This Date in Aviation History: November 25 - November 27

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 11/27/2015 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 November 25 through November 27.

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November 25, 1940 – The first flight of the de Havilland Mosquito. The de Havilland Aircraft Company was founded in 1920, and quickly made a name for itself as the maker of very fast airplanes, garnering fame with their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a twin-engine, wooden framed air racer that took top honors at the 1934 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The wooden skeleton of the DH.88 was covered with spruce plywood, and the dual engines produced an enormous amount of power for such a light, yet strong, airframe. De Havilland would further refine their wood-working skills with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a four-engine passenger plane that was constructed with a skin made from a ply-balsa-ply sandwich made of two pieces of plywood encasing a layer of balsa wood. This made for a very strong, yet very light, aircraft. In 1936, the British Air Ministry issued Specification P.13/36, calling for a twin-engine medium bomber that could carry 3,000 pounds of bombs, and aircraft designers replied with traditional heavy bombers such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But there were others who believed that a lightweight, simple design could carry the same load at even higher speeds, perhaps even outpacing modern fighter planes. The theory was similar to the German !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! concept, in which medium bombers that could outrun the enemy fighters would not need defensive armament or extra crewmen. Following this idea, and drawing on previous experience with wooden aircraft, de Havilland made their new bomber out of wood, which provided a strength to weight ratio that was as good duralumin or steel, and also preserved metals in a time of war, and followed the design concept of putting the most powerful engine possible with the lightest airframe possible. With some reluctance in the RAF to accept such a radical design, the Mosquito was initially accepted as a reconnaissance aircraft to test its mettle, then developed into a high-speed fighter with the addition of forward armament. Powered by twin Merlin engines, the “Mossie” made its first flight just 11 months after detailed design work began, and further tests proved that the Mosquito was indeed fast, with its top speed of 392 mph outpacing the Spitfire Mk II by 3o mph, even though it was twice as heavy and twice as big. The Mosquito proved to be a jack of all trades for the RAF, fulfilling the roles of reconnaissance, bomber, fighter, night fighter, trainer, torpedo bomber and target tug. Produced until 1950, over 7,700 were built, including over 1,100 in Canada, and the Mosquito served the air forces of twenty-one countries. The Mossie ended the war with the lowest loss rate of any aircraft in the RAF Bomber Command, and the Germans were so impressed with the British Schnellbomber that they named their own all-wood !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! the Moskito , perhaps in homage to the brilliant de Havilland design. (Photo author unknown)

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November 25, 1940 – The first flight of the Martin B-26 Marauder. World War II is often associated with the large strategic bomber, such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! or the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but even though those bombers could carry a large load, there was still a need for a smaller, twin-engine bomber that could take on tactical targets at lower levels and with greater accuracy. For that mission, the US Army Air Forces had the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but in 1939, the US Army Air Corps issued Circular Proposal 39-640 that called for a new high-speed, twin-engine bomber with a top speed of 350 mph that could carry up to 2,000 pounds of bombs at a range of 3,000 miles. In July of that year, the Glen L. Martin Company proposed their Model 179 to fulfill that requirement, and, with all out war looming, the new bomber was accepted before any prototype flew, and the USAAC ordered 201 aircraft off the drawing board. In 1940, an additional 930 Marauders were ordered, still before the first aircraft ever left the ground. Like the other medium bombers then in service, the B-26 featured a shoulder-mounted wing with two engines slung underneath. It would be powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney R-2800-radial engines and have a crew of seven: two pilots, bombardier, navigator, and three defensive gunners. The first production Marauder served as the flying prototype, and soon after it entered service it became clear that the emphasis on speed had an undesirable side effect for the pilots. The relatively small wing, which was designed for high speed performance, also created particularly high !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which resulted in higher landing speeds than many pilots had experienced in older designs. Inexperienced pilots, particularly trainees, found that if they dropped under 120-135 mph on landing, depending on the weight of the aircraft, the B-26 would stall and crash. The bomber gained the nickname “Widowmaker,” and pilots training in Florida began to chant, “One a day in Tampa Bay.” Other structural issues beset the early aircraft, and many pilots believed that the Marauder could not be flown on one engine, until more experienced pilots, including !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , proved that it could. Even when these difficulties were solved, including a redesign of the wing, the B-26 remained a demanding aircraft to fly, but it ended the war with the lowest combat loss rate of any US aircraft. The Marauder first saw action in the Pacific Theater in 1941, and eventually served with distinction in every theater of the war. By the close of WWII, the Marauder had flown more than 110,000 sorties and accounted for more than 150,000 tons of bombs dropped while serving with the US, Britain, Free France and South Africa. Production ended in 1945 after more than 5,200 Marauders had been built. (US Air Force photo)

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Short Take Off

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November 25, 1961 – The USS Enterprise is commissioned. The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was the eighth US Naval vessel to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Ordered on November 15, 1957, Enterprise was built at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, and remains the longest naval vessel in the world. After her maiden voyage in 1960, Enterprise saw action during the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , as well as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Enterprise is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2016 after more than 50 years of service. (US Navy photo)

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November 26, 1985 – The launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis , carrying Rodolfo Neri Vela, the first astronaut from Mexico. Vela, a professor in the Telecommunications Department in the Electrical Engineering Division at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, flew on board Atlantis as a Payload Specialist, helping to launch three communications satellites and carrying out various scientific experiments, including special experiments for the Mexican government. Vela, the second Latin-American astronaut, logged over 165 hours and in space and completed 108 orbits of the Earth. (NASA photo)

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November 26, 1951 – The first flight of the Gloster Javelin, a twin-engine, delta-wing, all-weather interceptor and night fighter and the last in the Gloster line of jets that began with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Britain’s first jet fighter. The subsonic Javelin served the Royal Air Force from the mid-1950s through the 1960s, and was eventually replaced by the supersonic !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though the two served together for much of the Javelin’s operational life. While the Javelin never saw any actual combat, it did serve in a number of global hot spots during its career, and was retired in 1968 after 436 had been built. (Photo author unknown)

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November 27, 1949 – The first flight of the Douglas C-124 Globemaster II. The C-124 was developed from the smaller !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and served the Military Air Transport Service (MATS) as the primary heavy lift cargo and passenger carrier throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s before it was replaced by the jet-powered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The C-124 could carry 68,500 poulds of cargo, including tanks, bulldozers and other heavy equipment without needing to disassemble them. It could also carry 200 fully equipped troops on its two passenger decks. The Globemaster II served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and ended its career with the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve. 448 were produced, and 9 still survive as museum pieces. (US Air Force photo)

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November 27-28, 1929 – Richard Byrd and his crew make the first flight over the South Pole. Byrd began his first expedition to the South Pole in 1928, taking two ships and three airplanes to use for exploration. After establishing a base camp on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Byrd and his crew took off in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! named Floyd Bennett in honor of the recently deceased pilot from Byrd’s previous expeditions. During a round trip flight of 18 hours, in which they jettisoned much of their equipment to maintain altitude, the team crossed the South Pole. As a result of this feat, Byrd was promoted to the rank of rear admiral at the age of 41, the youngest admiral in the history of the US Navy. (Photo author unknown)

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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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whoarder is tellurium > ttyymmnn 11/27/2015 at 12:42

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Wasp Major’s spewin goodness.

Hot Takes Salesman > ttyymmnn 11/27/2015 at 15:19

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until more experienced pilots, including Jimmy Doolittle , proved that it could.

God, Jimmy Doolittle was such a badass

ttyymmnn > Hot Takes Salesman 11/27/2015 at 16:12

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He was. Note the lines paited on the flight deck. They had to keep the wheels on the lines to keep the wing from striking the carrier’s island.

facw > ttyymmnn 11/28/2015 at 04:30

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I still say this is more impressive (landing’s a lot harder than taking off), but there’s no question that the Doolittle Raid was incredibly audacious.

And for bonus “that doesn’t belong on a carrier” fun:

The U-2 fits a good deal better but given that it’s pretty finicky about taking off and landing from ground based strips, I’m sure it was a bit stressful on the pilot.

ttyymmnn > facw 11/28/2015 at 10:06

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I would give bonus points to the U2. While the C-130 wins on size, it was still designed as a STOL aircraft.

Mark Longoria > ttyymmnn 11/30/2015 at 14:57

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Neat bit of trivia:

The Nazi’s counted a successful shootdown of a Mosquito as two kills!