This Date in Aviation History: October 24 - October 27

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 10/27/2015 at 12:35 • Filed to: planelopnik, planelopnik history

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting you caught up on milestones and important historical events in aviation from October 24 through October 27.

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October 24, 1953 – The first flight of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger. Following WWII, Air Force planners became particularly enamored with the guided missile, thinking that all modern aerial combat would take place between fighters that lobbed missiles at each other rather than duke it out over the battlefield. But firing missiles accurately required a good !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (FCS), so the Air Force decided first to develop the FCS and then to find a plane to put it in. In January 1950, the Air Force requested proposals for a new FCS, a competition that was eventually won by Hughes Aircraft with their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! missile, the first operational guided air-to-air missile to be used by the US Air Force. In June of the same year, the Air Force began seeking proposals for an interceptor to intercept incoming Russian strategic bombers and make use of their new missile. But supersonic science was still a relatively new field, and test results from scale models in wind tunnels didn’t always provide accurate data. Once the first prototypes were finished, Convair discovered that the YF-102 was unable to break the sound barrier, and the problem wasn’t just the underpowered engine, it was the shape of the fuselage. Using the new !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! concept developed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engineer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Convair redesigned the fuselage so that it narrowed at the waist over the delta wing. Reducing the aircraft’s cross section dramatically reduced its drag, and other improvements to the wings allowed the redesigned interceptor to pass Mach 1 with ease. The redesigned aircraft was called the YF-102A, and it was this model that first entered production after its maiden flight in December 1954. The F-102A entered service in April 1956, and a total of 889 were built before production ceased in September 1958. The Delta Dagger saw service in Vietnam primarily as a bomber escort, though some ground attack missions were carried out without much success since the aircraft was not designed for that mission, nor were the pilots properly trained. Fourteen F-102s were lost in combat, one of which was lost in air-to-air combat. The F-102 was retired from active service in 1976, and many Delta Daggers were converted to QF-102A target drones, with the final one being shot down in 1986. (US Air Force photo)

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October 24, 1944 – The beginning of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, in which the first successful organized kamikaze attack is carried out. By October of 1944, the Allies had gained considerable territory against the Japanese, drawing ever closer to the recapture of the Philippines and the possible invasion of the Japanese homeland. Japan could not match the industrial might of the US, and as the numbers of Japanese ships, aircraft, and trained pilots dwindled, those of the US and her allies only increased. As part of the operation to invade the Philippine island of Leyte, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was fought, the largest naval battle of the entire war and possibly the greatest naval battle in history. The Japanese fleet was numerically inferior to the American fleet, and the resulting loss of carriers, submarines, and other surface ships meant that the Japanese Navy was finished as an effective fighting force. But out the desperation in which the Japanese found themselves, the kamikaze was born. The word kamikaze is usually translated as divine wind in reference to typhoons in the years 1274 and 1281 that helped the Japanese repel a Mongol invasion, but the units that carried out the suicide missions were called tokubetsu kgeki tai which means special attack unit. Pilots of both sides had deliberately crashed their aircraft into ships in the past, but the kamikaze attacks during the Battle of Leyte Gulf were the first organized missions of the tokubetsu kgeki ta under the direction of 1st Air Fleet commandant Vice Admiral Takijiro Onishi. Speaking to officers in Manila on October 19, Onishi said, “I don’t think there would be any other certain way to carry out the operation [to hold the Philippines], than to put a 250 kg bomb on a Zero and let it crash into a U.S. carrier, in order to disable her for a week.” On October 25, five !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighters, armed with a single bomb each, attacked escort carriers of the US fleet off the Philippine coast. Four of the kamikaze aircraft were unsuccessful, but the fifth hit the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CVE-63), igniting fires which detonated the ship’s magazine, sinking her. Based on this initial success, the program was expanded and by war’s end the Japanese had undertaken over 4000 attacks, including missions to ram bombers attacking Japan. Ultimately, all the tokubetsu kgeki ta achieved was the loss of irreplaceable pilots and aircraft, as the damage inflicted was no greater than that achieved in 1942 by traditional tactics. Only 14% of the kamikaze attackers got through, and only 8.5% of the ships that were hit were sunk, and those that weren’t sunk were quickly repaired. (Photo of explosion of USS St. Lo via US Navy)

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October 26, 1940 – The first flight of the NA-73X, the prototype of the North American P-51 Mustang. Combatants of all nations produced some truly superb aircraft during WWII, many of them becoming the ultimate statement of what is possible with piston-powered design. It is difficult to pick just one as the greatest, but if one were to make a list of the top five, or even the top three, the North American P-51 Mustang would surely be on that list. But one of the greatest fighters produced by the United States during WWII actually owes its existence to the British. In 1938, the British saw war in Europe looming on the horizon and turned to the US to purchase fighter aircraft. The British were interested in procuring the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (the British designation of the Warhawk) in large numbers, but Curtiss was already running at capacity and would not be able to fulfill the British order. So Britain turned to North American Aviation, who was already providing the RAF with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! trainer, and asked if they’d be willing to build Tomahawks under license. North American said they could build a better fighter, and in just 102 days designers Raymond Rice and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! presented the British with the NA-73X, the prototype of the Mustang. (Schmued had worked for Messerschmitt before the war, and that experience may have influenced some of the Mustangs angular lines.) While still following the traditional design principles of the day, the NA-73X introduced two novel features. The first was the use of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! wing which significantly reduced drag. The second was the placement of the radiator behind the pilot which made use of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! where heated air leaving the radiator produces a small amount of jet thrust. It also gave the Mustang its iconic underside air intake. The Mustang was initially fitted with an underpowered Allison engine, but even with that power plant the Mustang outperformed the Spitfire. The British soon modified the P-51 to accept a 12-cylinder Merlin engine, transforming the Mustang into a high flying fighter that was every bit the match of German designs and had the range to reach deep into Germany to protect fleets of American strategic bombers. The P-51D, which introduced the teardrop canopy and was powered by a Packard-built Merlin engine, became the definitive production model, with almost 8,000 produced. The P-51 helped the Allies gain complete control of the skies over Europe by the end of the war, and Mustang pilots claimed almost 5,000 enemy aircraft destroyed. The P-51 would go on to serve in the Korean war, and surplus Mustangs became favorites of civilian air racing pilots. With over 15,000 Mustangs built, it ranks second only to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in sheer numbers of aircraft produced. (Photo via North American Aviation)

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Short Take Off

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October 24, 2000 – The first flight of the Lockheed Martin X-35, the experimental prototype developed as part of the competition to produce the Joint Strike Fighter. The X-35 beat the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and was selected to enter production as the F-35 Lighting II, a single-seat, all-weather, multi-role, fifth-generation fighter with Stealth capability. The F-35 is being produced in three versions, one each for the US Air Force (F-35A), Navy (F-35C) and Marine Corps (F-35B). The USMC variant is capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) (US Air Force photo)

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October 24, 1947 – The first flight of the Grumman HU-16 Albatross. Designed as an improvement over the earlier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Albatross performed search and rescue (SAR) and combat search and rescue (CSAR) for the US Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force. The Albatross was capable of operating from either sea or land, and 466 were produced from 1949-1961 for both military and civilian operators. (US Coast Guard photo)

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October 25, 1991 – The first flight of the Airbus A340, a long-range, wide-body airliner that can seat up to 440 passengers depending on variant and seating arrangement. Aimed at the long haul market that had been dominated by American aircraft manufacturers, the A340 was the largest airliner to grow from the original !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! design, featuring four engines and a twin aisle. Depending on the variant, the A340 is capable of flying routes up to 9,000 nautical miles. (Photo by Adrian Pingstone)

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October 25, 1955 – The first flight of the Saab 35 Draken. The Draken (Dragon) was a dobule-delta winged fighter developed to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and was the first supersonic fighter to be deployed in Western Europe. Part of the design requirements of the Draken was for operation from public roadways and the ability to be serviced by minimally trained crews in a short time. The Draken proved to be a successful Cold War fighter, and was exported to Austria, Denmark, Finland. (Photo by Alan Wilson via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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October 26, 1973 – The first flight of the Dassault-Bruguet/Dornier Alpha Jet, a trainer and light attack aircraft designed through a partnership between France and Germany to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . 480 aircraft were produced from 1973-1991, and the Alpha Jet continues to serve 12 nations, though it has been retired by Germany. The Alpha Jet is also flown by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! demonstration team. (Photo by Alan Wilson via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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October 26, 1972 – The death of Igor Sikorsky. Sikorsky began his career as a designer of fixed-wing aircraft, designing the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the world’s first multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft, and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the world’s first airliner. After emigrating to the US in 1919, Sikorsky created the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation in 1923 and produced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for Pan American Airways. But it was in rotary-winged aircraft that Sikorsky made his greatest mark on aviation history, first with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and then the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the world’s first production helicopter.

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. And if you missed any of the past articles, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 10/27/2015 at 12:47

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From what I understand (which isn’t much), the A340 was really bad timing and sold very poorly — many of them quickly became oversized Middle Eastern business jets, which sounds awesome.

That was right at the cusp of newer, better powerplants and most jets of similar size were moving to 2 engines, not 4. The additional redundancy and complexity just added to the cost (and slightly to the fuel burn) with no real additional benefit.

Jcarr > ttyymmnn 10/27/2015 at 12:53

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EAA has one of the few remaining XP-51 prototypes on display in their wonderful museum.

Also, here’s a good example of the sound the Meredith effect makes on a Mustang.

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 10/27/2015 at 12:53

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I’m not much of a student of Airbus aircraft history (I’m a Boeing guy), but I think that analysis is pretty accurate. And it even looks like the market for the A380 may be shrinking as well. I think a/c designers have really found the sweet spot with the wide-body, twin engine airliner. It’s hard to imagine world wide demand for something that does much more than the B777. But time will tell.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 10/27/2015 at 12:55

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Was the Mustang’s Allison engine really that bad? I’m pretty sure it was just badly suited to the European climate, iirc. After all, the P38 used the same (I think?) engine. It was an AAF workhorse in the Pacific but had engine issues in Europe.

Also, TIL the Ilya Muromets was designed as an airliner first.

ttyymmnn > Jcarr 10/27/2015 at 12:55

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DarkCreamyBeer > Ash78, voting early and often 10/27/2015 at 13:01

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2 engines are cheaper to operate than 4. I think they mitigated many of the potential risks there by developing the A330 and A340 together with a very large degree of commonality. They’re essentially the same airframe, except for the number of engines.

Airbus has sold more than 1400 A330s so far. Add to that 377 A340s, and you’ve got a successful product.

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 10/27/2015 at 13:01

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I found this explanation on the internet , so I’m going to post it in its entirety, because I think it provides a very good answer to your question.

Allison had been leaning heavily towards exhaust-driven turbochargers instead of the more common mechanically-driven superchargers, feeling that their added performance more than made up for the added complexity. Thus little effort was invested in equipping the V-1710 with a reasonable supercharger, and when placed in aircraft designs like the P-39 or P-40 which lacked the room for a turbo the engine suffered tremendously at higher altitudes. It was for this reason in particular that the V-1710 was later removed from the P-51 Mustang and replaced with the Rolls-Royce Merlin.

The Merlin was a better developed aero engine and more appropriate for the needs of WW2 fighters. Mind you, the lack of power was not Allison’s fault but,the US Army’s thing about turbo chargers.

The Army had earlier decided to concentrate on turbosuperchargers for high altitude boost, believing that further development of turbochargers would allow their engines to outperform European rivals using superchargers. Turbosuperchargers are powered by the engine exhaust and so do not draw power from the engine crankshaft, whereas superchargers are connected directly by gears to the engine crankshaft. Turbosuperchargers do increase the exhaust back-pressure and thus do cause a decrease in engine power, but the power increase due to increased induction pressures more than make up for that decrease. Crankshaft-driven superchargers require an increasing percentage of engine power as altitude increases (the two-stage supercharger of the Merlin 60 series engines consumed some 230-280 horsepower at 30,000 ft). General Electric was the sole source for research and production of American turbosuperchargers during this period.

Turbosuperchargers were indeed highly successful in U.S. bombers, which were exclusively powered by radial engines. The P-47 fighter had the same combination of radial engine (R-2800) and turbosupercharger and was also successful, apart from its large bulk, which was caused by the need for the ductwork for the aft-mounted turbosupercharger.
However, mating the turbocharger with the Allison V-1710 proved to be problematic. As a result, designers of the fighter planes that utilized the V-1710 were invariably forced to choose between the poor high-altitude performance of the V-1710 versus the increased problems brought on by addition of the turbosupercharger. The fates of all of the V-1710 powered fighters of World War II would thus hinge on that choice.

Technically clever, the turbosupercharger.

The P-38 was the only fighter to make it into combat during World War II with turbosupercharged V-1710s. The operating conditions of the Western European air war – flying for long hours in intensely cold weather at 30,000 feet revealed several problems with the turbosupercharged V-1710. These had a poor manifold fuel-air distribution and poor temperature regulation of the turbosupercharger air, which resulted in frequent engine failures (detonation occurred in certain cylinders as the result of persistent uneven fuel-air mixture across the cylinders caused by the poor manifold design). The turbosupercharger had additional problems with getting stuck in the freezing air in either high or low boost mode; the high boost mode could cause detonation in the engine, while the low boost mode would be manifested as power loss in one engine, resulting in sudden fishtailing in flight. These problems were aggravated by suboptimal engine management techniques taught to many pilots during the first part of WWII, including a cruise setting that involves running the engine at a high RPM and low manifold pressure with a rich mixture. These settings can contribute to overcooling of the engine, fuel condensation problems, accelerated mechanical wear, and the likelihood of components binding or “freezing up.”

Details of the failure patterns were described in a report by General Doolittle to General Spatz in January 1944. In March 1944, the first Allison engines appearing over Berlin belonged to a group of P-38H pilots of 55FG, engine troubles contributing to a reduction of the force to half strength over the target. It was too late to correct these problems in the production lines of Allison or GE, and so the P-38s were steadily withdrawn from Europe until they were no longer used for bomber escort duty with the Eighth Air Force by October 1944. A few P-38s would remain in the European theater as the F-5 for photo reconnaissance.

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 10/27/2015 at 13:01

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I think 30 years ago, it was hard to imagine a widebody airliner that could one day actually take off and climb on a single engine...but here we are!

As far as the 380 goes, I think a lot of carriers are learning the hard way about the lack of flexibility vs running more/smaller jets. Then again, places like Japan have been running 747s as regional commuters for decades, so there’s always some weird exception to the rule. And it’s usually Japan.

Ash78, voting early and often > DarkCreamyBeer 10/27/2015 at 13:03

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Yep, the commonality makes the business case. I’m also curious how many of those 377 are in the hands of commercial carriers (as originally intended). That’s a mark of “intentional success” :D

Jcarr > ttyymmnn 10/27/2015 at 13:03

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ttyymmnn > Jcarr 10/27/2015 at 13:05

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+1

Jcarr > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 10/27/2015 at 13:06

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Great engines, just got kind of a raw deal. They’re very popular in tractor pulling now.

DarkCreamyBeer > Ash78, voting early and often 10/27/2015 at 13:06

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Well, if this is to be belived: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_A…

There are 22 ordered or in operation with government, executive and private jet operators, and 266 in airline hands.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 10/27/2015 at 13:06

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That's great—thanks.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Jcarr 10/27/2015 at 13:08

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Check out ttyymmn’s reply to me—really interesting.

Also, that tractor is AWESOME

Ash78, voting early and often > DarkCreamyBeer 10/27/2015 at 13:59

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Nice find. See, this is the kind of stuff I always envisioned the Internet could one day provide to average people :D

The Powershift in Steve's '12 Ford Focus killed it's TCM (under warranty!) > Ash78, voting early and often 10/27/2015 at 15:41

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The A340 was launched right around the time of ETOPs rule changes. Why fly (and fuel) four engines when regulations allow twin jets? Previously, twin engine jets were restricted to flying closer to divert airports, limiting their used on intercontinental flights. ETOPs rules also explain the widebody tri-jet fad in the 70’s (DC-10/L1011), as airlines demanded lower fuel burn versus 747s after the gas price spikes of 1973.

Ash78, voting early and often > The Powershift in Steve's '12 Ford Focus killed it's TCM (under warranty!) 10/27/2015 at 15:43

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Nice explanation, thanks.

facw > The Powershift in Steve's '12 Ford Focus killed it's TCM (under warranty!) 10/27/2015 at 21:26

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Yep, this is the answer. Previously 3 or 4 engine jets were required by regulation for many intercontinental routes. Once that rule goes away, it’s a lot cheaper to fly a twin jet on those, even with revenue penalty of fewer seats. The 747 and A380 can do a little better due to their huge seating capacity, but even then, a lot of routes that used to be flown with 747s are now flown by twin jets.