BOMBS AND ROCKET GUNS UNDER ITS WINGS.
THE PRODUCTION OF THE GIANT P-47 WAS MADE POSSIBLE ONLY AS THE RESULT OF
THE SUCCESSFUL EFFORTS OF AMERICAN ENGINEERS TO REDUCE THE WEIGHT PER
HORSEPOWER OF AIRCRAFT ENGINES. MODERN ENGINES, LIKE THE ONE THAT POWERS
THE P-47, WEIGH ABOUT ONE POUND PER HORSEPOWER.]
[Illustration]
The Republic P-47 _Thunderbolt_ proved to be one of the most versatile
airplanes developed in this war. It performs equally well at high or low
altitudes. Armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, it is a
hard-hitting escort fighter which can out-fight any plane sent up to
hinder our big bombers. When used for ground strafing it has no
superior. With two 1000-pound bombs tucked under its wings it becomes a
deadly dive-bomber. Armed with rocket tubes and its eight big machine
guns blazing, it can blast enemy tanks, transport, and gun emplacements
effectively.
SUPERFORTRESS
The first giant _Flying Fortress_ had hardly taken off from the Boeing
factory at Seattle, in 1935, before its engineers began to think about
bigger and faster super-bombers. As the new _Fortresses_ shattered
records for speed, pay load, distance, and altitude, farsighted Air
Corps leaders also began to think about more powerful super-bombers.
By 1937 the brains and labor of Boeing engineers and production men
created the first of the super-bombers. It was the giant Boeing XB-15
and it actually dwarfed the _Flying Fortress_. With a gross weight of 35
tons, 13 tons more than the _Fortress_, the XB-15 was 20 feet longer, 3
feet higher, and had a wingspan 45 feet greater. Its general appearance,
however, was patterned after the _Fortress_. Only one XB-15 was built.
It was used for experimental purposes by the Air Corps, and the Boeing
Company went ahead to build the high-altitude _Stratoliner_ and the big
_Clipper_ planes for civilian use.
Thus it was that even before the Nazis swept into Poland in 1939 the Air
Corps had been thinking of an airplane that would dwarf the _Flying
Fortress_. Size alone was not enough. General Arnold and his associates
wanted an airplane which would carry a heavier bomb load farther,
faster, and higher than ever before.
Few people aside from the Army knew of the XB-15, and the development of
the super-bomber was one of the best kept secrets in history. One of the
greatest surprises of the war was the War Department’s announcement on
June 15, 1944: “B-29 _Superfortresses_ of the United States Army Air
Forces’ 20th Bomber Command bombed Japan.”
Just one year after the announcement of the first _Superfortress_ attack
on Japan, five hundred of these giant ships took part in a single raid
against targets on the Japanese mainland. In groups of four and five
hundred they blasted Japan almost daily. _Superfortresses_ bombed Japan
to her knees in the spring and summer of 1945. Then in August of that
year a lone _Superfortress_ dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on
Hiroshima for the knockout blow that brought us victory.
[Illustration: 1944-1945
WINGSPAN 140 FEET
LENGTH 98 FEET
THE BOEING B-29 _SUPERFORTRESS_ IS THE WORLD’S FASTEST AND LARGEST
BOMBER.
POWER
FOUR 18-CYLINDER 2,200-HP. RADIAL ENGINES
THE GIANT AIR-COOLED WRIGHT _CYCLONE_ ENGINES WHIRL GREAT, FOUR-BLADED
PROPELLERS WITH A DIAMETER OF 16FT. 6IN.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
300+ MILES
THE POWERFUL ENGINES AND GREAT PROPELLERS PULL THE HUGE B-29 THROUGH THE
AIR AT A SPEED GREATER THAN THAT ATTAINED BY FIGHTERS AT THE START OF
WORLD WAR II.
RANGE
3,000+ MILES
CEILING
40,000+ FEET
ITS LONG, STREAMLINED FUSELAGE HOUSES PRESSURIZED COMPARTMENTS THAT
ALLOW THE _SUPERFORTRESS_ TO FLY AT ALTITUDES OF MORE THAN 40,000 FEET
WITHOUT THE USE OF OXYGEN BY THE CREW MEMBERS.
PAYLOAD
ELEVEN-MAN CREW
SEVEN TONS OF BOMBS
FOURTEEN .50-CAL. GUNS
ONE 20-MM. CANNON
REMOTE GUN CONTROL GIVE THE B-29 MORE ACCURATE DEFENSIVE FIREPOWER AND
ITS GREAT LOAD-CARRYING ABILITY MAKES THE _SUPERFORTRESS_ THE MOST
FORMIDABLE BOMBER NOW IN ACTION.
THE B-29 REPRESENTS MORE THAN TEN YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN DEVELOPING
LONG-RANGE, HEAVY-LOAD-CARRYING AIRPLANES BY THE BOEING COMPANY. THE
SUCCESS OF THE B-17, THE _CLIPPER_, AND THE _STRATOLINER_ DEMONSTRATED
THE POSSIBILITIES OF A HIGHLY STREAMLINED, FAST HIGH-ALTITUDE
SUPER-BOMBER LIKE THE B-29.]
[Illustration]
Half again as large as the _Flying Fortress_, the _Superfortress_
carries twice the load of the _Fortress_. It has a wingspan of 141 feet
and its highly streamlined fuselage is 98 feet long. Powered with the
largest engines yet in service, it has a speed far in excess of 300
miles per hour. The pressurized cabin of the B-29 permits its crew to
fly without the use of heated suits or oxygen masks at substratosphere
altitudes. In military terms this means better physical condition, more
skilful gunnery, more accurate bombing, and more comfort for the crews.
In the _Superfortress_ we see great ideas, born years ago in the minds
of our airmen, come into being with overwhelming and disastrous effects
on our enemies throughout the Pacific.
[Illustration: VOUGHT F4U _CORSAIR_ NAVY FIGHTER]
NAVAL AVIATION IN THE EARLY MONTHS OF WORLD WAR II
Just as the United States was approaching the brink of war, the Navy air
arm owned only about a thousand airplanes of all types. The young Navy
airmen who had perfected dive-bombing had seen their invention adopted
by the Nazis and used with deadly effect in their march across Western
Europe. In the year before Pearl Harbor the Navy had acquired only a few
hundred new airplanes. We did have, however, a group of young men who
had been living and breathing aviation for the past fifteen years. They
knew what was needed in the way of new fighting planes and they knew how
to train thousands of new naval aviators when the time came. But it took
the tremendous sweeps of the Nazis in Europe and the shadow of Japan
across the Pacific to unloose the flood of fighting planes which was to
give the United States Navy the greatest aërial fighting force ever
launched.
At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor we had seven carriers,
including our first big ones, the _Lexington_ and the _Saratoga_. The
Grumman F4F _Wildcat_ was our standard carrier-based fighter. We had a
small number of TBD _Devastator_ torpedo planes and SDB _Dauntless_
dive-bombers. Our battleships and cruisers were equipped with Vought
OS2U _Kingfisher_ and Curtis SO3C _Seagull_ observation scout planes
launched from the ships’ catapults. The Navy was fairly well equipped
with PBY _Catalina_ long-range patrol bombers. But in the engineering
offices of aircraft manufacturers, new and more powerful fighters,
bombers, and patrol planes were being planned.
[Illustration: MARTIN PBM _MARINER_ NAVY PATROL BOMBER AND TRANSPORT
PLANE.]
When Japan struck we had eleven aircraft carriers under construction,
and two thousand new planes went into service for the Navy. Great
training stations were being put into service to increase the Navy’s
flying personnel to over 15,000 men.
A new patrol bomber, the long-range Martin PBM-1 _Mariner_, went into
service for the Navy in 1941. It had a wingspan of 118 feet and a length
of 77 feet 2 inches. It was powerfully armed and carried a heavy load of
bombs. It was capable of long range and was able to carry out extensive
over-ocean patrols without returning to its base. Ample living
accommodations were provided for its eleven-man crew. In addition to its
duties as an anti-submarine patrol and long-range bomber, the _Mariner_
was used as a Navy transport.
The Vought F4U-1 _Corsair_ fighters began to go into service in the
Pacific soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The _Corsair_ was a
single-place fighter of unusual design. Its wing had the shape of an
inverted gull wing. This design allowed clearance for the _Corsair’s_
13-foot, 4-inch propeller. A straight wing would have needed a
dangerously high landing gear to provide clearance for such a large
propeller. Originally designed for carrier use, the 2,000-horsepower,
400-mile-an-hour _Corsair_ was adopted for land-based operations by the
United States Marine Corps. Marine Corps aviators used the _Corsair_
with deadly effect against the Japs from Guadalcanal on. Navy pilots
flew the _Corsair_ as a night-fighter to put a stop to the Jap’s habit
of bombing our Pacific airfields at night.
[Illustration: VOUGHT OS2U _KINGFISHER_ OBSERVATION SCOUT PLANE.]
The Navy’s newest torpedo plane, the Grumman TBF _Avenger_, first
appeared in the battle off Midway. The big _Avenger_ had a speed of 270
miles per hour, a range of 1,400 miles, and carried a 2,000-pound bomb
load or a full-sized torpedo concealed in its fuselage. The famous
Torpedo Squadron 8, in fourteen weeks sank as many Jap warships
including two aircraft carriers and one battleship; bombed one heavy
cruiser, one light cruiser, and a number of smaller ships.
_Avengers_ helped to pave the way for the establishment of bases in the
Pacific. _Corsairs_, used as the Navy’s first night-fighters, broke up
Japanese night bombings of the newly won island bases and allowed our
hard-worked men to rest at night.
[Illustration: GRUMMAN TBF _AVENGER_ NAVY TORPEDO PLANE]
THE U. S. NAVY’S DEADLIEST FIGHTER PLANE
In the months following Pearl Harbor the tough little Grumman F4F
_Wildcat_ was ever in the thick of the fight in the Pacific. Based on
the few carriers available for use against the Japs, the _Wildcats_
outfought overwhelming numbers of enemy warplanes. Over the Marshall
Islands in February, 1942, _Wildcat_ fighters bagged ten Jap fighters
and three bombers without any American losses. At Wake Island, a lone
_Wildcat_, manned by a Marine, bombed a Jap cruiser to the bottom.
Lieutenant Commander Edward (“Butch”) O’Hare was flying a _Wildcat_ when
he brought down six Jap bombers singlehanded in a few minutes. Such
incidents were typical of _Wildcat_ action in the first year of the war.
When President Roosevelt presented the Congressional Medal of Honor to
“Butch” O’Hare, he asked him what kind of fighter was needed to beat the
Japs. O’Hare replied, “Something that will go upstairs faster.”
Commander John Thatch, master Navy combat technician, had told Grumman
officials the same thing, and had added a request for more speed in
general. Not many months later, the roar of a 2,000-horsepower echoed
over Long Island, New York, and a new Grumman fighter began to “go
upstairs faster.”
The new fighter that answered the Navy pilots’ demand for more speed and
more power was the Grumman F6F _Hellcat_. Much larger than its baby
brother the _Wildcat_, the _Hellcat_ was powered with an
eighteen-cylinder Pratt & Whitney radial engine. The big radial
developed over 2,000 horsepower and put the _Hellcat_ in the
400-mile-an-hour class. It proved to be one of the most maneuverable
fighters in the world and could climb like a skyrocket. The cockpit
housed atop the big fuselage at its highest point gave pilots excellent
visibility to train the _Hellcat’s_ six .50-caliber guns on the enemy.
[Illustration: 1943-1945
WINGSPAN 42 FEET
LENGTH 33 FEET
THE GRUMMAN F6F _HELLCAT_ IS THE FASTEST, MOST POWERFUL FIGHTER NOW
BASED ON U.S. NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIERS.
POWER
ONE 18-CYLINDER
2,000-HP. RADIAL ENGINE
THE MASSIVE, PRATT & WHITNEY RADIAL ENGINE DEVELOPS MORE THAN THREE
TIMES THE HORSEPOWER OF THE FIRST GRUMMAN FIGHTER, THE FF-1 OF 1935.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
400 MILES
RANGE
1,000+ MILES
CEILING
30,000+ FEET
PAYLOAD
ONE PILOT, SIX
.50-CAL. GUNS
AND EIGHT ROCKETS.
THE F6F _HELLCAT’S_ POWERFUL SUPERCHARGED ENGINE WHIRLS A THREE-BLADED
PROPELLER. THE DIAMETER OF THE PROPELLER IS WELL OVER TWELVE FEET.
HIGHLY MANEUVERABLE, THE F6F, WITH ITS 400-MILE-AN-HOUR SPEED, IS MORE
THAN A MATCH FOR THE JAPANESE _ZERO_. IT CAN “GO UPSTAIRS FASTER” THAN
ANY OTHER CARRIER-BASED FIGHTER IN ACTION IN 1945. IN ADDITION TO
MACHINE GUNS, THE _HELLCAT_ CAN CARRY ROCKETS UNDER ITS WINGS FOR
LOW-ALTITUDE STRAFING ATTACKS.
THE _HELLCAT_ REPRESENTS A GREAT STEP FORWARD IN THE PERFORMANCE OF
CARRIER-BASED FIGHTERS. IT WAS DESIGNED AND BUILT TO MEET THE NEED FOR A
FAST, POWERFUL SHIPBOARD FIGHTER THAT COULD BLAST THE JAPS OUT OF THE
SKY OVER THE PACIFIC. IN TWO YEARS IT PRACTICALLY WIPED OUT JAP FIGHTER
OPPOSITION.]
[Illustration]
The _Hellcat_ has plenty of protective armor for its pilot. It has
rubber gasoline tanks encased in canvas hammocks giving them great
flexibility in resisting the penetration of bullets and shell fragments.
The _Hellcat_ handles beautifully at all altitudes. At high altitudes it
could more than outfight any plane that the Japs sent up. It is also a
deadly weapon when used in low-altitude strafing attacks against
airfields and shipping. The _Hellcat_ has now replaced the _Wildcat_ as
the standard fighter based on our aircraft carriers. Much of our success
in driving the Japs out of the air over the Pacific is due to the
_Hellcat_. These powerful fighters, based on the carriers of Admiral
Halsey’s famous Task Force 58, carried their devastating attacks to the
Japs’ homeland.
Although dive-bombing was originated by Navy airmen it was a number of
years before an airplane was built that was rugged enough to stand up
under the shock of repeated dives. The first airplane built specifically
for dive-bombing was a Curtiss F8C _Helldiver_, built in 1929. This
original dive-bomber was a biplane. The series continued until 1935 when
Curtiss introduced the SBC type of dive-bomber. This was also a biplane
with wire bracing. The streamlining in the SBC was much improved and it
was equipped with a retractable landing gear. The SBC was also called
the _Helldiver_. While the SBC series marked advance in dive-bomber
performance, the biplane wings and wire bracing created a drag which
held down its diving speed. In 1939 the Curtiss Company began to work on
a new dive-bomber design.
In the meantime Douglas had brought out the all-metal, low-wing SBD
_Dauntless_ dive-bomber. This was a fast, clean airplane equipped with
flaps for diving. The flaps, attached to the trailing edge of the wing,
could be dropped down to act as brakes. The flaps created a resistance
which cut the speed of the plane at the will of the pilot. Powered with
a 1,000-horsepower radial engine, the SBD had a speed of about 200 miles
per hour. It carried a 1,000-pound bomb under its fuselage which, when
released by the pilot, was swung clear of the plane by a yokelike gear.
The SBD usually started its dive at an altitude of 10,000 feet. From
that height the plane could pick up a speed of from 450 to 500 miles per
hour. The best speed for dive-bombing is about 275 miles per hour, and
the flaps on the SBD enabled the pilot to control his speed as he dived
on his target.
At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the SBD was the
standard dive-bomber based on our carriers. From the very start it was a
star performer in our war in the Pacific. In the first years of the
struggle SBD’s destroyed more enemy planes, ships, and property than did
all our other air and surface weapons combined. SBD’s were in the
forefront in our war in the Pacific. But a giant new dive-bomber
suddenly appeared over Rabaul, New Guinea, in the fall of 1944, the
deadliest bomber which had yet dived on the Japs. Another _Helldiver_
was in action.
[Illustration: 1943-1945
WINGSPAN 49 FEET
LENGTH 36 FEET
THE CURTISS SB2C _HELLDIVER_ IS THE FASTEST AND MOST POWERFUL
DIVE-BOMBER IN ACTION IN THE WORLD IN 1945.
POWER
ONE 14-CYLINDER 1,700-HP. RADIAL ENGINE
THE 1,700-HP. WRIGHT _CYCLONE FOURTEEN_ HAS THE SAME 55-INCH FRONTAL
AREA AS THE 200-HORSEPOWER WRIGHT 9-CYLINDER RADIAL INTRODUCED EIGHTEEN
YEARS AGO, IN 1927.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
300+ MILES
RANGE
1,200+ MILES
CEILING
20,000+ FEET
PAYLOAD
PILOT AND GUNNER,
MACHINE GUNS OR
CANNON, BOMBS AND ROCKETS.
THE POWERFUL RADIAL ENGINE WHIRLS A PROPELLER WITH FOUR 6-FOOT BLADES.
WITH ITS SPEED OF OVER 300 MILES PER HOUR, THE _HELLDIVER_ IS ALMOST 100
MILES PER HOUR FASTER THAN THE DEADLY NAZI _STUKA_. IT IS MUCH FASTER
AND HAS HEAVIER ARMOR AND FIREPOWER THAN ITS PREDECESSOR WITH THE FLEET,
THE DOUGLAS SBD-1. IT CARRIES MORE THAN A TON OF BOMBS. IT MOUNTS EITHER
.50-CALIBER MACHINE GUNS OR 20-MILLIMETER CANNON. IT IS ALSO EQUIPPED
FOR FIRING ROCKETS.
IN THE SB2C WE SEE THE MOST FORMIDABLE OF THE LONG LINE OF NAVY
_HELLDIVERS_ BUILT BY THE CURTISS COMPANY SINCE 1928. THE SB2C
_HELLDIVER_ HAS GREATER RANGE, GREATER FIREPOWER, AND CARRIES A GREATER
BOMB LOAD THAN ANY OTHER PLANE OF ITS TYPE IN THE WORLD. IT IS NOW USING
ITS POWER WITH DEADLY EFFECT IN THE PACIFIC.]
[Illustration] DIVE-BOMBER
This big dive-bomber was the one begun by Curtiss in 1939. Few planes in
history had been so long in the development stage, but when the SB2C
_Helldiver_ did appear it was the biggest and fastest dive-bomber to go
into service with the United States Navy. Powered with a
1,700-horsepower, 14-cylinder, Wright Cyclone radial engine, its top
speed is in excess of 300 miles per hour. Carrying more than a ton of
bombs, it has a range of over 1,200 miles. It is armed with either
.50-caliber machine guns or 20-millimeter cannon. It is also equipped to
carry rockets under its wings.
[Illustration]
OUR FLYING NAVY
_From Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, and Midway to Tokyo Bay Our
Gallant Navy Men, Carriers, and Planes Led the Way to Victory and
Have Added Many Heroic Chapters to the Glorious History of the
United States Navy._
When the Japs struck at Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning December 7, 1941,
United States naval aviation had just passed its thirtieth birthday. At
no time in its history had the U. S. Navy been confronted with a greater
task. Many of our great warships lay in the mud at Pearl Harbor. Many of
our Navy planes had been destroyed, and Japan controlled the greater
part of the western Pacific.
Though the future looked black, our Navy possessed one great asset,
invisible to most of us. It was that small group of Navy airmen who had
lived and breathed flying since our first carriers were launched. So
thorough had been the schooling and the thinking of our pioneer flat-top
men that, when war did come, they were ready. These naval aviators who
had created and tested every form of air tactics were ready to put them
into action. They also were able to pass on their lessons to the large
group of young men who were to man the thousands of warplanes being
built for the Navy.
As the new planes were rolling off the production lines and the new
naval aviators were in training, the old-timers went to work on the Japs
in the Pacific. That they did their job well is testified by the fact
that the Japs did not get back to Pearl Harbor or attack our west coast.
With only a few carriers to cover the vast Pacific area, and a pitifully
small number of airplanes, our naval aviators carried the fight all the
way down to the Solomons. They helped take and hold Guadalcanal. They
stopped the great Japanese fleet at Midway and drove them out of the
Aleutians. Navy flat-tops took “Jimmy” Doolittle and his Tokyo raiders
almost to Japan’s front door. Wherever our naval aviators met the enemy
they knocked him out of the air at the rate of five to one.
In spite of our favorable ratio of victories over the Japs in the air,
they still outnumbered us ten to one in the Pacific. During 1942 many
new Navy airplanes were delivered. Thousands of young naval aviators
were trained at our naval air stations. A great naval air transport
service was created to fly men and materials to distant Pacific
islands. With only one carrier, the _Enterprise_, left in the Pacific, a
great new carrier fleet was rushed into service.
By the Fall of 1943 a tremendous change was wrought in the Pacific. In
September the first three new carriers, the _Essex_, the _Yorktown_, and
the _Independence_, were battle-tested in the raid on Marcus Island.
_Avengers_ and _Hellcats_ began to appear in great numbers to take the
place of _Wildcats_ on the decks of our big carriers. Raid followed
raid. The Gilbert Island chain, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Truk, Palau, Saipan,
and other islands fell before the blows of our new carrier-based air
power.
More big new carriers continued to appear in the Pacific and a new type
of sea power came into being, the carrier task force. Here we saw air
power based on a great fleet of large and small carriers forming the
spearhead of a naval offensive. The flat-top had truly become the “Queen
of the Fleet.”
Now we see come into being the ideas born in the minds of a group of
pioneer naval aviators twenty years ago. The airplane has not only gone
to sea with the fleet but, as the striking power of the Navy, it is
leading the fleet to victory.
It was the work of the fighting planes based on Admiral Marc A.
Mitscher’s carrier Task Force 58 that hammered a path to the very front
door of Japan.
Since Pearl Harbor, naval aviators have shot down over ten thousand
Japanese aircraft with the loss of less than two thousand of our own
planes. This gives our Navy pilots a score of better than five to one.
These figures include the dark days of the first year of war when our
Navy boys were outnumbered ten to one.
From a force of a few carriers and a handful of moderately fast
warplanes, naval aviation grew, in three years, to the world’s greatest
sea-borne air force. The speed of our fighters increased by more than a
hundred miles an hour. Our dive-bombers and torpedo planes, the world’s
finest, tripled their bomb and torpedo loads. Our big patrol bombers and
transports fly the Pacific unarmed.
Jack Towers, who in 1911 was one of the Navy’s first three aviators, is
now Vice Admiral Towers, Air Chief of the Pacific. John Pride, one of
the first aviators to fly from the deck of the _Langley_, is now a rear
admiral with our Pacific aërial task forces. Pioneers of naval aviation
such as Admirals Ballentine, Sherman, Clark, Radford, and others are all
in the Pacific. These men, none of them much over fifty years old, are
practical flying officers. Many of the other men, who for the past
twenty years or more have devoted themselves to the development of naval
aviation, are also rear admirals. That is fitting, for it was they who
kept naval aviation alive in the days of peace.
[Illustration]
[Illustration] AËRIAL ARMADA
_From a Mere Handful of Men and Machines in 1940 the U. S. Army Air
Forces Grew Into the Greatest Aërial Task Force That the World Has
Ever Known. That Air Force Shortened the War by Years and Helped to
Bring Us Total Victory in 1945._
As in World War I, we have seen Army aviation reach the brink of war
without being fully prepared. Again we have seen our military leaders
and aircraft builders roll up their sleeves and go to work. However, we
have never seen anything to equal the development of our Army Air
Forces.
From a force which numbered hardly more than 100,000 men and a handful
of airplanes at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United
States Army Air Forces have grown to be the world’s greatest aërial
striking power. On December 7, 1941, Army aviation had 3,000 combat
planes, only 1,157 of which were actually fit for first-line duty. In
all United States territory we had only 159 four-engined bombers. The
Curtiss P-40 was our only fighter in production in any quantity.
Less than three years after Pearl Harbor the Army Air Forces could send
out 1,000 four-engined bombers on a single raid. Eight or nine hundred
fighters could accompany them as escorts. More than 200,000 warplanes
have been built in this country since Pearl Harbor, and the Air Forces
can boast of thousands of planes instead of hundreds of them. Army Air
Forces’ bases are in operation over the entire globe.
Complete airfields have been carved out of jungle and Arctic wastes.
These airfields are equipped to keep our warplanes in perfect repair
without the loss of time from combat duty. To build and equip these
fields, millions of tons of materials have been transported thousands of
miles. More than two million men have been trained to fly our planes and
to keep them flying. Our great training system took thousands of green
young men from civilian life and trained them in the several hundred
skills necessary to keep our planes in safe fighting trim. Air Forces
men work in every sort of climate, from the frozen north to the steaming
jungles of the South Pacific. The Air Forces experts at Wright Field
developed clothing, materials, and equipment to keep our planes in
flying and fighting condition regardless of climate or weather. The
training, equipping, and development of personnel and matériel for the
giant United States Army Air Forces is truly a modern miracle.
Between the years 1943-1945 we saw our air strategy, planned years ago,
put into deadly effect under the leadership of the men who originated
it. Only General “Billy” Mitchell failed to live to see his ideas at
work in defeating the Nazis and the Japs. The United States Army Air
Forces today represents American air power, just as he prophesied many
years ago.
The very best proof of the splendid development of Army aviation is the
box score built up by World War II aviators against our enemies. From
December 7, 1941, to January 1, 1945, they destroyed 29,316 enemy
aircraft and dropped 1,220,000 tons of bombs on enemy territory. Our
losses in this period were but 13,491 planes. This, it should be
remembered, was against enemies who had been preparing for years with
the purpose of defeating us.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the commercial airlines of the
United States were operating 341 transport planes. Almost at once the
Army and Navy began to take over transport planes from the airlines for
war service. The Army organized the Air Transport Command. This new
branch of the Air Forces, under the command of Major General Harold L.
George, a former Air Plans officer, started in the Spring of 1942 in a
one-room office with a personnel of three men. Since that time the Air
Transport Command has grown to be the world’s largest airline. In
addition to operating Army transport planes, the Air Transport Command
contracted with the country’s major airlines to fly Army men and
materials. Thus many of the transport planes which in peacetime flew
over our countryside went into war service and began to fly over distant
lands. All the major airlines contributed planes and crews to the vital
needs of war. DC-3’s, which a few weeks before had been flying between
our big cities, began to fly over oceans and mountain ranges in every
quarter of the globe. At the start most of the planes used for Air
Transport Command cargo were Douglas DC-3’s and DC-2’s and a few Boeing
_Stratoliners_. The new Douglas DC-4’s being built for the airlines when
war began went right off the production lines into service for the Army
or Navy. The Navy also developed their own air transport service and
operated in a manner similar to the ATC. This group was known as the
Naval Air Transport Service or NATS. The Army Air Transport Command
operated its own weather stations, radio ranges, and airfields in the
same manner as the commercial lines did in peacetime. Planes flew vital
war cargo and personnel on systematic airline procedure. Millions of
miles were flown daily by planes rushing tons of men and materials to
the far-flung battlefronts of the world. Practically every bit of
matériel taken into China during the first three years of war was flown
in over some of the worst flying terrain in the world. The work of the
Air Transport Command, the Naval Air Transport Service, and the major
airlines has been one of the truly magnificent jobs of the war. Pan
American’s first transatlantic competitor, American Export Airlines,
started its first service in 1942 flying wartime cargo.
The research and safety devices developed in peacetime by our commercial
airlines played a tremendous part in the success of our world-wide
wartime transport service. Not only did the airlines furnish planes and
crews for the war effort, but they also set up schools and trained
hundreds of transport pilots, crews, ground service men, and operations
men for the military transport service.
The experience gained in operating such a great global air transport
system has not only helped materially to win the war, but will be
invaluable in expanding peacetime air transport and cargo service. New
methods of handling cargo of all weights during the war will speed the
development of postwar air cargo service. The world-wide experience of
the transport crews will be valuable in developing postwar air travel to
distant lands. Hundreds of new air crews trained for war service will be
available for the great expansion of commercial aviation in early
postwar days.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: NORTHROP P-61 _BLACK WIDOW_ NIGHT FIGHTER]
Forty-two years after the birth of the airplane, we see aviation on the
threshold of a great new era of progress. Fighting planes with a speed
of nine miles a minute are an actuality. A giant transport plane,
capable of carrying 100 passengers, has flown across the continent in
six hours. This means that a passenger may eat lunch in New York and
dinner in California. It means that postwar air travelers will become
accustomed to flying at the speed of our 1939 fighting planes. Air
travelers soon will be crossing the country at a speed of eight miles a
minute. Boys and girls reading this book will, a few years from now,
marvel that we even got excited over the eight-mile-a-minute airplane.
The year 1944 saw a twelve-and-one-half ton fighter go into action on
the war fronts. This plane, the Northrop P-61 _Black Widow_
night-fighter, is one of the most powerful airplanes yet to go into
action. Powered with two 2,000-horsepower engines, the P-61 flies at 400
miles per hour. Equipped with radar and powerful guns, it can search out
an enemy plane at night and destroy it.
The new Bell P-59 _Airacomet_ is America’s first jet-propelled fighter.
Its performance has amazed expert test pilots. It has no propeller (note
diagram below), and the pilot hears no engine roar or propeller scream.
He feels no vibration. Yet he whizzes along at a tremendous speed which
is still a military secret. This lack of vibration reduces pilot
fatigue, adding hours to his safe flying time.
[Illustration: AIR DRAWN INTO THE ENGINE IS COMPRESSED, MIXED WITH FUEL
AND THEN BURNED. GASES RUSHING THROUGH THE DISCHARGE NOZZLE PUSH THE
PLANE AHEAD. THE SPEED OF THE PLANE IS REGULATED BY ADJUSTING THE SIZE
OF THE OPENING IN THE DISCHARGE NOZZLE.
DISCHARGE NOZZLE
FUEL INJECTOR
GAS TURBINE
COMBUSTION CHAMBER
COMPRESSOR MECHANISM
AIR INTAKE]
[Illustration: BELL P-59 _AIRACOMET_ JET-POWERED FIGHTER]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: BOEING 377 _STRATOCRUISER_
CONTROL CABIN
GALLEY
MEN’S LOUNGE
MEN’S DRESSING ROOMS
MAIN CABIN
WOMEN’S DRESSING ROOMS
FRONT CARGO HOLD
CARGO DOOR
CREW’S QUARTERS
WING SECTION
CIRCULAR STAIRCASE
DINING ROOM AND LOUNGE
CARGO DOOR
REAR CARGO HOLD
THE CROSS-SECTION AT THE LEFT SHOWS HOW THE TWO DECKS OF THE
_STRATOCRUISER_ ARE ACHIEVED. ONE FUSELAGE IS BUILT ON TOP OF ANOTHER
AND STREAMLINED TOGETHER. THE UPPER SECTION HAS A WIDTH OF MORE THAN
ELEVEN FEET.
THE CROSS-SECTION ABOVE SHOWS THE LAYOUT OF THE SLEEPER VERSION OF THE
_STRATOCRUISER_. IT HAS SEATS FOR 72 DAY PASSENGERS. SEATS CAN BE MADE
UP INTO 36 BERTHS. ANOTHER VERSION HAS SEATS FOR 100 DAY PASSENGERS AND
AMPLE SPACE FOR BAGGAGE AND CARGO.]
[Illustration: SIKORSKY HELICOPTER]
POSTWAR AVIATION
In the high-flying, high-speed _Stratocruiser_ and the fast _Liberator
Liner_ we see a type of transport that will become familiar in early
postwar days. The development of airplanes with great load-carrying
ability will have a great effect on the cost of air travel. Transports
like the 100-passenger _Stratocruiser_ will soon bring the cost of air
travel within the reach of anyone who now can afford regular train
fares.
[Illustration: CONSOLIDATED _LIBERATOR LINER_]
Postwar days will also see a great increase in the use of air cargo
planes. Typical of the cargo plane of the future is the Fairchild C-82
_Packet_, now in use as a military transport. The big, roomy cabin of
the _Packet_ is only slightly smaller than a standard railroad boxcar.
As an Army transport, the _Packet_ can carry forty-two fully equipped
paratroopers or seventy regular troops. As a hospital plane, it has
space for thirty-four litter cases and four attendants or seventy-five
walking casualties. When used for cargo movement the _Packet’s_ stern
door opens to take a load of jeeps, trucks, artillery, munitions, and
other military cargo equal in weight to nine tons. It is readily seen
how valuable the _Packet_ will be in postwar days. With its range of
3,500 miles, it will speed commercial cargo across the country at
reasonable costs. In fact, all the big transports, such as the
_Stratocruiser_ or the _Liberator Liner_, are designed so that they may
be converted to all-cargo planes. In the near future perishable foods
and other merchandise, which heretofore have taken several days to cross
the country, will make the trip overnight.
With the coming of peace, air transport and commercial aviation will
grow by leaps and bounds. All the leading airlines and many new ones are
planning expanded schedules and looking forward to a great boom in air
travel. New transport planes are going into production in the plants of
all America’s well-known aircraft manufacturers. The new airliners will
not only be much faster, but they will also be equipped with every
device that will make the air traveler more comfortable. The new
airliners will be so fast that there will be no need for sleeper planes
on coast-to-coast trips. Sleeper planes will be used only on long
overseas trips. The planes will all carry more passengers during the day
and that means that air travel will be almost as economical as surface
travel.
The big planes for world travel will be ships like the seventy-ton
_Martin Mars_ flying boat and the giant Pan American Consolidated
204-passenger Model 37. Donald Douglas is building two new luxury
airliners, the fifty-passenger DC-6 and the 108-passenger DC-7. The
100-passenger Lockheed _Constellation_ will also be in service soon.
Smaller planes operating on feeder lines will soon whisk passengers from
small towns to the main lines of the transcontinental and world airways.
There has been considerable talk about the widespread use of the
helicopter in postwar days. In spite of the great advances made in its
development, it will probably be some time before its use becomes
widespread. The helicopter itself can fly up, down, backward, frontward,
and sidewise, but it is still difficult to fly unless its pilot has had
considerable practice.
The helicopter gets its lift and its forward, backward, and sidewise
movement from the big rotating blades above the fuselage. These blades
have the same effect as those of a propeller. The big blades bite into
the air as they turn. The shape of the blade is like the airfoil or wing
of a plane. As it bites into the air it creates a lift just as a wing
does. By the use of his controls the pilot can change the angle of the
blades to increase or diminish their lift. For example, when the lift is
reduced on a blade on one side of the plane it banks off in the
direction of the reduced lift. The same holds true for any movement of
the helicopter. A small rotor in a vertical position at the tail has
controllable blades, and the machine is steered by changing the angle of
these blades. The pilot of a helicopter of today is a very busy fellow.
New developments, however, will probably simplify the operation of the
machine.
[Illustration: FAIRCHILD _PACKET_]
The year 1945 marks the beginning of the forty-third year of powered
flight in America. Before we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the
first flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk air travel will be the
world’s primary means of transportation. No spot on the globe will be
more than fifty hours distant from wherever you may live. Truly the
shortest distance between any two points on earth will be an airline!
During the last few years we have seen the airplane being developed into
the mightiest weapon of war that the world has ever seen. We have
witnessed the miracle of the creation of our great Army and Navy aërial
task forces. And we have seen our air forces lead the way to victory
over the enemies of our civilization. Just as the airplane brought us
peace, it must also be retained as a military weapon that will always be
a threatening force to restrain any fanatics who may again seek to
destroy democracy and peace.
As a commercial transport, the airplane will also serve to keep the
peace. Commercial airliners will make the world much smaller, and no
nation will be a great distance from another. We shall all be able to
travel by air to the most far-distant country in a matter of hours. All
nations will be closer neighbors, and we shall all have a better
understanding of our neighboring nations. The more we visit and mingle
with the people of the entire world the more we can help to spread the
doctrine of democracy of America. The airplane will play a great part in
eliminating the greed and jealousy that breeds war. The young people of
today will govern America tomorrow. The airplane will be the vehicle
through which they will learn to know the peoples of the world. Through
this better understanding America may always be the symbol of peace and
prosperity.
However and wherever you fly, here’s wishing you all “Happy Landings!”
[Illustration]
INDEX OF PERSONS
Allen, Brigadier General James, 22
Allison, James A., 77
Arnold, General Henry H., 29, 37, 70
Bacon, Roger, 6
Baldwin, F. W., 19, 24
Baldwin, Captain Tom, 18
Ballentine, Admiral John J ., 95
Beachey, Lincoln, 28
Bell, Dr. Alexander Graham, 18
Bell, Lawrence, 37, 77
Bennett, Floyd, 49
Besnier, 7
Blakely, Lieutenant Charles A., 26
Bleriot, Louis, 20, 25
Boeing Aircraft, 53, 54, 57, 58, 63, 66, 70, 71
Brereton, General Louis, 37
Brookins, Walter, 26
Bruno, Harry, 50
Byrd, Rear Admiral Richard E., 49
Cayley, George, 7
Chambers, Captain Washington Irving, 26, 28, 29, 72, 73
Chanute, Octave, 9, 10, 12
Chavalier, Lieutenant Commander G. DeC., 41
Clark, Rear Admiral Joseph J ., 95
Curtiss Airplane Company, 40, 44
Curtiss, Glenn H., 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 37
Dædalus, 6
Da Vinci, Leonardo, 6, 7
Doolittle, Lieutenant General James, 37, 76, 94
Douglas, Donald, 24, 37, 42, 54, 55, 58
Eaker, Lieutenant General Ira, 37, 76
Earhart, Amelia, 52
Edgerton, Lieutenant J. C., 38
Ellyson, Lieutenant Theodore G., 28, 29
Ely, Eugene, 27, 28, 41
Fleet, Major Reuben H., 38, 74
Fokker, Tony, 49, 50, 52
Ford, Henry, 46
Franklin, Benjamin, 7
Frye, Jack, 55
Gates, Artemus, 37
George, Major General Harold L., 37
Gilman, Norman H., 77
Graham-White, Claude, 25
Griffin, Commander V. C., 41
Hall, E. J., 37
Harris, Harold R., 60
Hegenberger, Lieutenant A. F., 52
Icarus, 6
Johnstone, Ralph, 26
Jouett, Colonel John, 37
Kartveli, Alexander, 84
Kelly, Lieutenant Oakley, 50
Lahm, Brigadier General Frank P., 23, 37, 81
Langley, Professor Samuel Pierpont, 10, 44
Lawrance, Charles L., 44
Lilienthal, Otto, 7, 8
Lindbergh, Charles A., 49
Lovett, Honorable Robert A., 37
Macready, Lieutenant John, 50
Maitland, Lieutenant Lester D., 52
Manley, Charles, 10, 44
Martin, Glenn L., 25, 30, 31, 37, 40, 42, 61
McCurdy, J. A. D., 19
McIntee, William, 24
Misick, Captain Edwin, 60
Mitchell, General William (“Billy”), 37, 40, 80
Mitscher, Admiral Marc A., 72, 95
Montgolfier Brothers, 7
Montgomery, John J., 8
Moss, Dr. Sanford, 65
O’Hare, Lieutenant Commander Edward (“Butch”), 90
Pegasus, 6
Penaud, Alphonse, 8
Pond, George, 50
Post, Wiley, 57
Pride, Rear Admiral John, 95
Radford, Rear Admiral Arthur W., 95
Randolph, Captain W. M., 81
Read, Lieutenant Commander A. C., 35
Rickenbacker, Captain E. V., 37, 60
Rogers, Commander John, 29, 74
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 90
Roosevelt, Theodore, 22
Saunders, John Monk, 53
Selfridge, Lieutenant Tom, 19, 22
Sherman, Rear Admiral Forrest P., 95
Spaatz, Lieutenant General Carl, 37, 76
Sperry, Lawrence, 56
Stevens, Captain Albert W., 76
Stout, William Bushnell, 46
Stringfellow, John, 8
Stultz, Wilmer, 52
Thatch, Commander John, 90
Tomlinson, Tommy, 65
Towers, Vice Admiral John H., 29, 34, 35, 37, 72, 95
Trippe, Juan, 50, 60, 62, 63
Vincent, J. G., 37
Wenham, F. H., 7
Willard, Charles, 26, 28
Wilson, Captain Gill Robb, 37
Wright, Orville and Wilbur, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,
18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 32, 37
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Story of American Aviation" ***
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