This Date in Planelopnik History: Speed Round

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 04/14/2015 at 10:05 • Filed to: planelopnik, planelopnik history

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Here is today's Planelopnik History Speed Round , getting you caught up on milestones and important historical events in aviation from the past few days.

April 11, 1955 – The Air Force issues a preliminary contract to North American Aviation to build prototypes of the XF-108 interceptor. Intended to attack long-range supersonic Soviet bombers, the Rapier was planned to cruise at speeds approaching Mach 3 with an unrefueled radius of over 1000 nautical miles. To save money, the XF-108 was to be powered by the same engines used on the XB-70 Valkyrie. The program progressed as far as a wooden mockup, but was cancelled when the Soviets adopted ballistic missiles as their primary attack method.

April 11, 1952 – The Piasecki H-21 Shawnee tandem-rotor helicopter makes its first flight. The H-21 was a multi-mission helicopter originally designed for Arctic rescue missions, featuring full winterization for polar climates. Nicknamed the "Flying Banana," the Shawnee was the primary troop carrying helicopter in the early days of the Vietnam War, though its cold-weather design was poorly suited to the hot jungle climate of southeast Asia. The Shawnee was removed from service in 1964 with the arrival of the Bell UH-1 Iroquois, better known as the Huey.

April 11, 1943 – The first flight of the PV-2, the second successful helicopter to fly in the United States. Innovations developed in the PV-2 included the first dynamically balanced rotor blades, a rigid tail rotor with a tension-torsion pitch change system, and a full cyclic and collective rotor pitch control, elements that are in use in helicopters to this day.

April 12, 1981 – The Space Shuttle Columbia launches on STS-1, the first mission of the Space Shuttle program. Columbia's first flight was commanded by John Young, a veteran from the Gemini and Apollo programs and also the ninth man to walk on the Moon in 1972, and was piloted by Robert Crippen, a first-time astronaut. The first flight lasted just two days, but Columbia would serve for 22 years and complete 27 missions before it broke up during re-entry on February 1, 2003 during STS-107. All seven members of the crew were lost.

April 12, 1961 – Yuri Gagarin makes the first manned spaceflight in Vostok 1. Gagarin only orbited the Earth once, taking just 108 minutes to do so, but his flight marked a significant propaganda victory for the Soviet Union in the race to reach space. Gagarin became a national hero, receiving his nation's highest award, though he never flew in space again. Gagarin was killed in a crash of his MiG-15 fighter in 1968.

April 12, 1935 – The first flight of the Bristol Blenheim. The Blenheim was a British light bomber that saw extensive service early in WWII. It was one of the first British aircraft to employ retractable landing gear, a powered gun turret and variable-pitch propellers. While the Blenheim was capable of outrunning most fighters in the early days of the war, it was no match for the Messerschmitt Bf 109 during daylight raids. The British retired the Blenheim in 1944, though it served in Finland until 1956.

April 13, 1990 – The first flight of the Sukhoi Su-34 "Fullback." Based on the Sukhoi Su-27 "Flanker" and intended as a replacement for the Su-24 "Fencer," the Su-34 is primarily used against ground and naval targets in day or night and all weather conditions, as well as reconnaissance. With a crew of 2 in a side-by-side configuration, the spacious, pressurized cockpit allows the pilots to stand, walk around, or lie down during long missions. It even includes a toilet and a galley. The Su-24 entered service in early 2014, and the Russians hope to build a total of 200 aircraft.

April 13, 1970 – During a routine procedure, an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes. Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission to the Moon, launching from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970. The explosion left the Command Module with only limited battery power and little water, forcing the crew to shut down the CM and transfer to the Landing Module. Had it not been for the LM "lifeboat" the astronauts would certainly have perished. Using the Moon's gravity to slingshot the spacecraft back to Earth, the astronauts returned safely four days later.

April 13, 1945 – The delivery of the last Boeing-built B-17 Flying Fortress. Designed in the 1930s as a four-engine heavy bomber for the United States Army Air Corps, the B-17 was one of the most effective weapons of WWII, dropping 640,000 tons of ordnance on Germany and its territories, more than any other bomber. Production began in 1936 and continued almost until the end of the war in 1945, with a total of 12,731 aircraft built. Though the Flying Fortress was quickly retired by the USAAC after the war, it continued in service with other countries, flying for the Brazilian Air Force until 1968. Twelve B-17s remain flying today.

April 13, 1928 – The first non-stop flight across the Atlantic from East to West. Just one year after Charles Lindbergh's famous flight from New York to Paris, German aviators Hermann Köhl, Baron Gunther von Hunefeld, and Major James Fitzmaurice took off from Baldonnel, Ireland in a Junkers W.33, named the Bremen , hoping to land in New York. However, strong winds forced them well north of their intended course and they landed instead at Greenly Island, Canada after a flight of 37 hours. The W.33 is preserved and displayed at the airport in Bremen, Germany.

April 14, 1962 – The first flight of the Bristol 188. The Bristol 188, nicknamed the "Flaming Pencil," was developed as a research craft to explore supersonic flight. First conceived under Operational Requirement 330, which called for a Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft, Bristol produced three aircraft. The project was plagued with problems, most notably fuel consumption issues which did not allow the aircraft to fly supersonically long enough to test the effects on the airframe. The 188 could not reach Mach 2, and the nearly 300 mph take off speed hampered the test program. However, much of what was learned with the 188 was used later in the development of the Concorde.

Jcarr > ttyymmnn 04/14/2015 at 10:14

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Hard to believe there's only 12 left. It was a tragedy when Liberty Belle burned a couple years ago. I can't imagine how helpless those guys must have felt.

ttyymmnn > Jcarr 04/14/2015 at 10:17

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You would think that with almost 13,000 built there would be more, but the Air Force saw all that aluminum and just chopped them up. You can't blame them. They didn't see the nostalgia that would exist 70 years later.

Jcarr > ttyymmnn 04/14/2015 at 10:25

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Yep, even worse with B-24s (only 2 airworthy out of over 18,000 built).

Future generations are going to have an absolute dearth of warbirds with current policies.

Cé hé sin > ttyymmnn 04/14/2015 at 10:35

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Given the length of the wings, I'm surprised that it could even take off at 300 mph!

ttyymmnn > Cé hé sin 04/14/2015 at 10:59

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I wonder if the 188 was the inspiration for the Thrust SSC . If it needs 300+ mph to take off, why not ditch the wings altogether and make a car out of it?

user314 > ttyymmnn 04/15/2015 at 00:18

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And the missile that was to have armed the XF-108, the GAR-9 (later AIM-47), would later be re-used on the YF-12, as well as serving as the basis for the AIM-54 Phoenix.

ttyymmnn > user314 04/15/2015 at 00:19

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Thanks for the added info.

doodon2whls > ttyymmnn 04/15/2015 at 09:49

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USA ! USA ! USA ! :-)

When I was a young pup, I used to imagine the Shuttle was a superhero that would be screaming, "IIIII AAAAMMMMM AAAWWWEESSSSOOOOMMEEEEE !!!!!!!!!!!!" while it ripped through the atmosphere on its way to space.

ttyymmnn > doodon2whls 04/15/2015 at 09:50

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I was in HS when it went up, and we stopped everything in science class to watch her land. I've still got the local newspaper from that day somewhere.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 04/15/2015 at 14:28

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Funny thing is the Thrust SSC popped into my head as soon as I saw that pic. Nice write up as always.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/15/2015 at 14:32

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Thanks. It can be a challenge to squeeze some of this stuff into three sentences.