This Date in Aviation History: Speed Round

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
06/05/2015 at 11:05 • Filed to: planelopnik, planelopnik history

This is today’s Aviation History Speed Round , getting you caught up on milestones and important historical events in aviation from June 3 through June 5.

June 3, 1973 – The crash of the first production Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic airliner. The Cold War rivalry between East and West was not limited to military saber rattling. As the English and French developed their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Russians worked to build a similar, but larger, airliner that would rival the Concorde. The Tu-144 debuted two months ahead of Concorde, and both flew at the Paris Air Show on June 3, 1973. After taking off, a violent maneuver caused the Tu-144 to break up and crash, killing the crew of six as well as eight on the ground. The cause of the crash is hotly debated. One theory is that a French Mirage fighter, hoping to photograph the Tu-144, got too close and caused the pilot of the Tupolev to take evasive action. A second theory is that the pilot, hoping to outperform the Concorde which had flown earlier in the day, flew beyond the limits of the aircraft. And a third theory is that Tupolev officials enabled experimental controls to increase maneuverability, possibly without telling the flight crew. Despite the crash, and continuing problems with manufacturing and operation, the Tu-144 continued flying, though unreliability and economic factors lead to the project’s cancellation in 1983. (Photo by Christian Volpati via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

June 3, 1942 – The Battle of Midway begins. In the early days of the Pacific War, after the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Japanese were expanding through southeast Asia and China virtually unchecked. The Japanese juggernaut was slowed after the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fought from May 4-8, 1942. While a tactical victory for the Japanese, the battle rendered two of their carriers unable to participate in the Battle of Midway, significantly diminishing their advantage over the US Navy. Like the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway was fought between two fleets that never saw each other; the action was entirely fought with the naval air forces of the two belligerents. After a diversionary attack on the Alaskan archipelago opened the battle on June 3, the main Japanese force attacked Midway on June 4, hoping to draw the American ships onto the big guns of the Japanese capital ships. However, the Japanese did not know that the Americans had broken their code, nor did they expect the presence of three American carriers. Attacking planes crisscrossed the sky, and by the end of the battle on June 6 four of the Japanese carriers that had taken part in the Pearl Harbor attack were sunk, against the loss of one American carrier, the Yorktown . The decisive American victory shifted the balance of naval power in the Pacific, and the initiative passed to the Allies for the first time.

June 3, 1936 – The death of Walther Wever. Walther Wever, a German general and the first leader of the nascent Luftwaffe, is a name that is largely lost to history. But when Wever died in 1936 in a crash while piloting his personal !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the course of the Luftwaffe and German aircraft design was dramatically altered. After WWI, the German theory of military aviation was one in which the air forces were directly tied to the ground forces through !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The role of aircraft was to attack trains, bridges, troop concentrations, etc. in support of the infantry. But Wever was a disciple of the Italian military theorist !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who espoused !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! against civilian and industrial targets, thinking that heavy bombing alone could win a future war. While the German general staff was against such an idea, fearing reprisals against German civilians, Wever began developing Germany’s own strategic bombers with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , both large, four-engine aircraft, in the hopes that they could create a bomber capable of long missions deep into Russia, a so-called Ural Bomber. But with Wever’s death, and the appointment of Albert Kesselring and Ernst Udet as his successors, the emphasis reverted to smaller, medium tactical bombers, and neither the Ural Bomber, nor any other large strategic bomber, was ever produced. Wever’s dream of a German strategic bomber force died with him. (Photos from Bundesarchiv, Bild 141-1941 and Bild 141-2409 via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

June 4, 1942 – The crash of The Akutan Zero. In the early days of WWII, the Mitsubishi A6M, known to the Allies as the Zero, ruled the skies over the Pacific. The fighter was more maneuverable and had a longer range than anything the Allies could field at the time, and the Zero enjoyed a 12:1 kill ratio against their opponents. The Allies desperately wanted to get their hands on a Zero so they could fly the fighter and analyze it in the hope of finding a weakness. That opportunity came on May 3, 1942, when Japanese pilot Tadayoshi Koga crash landed on the island of Akutan in the Alaskan archipelago. His Zero flipped over, killing Koga, but his plane was relatively undamaged, and his wingmen did not attempt to destroy the plane for fear that they might kill Koga. Spotted by a reconnaissance plane five weeks later, the Zero was recovered and shipped to San Diego, where repairs and evaluation commenced immediately. After flying the Zero against contemporary American designs, new tactics were developed that stripped away the mystique of the A6M and made the Zero vulnerable. By the end of the war, when sturdier, more powerful, and more heavily armed Allied designs were brought to bear, the Zero was mostly obsolete. But in the early months of the air war over the Pacific, the Akutan Zero bought the Allies some much needed time.

June 5, 1944 – The first combat mission of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. In 1939, the US Army Air Corps issued a request for a “superbomber” that would be capable of delivering 20,000 pounds of ordnance on a target 2,667 miles away and attain of speeds of 400 mph. Boeing and Consolidated both built prototypes, and the B-29 was chosen, though the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was still produced in small numbers. Despite significant problems and delays in production, the Superfortress was eventually sent to bases in southern China and India in April 0f 1944, where the first combat mission was flown against Japanese targets in Thailand. Of the 77 bombers launched on that first raid, 5 were lost, though none to enemy fire. Then, on June 15, 68 Superfortresses attacked Yahata, Japan, in the first attack on the Japanese homeland since the Doolittle Raid of 1942. Operations from China and India proved difficult, so the decision was made to capture the Mariana Islands for use as an air base that was close enough to attack the island of Japan. Subsequent landings captured islands nearer and nearer to the Japanese homeland. B-29s carried out bombing raids, fire bombing raids, and mine laying missions from these forward bases, culminating in the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. After the war, the Surperfortress saw action in Korea, and the airframe was modified into reconnaissance and aerial refueling tankers, before finally being retired in 1960.

Short Take Off

June 3, 1975 – The first flight of the Mitsubishi F-1 , the first post-WWII aircraft developed domestically by Japan. It’s primary role is anti-shipping, with provisions for ground attack and limited air-to-air capabilities. (Photo by By Rob Schleiffert from Holland via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

June 3, 1959 – The first class graduates from the United States Air Force Academy . Graduates of the Academy receive a Bachelor of Science degree and are commissioned as second lieutenants in the US Air Force.

June 4, 1974 – Construction of OV-101, the first Space Shuttle, begins . Named the Enterprise , it had no engines or functional heat shield, and was constructed to perform test flights in the atmosphere and mating tests with the launch vehicle.

June 4, 1934 – The US Navy commissions USS Ranger (CV-4) , the first purpose-built aircraft carrier. Ranger served almost exclusively in the Atlantic during WWII, and was decommissioned in 1946.

June 5, 1989 – The Antonov An-225 Mriya flies to Paris-Le Bourget for the 1989 Paris Air Show, carrying the Soviet Shuttle Buran . At 1,234,600 pounds combined weight, the flight from Kiev to Paris marks the greatest weight ever lifted into the air. (Photo by Ralf Manteufel via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

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!!! .

All photos are Public Domain or taken by the author unless otherwise credited.

DISCUSSION (5)

ViperGuy21 > ttyymmnn
06/05/2015 at 12:50

Great article! Keep’em coming!

ttyymmnn > ViperGuy21
06/05/2015 at 12:55

Thanks! They hit the same time every Tuesday and Friday. If kinja cooperates.

NotUnlessRoundIsFunny > ttyymmnn
06/05/2015 at 13:33

Another great post, really enjoy these. Thanks!

ttyymmnn > NotUnlessRoundIsFunny
06/05/2015 at 13:36

Thanks, I'm glad you like them. Next one on Tuesday! There's some interesting stuff, not just about specific airplanes.

ViperGuy21 > ttyymmnn
06/05/2015 at 14:12

Fantastic! School just got out today so I can actually see things on zippo around these times lol