This Date in Aviation History: June 25 - June 28

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 06/28/2016 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 25 - June 28.

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June 25, 1946 – The first flight of the Northrop YB-35. Heavy, strategic bombing reached its heyday during WWII, and some of the greatest technological advances of the era were made in the design of long-range bombers that could carry increasingly heavier payloads. While work was underway on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , arguably the greatest of the piston-powered heavy bombers to come out of WWII, the US Army Air Corps issued a request to the aviation industry for a new bomber that would be capable of carrying 10,000 pounds of bombs on a round-trip mission of 10,000 miles. The new bomber would also need to have a maximum speed of 450 mph and a service ceiling of 45,000 feet. The impetus for the design was to have a bomber that could reach occupied Europe in the event that Britain fell to the Nazis. Both Boeing and Consolidated responded, and Consolidated produced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though it wasn’t ready until after the war. Northrop was eventually included in the competition, but they took a more radical approach, hoping to extend the range and payload of their bomber by making it as aerodynamically efficient as possible. Since any part of an aircraft that moves through the air produces drag, Jack Northrop believed that the best way to reduce drag was to eliminate the fuselage, tail, and any other parts of the plane that didn’t generate lift, making a plane that was no more than a flying wing. Since the design was such a departure from traditional design, Northrop first developed one-third scale flying wing, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which was used to gather data on flight characteristics of the flying wing and also act as a trainer for the YB-35 pilots. The YB-35 was powered by four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engines each turning a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The engines and propellers were supplied, untested, by the US Army, and they soon displayed significant vibration issues which proved to be so sever that Jack Northrop eventually grounded the bomber until the problems could be fixed. Even though the YB-35 had greater range than the B-36, propeller engines were deemed obsolete by the end of the 1940s, and the Air Force ordered that the YB-35 be fitted instead with eight turbojet engines, and the bomber was reclassified as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The new jets gave the airplane the flight performance the Air Force desired, but the range was cut nearly in half, and the flying wing no longer had the capability to reach overseas targets from the US. It also proved very difficult to fly. Thirteen YB-35s were built, though only one ever flew. Two of the airframes were converted to the YB-49, one of which crashed. All the remaining airframes were scrapped. While some, including Jack Northrop, were convinced that it was a political conspiracy that ended the flying wings, it was was also likely a case of an idea that was ahead of its time. In 1981, when Northrop was frail and near death, the Northrop Grumman team working on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber brought him into the factory and showed him the plans and a scale model of the B-2 at a time when the project was still top secret. Northrop’s poor health had left him unable to speak, but he reportedly wrote on a piece of paper, “Now I know why God has kept me alive for 25 years.” He died 10 months later, no doubt feeling vindicated for his unyielding belief that the flying wing would one day become a reality. (US Air Force photo)

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June 26, 1949 – The Berlin Airlift begins. Following the D-Day landings in France on June 6, 1944, Germany found itself squeezed on two fronts. The Allies were pushing eastward on a broad front throughout Europe, while the Russians were moving westward at a breakneck pace to reach the German capital. Berlin fell to the Russians on May 2, 1945 and, as had been decided at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! held in February of that year, the German capital was divided into four zones. The Russians controlled the eastern quarter of the city, with the rest was divided between the French, British and Americans. The city itself was deep inside eastern Germany, which was fully controlled by the Russians. Though the shooting war was over, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! between the Western Bloc (the US and its NATO allies) and Russia had begun. The fragile wartime alliance between the West and the Soviet Union ended, and both sides sought to influence the political makeup of Europe and the world through economic and political policies and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . On June 24, 1948, in an effort to make the city of Berlin entirely their own, Russia cut off the western sectors from the outside world, severing water connections and halting all vehicular and river traffic into or out of the Allied sectors. West Berlin was effectively cut off from the rest of Western Europe, and it became an island inside Communist East Germany. But while the Russians could block the roads and bridges, they could not put a roof over the city, and the Western allies began the the greatest airlift of supplies in history. Though the Russians controlled all ground access to Berlin, they had agreed prior to the blockade to let the Western allies use three air corridors from western German into Berlin. These corridors would form the supply route. Starting haphazardly at first, the operation was taken over first by US Brigadier General Joseph Smith, who had commanded !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! under General !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! during the war. But Smith had no airlift experience, and he was soon replaced by Major Gerneral !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a veteran of airlift operations over the Himalayas during the fight against Japan. Tunner cobbled together an aerial armada of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and British C-47 Dakotas, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airliners, and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and started round-the-clock flights. He instituted strict new rules to streamline the operation, such as requiring !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! landings regardless of weather and the elimination of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! while planes awaited landing. If an aircraft missed an approach, the crew was required to return to their starting point, fully laden, and try again. Tunner required air crews to stay with their planes at all times, and refreshments were brought out to the crews on the tarmac so they could take off immediately after unloading. West Berlin citizens pitched in to help unload the planes. By the end of August 1948, 1,500 flights per day—one landing every minute—were delivering more than 5,000 tons of cargo, enough to keep the city fed and powered in spite of the blockade. And on Easter Sunday, 1949, the airlift managed to deliver 13,000 tons of cargo, including the equivalent of 600 railroad cars of coal. The airlift continued for 11 months, making more than 189,000 flights totaling nearly 600,000 hours of flying and flying more than 92 million miles. Faced with this herculean effort, the Russians finally conceded and lifted the blockade one minute after midnight on May 12, 1949. Berlin remained a free city, and it stood as an important symbol of the West’s resolve to fight the spread of Communism in Europe until the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1990. (US Air Force photo)

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June 26, 1942 – The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat. When the US Navy entered WWII, their primary carrier-based fighter was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a fighter that, while an all-metal monoplane, was still very much a product of an earlier era of fighters. It was only one generation removed from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the last biplane fighter to serve the Navy, and the Wildcat even shared the F3F’s hand-cranked landing gear. While the Wildcat served well enough in the early days of the war, it was clear that a more modern fighter would be needed to counter the superb !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that was ruling the skies in the Pacific. Fortunately for the Navy, a successor was waiting in the wings, a fighter that had been undergoing development since 1938, and one that would prove every bit the match for the nimble Zero. Soon after the Wildcat made its first flight, and even before it entered Navy service, Grumman started working on a successor. By 1941, six months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a prototype was ready for testing. And while the Hellcat bore a significant resemblance to the Wildcat, it was in fact an entirely new aircraft. Gone was the hand-cranked landing gear, replaced by hydraulically actuated struts that folded fully into the wing. The wings were also mounted closer to the bottom of the fuselage and could be hydraulically folded back for carrier storage. As development of the Hellcat continued, Grumman got valuable input from pilots who had faced the Zero in combat and, as a direct result of those meetings, the Hellcat’s original !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial, which produced 1,700 hp, was replaced with a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! 18-cylinder radial capable of 2,000 hp, the same engine being used in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The new power plant gave the Hellcat a top speed of 391 mph, compared to the Zero’s 332 mph. Where the Zero was designed to be light and agile, it offered no protection to the pilot. Grumman, on the other hand, whose nickname was “The Iron Works” for the reputation for building rugged aircraft, gave the Hellcat a bullet-resistant windscreen, 212 pounds of cockpit armor to protect the pilot, and self-sealing fuel tanks, weight increases that would be offset by the more powerful engine. The Hellcat’s claws were six .50 caliber !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! machine guns mounted in the wings. The F6F entered service in 1943, and despite the fact that it was slower than the Corsair, it was better suited to carrier operations, and the Hellcat became the standard US Navy fighter until the end of the war. When tested against a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! A6M5 Zero, the Hellcat proved to be faster, could outturn the Japanese fighter at higher altitudes, and had a faster roll rate. The Zero was still a better dogfighter at lower altitudes, but American pilots learned to use the Hellcat’s weight and firepower to its advantage in diving attacks on Japanese fighters. By the end of the war, Navy and Marine pilots calmed 5,163 victories over Japanese aircraft at a loss of 270 Hellcats, a ratio of 19:1 when taking into account both claimed and confirmed victories. There were no less than 305 pilots who became aces in the F6F. Grumman produced over 12,000 Hellcats during WWII, and after the war they were used as second-line fighters behind the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and also served as trainers and even as radio-controlled bombs during the Korean War. A night fighter variant served the US Navy until 1954, and the Hellcat also served as the original aircraft for the US Navy’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! flight demonstration team when the team was formed in 1946. The final Hellcats were retired from service with the Uruguayan Navy in 1960. (US Navy photo)

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Short Take Off

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June 25, 1997 – The first flight of the Kamov Ka-52 Alligator, a two-seat variant of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! attack helicopter. Following tests that compared the single-seat Ka-50 and the existing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! gunship, Kamov determined that it would be cheaper to develop their existing helicopter into a more capable ground attack and reconnaissance helicopter than create a new one. The second crew member, seated beside the pilot, operates the the radar and targeting equipment, leaving the pilot free to fly the aircraft. Production began in 1996, and 80 have been built to date. The Alligator has seen action as recently as 2015 during Russia’s support of the Syrian government in the ongoing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (Photo by Visergey via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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June 25, 1947 – The first flight of the Boeing B-50 Superfortress, an upgraded variant of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that was fitted with more powerful engines, a lengthened fuselage, an enlarged stabilizer and constructed from a lighter aluminum alloy. The B-50 was never used as a bomber, but the RB-50 reconnaissance variant was flown extensively to probe the northern reaches of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and the KB-50 served as an early aerial refueling platform, eventually receiving a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet engines to help it keep pace with jet fighters. Following the introduction of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the B-50 was retired in 1965. (US Air Force photo)

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June 25, 1944 – The first flight of the Ryan FR Fireball, a mixed-propulsion fighter that was powered by a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engine in the front and a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet in the rear. The fuselage ultimately proved too weak for carrier operations despite modifications to strengthen it, and production of the Fireball was canceled with the end of WWII after only 66 aircraft were built. The Fireball is notable as the first jet-powered aircraft to land on a carrier, but that was only because the radial had engine failed in flight. By August 1947, all Fireballs were removed from service and most were scrapped. Only one remains and is on display at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in California. (US Navy photo)

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June 25, 1919 – The first flight of the Junkers F.13, the world’s first all-metal transport aircraft. German aircraft designer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! pioneered the use of corrugated !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airplane skins, and his unbraced monoplane design was well ahead of other fabric-covered biplanes of the era. The F.13 carried 4 passengers in an enclosed, heated cabin and also had an enclosed cockpit. Junkers sold his aircraft abroad, and some were built under license in the US and flown by the US Post Office Department. Others were converted to float planes. To sell more aircraft, Junkers started his own airline, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1921. A total of 332 F.13s were built between 1919-1932, and four remain today in museums, with a fifth currently undergoing restoration. (Photo author unknown)

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June 25, 1886 – The birth of Henry “Hap” Arnold, an aviation pioneer who took flying lessons from the Wright Brothers and was the Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces during WWII. Arnold was one of the world’s first military pilots, and oversaw the expansion of the US Army Air Forces in WWII from a tiny force of 800 planes into the largest air force in the world. Arnold is also the only Air Force general to hold a five-star rank, and when the USAAF became the US Air Force in 1947, Arnold became the only officer to hold a five-star rank in two different U.S. military services. Following the war, Arnold retired to California to write his memoirs, and died in 1950 at age 63. (Photo author unknown)

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June 26, 1974 – The first flight of the Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil, a single-engine light utility and transport helicopter developed by Aérospatiale as a replacement of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Alouette’s initial successor, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , was a success in the military market, so the Écureuil was directed at the civilian market, and steps were taken to keep the cost of the helicopter as low as possible. The production helicopter is powered by a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turboshaft engine which gives the Écureuil a cruising speed of 152 mph, and the helicopter has the capacity for 5 passengers. Nearly 4,000 have been produced, and the Écureuil is operated all over the world and is particularly popular with civil authorities. (Photo by Elisabeth Klimesch via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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June 26, 1936 – The first flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, a tandem-rotor helicopter that is considered the fist practical and functional helicopter. While !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is known for his groundbreaking work with single-rotor helicopters, the Fw 61 used two counter-rotating, three-bladed rotors to provide lift, while lateral control was achieved by the use of cyclic pitch and asymmetric rotor lift. Torque was controlled through the counter-rotation of the rotors, and a small propeller at the front worked only to cool the engine. Only two were built, and one was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! famously by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! inside the Deutschlandhalle in 1938. The Fw 61 also set an unofficial altitude record of 11,234 feet in 1938. (Photo author unknown)

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June 26, 1898 – The birth of Willy Messerschmitt. Messerschmitt began his design career building sail planes during WWI, then moved on to build small sport planes and small passenger planes. In 1936, Messerschmitt won the competition to provide the Luftwaffe with a new frontline fighter, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one of the war’s iconic fighters, and an aircraft that would be produced in greater numbers than any other aircraft in history. After the war, Germany was forbidden from producing aircraft until 1955, so Messerschmitt turned to the manufacture of sewing machines, prefab buildings, and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! automobile. He also exported his aircraft design talents to other countries, designing the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! jet trainer for Spain in 1952 before he was allowed to return to aircraft manufacturing, producing the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! under license for the West German Luftwaffe. His final design was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , supersonic interceptor for the Egyptian air force. Messerschmitt died on September 15, 1978 at the age of 80. (Messerschmitt photo via Deutsches Bundesarchiv; Kabinenroller photo by G. Petermann via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ; Bf 109 photo author unknown)

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June 27, 1976 – The hijacking of Air France Flight 139. Air France Flight 139, an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (F-BVGG), departed Tel Aviv, Israel carrying 246 passengers and flew to Athens, where hijackers boarded the plane along with other passengers. After departing for Paris, the hijackers took over the plane and flew it first to Libya, then Entebbe, Uganda. The hijackers demanded $5 million dollars and the release of Palestinian militants, many of who were held in Israeli jails. On July 4, following unsuccessful diplomatic negotiations, Israeli commandos stormed the airport where the hostages were being held, killing the hijackers, along with three hostages who were caught in the crossfire. One commando was killed by Ugandan soldiers as the hostages loaded planes to be flown out of the country. (US Department of Defense 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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SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > ttyymmnn 06/28/2016 at 12:55

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Poor Jack Northrop. It was totally a conspiracy. You don’t “forget” to put engine oil in four out of your eight engines before a demonstration for the president.

vondon302 > ttyymmnn 06/28/2016 at 13:06

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The Berlin airlift story always makes me smile.

phenotyp > ttyymmnn 06/28/2016 at 13:09

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Fireball doesn’t sound like a particularly reassuring nickname for a plane...

ttyymmnn > phenotyp 06/28/2016 at 13:15

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No, it doesn’t. I assure you I had the same thought. Kudos to the guys who climbed inside that thing and flew it.

ttyymmnn > vondon302 06/28/2016 at 13:17

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It’s a hell of a story, to be sure. I think it would have been a thrill to participate, even if a number of the planes were involved in fatal crashes. Imagine if you had spend the last few years killing people, and now you were flying to help people live. Must have been a rush.

OPPOsaurus WRX > ttyymmnn 06/28/2016 at 14:12

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Did jack Northrop ever get to see the B2 fly

ttyymmnn > OPPOsaurus WRX 06/28/2016 at 15:57

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I don’t believe he did. However, when he was old and frail and near death, the Northrop Grumman people brought him into the factory in 1981 and showed him the plans and a scale model of the B-2 at a time when the project was still top secret. His poor health had left him unable to speak, but he reportedly wrote on a piece of paper, “Now I know why God has kept me alive for 25 years.” He died 10 months later, no doubt feeling vindicated for his unyielding belief that the flying wing would one day become a reality.

ttyymmnn > OPPOsaurus WRX 06/28/2016 at 16:01

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Also, thanks for reminding me of that story. I added it to the post, because it should have been there all along.

facw > ttyymmnn 06/28/2016 at 20:30

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Great as always, though:

it became an island inside Communist West Germany

user314 > ttyymmnn 06/28/2016 at 21:17

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“The Wing Will Fly”, a documentary about Jack Northrop and his flying wing designs, produced by Discovery (Before they decided crab fishing and being naked and afraid made more money).

ttyymmnn > user314 06/28/2016 at 21:21

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I’ve seen it. And yes, Discovery used to be a good channel. I have a stack of VHS cassettes with hours and hours of Wings.

ttyymmnn > facw 06/28/2016 at 21:21

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Oops. Thanks.

sunnydaysam > ttyymmnn 06/29/2016 at 08:16

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I’ve always thought ‘Fireball’ was the worst name for an airplane. ever.

ttyymmnn > sunnydaysam 06/29/2016 at 08:36

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It doesn’t exactly instill confidence, does it.