This Date in Aviation History: December 19 - December 21

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 12/21/2018 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, planelopnik history, Planelopnik

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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 December 19 through December 21.

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December 20, 1957 – The first flight of the Boeing 707. The de Havilland Aircraft Company ushered in the future of commercial aviation when their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airliner took to the skies on July 27, 1949 as the world’s first jet-powered passenger plane. Unfortunately for de Havilland, however, structural deficiencies in the Comet led to three fatal crashes, and the flying public cooled on the idea of jet transport when the Comet was pulled from service to address the problems. Despite the difficulties faced by de Havilland, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and particularly the company president, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , were undeterred. They believed so firmly in the future of jet aviation that they were willing to stake their company on developing a new jet airliner, and spent $16 million of their own money, nearly all the profit they earned from production of WWII aircraft, in the development of a jet airliner.

The Dash 80, registration N70700. Note “707" painted on the tail. (Boeing)

Boeing had learned a great deal about the aerodynamic benefits of the swept wing with their earlier work on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Armed with that experience, the company began working on a swept wing jet that they called the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (known as the Dash 80). The Dash 80 shared the same 35-degree wing sweep of the Stratojet and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and was powered by four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet engines, a civilian version of the engine that powered the B-52. The impetus for development of the Dash 80, which took its maiden flight on July 15, 1954, was to provide the US Air Force with a jet-powered aerial tanker. That project culminated in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But Boeing also hoped to develop the Dash 80 into a civilian airliner, though at the time there was no guarantee of a market such an aircraft. Boeing’s last commercial venture, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , had lost money until the US Air Force adopted it as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . And cautious airline executives were in no hurry to turn their backs on the tried and true piston engines that had carried America though the war. So Boeing took the Dash 80 on a sales tour to tout its capabilities and, in one famous demonstration, test pilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! performed a barrel roll with the large airliner to show of fits capabilities. Airline executives were duly impressed, and work progressed on the 707.

While the 707 airliner and KC-135 looked very similar to their Dash 80 predecessor, they were actually distinctly different aircraft. Airline executives wanted the 707 to be wider to accommodate more passengers, so Boeing added four inches to the diameter of the fuselage, giving it the largest cabin of any airliner flying at the time. The 707 also had more than 100 windows, which allowed the airlines to arrange the seating in any way they wished and offered flexibility in passenger load. The original 707-120 seated a maximum of 189 passengers, but a typical arrangement allowed for 110 passengers. Following flight tests, the first 707 entered passenger service with launch customer Pan American as the Clipper Constitution .

Pan Am had placed an order for 25 airliners in 1955, and inaugurated their 707 service at National Airport on October 17, 1958 in a ceremony attended by President !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Pan Am made their first flight with paying customers on October 26 from New York’s Idlewild Airport (currently John F. Kennedy International) to Paris, with a stop for fuel in Gander, Newfoundland. Following that first flight, the 707 went on to become the most popular airliner of the 1950s and 1960s, and became an icon of the early Jet Age. Its success also helped bring about major advancements in airport design and airport infrastructure. Between 1957 and 1994, Boeing delivered 856 707s in a handful of variants to fit the specific needs of their customers. Today, the US Air Force still flies their KC-135 tankers, many with updated engines, but there are no 707s remaining on commercial routes. The final operational 707 belonged to Iran’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which closed the book on the 707 with a final flight in April 2013.

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December 21, 1970 – The first flight of the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. By the end of WWII, the aircraft carrier had supplanted the battleship as the primary capital ship of the naval battle group. It’s dive bombers and torpedo bombers allowed the carrier to attack both sea and land targets, while fighters provided protection for both the attack aircraft and for the battle group. And when long-range anti-ship missiles came to be, particularly those that could be fired from hundreds of miles away by an aircraft, protecting the carrier became critical.

The F-111B proved unsuitable for the US Navy, but its swing-wing design influenced the fleet defense fighter the Navy did adopt, the F-14 Tomcat (US Navy)

By 1960, the US Navy began the search for a Fleet Air Defense (FAD) aircraft to intercept attacking enemy aircraft and missiles. In 1961, US Secretary of Defense !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! directed the Navy and US Air Force to develop a single aircraft that would serve both branches as part of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (TFX) program. While the aircraft that eventually came out of that program, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , proved to be a capable aircraft for the Air Force, the naval variant, the F-111B, did not fit the specialized requirements of the Navy. So the Navy pulled out of the program and forged ahead on their own. They turned to Grumman, who already had a rich history of producing robust carrier aircraft.

A trio of F-14 Tomcat prototypes demonstrate the range of the Tomcat’s wing sweep during a formation flight in 1972 (US Navy)

In 1966, the Navy awarded Grumman with a contract to develop their Model 303 design to fill the fleet defense role that was originally intended for the F-111. By 1968, the requirements were set for a tandem, two-seat, twin-engined, air-to-air fighter with a maximum speed of Mach 2.2. Like the F-111, the new fighter was also fitted with variable-sweep wings that could be extended for low-speed flight and takeoff/landing or swept back for high speed flight. The Tomcat’s wings could sweep from 68-degrees to 20-degrees based on the needs of the flight profile, and the sweep was directed by an internal computer to relieve the workload on the pilot. As the wings retracted, secondary vanes located at the front of the wingbox extended to regulate the aircraft’s center of pressure and help control pitch.

A Grumman F-14A Tomcat of fighter squadron VF-84 Jolly Rogers, assigned to Carrier Air Wing Eight (US Navy)

During the Vietnam War, the Navy discovered that the emphasis on missile weaponry over guns put their fighters at a disadvantage over Russian-built fighters that still relied on machine guns and cannons. Drawing on that experience, Grumman’s new fighter was armed with a built-in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! cannon for both aerial dogfighting and close air support for troops on the ground. But with defense of the fleet as its primary mission, the Tomcat’s gun was more of a last ditch weapon. The F-14 was designed around the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! missile and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radar, a combination that was able to track and destroy multiple targets at long range. In addition to its Phoenix missiles, the Tomcat was also armed with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! or !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! air-to-air missiles for close and medium range combat.

The Tomcat began to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1974, and took part in the American !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! at the end of the Vietnam War. The first aerial victories registered by an F-14 occurred in 1981, when Tomcats of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! “Black Aces” downed two Libyan !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. With the withdrawal from service of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in the 1990s, the Tomcat demonstrated its versatility when the ground attack mission was added to its arsenal, and F-14s carried out tactical bombing missions and close air support during the Gulf War.

The final F-14 combat mission took place in February 2oo5 when Tomcats flying from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   (CVN-71)   dropped bombs over Iraq. The Navy finally retired the Tomcat in 2006 after 32 years of service and replaced it with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which was seen as a less expensive alternative to modernizing the aging F-14. A small number of F-14As still serve the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, who received Tomcats during the reign of the Shah. However, to prevent spare parts being sent to Iran after the fall of the Shah, all remaining American Tomcats were scrapped rather than put into mothballs, though a number are still on display around the country.

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An F-11E of the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing drops bombs over a bombing range (US Department of Defense)

December 21, 1964 – The first flight of the General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark. In the years immediately following WWII, the US Air Force continued the doctrine of high-altitude bombing they had carried out against Germany and Japan during the war. But in May 1960, the Russians used a surface-to-air missile (SAM) to shoot down a high-flying !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! spy plane over the Soviet Union, and it suddenly became clear that altitude alone was no protection against interception. A change of tactics was in order. The new doctrine called for high-speed, low-level attacks, since low-flying aircraft were harder to detect on radar, and SAMs were less effective because they had less time to lock on a target.

F-111 prototype No. 1 during a test flight (US Air Force)

Both the Air Force and US Navy began looking for an aircraft that could fulfill this new role, but Defense Secretary !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! believed that one aircraft could serve both branches, even though the two had very different requirements. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (TFX) program was initiated by McNamara in 1961 to find an aircraft for both services. The Air Force received proposals from Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed, McDonnell, North American and Republic. General Dynamics, with its swing-wing F-111, was selected. McNamara dictated that General Dynamics first develop the A model for the Air Force, and follow that with a B model modified for use by the Navy. With no experience building carrier aircraft, General Dynamics teamed with Grumman to develop the F-111B, but significant delays, and the Navy’s decision to change from a bomber to a fleet defense fighter with dogfighting capabilities, led the Navy to pull out of the F-111 program and pursue a different aircraft, eventually settling on the swing-wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

The Aardvark (a nickname that wasn’t made official until 1996) was a very advanced aircraft for its time, and was the world’s first production aircraft to employ variable-sweep wings. It was powered by two afterburning !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbofan engines that gave it a top speed of Mach 2.5 and a combat radius of over 1,300 miles. In keeping with the low-level penetration mission, the F-111 had an automated terrain-following radar that reduced the pilot workload during low level missions. Though the Air Force had asked for tandem seating in the cockpit, the two-man crew in the F-111 sat side by side, which allowed both the pilot and the radar operator to share the radar screen. The seating arrangement also allowed for the use of an ejection capsule rather than individual ejection seats.

An FB-111A of the 509th Bombardment Wing drops Mark 82 high drag practice bombs during a training exercise (US Air Force)

The F-111 was designed with the nuclear mission in mind and was capable of carrying a single nuclear missile or nuclear bombs, but the Aardvark found a niche as a conventional tactical bomber for the Air Force, and could carry a wide range of ordnance to suit the particular mission. The F-111 first saw action in the skies over Vietnam and, after initial mechanical problems that caused some fatal crashes were worked out, the Aardvark ultimately flew over 4,000 sorties with only six combat losses. Following the war, F-111s participated in strikes against Libya in 1986 and during the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1991. The final F-111 in the US Air Force inventory, an EA-111 electronic warfare variant, was retired in 1998, though the F-111C served the Royal Australian Air Force until 2010.

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Short Takeoff

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(US Navy)

December 19, 1945 – The first flight of the Grumman AF Guardian, the first purpose-built airborne anti-submarine warfare (ASW) system. Due to the large size of early radar systems, no single carrier-borne aircraft of the day could carry both the radar to detect a submarine and the weapons to attack it. The Guardian consisted of two aircraft, one hunter (AF-2W) with the radar equipment, and one killer (AF-2S) with weapons. Though cumbersome, this stopgap measure nevertheless proved effective, but the Guardian only served five years before being replaced by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the first dedicated all-in-one carrier-borne ASW platform.

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(US Air Force)

December 20, 1944 – The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) is disbanded. The WASPs were an organization of women pilots who trained to ferry aircraft during WWII. Started by famed aviatrix !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the WASPs had over a thousand members in its heyday, each woman pilot freeing up a male pilot for combat duty. After training at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Sweetwater, Texas, the WASPs were stationed around the country and, by the end of the war, WASPs had flown 60 million miles ferrying aircraft from factories to ports of embarkation. They also towed targets for live fire gunnery practice and flew cargo missions inside the US. Thirty-eight WASPs died, all in accidents, though none were afforded military honors at their burial. It wasn’t until 2016 that legislation was passed by Congress that finally authorized their burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

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(NASA)

December 21, 2017 – The death of Bruce McCandless II, an American astronaut and the first man to “walk” untethered in space. The son of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient for his service in the Pacific in WWII, McCandless II graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1958 before serving as an active duty fighter pilot and instructor. He was the youngest member of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and served as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon. Later, he served as a backup pilot for the first Skylab mission and CAPCOM for !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . McCandless finally went to space as a mission specialist on board the space shuttle !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on February 3, 1984, where he made the first flight of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which he had helped develop during his time with Skylab. McCandless went to space a second and final time on board the shuttle !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1990 which placed the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! into Earth orbit.

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(US Government)

December 21, 1990 – The death of Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, the one-time head of Lockheed’s Advanced Development Projects, better known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and one of the most influential and successful aircraft design engineers in American history. His work for !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! produced some of the world’s iconic aircraft, including the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , America’s first operational jet fighter, and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , America’s first supersonic jet fighter. As head of the Skunk Works, Johnson oversaw the development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! reconnaissance aircraft, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the remarkable !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the first production aircraft to exceed Mach 3. Among his other achievements, Johnson was twice awarded the prestigious !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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(UK Government)

December 21, 1988 – Pan Am Flight 103 is destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland. Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York. After departing from London Heathrow, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (N739PA) was destroyed by a bomb that had been placed in the forward cargo hold. The crash killed all 270 passengers and crew, as well as 11 people on the ground. Investigators alleged that two Libyans, working on the orders of Libyan leader !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , had planted the bomb that destroyed the aircraft. Following United Nations sanctions against Libya, Gaddafi turned over the two men for trial in the Netherlands, and one, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , was found guilty of 270 counts of murder and imprisoned for life. In 2003, Gadaffi accepted responsibility for the attack and paid compensation to the families of the victims, and al-Megrahi was freed from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds after a diagnosis of prostate cancer. He died in 2012.

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(Ralf Manteufel)

December 21, 1988 – The first flight of the Antonov An-225 Mriya , the longest and heaviest airplane ever constructed. Possessing the largest wingspan of any operational aircraft in service, Mriya’s wingspan is only exceeded by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (“Spruce Goose”). The Mriya has a maximum takeoff weight of 640 tons, and holds the absolute world records for a single item payload of 418,834 pounds and an airlifted total payload of 253,820 pounds. Originally developed as a carrier for the Soviet !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! space shuttle program, only one An-225 was built. A second aircraft was under construction but abandoned due to lack of funding and no commercial interest. However, the Russian government has expressed interest in completing the second Mriya and developing it into a midair launch platform.

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(NASA)

December 21, 1968 – The launch of Apollo 8. Overshadowed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the mission that landed the first man on the Moon on July 20, 1969, Apollo 8 had its own set of important milestones that paved the way to the first lunar landing. Astronauts !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission) and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! were the first humans to leave Earth orbit, the first to see the planet Earth in its entirety, the first to make a direct observation of the far side of the Moon, and the first to witness !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After a 3-day flight, the astronauts made 10 orbits of the Moon and made a Christmas Eve broadcast to the Earth during which they read from the Book of Genesis. Apollo 8 returned to Earth on December 27.

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(Deutsches Bundesarchiv)

December 21, 1936 – The first flight of the Junkers Ju 88, a twin-engined multi-role bomber that entered service with the Luftwaffe at the outbreak of WWII. The Ju 88 was designed as a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (high speed bomber) that was intended to be capable of outrunning enemy fighters and would not require fighter protection of its own. Though this concept wasn’t entirely successful in practice, the Ju 88 nevertheless served throughout the war and was one of the Luftwaffe’s most effective bombers. In addition to its service as a bomber, it also served as a dive bomber, a night fighter with the addition of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a torpedo bomber, and a reconnaissance aircraft. Late in the war, in a program called !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , unmanned Ju 88s were loaded with bombs and mated to a manned fighter that flew both aircraft to the target, whereupon the Ju 88 was released. More than 15,000 Ju 88s were produced during the war.

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Connecting Flights

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

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KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > ttyymmnn 12/21/2018 at 12:44

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Back in the 80's/90's this Tomcat based toy was the ultimate status symbol as a kid- you knew your parents were well-off if you had one. Still expensive today, possibly more. Never owned one.

Speaking of the 90's and Tomcats, the Swat Kats’ TurboCat was clearly based on the F14

Speaking of the Aardvark I did get this scale model of the F111C later after begging and pleading for YEARS! Guess that compensated a little

I did buy and build several scale model F-14s over the years. Posted about my latest builds-

https://oppositelock.kinja.com/anyone-else-into-building-scale-model-aircraft-1827985512

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > ttyymmnn 12/21/2018 at 13:36

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I hate to be nit-picker, but a small correction is needed regarding the initial 707 order. Pan Am originally ordered only 20 707s and 25 DC-8s; Douglas was seen as the safer choice for airliners with an unparalleled history going back to the DC-3, whereas Boeing was known as a provider of large military aircraft that occasionally dabbled in commercial airliners. They eventually phased out their DC-8s, never having taken delivery of all 25 originally ordered, and purchased considerably more 707s of various series, operating more than 100 in -120, -320B, -320C and 720 variants.

This is a common error when discussing early jetliners. Between the 25 DC-8s and their later launch order for 25 747s, it is frequently thought that Pan Am ordered 25 707s, but the launch order was for a slightly smaller amount. Other than this minor quibble, this was a great post as always. Thank you for continuing this series.

user314 > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time 12/21/2018 at 13:55

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Don’t forget the VF-1 Valkyrie from Macross/Robotech:

And my namesake from the G1 T ransformers cartoon :

and his cousin Jetfire

ttyymmnn > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 12/21/2018 at 13:56

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Nitpickers welcome. Some details are always lost when condensing material, but that is an important and interesting  fact that should be included.

user314 > ttyymmnn 12/21/2018 at 14:05

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Imagine if you will...

... in, the Twilight Zone...

Supposedly the maintenance guys hated the IR suppressing the ‘Cats wore during Desert Storm. Apparently it was tacky even dry (I’ve had that issue with models, I can relate), and even out in the gulf they’d find sand embedded in the planes.

RallyWrench > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time 12/21/2018 at 15:08

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So... my local little toy shop has a huge pile of NOS aircraft kits still in boxes, some decades old. I used to build 1/24 cars and all kinds of aircraft when I was younger (and still do cars now) so I dork out on them any time I’m there. I’ve got to go into that shop to do some shopping this weekend, I’ll try to snap a pic of the pile. It’s pretty impressive, maybe there’s something you’re interested in.