This Date in Aviation History: April 12 - April 14

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
04/14/2017 at 12:37 • Filed to: Planelopnik, planelopnik history

Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from April 12 through April 14.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

April 12, 1981 – The first flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, and the first flight of the Space Shuttle Program. Before the arrival of the Space Shuttle, flying into space was done in expendable spacecraft. Rockets were left behind in orbit after their fuel was spent, or burned up re-entering the atmosphere, and the capsules that held the astronauts and cosmonauts were so heavily damaged by the friction and heat of re-entry that they could not be used again. Not only was it wasteful, it was also terribly expensive. So, beginning all the way back in 1969, the same year that !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! first set foot on the Moon with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , NASA started began the process to develop a spacecraft that could be used again and again, one that could function essentially as a “space truck” that could haul payloads into space relatively cheaply. The Shuttle program got its official start in 1972 with an announcement by President Richard M. Nixon that NASA would develop what would eventually be called a Space Transport System (hence, all Shuttle missions were given the prefix “STS”). Initially, the hopes for the new system were quite ambitious, with NASA hoping to preform as many as 50 launches per year. But before NASA could start hauling payloads to space, they had to decided exactly what the Shuttle would look like. They considered a myriad of designs and configurations, and there was much debate over just how much of the system would be reused. There was talk of placing air-breathing engines on both the Shuttle and its booster, so both could be flown like a plane during landing, or even flown between landing and launch sites. But ultimately, NASA settled on a design where the orbiter sat atop a huge fuel tank, which would not be reused, and was boosted into space by a pair of solid rocket boosters which would be retrieved from the ocean and used again. The first Shuttle, Enterprise (originally named Constitution , but changed after a huge write-in campaign to honor !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! TV series), was used for flying and landing tests. The second Shuttle, Columbia , would be the first to blast off and reach Earth orbit.

Astronauts Robert Crippen and John Young

The first mission, STS-1, was commanded by veteran astronaut !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who was the commander of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the ninth person to walk on the Moon in 1972. The Shuttle Pilot was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Crippen was going to space for the first time, but would later command three other Shuttle missions. Unlike all pre-Shuttle missions, which launched unmanned spacecraft to test the vehicle, STS-1 was the first time NASA launched a spacecraft with astronauts onboard for its maiden flight. NASA had considered using STS-1 to test the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (RTLS) abort procedure, but Commander Young overruled that idea, citing the danger involved in such a test (by the end of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , no Shuttle ever had to use the RTLS procedure). Thus, STS-1 was carried out as a planned orbital mission. Twenty years to the day after the launch of the first manned space flight of Cosmonaut !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (somewhat serendipitously, it must be said, since Columbia’s first launch two days earlier had been scrubbed), STS-1 blasted off without incident. Its only payload was a flight instrumentation package, and the mission was designed to test the overall spaceworthiness of the Shuttle, achieve orbit, and return. After attaining an altitude of 166 nautical miles and making 37 orbits of the Earth, Columbia returned to Edwards Air Force Base in California, gliding to a landing on the dry lake bed. Columbia went on to serve NASA for 22 years and complete 27 missions before it was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on its 28th mission, killing all seven crew members. (NASA photos)

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

April 12, 1961 – Yuri Gagarin makes the first manned spaceflight. Man’s journey into space has had a number of milestones, the first of which was the launch of a Russian satellite named !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! into Earth orbit on October 4, 1957. But with that launch, the journey to space became a race, a race that actually traces its roots back to Germany and WWII. The Germans were far ahead of the Russians and the Western allies in rocket technology, having unleashed their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ballistic rockets against England and Europe in the dying throes of the Third Reich. Following the war, captured scientific data—and captured scientists—formed the nucleus of the space programs for both the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! superpowers. At first, the emphasis was on creating ballistic missiles, but with the announcement of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! set for 1957, the Americans said that they would place a satellite in Earth orbit, and the Russians replied that they would do the same. The Russians were the first, with Sputnik 1 . The American response to the diminutive Russian satellite was their own !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! satellite, and the space race shifted into high gear. For reasons that were more propaganda than science, each country wanted to be the first to put a man into space. The American effort to get to space was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which began with a series of 20 unmanned developmental flights beginning in 1959, while the Russians initiated the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The first Soviet cosmonauts, like their American counterparts, were all military pilots, though none were as experienced in flying as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , since the Russian program relied more on automation than the American program. Ultimately, it was more important just to be first. And not just first into space, but first into orbit. The Russians carried out a series of test launches, some carrying dogs and other biological specimens. The dogs !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! were the first living creatures to leave the planet and, lucky for the space dogs, the first to be recovered from orbit. For the historic manned launch into orbit, Russia tapped Gagarin, with cosmonauts !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! as backups. The Vostok rocket was erected on its launch pad at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Kazakhstan, and with a cry of “Poyekhali!” (“Let’s go!”), Gagarin was launched into space at 6:07 am local time. The rocket worked flawlessly, and Gagarin reported that he could see the Earth, and that everything was working well. From launch to landing, the entire flight, with its single orbit of the Earth, took 108 minutes.

The capsule re-entered Earth’s atmosphere safely and, as he neared the ground, Gagarin was automatically ejected from his capsule and finished the descent under his own parachute. The capsule descended separately by its own parachute. After landing, Gagarin encountered some Russian farmers, and told them, “Don’t be afraid, I am a Soviet citizen like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!” The Americans replied to Gagarin’s flight with the launch of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on May 5, 1961, a short suborbital flight. However, it provided important data for the American program, and astronaut !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was the first to exercise manual control over a spacecraft. The Russians followed Vostok 1 four months later with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , when Gherman Titov spent just over 25 hours in space and made 17 orbits of the Earth. The American orbital response finally came on February 20, 1962, when !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , flying !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , became the first American—but the third man—to orbit the Earth. Though he served as a backup crew for the ill-fated !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Gagarin would never return to space. He was named a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , his nation’s highest honor, became an international celebrity, and served as the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Center. However, his fame would be short-lived. Gagarin was killed on March 27, 1968 in the crash of his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! trainer at the age of 34. The cause of the crash remains a matter of debate.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

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 about, or fear, of the number 13. As a matter of tradition, many buildings don’t number the 13th floor, counting from 12 to 14, but NASA chose not skip the number 13, though perhaps they may have wished that they had. Apollo 13 was the 7th manned mission of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the 3rd mission slated 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 Aquarius !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (LM, pronounced “lem”) to the nose of the CM. This allowed the astronauts to pass between the CM and the LM. On arrival at the Moon, the LM would then separate and fly to the 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’ levels. Two minutes later, the crew heard a loud bang, and Lovell reported the words that have since become synonymous with something going seriously wrong: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Looking out the window of the CM, Lovell told Mission Control that the spacecraft was venting “a gas of some sort” into space. In fact, 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.

The LM, left, attached to the CM and SM (illustration from Apollo 11)

Following the official decision to abort the Moon landing, NASA was now faced with the problem of getting the astronauts home safely, a scenario for which there was no procedure. Rather than turn around and come directly back to Earth, Flight Director !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! decided to allow the spacecraft to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and use the Moon’s gravity to slingshot the astronauts back to Earth. The astronauts had to use the LM’s landing rocket to make manual 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; illustration author unknown)

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Short Takeoff

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

April 12, 1985 – US Senator Jake Garn becomes the first sitting politician to fly in space. Launched from Kennedy Space Center, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was the 16th flight of the Space Shuttle program and the first spaceflight carrying a sitting politician. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a Republican Senator from Utah, flew as a Payload Specialist after he asked to go to space as part of his role as the head of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA. Discovery’s primary mission was the deployment of 2 communications satellites, and Garn was along primarily as an observer, though he did serve as the subject of medical experiments. Garn suffered from such severe space sickness that the system for measuring the severity of space sickness is now counted (jokingly) in “Garns.” The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was named in Garn’s honor. (NASA photos)

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

April 12, 1945 – The destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele is sunk by a Japanese Ohka suicide rocket plane. In the closing stages of WWII in the Pacific, the Japanese carried out !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! attacks on the US fleet using the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a rocket-powered, piloted flying bomb that was dropped from a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber. Off the island of Okinawa, a flight of 6 bombers released their Ohka rocket bombs against the American fleet, with one striking the destroyer USS !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (DD-733), penetrating the starboard side and detonating its 2,646-pound warhead in the aft engine room. The explosion broke the destroyer’s keel midships and the ship broke in two and sank in a matter of minutes with the loss of 84 sailors. Though Ohkas damaged a handful of ships, Abele was the only ship sunk, and the overall effectiveness of the kamikaze rocket was negligible. (US Navy photo; photo by Max Smith via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

April 12, 1935 – The first flight of the Bristol Blenheim, a British light bomber that was originally conceived as a fast airliner. The Blenheim saw extensive service early in WWII. It was one of the first British aircraft to employ an all-metal stressed-skin fuselage, retractable landing gear, a powered gun turret and variable-pitch propellers. The Blenheim served as a light bomber, long range fighter and night fighter, and while it was capable of outrunning most fighters in the early days of the war, it was no match for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! during daylight bombing raids. The British retired the Blenheim in 1944, though it served in Finland until 1956. (Photo by Airwolfhound via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

April 13, 1990 – The first flight of the Sukhoi Su-34, an all-weather strike fighter based on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and intended as a replacement for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Su-34, NATO reporting name “Fullback,” is primarily used against ground and naval targets as well for reconnaissance missions. The Fullback’s roomy cockpit allows the pilots to move around during long missions, and includes a galley and rudimentary toilet. It is armed with a single 30mm cannon along with 12 external hardpoints capable of carrying up to 26,500 pounds of rockets, missiles and bombs. The Su-34 entered service in early 2014, and has seen action in Syria during Russian intervention in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (Photo by Alex Beltyukov via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

April 13, 1945 – Boeing delivers the final 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, particularly in Europe, where it dropped 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, two-thirds of which were the B-17G variant. 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. Fifteen B-17s remain flying today. (US Air Force photo)

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

April 13, 1931 – The first flight of the Boeing YB-9, an experimental bomber funded by the Boeing Company as a development of their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! mail plane. At a time when many US Army Air Corps bombers were still constructed of wood and canvas, the YB-9 was the first all-metal, stressed-skin, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! monoplane bomber to serve the USAAC. Powered by two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engines, the YB-9 had a top speed of 188 mph, equal to many contemporary fighter planes. Five YB-9s were built, and they entered service in September 1932, but were phased out in just three years. Ultimately, Boeing lost out to the the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which offered the much more modern !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which entered service in 1934. (US Air Force photo)

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

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, against the prevailing winds, 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)

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

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!!! )

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

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 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! flight which was used in the development of future supersonic aircraft. (NASA photo)

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Recent Aviation History Posts

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

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!!! . You can also find more stories about aviation and aviators at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

DISCUSSION (10)

facw > ttyymmnn
04/14/2017 at 13:09

Thanks as always.

The dogs Belka and Strelka were the first living creatures to leave the planet

This seems to be selling Laika short? Also, there were a variety of other animals that did sub-orbital spaceflight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_in_space

Also for reasons of cute dog pics, one of Strelka’s puppies, Pushinka was given to JFK:

Kinja'd!!!

user314 > ttyymmnn
04/14/2017 at 13:21

And just to tie your first three stories together, it was NASA Administrator James Begg’s triskaidekaphobia that led to the shuttle’s flight numbering system being changed after STS-9 so that there would not be an STS-13. The new system was based on the first digit indicating the federal fiscal year, the second digit indicating the launch site, 1 for KSC and 2 for SLC 6 at Vandenberg AFB (which was never used) and a letter indicating scheduling sequence. Just to further confuse things, these designations weren’t changed if scheduling slipped, thus the mission Sen Garns flew on, the 16th overall, was given the flight designation STS-51-D, while Challenger’s last flight was STS-61-L, even though the launch was in 1986. NASA abandoned this convoluted mess after Challenger, returning to a sequential system, with the 26th through 33rd flight apending an ‘R’ to diferentiate them from previous flights.

Viggen > ttyymmnn
04/14/2017 at 13:23

Just gonna make a few corrections on your Fullback piece. In the last sentence you have Su-24, not Su-34. The galley and toilet aren’t as amazing as it’s believed to be. There’s a good article with pictures of both here . Unfortunatly, the kitchen and toilet were blown up to unrealistic proportions by people who played Ace Combat 5. Crazy that the aircraft took so long to officially enter service. The VVS began to take delivery of the LRIP aircraft in the early 2000s and allegedly even used a few in Georgia.

...I’ve got an odd fascination with the Su-34.

AfromanGTO > facw
04/14/2017 at 13:49

Didn’t Kennedy call the dog pupnik?

facw > AfromanGTO
04/14/2017 at 13:53

I think the puppies in the second to last pic were the pupniks. The other dog in book reading pic is Charlie, the pup’s father (Seriously JFK, help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered).

ttyymmnn > Viggen
04/14/2017 at 15:01

Thanks. I will admit, writing about Russian/Soviet aircraft is very difficult for me. I don’t know all that much about them in the first place, and the trail of variants and developments is extremely hard to follow. I’m not convinced there are two identical Russian fighters in existence.

When I wrote about this last year, I said, “toilet”, then discovered that it’s really a hose that the pilot sticks his pecker in. That’s why I changed it to “rudimentary” toilet, without going into specifics. Thanks for pointing out the typo, and thanks for reading.

ttyymmnn > user314
04/14/2017 at 15:03

Thanks for all of that. I have wondered about the non-sequential numbering of the missions. It hadn’t really occurred to me that the first four stories were all space stories. In my opinion, flying is flying, whether you’re in the atmosphere or not.

ttyymmnn > user314
04/14/2017 at 15:03

user314 > ttyymmnn
04/14/2017 at 15:18

I’m with you there.

Jayhawk Jake > ttyymmnn
04/14/2017 at 15:36

I did a little digging on Wikipedia to try and understand just how bad Jake Garn’s space sickness was, and this is all I’ve been able to find:

Jake Garn was sick, was pretty sick. I don’t know whether we should tell stories like that. But anyway, Jake Garn, he has made a mark in the Astronaut Corps because he represents the maximum level of space sickness that anyone can ever attain, and so the mark of being totally sick and totally incompetent is one Garn. Most guys will get maybe to a tenth Garn, if that high. And within the Astronaut Corps, he forever will be remembered by that.

—Robert E. Stevenson