This Date in Aviation History: February 10 - February 12

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 02/12/2016 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 February 10 through February 12.

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February 10, 1962 – American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for Soviet KGB spy Rudolf Abel. In the early days of the Cold War, the United States was desperate for timely, accurate intelligence on Russian military plans. By 1960, rudimentary satellite imagery was possible, but it was unreliable, and not at all timely. What the US really needed was an aircraft that could fly high above Russia, take pictures of military installations, missile tests, or other high-value assets, then return quickly to have the images analyzed. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! at Lockheed, under the direction of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , produced just what the American government needed in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , an aircraft that was capable of flying at 70,000 feet, an altitude that made it immune to interception by enemy aircraft. But as Soviet missile technology improved, the US knew it was just a matter of time before one of their pilots was shot down. That is exactly what happened on May 1, 1960, when CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down while on a spy mission over Russia. Powers took off from Pakistan, and flew northward to photograph ICBM sites at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and the Plesetsk Cosmodrome before a planned landing in Norway. Powers was flying a predictable route, and soon his aircraft was detected near Chelyabinsk and fighters were sent to intercept it. Try as they might, the fighters were unable to reach the spy plane at its extreme altitude. The Russians launched eight !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! missiles, the first one hitting the U-2, and another downing at least one of the Russian fighters. Powers ejected, but the plane came to earth relatively intact. He chose not to take the poison pill that the CIA provided him with, though its use was optional. At first, the US denied that Powers was on a spy mission, saying instead that it was a “weather plane” that had gone off course. But the incident was another blow to already-brittle US-Soviet relations. Powers plead guilty at what was essentially a propaganda show trial, and he was convicted of espionage, receiving a sentence of ten years in prison, which included seven years of hard labor. Despite his conviction, Powers only served 21 months of his sentence. On February 10, 1962, Powers was exchanged for KGB spy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who had been convicted for espionage in what was known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The prisoner exchange took place on the Glienicke Bridge between East and West Germany, a location that would be the site of a total of seven prisoner exchanges during the Cold War. The swap forms the basis for the recent Hollywood film !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After his release, Powers returned to the US and worked as a Lockheed test pilot until 1970, but was killed in 1977 when the news helicopter he was piloting crashed while covering a brush fire. ( Photo from Deutsche Presse-Agentur)

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February 11, 1945 – The first flight of the Consolidated Vultee XP-81. As WWII drew to a close, the jet engine was clearly the powerplant of the future. But early American attempts to harness the new technology, such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , were less than promising, and designers were still looking for a way to make use of the turbojet engine in ways that were more beneficial. The US still saw the need for a high-speed, long-range fighter to accompany fleets of strategic bombers over the Pacific, but early turbojets were notoriously thirsty and therefore limited in their range compared to piston powered aircraft. One solution put forward by Consolidated-Vultee (later Convair) was to develop an aircraft that would have the best of both worlds, the XP-81, which would be powered by a turboprop in the front and a turbojet in the rear, making it America’s first turboprop powered aircraft. The turbojet in the rear would only be used for takeoff and high-speed dashes, while the turboprop would be used for long-range cruising. As was often the case with these cutting-edge designs, the engine development lagged behind the construction of the airframe, and the XF-81's turbojet engine, an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , was ready before the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (later designated the XT-31) turboprop engine. So, to get flight testing started, the XP-81 was fitted with the nose section of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! powered by a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine. After about 10 hours of flight testing, the aircraft was returned to Consolidated to have its new turboprop fitted. Unfortunately, the new turboprop did not produce nearly as much horsepower as Consolidated had hoped. In fact, the XT-31 produced a mere 200 hp more than the Merlin, and the XP-81 showed practically no improvement in performance with the turboprop. The USAAF had initially ordered 13 aircraft, but following the disappointing test results, the order was canceled. Nevertheless, a second prototype was completed, but since the turboprop engine never worked as advertised, the full potential of the new fighter was never realized. Consolidated had hoped that, with the combined power of both engines, the XP-81 would be capable of a maximum speed of 507 mph, with a cruising speed of 275 flying with just the turboprop. By the time flight testing had been completed, the islands of Guam and Saipan had been captured, and the USAAF no longer had a need for a long-range escort fighter and the program was canceled. Testing of the two prototypes continued until 1947, and both aircraft were relegated to a bombing range where they served as photo reconnaissance targets. Both prototypes are currently in storage at the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. (US Air Force photo)

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Short Take Off

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February 10, 1967 – The first flight of the Dornier Do 31. In the early 1960s, German aircraft manufacturer EWR ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) developed the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a project to develop a supersonic VTOL jet fighter, and the Do 31 was meant to be a VTOL support aircraft for that fighter. The design employed a total of 10 engines: two vectored thrust !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines mounted in inboard nacelles, and four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! lift engines in a nacelle mounted at the end of each wing. The first prototype was built for level flight only, but the third prototype employed all 10 engines and made its first hovering flight in November 1967, and the first transition to forward and backward flight in December 1967. The Do 31 became the world’s only VTOL cargo aircraft, but the project was canceled in 1970. (Photo by Ralf Manteufel via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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February 11, 2008 – The death of Frank Piasecki, an engineer and pioneer in the development of tandem rotor helicopters. Piasecki also created the concept of the compound helicopter using vectored thrust from a ducted propeller (VTDP). Piasecki founded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1940 and produced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the second successful helicopter in the US after the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . He followed that with a series of tandem rotor helicopters, including the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which served in Vietnam as a troop transport until 1964. By 1956, Piasecki was ousted from the company he founded, so he started a new company called !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (his former company became Vertol, and was eventually sold to Boeing). Currently, Piasecki Aircraft is working on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , that was modified to use a VTDP tail to achieve higher speeds than a traditional helicopter. (Photo author unknown)

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February 11, 2000 – The death of Jacqueline Auriol, pioneering French aviatrix. Born in 1917, Auriol aided the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! during WWII, earned her pilot license in 1948, and performed as a stunt flier and test pilot. After earning her military pilot license in 1950, Auriol qualified as one the first female test pilots, and became one of the first women to break the sound barrier. She went on to set five world speed records in the 1950s and 1960s. Auriol is a four-time winner of the prestigious !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for outstanding accomplishments in aviation, and a founding member of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (Photo by Sieg94 via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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February 11, 1976 – The death of Alexander Martin Lippisch. Lippisch was born in 1894 in Munich, Germany, and became one of the world’s leading aerodynamicists and aeronautical engineers. He was one of the earliest designers to work with delta wings and flying wings, and also made important discoveries in the area of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Lippisch was active during WWII, designing high-speed fighters for the Luftwaffe, including the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the world’s only operational rocket-powered fighter. Lippisch was brought to America following the war, where his work with delta wings would influence early Convair designs such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (Bundesarchiv photo via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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February 11, 1920 – The birth of Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr, a USAF fighter pilot and the first African American to attain the rank of four-star general. James served as a flight instructor for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though he saw no combat in WWII. In Korea, James flew 101 combat missions in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and then flew 78 combat missions in Vietnam. Most of those missions were in the dangerous areas of Hanoi and Haiphong Harbor, including leading one mission that claimed 7 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! kills, the highest for a single mission in the war. After achieving his four-star rank, James was named commander in chief of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , where had operational command of all strategic aerospace defenses of the US and Canada. James died of a heart attack on February 25, 1978, just three weeks after his retirement from the US Air Force. (US Air Force photo)

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February 12, 2001 – The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft becomes the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous robotic space probe, whose name was them appended with Shoemaker in honor planetary scientist !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , was launched on February 17, 1996 and sent to study the near-Earth asteroid !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After first orbiting the asteroid, the space probe landed on the comet on February 12, 2001. The mission was launched to gain up-close data on the composition of the asteroid, and following a gentle touchdown on the surface of Eros the spacecraft continued to transmit data to Earth until February 28, 2001. (NASA illustration)

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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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RallyWrench > ttyymmnn 02/12/2016 at 14:14

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That Dornier is a cool looking thing, amazing it used that many engines. I wonder if Jacqueline Auriol had any relation to rally driver Didier Auriol. Her age would be about right to be mom or aunt. I just did a quick Google but nothing came up.

facw > RallyWrench 02/12/2016 at 19:47

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The fighter they were developing was pretty awesome as well:

It used six engines, 2 in each of the rotating nacelles, and another two lift jets behind the cockpit. West Germany was very worried the Soviets would take out their airbases, so experimented with VTOL a lot.

Another crazy VTOL prototype was the French Mirage IIIV, which had eight lift jets, in addition to its main engine:

RallyWrench > facw 02/12/2016 at 19:56

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Wow, that’s something else! Like a more space-age F104.