This Date in Aviation History: July 27 - July 29

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 07/29/2016 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 July 27 - July 29.

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July 27, 1949 – The first flight of the de Havilland Comet. By the end of World War II, the world had taken the first strides into the Jet Age of aviation. The Americans, British and Germans had already fielded jet fighters, and the next logical step was to produce a large passenger aircraft that was powered by the new propulsion system. During the war, the British and Americans decided to split up the development of large, multi-engine aircraft, with the Americans assuming responsibility for transport aircraft, while the British focused on production of heavy bombers. But that would leave the British in the unenviable position of having very little infrastructure or expertise in the production of transport aircraft when the war eventually came to an end. To address that situation, the British formed the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1942, under the direction of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , to pursue the development of large, pressurized aircraft that could carry mail and passengers across the Atlantic Ocean. The committee began meeting in early 1943, and over the next two years they identified the different needs of the civilian aviation industry and stated requirements for five different types of aircraft, one of which, called the Type IV, would be a 100-seat, jet-powered, pressurized transatlantic mailplane that could carry 1 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of cargo at a cruising speed of 400 mph nonstop across the Atlantic. A proposal for such an aircraft was put forward by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who headed his own aircraft company and had influential government ties. If successful, the new airliner would fill the need for the Type IV aircraft, as well as Type III, a short-range airliner capable of serving multi-hop routes around the British Empire. A contract was awarded to develop the de Havilland Type 106, which would later be known as the DH 106, and de Havilland would undertake design of both the airframe and the engines. While initial studies into the design of the Comet included proposals for a tailless design, de Havilland eventually settled on a more traditional configuration with a straight wing that had a 20-degree swept leading edge and a straight tailplane. The engines would be housed in the wing roots, and the airliner would also feature large, square windows for the passengers. The prototype was originally powered by four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet engines, but those would be replaced by more powerful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! jet engines.

Comet 1 prototype at Hatfield, Hertfordshire in 1949

After rigorous testing, the first prototype’s maiden flight took place on July 27, 1949, and the Comet was introduced to the world at the Farnborough Airshow later that year. It entered service with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (BOAC) on May 2, 1952 and was an immediate success, attracting high-profile passengers including the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . However, structural weaknesses around the large windows soon caused a number of fatal in-flight explosive decompressions, and the Comet was pulled from service in 1954 to investigate the cause of the hull losses. After a redesign to introduce rounded windows and an enlarged, strengthened hull, the Comet returned to the skies in 1958 and, though the accidents hurt sales, it went on to enjoy a long career, even after it was surpassed by more modern airliners like the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Continued development led to the creation of variants that stretched the airliner to add more seats and more fuel for increased range and, once the Comet reached its end of service as an airliner, it was further developed into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft. Including the prototypes, a total of 114 Comets were produced, and the last was retired in 1997. (Photo by Ralf Manteufel via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ; prototype photo via British Government)

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July 28, 1935 – The first flight of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. When the airplane became a weapon of war in the First World War, it wasn’t long before pilots began dropping bombs from their planes onto enemy troops below. At first, simple hand-held bombs were dropped overboard, but bombing soon became more sophisticated, and deadly. At the time, the only aircraft capable of carrying a barely effective bomb load was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but that would change in the period between the World Wars. Two schools of thought emerged on how to go about bombing the enemy: tactical and strategic. Tactical bombing was conceived as a way to support ground forces to win a specific objective, while strategic bombing was conceived as waves of bombers flying over enemy territory, destroying factories to deny the enemy of war materiel and leveling cities to destroy the morale of the civilian population. The Germans focused on the former, and honed the combined arms tactics into the Blitzkrieg warfare that was so effective early in the war, while England and America adopted the strategic theories of bombing, particularly those of Italian !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Proponents such as !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in England and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in America advocated the construction of fleets of heavy bombers based on the belief that “ !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .” During the 1930s, rapid advances in aircraft design left behind the fabric-covered biplanes of the 1920s in favor of all-metal monoplanes of increasing size and capability. Boeing introduced the US Army Air Corps’ first all-metal bomber with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1931, and Martin followed with a truly modern bomber in 1934, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But as soon as the B-10 entered service, the USAAC started looking for a new bomber to replace it, one that would be capable of carrying a “useful bomb load” at 10,000 feet, could stay aloft for 10 hours, and would have a speed of 200 mph. A competition took place at Wright Field in Ohio between the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , both twin-engine aircraft, and the Boeing Model 299, which had four engines. When the new Boeing bomber, bristling with defensive armament, was first rolled out to the press, a newspaper reporter remarked that the bomber looked like a “flying fortress,” and the name stuck.

Boeing YB-17 prototype

While USAAC brass were impressed by the performance of the Model 299, now carrying the designation YB-17, they were concerned about the higher cost of the larger bomber and, when a crash during testing destroyed the Boeing prototype, the Air Corps chose the Martin bomber. But this would not be the end of the B-17. The performance was impressive enough for the USAAC to order 13 YB-17s for further evaluation, and its performance in testing was so good that by the outbreak of WWII in December of 1941 there were already 155 Flying Fortresses in the air. And as the Flying Fortress showed its mettle in combat, those numbers would soon soar into the thousands. The B-17 dropped its first bombs in combat with the RAF, but it was the US Army Air Forces that would fly thousands of missions over occupied Europe. The B-17G variant, which was built in the greatest numbers (over 8,000), had no less than 13 defensive !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .50 caliber machine guns and could carry up to 8,000 pounds of bombs depending on the mission. And while the bomber didn’t always get through, the Flying Fortress was capable of withstanding an enormous amount of damage while still bringing its crew home. The B-17 became the iconic American bomber of the war in Europe, teaming up with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to drop 8 million bombs against Germany. Wartime production of the B-17 was carried out by Boeing, Douglas and Vega, a subsidiary of Lockheed, and eventually a staggering total of 12,731 aircraft were produced by the end of the war. As for strategic bombing itself, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! found mixed results. While Germany’s production of oil and ammunition was significantly affected, along with the almost total destruction of transportation capabilities and the halt of submarine production, supplies of aircraft increased throughout the war, and other supplies, such as ball bearings and steel, were virtually unaffected. Anywhere from 350,000 to 500,000 German civilians were !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but bombing itself did not lead directly to German capitulation. Following the war, the vast majority of B-17s were broken up and sold for scrap, though a handful continued to serve in different roles. The Brazilian Air Force retired its last Flying Fortress in 1968, and today only about 14 remain airworthy, none of which are combat veterans. (US Air Force photos)

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July 29, 1967 – Fire engulfs the flight deck of USS Forrestal off the coast of Vietnam. It has been said that working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Controlling jet and propeller aircraft around a pitching deck is an intricate ballet of blasting jet engines and spinning propellers, and death or serious injury is a constant concern. And that is just during peacetime. In war, the dangers are compounded by a higher pace of operations and the presence of bombs, missiles and rockets and fully-fueled aircraft. In fact, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! took a critical turn when American dive bombers arrived while the Japanese aircraft sitting on deck, fully loaded with bombs and fuel. But despite rigid safety procedures, there is always the potential for disaster. By the early summer of 1967, the war in Vietnam was escalating dramatically, and the carrier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CVA-59) sailed from Norfolk, Virginia to take up a position at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! off the coast of Vietnam. Once there, Forrestal immediately began launching attacks against North Vietnam in support of American and South Vietnamese troops. With the pace of operations increasing, the American demand for bombs soon outstripped production, and the Navy was forced to use older ordnance, some of which dated back more than 10 years and had been exposed to the elements wile in storage. On the day preceding the accident, Forrestal received a shipment of 1000-pound bombs, many of which were older, unstable bombs that had been improperly stored in Guam. Forrestal’s commanding officer, Captain !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , wanted to refuse bombs, but he ended up taking them begrudgingly because of the acute shortage of munitions, and the need for the bombs on missions the following day. Forrestal’s bomb handlers were particularly concerned with the unstable bombs being stored belowdecks, where an accidental explosion could sink the entire ship, so the bombs were stored on the flight deck. At approximately 10:50 am on July 29, an electrical anomaly in a 5-inch !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! caused the rocket to fire unintentionally from a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! parked on the flight deck. The missile struck the external fuel tank on an armed !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and, while the rocket did not explode, it punctured the fuel tank, and the leaking fuel ignited. As damage control teams rushed to fight the fire, one of the unstable bombs loaded on the Skyhawk detonated, blowing a hole in the armored flight deck, raking the damage control team with shrapnel and covering the deck in burning fuel. As the fires continued to rage, 9 more explosions occurred, 8 of which were from the unstable bombs. The detonations tore holes in the flight deck that allowed burning jet fuel to drain into the living quarters below and into the interior spaces of the ship. The crew worked without heavy equipment to push damaged aircraft into the water and roll bombs over the side. With the aid of the destroyer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (DD-851), which came within 20 feet of Forrestal to use its own fire hoses, Forrestal’s crew was eventually able to extinguish the fire by 4:00 am the next morning. The fire and explosions claimed the life of 134 crewmen, and 161 were injured, many of them seriously. Forrestal returned to Norfolk, where it would spend more than 200 days undergoing repairs and refitting before returning to service. Though Capt. Beling was absolved of responsibility for the fire, he was assigned to staff work following the incident and retired in 1973 with the rank of Rear Admiral. Forrestal was decommissioned in 1993. (US Navy photo)

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Short Take Off

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July 27, 1947 – The first flight of the Bristol Sycamore, the first helicopter to serve with the Royal air Force that had been designed and produced in Britain. Bristol began working on helicopters as early as 1944, and development of the Sycamore took over two years. The prototype was powered by a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! 9-cylinder radial engine, though production models would use an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine and have a top speed of 132 mph. The Sycamore entered service in April 1953 and served during the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and was also flown by Germany, Belgium and Australia. A total of 180 were built from 1947-1955, and the type was retired in 1972. (Photo by William Nelson via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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July 27, 1946 – The first flight of the Supermarine Attacker, a fighter developed for the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and the first jet fighter to enter operational service with the FAA. The Attacker has its roots in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a piston-powered fighter built to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Attacker used the same straight, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! wings of the Spiteful and was powered by a single !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet which gave it a top speed of 590 mph. Since the wings came from an existing fighter, the Attacker had a tailwheel landing gear, an unusual arrangement for a jet fighter, and it entered service with the FAA in 1951. Developments in jet fighter design quickly rendered the Attacker obsolete, and it was withdrawn from service in 1954. A total of 182 production aircraft were built. (British Government photo)

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July 27, 1937 – The first flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor, a large four-engine aircraft originally developed by Focke-Wulf as a long-range transatlantic airliner. Focke-Wulf’s chief designer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! developed the Condor to cruise at nearly 10,000 feet, the limit for an unpressurized airliner. The Condor enjoyed a brief career as an airliner, where it set a record for flying from Berlin to New York City in just under 25 hours. Focke-Wulf added a gondola and bomb bay to turn the Condor into a long-range maritime patrol bomber, and later, the Condor was used exclusively by the Luftwaffe as a troop and VIP transport. A total of 276 were produced from 1937-1944. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv photo via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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July 27, 1882 – The birth of Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, a British aviation pioneer and aeronautical engineer responsible for some of the preeminent military aircraft of WWII. De Havilland built his first aircraft in 1910, and formed the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 192o. His company produced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! multi-role fighter/bomber during the war and, as part of the Brabazon Committee, de Havilland oversaw the production of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the world’s first jet-powered airliner. De Havilland remained in control of his company until it was bought by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1960, and he died in 1962 at the age of 82. (de Havilland photo via Australian Government; Mosquito photo via British Government)

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July 28, 2008 – The death of Margaret Ringenberg. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on June 17, 1921, Ringenberg learned to fly in 1941 at age 19 and began her flying career in 1943 as part of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (WASP), ferrying aircraft, performing test flights, and pulling targets for fighter practice. After the war, Ringenberg took up air racing, eventually earning over 150 trophies, and she competed in the Round-the-World Air Race in 1994 at the age of 72. At the time of her death, Ringenberg had amassed more than 40,000 hours of flying time. (Photo author unknown via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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July 28, 1945 – A North American B-25 Mitchell crashes into the Empire State Building. During a period of thick fog over the city, a US Army Air Forces !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was performing a routine personnel transport mission when the pilot was instructed to abort his landing and proceed to Newark Airport due to the poor visibility. Becoming disoriented in the fog, pilot William Smith crashed into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! between the 78th and 80th floors, killing himself, his 2 passengers, and 11 civilians in the skyscraper. Based on this accident, designers of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! took into account the possibility of an accidental crash of a Boeing 707 into their design plans, little knowing that such a scenario would play out purposefully in 2001. (Empire State Building photo by Ernie Sisto; B-25 photo via US Air Force)

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July 28, 1914 – World War I begins. World War I was a watershed event in the history of aviation, as the airplane became a weapon of war a mere 11 years after the First Flight of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . First entering the fray as observation planes known as scouts, pilots soon began shooting at each other with small arms, and the first dedicated combat aircraft, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , arrived in early 1915. Technological advances brought ever more powerful and faster fighters, including a mechanism created by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to allow fighters to fire through the propeller. By the end of the war, the Germans has lost more 27,000 aircraft to enemy fire or crashes, while members of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! powers lost more than 88,000. More than 15,000 airmen were lost. (British Government illustration)

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July 29, 1958 – President Dwight Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA. NASA has its origin in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , an agency created in 1915 to further the efforts of aeronautic research and technological development in the United States. But as America entered the space age following WWII, it became clear that the country needed an organization for a new era. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! carries this simple preamble: “To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth’s atmosphere, and for other purposes.” While NASA has done, and continues to do, research that carries military implications, its stated purpose is that of a peaceful, non-military organization. The Act goes on to say that, “The Congress hereby declares that it is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.” In addition to NASA’s high profile space programs such as !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the organization continues to fund research into all aspects of space exploration, space travel, aviation, and related sciences. NASA’s latest large project, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, will see astronauts return to the Moon, create a permanent lunar station, and one day journey to Mars.

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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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Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 12:49

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Re strategic bombing, they are missing one statistic in that report—transport. Germany’s transport system was pretty much trashed.

Cé hé sin > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 12:56

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The Supermarine Attacker was a tail dragger though, I think “tricycle undercarriage” refers to a nose wheel design. Even though both designs are technically tricycles....

ttyymmnn > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 07/29/2016 at 12:57

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Edited to reflect this. Thanks.

ttyymmnn > Cé hé sin 07/29/2016 at 12:58

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Yes, each has three wheels, but I believe that “tricycle” specifically refers to having a steerable nose wheel.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 13:07

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I don’t understand why anyone bothered building planes after the B17. I mean, once you reach perfection, you stop.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 13:12

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John McCain was in the next airplane over from the one that got hit on the Forrestal. You can see him escaping his plane in the video of the event.

ttyymmnn > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 07/29/2016 at 13:32

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Yup. As I recall, he climbed out on the refueling probe to jump to safety. That was probably the last lucky thing that happened to McCain until 1973. I’ve never been much of a fan of his politics, but I have a wealth of respect for his fortitude during the 6 years of his captivity.

ttyymmnn > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 07/29/2016 at 13:33

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I would argue that, as great as the B-17 was, the B-29 was the absolute zenith of propeller-powered strategic bomber design.

RallyWrench > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 13:38

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The Attacker and Spiteful sure are good looking aircraft, but progress has never cared about aesthetics. I wonder if any Spitefuls still exist? Hard not to love the Mosquito, those huge nacelles just give the impression of massive power. It looks like the Osprey’s grandpa.

ttyymmnn > RallyWrench 07/29/2016 at 13:52

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progress has never cared about aesthetics.

To wit:

To this day, I’m convinced that the X-32 lost out to the X-35 because it was an ugly duckling. I don’t think US military brass like fighters that don’t look fighters.

RallyWrench > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 14:15

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Probably true. I can’t think of one production fighter aircraft right now that I’d call truly ugly. Some are better than others, but even the more homely ones still have a “don’t fuck with me” look, whereas the X32 is more like “Hai guise!! Can I play? Guys?”

ttyymmnn > RallyWrench 07/29/2016 at 14:30

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I don’t think the F-35 will win any beauty contests. But at least it looks like a plane.

RallyWrench > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 14:40

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Certainly not against the F22, but it does at least look purposeful.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 15:15

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ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 07/29/2016 at 16:19

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I thought of that, but the B-36 had turbojets on it. Not at first, I know. But they were added on the B-36D, and retrofitted to all older models. Which I would read as a tacit admission that the 6 props were never enough. And if you take the B-50 into consideration, it had twice the service life as the B-36.

ttyymmnn > RallyWrench 07/29/2016 at 16:21

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The F-22 has grown on me. I didn’t like it aesthetically at first. I preferred the YF-23. But that looked even less like a proper fighter plane.

facw > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 19:33

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Comet (specifically Comet IV) has my vote for most elegant jetliner:

facw > ttyymmnn 07/29/2016 at 19:44

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X-32 had other problems, mainly not being able to do vertical->supersonic->vertical like the X-35 could (I think they were having difficulties with the intake, which is why it is on in some pictures and off in others).

Still I think you are right that Boeing presented an aircraft that in its most positive light looks like someone upgraded the A-7 into a 5th generation fighter probably had a good deal to do with their loss.

Of course had the X-32 been selected, we wouldn’t have cut short F-22 production, as no one could look at that and pretend that the JSF was an air superiority fighter.

facw > RallyWrench 07/29/2016 at 19:48

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I think North Korea still flies some of these:

Not a fan...

Though yeah, I think every fighter currently in production is at least decent looking. Though the J-20 is pretty unappealing, so maybe when that goes into production we’ll have a new challenger:

RallyWrench > facw 07/29/2016 at 19:56

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Good point, but the MIG-17 is a pretty good looking aircraft if it’s not the trainer version. That J20 though... I don’t know. It’s like something I drew in my notebook when I was 6.

TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief > ttyymmnn 07/30/2016 at 00:20

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The tailwheel design on the Attacker was also carried over from the Spiteful as far as I know, and was considered outdated for a fighter by that time. I’m with Cé hé sin on this one, the Attacker didn’t have tricycle landing gear. Excellent writeup as usual, though, thank you for these.

TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief > ttyymmnn 07/30/2016 at 00:21

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Well, you know what Kelly Johnson said about good looking airplanes...

ttyymmnn > TrustMeImAnEngineer, but I'd rather be an InternationalArtThief 07/30/2016 at 02:02

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Funny thing....I read and re-read this post, and never realized what I said about the Attacker. It does NOT have a tricycle landing gear. I’m going to have to edit that. When I’m sober. Right now, I’m going to bed. I’ll also have to apologize to Cé hé sin. I just stone cold missed that.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the kind words.

ttyymmnn > Cé hé sin 07/30/2016 at 11:20

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My apologies—I didn’t realize what I wrote. You are correct, and the Attacker did not have a tricycle landing gear, and I have corrected the post. It’s funny how it’s possible to think one thing while writing something else, and still have it escape the proofing process. Thanks for pointing it out.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 08/02/2016 at 12:21

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The Comet: note how long and slender the tail wings are. I read an extensive article on the Comet awhile back and it was the corners of the square windows where the fuselage skin failed. They made the skin of the prototypes very strong, but it was the compression/decompression cycling that led to the failures, along with the square windows.

The Forrestal: An ex-Navy guy told me they referred to it as the Forest Fire. There was a big fire on the Oriskany, and they referred to that boat as the Toasty-O.

ttyymmnn > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 08/02/2016 at 12:29

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There were a number of fatal fires onboard aircraft carriers in that era. I don’t know if it was bad luck or bad practices. That said, the US has 80 years of experience operating carriers, and the thought that China or India can whip their carriers into shape in a fraction of that time borders on ludicrous. Despite the occasional accident, which is almost inevitable, the US has carrier operations down to a well-honed science.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 08/02/2016 at 12:30

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And a good place for them to spend money, which is probably one objective in the exercise.