This Date in Aviation History: June 18 - June 21

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 06/21/2016 at 12:35 • Filed to: planelopnik, planelopnik history

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from June 18 - June 21.

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June 18, 1981 – The first flight of the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk. All the way back in 1886, German physicist !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (for whom the eponymous !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is named) discovered that radio waves could be reflected back from solid objects, and by 1904, another German, the inventor !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , discovered the ability to use radio waves to detect metal objects. By WWII, radar (which is actually an acronym for radio detection and ranging ) was used by the RAF to detect incoming German bombers, and radars were installed on aircraft to direct bombers to targets and to create the first night fighters. Following the war, radar developments made the sets ever more powerful, increasing the range and diminishing the size of targets that could be detected. But what if you could make an aircraft that was invisible to radar, or at least one that had a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (RCS) so small that a large aircraft appeared the size of a small bird? While not truly invisible, it would be impossible to detect the aircraft out of all the other normal clutter on a radar screen. The idea that an aircraft might be made nearly invisible to radar was first proposed by Russian mathematician !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1964, though the shapes necessary rendered the concept impossible at the time because the aircraft would be unflyable. It wasn’t until fly-by-wire flight control computers became more sophisticated that the idea could become a reality. The Nighthawk program began with work in Lockheed’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! led by engineer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on a technology demonstrator known as the Hopeless Diamond, a nickname derived from the shape of the aircraft, one which nobody believed would ever fly. On paper, Lockheed engineers believed that the new design would be 1,000 times less visible than any other aircraft ever created at Lockheed, showing up on the radar as an object about the size of a marble. In 1976, the Air Force awarded a contract to develop the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! project, the stealth demonstrator that would lead to the Nighthawk. With the success of Have Blue, Lockheed could proceed to development of the F-117.

The Have Blue technology demonstrator

The Nighthawk is instantly recognizable by its faceted shape, a series of flat surfaces, never joining at a right angle, that work to reflect radar energy away from the radar receiver. Special !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! coatings are also used to keep the radar signals from bouncing off the aircraft. To shield the hot exhaust from detection, the engines were buried deep within the aircraft, which meant that afterburners could not be used, thus limiting the Nighthhawk to subsonic speeds. Though given the “F” designation for fighter, the Nighthawk was strictly an attack platform for dropping guided bombs or missiles, and after being revealed to the public in 1988, the F-117 saw extensive action in the 1991 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , flying the first missions of the war to knock out Iraqi radar sites and eventually flying almost 1,400 sorties. Though a number of Nighthawks have been lost to accidents, only one was ever lost in combat when it was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! during NATO operations over Serbia in 1999 after Russian radar operators, using modified radars, discovered they could detect the F-117 when its landing gear or bomb bay doors were open. The plane came down relatively intact, and the Serbians invited the Russians and Chinese to inspect the wreckage and gain valuable information on American stealth technology. Lockheed produced a total of sixty-four aircraft, and the F-117 was officially retired in 2008. However, some military observers have reported continuing flights of the Nighthawk over the US Air Force’s super-secret testing site at Groom Lake in Nevada, popularly known as !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The reason for these flights remains unclear. (US Air Force photos)

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June 19, 1944 – The Battle of the Philippine Sea. The use of the airplane in warfare began in WWI, and it reached its ascendancy in WWII. The Japanese showed the true potential of the carrier-based warplane with its !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the ensuing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! showed that the airplane had now replaced the battleship as the true center of the modern battle group. The Battle of Midway proved to be a turning point in the Pacific War, with the Japanese advance finally being blunted. Even with the loss of four carriers, Japanese naval aviation wasn’t utterly destroyed, though it was severely damaged. There remained one more epic carrier battle to be fought, the largest carrier battle in history, and it would prove to be the last gasp for Japanese naval air power of the war. In the summer of 1944, American forces launched operations as part of their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! campaign to take the Japanese-held islands of Tinian, Saipan and Guam in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Despite their depleted forces, the Japanese navy, in an effort to halt the American advance, formed a fleet that included five heavy carriers and four light carriers, along with five battleships, eleven heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and twenty-eight destroyers. On June 16, a US submarine discovered the fleet off the coast of the Philippines as the Japanese turned to face the Americans. To oppose the Japanese fleet, the Americans had !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one of the most powerful fleets ever assembled. Under the command of Admiral !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the armada included seven heavy carriers, eight light carriers, seven battleships, eight heavy cruisers, thirteen light cruisers and 69 destroyers. Mitscher divided his fleet into four carrier task groups and one battleship task group, while the Japanese divided their fleet into four groups. Japanese scout planes spotted the American fleet on the morning of June 19, and launched the first attack. However, American radar discovered the planes 50 miles away from the fleet, and American fighters were waiting for them. In the ensuing battle, more than 200 Japanese planes were shot down against the loss of only 23 US planes.

A Japanese dive bomber is shot down while attacking the escort carrier USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71)

Meanwhile, US submarines had located the main body of the Japanese fleet, and torpedoed the carrier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and then the carrier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which sank four hours later. The Japanese attacked again, but the planes flew in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, the attackers were detected and annihilated by American fighters. By the end of the battle on June 20, between 300 and 400 Japanese aircraft were destroyed, earning the battle the nickname “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.” Though it might have been possible for the Japanese to replace their aircraft, the losses in pilots was a blow from which they would never recover. Even though Japan still had carriers, they no longer had the men or planes to operate effectively from their decks, and the ships were reduced to the role of a diversionary force in the later !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (US Navy photos)

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Short Take Off

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June 18, 1983 – Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to fly in space. Ride joined NASA in 1978 and went to space in 1983 as a Mission Specialist on board Space Shuttle !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on mission !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , twenty years after the first woman in space, cosmonaut !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Ride was the youngest American astronaut to fly in space at age 32. She went to space a second time the following year, again on Challenger , as a Mission Specialist on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Ride left NASA in 1987, but served on the investigation committees into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! disasters. After teaching physics at the University of California, San Diego, Ride died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at age 61. (National Archives photo)

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June 18, 1928 – Explorer Roald Amundsen and his crew disappear in the arctic. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was a famed explorer of the Earth’s polar regions, becoming the first to reach the South Pole in 1911. On May 25, the airship !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! crashed in the Arctic Ocean while flying around the North Pole, and Amundsen and his crew of five left Tromsø, Norway in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! floatplane to search for survivors. Flying across the Barents Sea, the aircraft disappeared without a trace, though two months later a piece of the float was found washed ashore, then three months later the gas tank washed ashore. The bodies of Amundsen and his crew were never found. (Photos public domain)

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June 18, 1916 – The death of Max Immelmann. Immelmann was the first German ace of WWI, and the first to be awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one of the highest awards of the Kingdom of Prussia. He is credited with the creation of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that bears his name, and had scored 15 victories by his death. Immelmann was one of the first to make use of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! developed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which allowed the pilot to fire directly through the arc of the fighter’s propeller. However, Immelmann’s death resulted from a malfunction of the device, when he shot away the propeller of his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Eindecker monoplane and crashed. (Photos public domain)

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June 19, 2002 – Adventurer Steve Fossett takes off on the first solo balloon circumnavigation of the Earth. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! departed from Northam, Western Australia on June 19 in a balloon named Spirit of Freedom , and flew eastward across the Pacific Ocean, over Chile and Argentina, then across the southern Atlantic Ocean to South Africa and then across the southern Indian Ocean, arriving back in Australia on July 4. The flight covered 20,626 miles, and set numerous distance and flight longevity records. Fossett would make other world record flights, including the first solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the Earth in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Fossett died in the crash of his private plane on September 3, 2007. (Photo via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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June 20, 1983 – The first flight of the Bombardier Dash 8, the first of a series of twin-turboprop, medium-range airliners that were originally known as the de Havilland Canada (DHC) Dash 8. Developed from the four-engine !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Dash 8 is built in four variants, capable of accommodating from 39-78 passengers. It entered service in 1984 with the now-defunt !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airline, and was extremely successful as a regional airliner. Despite challenges from newer small !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the lower operating costs of the turboprop engine have allowed the Dash 8 to remain competitive. The Dash 8 remains in production, and nearly 1,200 have been built to date. (Photo by Biggerben via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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June 20, 1966 – Sheila Scott completes the first of three circumnavigations of the globe. Scott was a record-setting British aviatrix, and she made her first round-the-world flight in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , departing from London Heathrow on May 18, having flown approximately 31,000 miles over the course of 34 days and 189 flying hours. She topped that in 1971 with a “world and a half” flight of 34,000 miles, also becoming the first person to fly over the North Pole in a single-engine aircraft. Scott was awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1968 for her exploits, and died in 1988 at the age of 66. (NASA photo)

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June 20, 1951 – The first flight of the Bell X-5, an aircraft that was inspired by the variable-sweep wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the first aircraft that was able to change the angle of wing sweep in flight. The X-5 had three settings for the wings, and a full sweep could be accomplished in 30 seconds. However, the aircraft was so unstable that the second prototype was lost in a crash which killed its test pilot. While the X-5 was ultimately a failure, data on swing-wing technology would be used successfully on later production aircraft such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber. (US Air Force photo)

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June 21, 2004 – SpaceShipOne makes the first privately funded human spaceflight. SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched spacecraft powered by a rocket that is capable of taking the ship into suborbital flight. Designed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and built by his company !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , SpaceShipOne was the first step in a program to take paying passengers into space, and served as proof-of-concept for the larger !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which first flew in 2010. Both ships use a unique feathering system that raises the aircraft’s tail boom to slow the ship during reentry. SpaceShipOne was launched from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! mothership, and the system won the $10 million !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 2004 by reaching an altitude of 100 km twice within a two-week period. SpaceShipOne made 17 test flights, three of which went beyond 100 km in altitude. The ship is now preserved at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Washington, DC. (Photo by WPPilot via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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June 21, 1961 – The first flight of the Aviation Traders Carvair, an aircraft developed by entrepreneur !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to allow travelers to take their cars with them on holiday. The DC-4 was modified by placing the flight deck in a raised section above the main fuselage, which provided room for 5 cars and 22 passengers, or 3 cars and 50 passengers. The flexible design of the Carvair meant that the configuration could be changed on the ground between flights in as little as 40 minutes. A total of 21 DC-4s were converted and flown by various airlines in Europe, and one remains in service, based in Denton, Texas, which set a record when it carried 80 skydivers aloft in 2005. (Public domain photo)

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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 06/21/2016 at 12:45

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Anyone looking for more history behind the F-117 (as well as the U-2 and SR-71) should read Skunk Works by Mr. Rich. Good read.

vondon302 > ttyymmnn 06/21/2016 at 12:50

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We need more people like Steve Fossett

R.I.P.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 06/21/2016 at 12:54

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Re Amundsen, wasn’t he the same explorer that was on the previous arctic airship exploration, with the same airship pilot, called the Norge? Italian pilot (hence the name of the second ship), can’t remember his name off the top of my head, went and made a second flight on his own, which was the one that went down.

Never heard about Amundsen going out to search for them though.

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 06/21/2016 at 13:01

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Yes. Amundsen was on the Norge , which was an Italian airship. They made the first verified crossing of the North Pole in 1926.

ttyymmnn > Jcarr 06/21/2016 at 13:02

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Damn good read, actually. Although I enjoyed the parts about the U-2 and SR-71 a little more. I like my history a bit older.

HammerheadFistpunch > ttyymmnn 06/21/2016 at 13:14

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The most interesting part of the f117 to me was the cost and simplicity. It was relatively cheap thanks to off the shelf parts. Also interesting but totally common sense if you think about it...it has no active radar.

Jonathan Harper > ttyymmnn 06/21/2016 at 13:21

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Awesome as always!

ttyymmnn > Jonathan Harper 06/21/2016 at 13:22

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Thank you!

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 06/21/2016 at 14:03

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My favorite story of the Have Blue testing was when they did a flyby of a radar test site. The radar operators weren’t cleared to actually see the plane, so they were under guard inside the radar trailer watching their scopes. They easily picked up the T-38 chase plane and were celebrating at how easily they spotted the Have Blue on radar. Then the Lockheed rep (possibly Ben Rich himself) pointed out that they should have spotted two planes on radar.

knewman > ttyymmnn 06/21/2016 at 21:26

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very cool, enjoyed post

ttyymmnn > knewman 06/21/2016 at 21:27

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Thanks! They’re here twice a week, and all the old ones are available as well. Thanks for reading.

knewman > Jcarr 06/21/2016 at 21:27

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came here to post this. fantastic read about those projects, and aerospace engineering in general.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > ttyymmnn 06/21/2016 at 22:01

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ttyymmnn > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 06/21/2016 at 22:49

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Hearing Shirley Bassey in my head.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > ttyymmnn 06/23/2016 at 22:56

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i love the power of her voice. what I love of a lot of 60/70s music is that vocals weren’t cluttered out. Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey ruined female singers (few exceptions Adele,).

ttyymmnn > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 06/24/2016 at 00:30

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Well said. Lena Horne was another, though I’m not exactly a fan.