This Date in Aviation History: April 13 - April 15

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 04/15/2016 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, important historical events and people in aviation from April 13 through April 15.

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April 13, 1970 – An oxygen tank explodes in the Apollo 13 Service Module. Triskaidekaphobia is a word that comes to us from the Greek, and it means having an extreme superstition or fear of the number 13. As a matter of tradition, many buildings skip the 13th floor and go from 12 to 14, but NASA did not skip the number 13, though perhaps they wish they had. Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the third mission that was meant to land on the moon. On board were astronauts !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Commander, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Command Module Pilot, and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Lunar Module Pilot. The launch on April 11 went off without any significant problems, and the crew successfully detached the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (SM) and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CM) to perform the transposition maneuver that would attach the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (LM) Aquarius to the nose of the CM. This allowed the astronauts to pass between the CM and the LM, and the LM would then fly to the Moon’s surface with two of the astronauts, while the third remained in orbit in the CM. The Service Module was filled with various tanks and batteries, and among its duties was to supply electricity and oxygen to the CM. On April 13, two days after launch and about three-fourths of the way to the moon, NASA flight controllers instructed Swigert to activate the hydrogen and oxygen tank stirring fans, a routine procedure that helped keep the tanks functioning properly and ensure proper readings of the tanks’ level. Two minutes later, the crew heard a loud bang, and Lovell reported to Mission Control that the spacecraft was venting “a gas of some sort” into space. One of the oxygen tanks had exploded, taking not only oxygen for the crew, but also electricity and water. Soon, the CM had only battery power and limited water, and what power they had would be needed for re-entry. So the CM was shut down and the astronauts moved to the LM, which had its own power supply. Without Aquarius to act as a lifeboat, the accident would almost certainly have been fatal. Following the official abort of the moon landing, the problem now facing NASA was getting the astronauts home safely. Rather than turn around and come directly back to Earth, Flight Director !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! decided to allow the spacecraft to swing around the Moon and use the Moon’s gravity to slingshot the astronauts back to Earth. Still, the astronauts had to use the LM’s landing rocket to make course corrections, and the four-and-half-minute burn, something the astronauts had never trained for, was so accurate that only two more small course corrections were needed. While the LM had plenty of oxygen, the removal of carbon dioxide became critical, and the astronauts had to jury-rig a system using incompatible C02 scrubbers from the CM. They also faced critical shortages of water and food. Once they were close enough to Earth, the astronauts jettisoned the SM and could finally get a good look at the damage, seeing that an entire side panel had blown off. After photographing it, they returned to the CM and jettisoned Aquarius. Despite concerns about the possibility of a damaged heat shield, Odyssey splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean on April 17. An analysis of the explosion determined that damaged insulation on the stirring fan caused a short-circuit and fire that ignited the tank explosion. Even though the mission to land on the Moon wasn’t successful, the unintended orbital trajectory around the Moon gave the Apollo 13 astronauts the record for the absolute distance flown from the Earth by a manned spacecraft. (NASA photo)

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April 15, 1952 – The first flight of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. By the end of WWII, Boeing had earned a solid reputation for making large bombers, with the rugged !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the state-of-the-art !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But now that the world had entered the nuclear age, the Air Force needed a new bomber with extreme range that could fly deep into enemy territory and deliver nuclear weapons. Initially, Boeing designed of a straight-wing bomber that would be powered by 6 turboprop engines, an aircraft that would essentially be a scaled-up version of a WWII bomber, with at least 5 turret gunners and room for two crews to fly long-range missions. This was the Model 462, and it was first proposed in 1946. But over the next year of development, the Air Force kept changing the requirements, and Boeing kept changing the design, and by the end of 1947 the program was on the verge of cancelation. Though the turbojet engine was clearly the power of the future, the Air Force wasn’t so sure, and wanted to hedge their bets by sticking with turboprops. After all, range was a primary concern, and early engines were notoriously thirsty. Boeing proposed yet another turboprop design in October 1948, and, when the Air Force wasn’t impressed with its capabilities, a team of Boeing engineers working in a hotel room in Dayton, Ohio came up with the preliminary design of an eight-engine, turbojet bomber, along with a wooden model and a 33-page report to present to the Air Force. They based the design on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and its 35-degree swept wing. Similar to the B-47, the Stratofortresses engines would be housed in pods under the wings, and the landing gear would be centered on the fuselage with outriggers on the wings. To handle crosswind landings, Boeing came up with the innovative solution of having the main landing wheels pivot up to 20-degrees to stay aligned with the runway. Also, like the B-47, the two pilots were seated in a tandem configuration under a greenhouse canopy. But Air Force General !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a veteran of WWII bombing campaigns, insisted that the pilots be seated side by side. Only three of the initial B-52A model were built but the first production model, the B-52B, would enter service with the Air Force on June 29, 1955. This aircraft featured improved avionics and engines that could achieve an extra 12,000 pounds of thrust by using water injection. As a product of the Cold War, the B-52's primary mission was to deliver nuclear weapons, and though it was never called on to carry out this mission, it served as a powerful deterrent to Soviet aims around the world. When the advent of the surface to air missile jeopardized the B-52's high altitude mission, the bomber showed its tremendous flexibility by adapting to low level penetration missions. In a further testament to its flexibility, the bomber that was originally designed solely to drop nuclear munitions became one of the most powerful weapons of conventional warfare when it went into battle in Vietnam. Beginning with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1965, and following modifications to carry still more bombs, B-52 crews flew a total of 124,532 sorties throughout the war. Following Vietnam, many of the older B-52s were retired due to their age, though newer G and H models were kept active for nuclear standby missions. When America went to war in the Persian Gulf, B-52s took part in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , flying from bases in Louisiana to Iraq and back again. Despite efforts to replace the B-52, notably with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Buff soldiers on, providing capabilities in firepower that simply can’t be matched by newer designs. When the B-1 is replaced by the proposed !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the B-52 will still be flying. In fact, the Air Force currently plans to keep the B-52 in service until 2045, an astonishing 90 years after it first entered service. (US Air Force photo)

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April 15, 1935 – The first flight of the Douglas TBD Devastator. The 1930s was an extraordinary decade for aircraft development. Designers moved away from the fabric-covered metal and wooden frames of the biplane era and fully embraced the all-metal monoplane. Many of the designs were truly revolutionary and advanced for their time. But with the outbreak of WWII, and the rapid pace of aircraft development, aircraft that were so groundbreaking when they rolled out were quickly rendered obsolete. Such was the fate of the Douglas TBD Devastator. In 1934, the US Navy was searching for a new dive bomber to fly from its carriers, and the Devastator entered into competition for a Navy contract against the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (which would evolve into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ), the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Devastator would come out on top, and it featured many innovations and firsts for the Navy. It was the first monoplane in carrier service, the Navy’s first all-metal aircraft, and the first with a fully enclosed cockpit. It was also the first to have hydraulically powered folding wings. The semi-retractable landing gear allowed the wheels to protrude from under the wings and protect the airframe in the event of a wheels-up landing. The Devastator could carry either bombs or a single torpedo, had a single forward-firing .30 or .50 caliber machine gun, as well as a rear-firing .30 caliber machine gun for defense against fighters. Power came from a single !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial that gave the Devastator a maximum speed of 206 mph, which was relatively fast for its day. But despite all of these innovations, by the time of the Japanese !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1941, just six years after its first flight, the Devastator was already almost completely outdated. Nevertheless, Devastator pilots fought well in the opening stages of the war in the Pacific, effectively attacking ground and shipping targets while flying from the American carriers !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CV-6), !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CV-5) and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CV-2). But in the pivotal !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on June 3-7, 1942, the Devastator showed that it had become truly obsolete. In the opening stages of the battle, forty-one Devastators, nearly all the TBDs in operation at the time, were dispatched from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CV-8), Enterprise and Yorktown against the Japanese fleet. The Devastator proved to be a sitting duck for Japanese guns, due in large part to its lack of maneuverability and slow speeds. On torpedo runs, the TBDs had to maintain a mere 115 mph in order to drop its torpedo, making them easy targets for Japanese !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighters and Japanese antiaircraft gunners. Only six Devastators returned from the mission, and they had scored no hits on the Japanese carriers. Part of this was due to malfunctioning !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but clearly, the Devastator’s days as an effective attacker were over. But the loss of the Devastators and their crews was not entirely in vain, as the attacks left the Japanese carriers vulnerable for the follow-up attacks by SBD Dauntless dive bombers, ultimately resulting in a lopsided victory for the US Navy which signaled a shift in power in the Pacific. After Midway, the Navy immediately removed the TBD from frontline service, and the remaining aircraft were relegated to flight training duties or served as training pieces for mechanics and firefighters. The final Devastator was scrapped in 1944, and none of the 130 production aircraft remain today. Though the Devastator’s replacement, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , fared little better at first, shifting tactics and the gradual achievement of air superiority in the Pacific finally made the torpedo bomber an effective weapon later in the war. (US Navy photo)

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Short Take Off

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April 13, 1990 – The first flight of the Sukhoi Su-34 (NATO reporting name “Fullback”), an all-weather strike fighter based on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Flanker) and intended as a replacement for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Fencer). The Su-34 is primarily used against ground and naval targets 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, and even includes a toilet and a galley. The Su-24 entered service in early 2014, and saw action in Syria during Russian intervention in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (Photo by Alex Beltyukov via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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April 13, 1945 – Boeing delivers the last 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. (US Air Force photo)

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April 13, 1928 – The first non-stop flight across the Atlantic from East to West. Just one year after Charles Lindbergh’s famous eastward !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from New York to Paris, German aviators !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and Major !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! took off from Baldonnel, Ireland on April 12 in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! named the Bremen on a westward crossing, 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. Their W.33 has been restored and is currently displayed at the airport in Bremen, Germany. (Photo author unknown)

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April 14, 1962 – The first flight of the Bristol 188, nicknamed the “Flaming Pencil,” a research aircraft developed to explore supersonic flight. In response to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! 330, which called for a Mach 3 reconnaissance aircraft, Bristol produced three 188s. 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 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (Bristol photo via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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April 14, 1947 – The first flight of the Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak, a turbojet-powered research aircraft built as a joint project between the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (NACA) and the US Navy. The Skystreak was the first in a planned series of three aircraft that would explore the regime of supersonic flight, though the second phase was canceled in favor of the swept wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Douglas built three examples of the Skystreak, and in just four months it had broken the previous speed record set by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! rocket plane. Though overshadowed by the supersonic !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Skystreak nevertheless provided important data in the realm of transonic flight. (NASA photo)

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April 15, 1965 – The first flight of the Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma, a medium transport/utility helicopter originally developed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to meet a requirement by the French Army for a helicopter that could carry 20 troops or cargo in all weather conditions. After the purchase of the Puma by the Royal Air Force, France and England entered into a production partnership that eventually included Romania and South Africa. The Puma has seen action in numerous conflicts, including the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and is also a popular civilian transport helicopter, particularly for offshore oil corporations. (RAF photo by Sgt Jack Pritchard)

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Recent Aviation History Posts

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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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Jcarr > ttyymmnn 04/15/2016 at 12:43

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Twelve B-17s remain flying today

Man, is it really down to that few? I’ve kind of always taken these for granted since they always seem to be at airshows, but I suppose I should start relishing opportunities to see one fly.

Chris Clarke > Jcarr 04/15/2016 at 12:48

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I was actually just about to comment that it is my understanding there are only nine that can fly. At least that’s what these guys told me.

Jcarr > Chris Clarke 04/15/2016 at 12:51

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Let’s hope we don’t have any more Liberty Belle incidents.

McMike > ttyymmnn 04/15/2016 at 13:23

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[Spacious cabin of the Su-34...] includes a toilet and a galley

Curious after reading this one day, I googled it to check it out. After finding nothing but a single photo of a bathroom that didn’t seem to fit in with any of the cockpit photos I found, I continued.

That bathroom photo ended up being from some other vessel (space station I think).

The only rear cockpit photos I could find ( here and here ) show the area behind the cockpit holding a lot of nose gear. Where could the kitchen and bathroom be back there?

I even sat through this Russian History Channel presentation, and it shows that there just isn’t much back there.

This comes up every once and a while and I go back to the internet SHOW ME THE BATHROOM, INTERNET!!! I WANT TO BELIEVEE.

OPPOsaurus WRX > ttyymmnn 04/15/2016 at 13:47

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Apollo 13, the most code brown of all code browns

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 04/15/2016 at 15:46

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...the removal of carbon dioxide became critical, and the astronauts had to jury-rig a system using incompatible C02 scrubbers from the CM.

Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but why wouldn’t you use common components for life critical systems like that when you’ve got two separate modules that are linked together on a common mission?

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > McMike 04/15/2016 at 16:01

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I saw a YouTube video where a pilot gave a cockpit tour of the Su-34. The “galley” is a coffee pot, and the “bathroom” is a pot to pee in. Presumably the pee pot and the coffee pot are not the same. Unfortunately my YouTube searching is coming up empty.

uofime-2 > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/15/2016 at 16:15

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Weight was ultra critical, especially on the LM

McMike > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/15/2016 at 16:16

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So where did this “kitchen and bathroom” fact come from? I swear, every time I read “SU-34,” it’s followed up with “galley and head.”

I linked to a video in that comment that has a guy showing the camera a coffee thermos and a (separate) pee bottle.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > uofime-2 04/15/2016 at 16:50

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Oxygen supply/generation and CO2 removal are pretty critical when your vehicle is in a vacuum.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/15/2016 at 23:50

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I actually read somewhere why the two systems used different shaped canisters, but I’m on the road right now and don’t have my search history. I’ll check it out when I get home. I think it had something to do with the fact that the canisters were larger in the CM because the astronauts were planning to spend more time there than in the LM. But don’t quote me on that. I’ll try to find the article.

ttyymmnn > McMike 04/16/2016 at 00:07

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Yeah, that’s definitely a space toilet, complete with dick-shaped pee sucker.

Maybe there isn’t a toilet in the Su-34after all. Just a dick-shaped pee sucker .

6:30 in the video. Apparently, the “galley” is a thermos clamped to the wall, and the “toilet” is a dick-shaped pee sucker. “Pissoir,” I believe the host says.

So there you have it. I shall edit accordingly.

ttyymmnn > Jcarr 04/16/2016 at 00:09

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You should. From our vantage point today, we lament that so few remain out of so many that were built. But after the war, they were all just so much aluminum, raw material for the next generation of aircraft. The war was done and it was time to move on. The planes were old and useless. Bust ‘em up and melt ‘em down.

ttyymmnn > Chris Clarke 04/16/2016 at 00:15

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Those guys would probably know better than anybody. Though this guy says there are 15, but it’s hard to tell when he wrote that. Could have been as long as 20 years ago. It’s actually rather hard to find an accurate number.

McMike > ttyymmnn 04/16/2016 at 10:16

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I’m curious where this came from, because I read it everywhere. Was it a bad translation? Did I pilot make a joke once about “Airplane have everything, plus bathroom and toilet” and the internet ran with it?

I’m blaming Wikipedia, but would love to see the pages from the books they used as a source.

ttyymmnn > McMike 04/16/2016 at 10:18

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Russian propaganda.

McMike > ttyymmnn 04/16/2016 at 10:50

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In Soviet Russia, we pee standing up on airplane like men.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > McMike 04/19/2016 at 11:48

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Turns out I didn’t bother to click through your links. That was the video that I was looking for. If you want entertainment value, watch it with the captions on and doing auto-translate from Russian to English.

McMike > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 04/19/2016 at 12:11

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I wish I could read the pages in the books Wikipedia cites as their source for the cockpit accommodations. fact. I’m still curious where this all started.

Every. Single. Time. I read about the SU-34 (no matter what site) multiple people in the comments always say “This plane has a kitchen and a bathroom”