This Date in Aviation History: May 9 - May 11

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 05/11/2018 at 11:39 • 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 May 9 through May 11.

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May 10, 1972 – The first flight of the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. On the night of August 20, 1968, half a million !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! soldiers and thousands of tanks and armored vehicles !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and took control of the country in a single night, putting an end to the political reforms of the era known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . That watershed event in the Cold War demonstrated to the West that the massed might of Soviet armor was a serious and perhaps imminent threat, one that land power alone was not prepared to counter. It would take a combination of land and air power to stop the hordes of Soviets tanks that might invade Western Europe but, at that time, the had no dedicated, tank-busting aircraft in its inventory.

The Northrop YA-9, top, and Fairchild Republic YA-10, bottom. The YA-10 was the winner in the competition between the two aircraft. (US Air Force)

For ideas on how such an aircraft might look, designers found ample inspiration from the Second World War. One of the first tank busters, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , was a regular fighter armed with a pair of 40mm cannons which proved devastatingly effective against German tanks. For their part, the Germans developed the heavily armed !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the first aircraft specifically designed for close air support. But the move to jet fighters after the war saw the rise of multi-role fighters, ones that could both dogfight and attack ground targets, but not designed with a singular purpose. By the Vietnam War, the only dedicated close air support (CAS) aircraft in the Air Force was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Like the Germans in WWII, the NATO allies realized that they needed a purpose-built CAS aircraft, one that could fly low and slow over the battlefield, be rugged enough to sustain battle damage and bring its pilot home alive, and have sufficient firepower to knock out a tank in a single pass.

The General Electric GAU-8 Gatling gun, with a VW Beetle for scale. (US Air Force)

In 1966, the US Air Force created the Attack Experimental (A-X) program office to find a suitable aircraft and by 1970 a specific request for proposals was made to the defense industry. Though it would be jet-powers, the emphasis was on accuracy and firepower, not speed. The new CAS aircraft would have a maximum speed of only 460 mph, but it would be capable of carrying 16,000 pounds of external stores (by comparison, a loaded !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! carried 20,000 pounds of bombs). Most importantly, the new aircraft would be developed around the massive !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! 30mm cannon, a seven-barrel Gatling gun that could fire over 4,000 rounds of depleted uranium bullets per minute. Compared to other guns in use in CAS aircraft at the time, the Avenger had twice the range, took half the time to reach the target and could deliver three times the mass of projectiles to the target.

(US Air Force)

The Air Force selected two finalists, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the Fairchild Republic YA-10. The YA-9 was a relatively traditional aircraft with fuselage-mounted engines and a shoulder wing, roughly comparable to the Russian !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The YA-10, however, was a radical departure from traditional design, with a low, straight wing for excellent low-speed maneuverability, engines mounted in pods above the fuselage to protect them from ground fire, and twin tail fins for redundancy. Twelve hundred pounds of titanium armor formed a tub that protected the pilot and fragile avionics. The massive cannon was mounted slightly off-center so that the firing barrel was directly on the aircraft’s centerline. Otherwise, the gun’s recoil would force the nose of the aircraft off the target. The gun’s position beneath the cockpit also helped prevent the ingestion of gun gases into the engines.

Following a fly-off between the two competing designs, the Air Force selected the YA-10 as the winner in April 1973 and took delivery of the first production A-10s in March 1976. At first, some Air Force pilots balked at the idea of flying low and slow over the battlefield, accustomed as they were to dogfights at high altitude. But in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of 1990-1991, the Thunderbolt II, more commonly referred to as the Warthog, showed how it was truly worthy of its WWII namesake, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . During the war, A-10s destroyed more than 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 military vehicles, and 1,200 artillery pieces. A-10 pilots even shot down two enemy helicopters. The Thunderbolt II maintained a stellar 95.7 percent mission-capability rate over 8,100 sorties. The Air Force was so impressed that they dropped any ideas of replacing the twenty-year-old aircraft at the time. However, that love affair is on the rocks, as Congress and the Air Force decide how best to allocate limited funds. Despite continued excellent service in the low-intensity conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and with no true dedicated successor, the Air Force made plans to retire the A-10 to free up money for production of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a multi-role stealth aircraft that has yet to prove that it can live up to its WWII !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! namesake, or effectively perform the CAS role that is so brilliantly carried out by the A-10. In 2017, the US Congress has stepped in and appropriated the money to keep the A-10 flying, but it remains to be seen how long the Warthog will stay in the air.

An A-10 Thunderbolt II from the 74th Fighter Squadron approaches a tanker to take on fuel over Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (US Air Force)

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Short Takeoff

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(Author unknown)

May 9, 1981 – HMS Hermes enters service as the first aircraft carrier to employ a “ski jump” deck.   Hermes was laid down on June 21, 1944 as the last of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of aircraft carriers, though it was not finished until 1957. After service as a standard aircraft carrier, Hermes had its catapults and arresting gear removed for conversion to a “Commando Carrier.” As part of the conversion, a 12-degree ski jump was added to aid in the launch of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Hermes served as the British flagship during the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1982, where her fighters and helicopters supported the British forces in the recapture of the disputed islands. After decommissioning in 1984, Hermes was sold to India, recommissioned as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and served until 2016.

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May 9, 1967 – The first flight of the Fokker F28 Fellowship, a short range jet airliner developed by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Initially designed to accommodate 50 passengers, production aircraft eventually carried 65 passengers, and future variants were expanded to carry as many as 79 passengers. Similar in appearance to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Fellowship was powered by a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! low-bypass turbofans that gave the F28 a cruising speed of about 520 mph and a range of up to 1,200 miles, depending on the variant. A total of 241 aircraft were produced from 1967-1987, and the type remains in limited service.

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(US Air Force)

May 9, 1949 – The first flight of the Republic XF-91 Thunderceptor. Sticking with the “thunder” in their aircraft names, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! designed the Thunderceptor as a mixed propulsion interceptor that was powered by a jet engine for most of its flight but augmented by rocket power for added speed and climb during interception. The Thunderceptor was notable for its use of an inverse tapered wing that was intended to help with the problem of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! during transonic flight. Due to the rapid advances in jet engine technology, the Thunderceptor was never adopted. Only two were built, though it does own the distinction of being the first US fighter to exceed Mach 1 in level flight.  

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(US Army)

May 9, 1962 – The first flight of the Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe (S-64 Skycrane), a heavy-lift helicopter that traces its lineage back to the Sikorsky S-56 (military !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ), an early heavy lifter which was then developed into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which served as the basis for the CH-54. The Tarhe could lift up to 20,000 pounds either in a detachable pod or slung beneath the fuselage, and the three-person cockpit crew had one pilot sitting in a rear-facing seat to control the helicopter during loading operations. Just over 100 Tarhes were built and they saw extensive service in Vietnam. Though the military retired the type in 1991, many are still used by private firms for heavy-lift operations and firefighting. (US Army photo)

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(Author unknown)

May 9, 1926 – Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole. While some historians credit Byrd and Bennett with this milestone in aviation exploration, there remains significant controversy surrounding their accomplishment. With Bennett as pilot, Byrd planned to take off from Spitsbergen (Svalbard) in their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , fly over the Pole, and return. However, evidence of erasures in Byrd’s personal diary cast doubt on whether the team actually reached the Pole before returning to Spitsbergen. Nevertheless, Byrd and Bennett were hailed as national heroes and awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Three days later, a flight by the airship !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , lead by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , flew from Spitsbergen to Alaska, leaving no doubt that they crossed the Pole. The debate continues as to which explorer was actually first.

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May 10, 2012 – The death of Evelyn Bryan Johnson. Johnson was born in Corbin, Kentucky on November 4, 1909 and began her flying career with the US Army Air Corps in 1944. By the time she quit flying at the age of 96 she had logged 57,635.4 flying hours, earning the international record for the greatest number of flying hours logged. Johnson served as a colonel in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and as a flight instructor, garnering the distinction of being the oldest instructor pilot in the world and training more pilots and giving more FAA exams than any other instructor. On July 21, 2007, Johnson was inducted into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , joining !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and other famous flyers.

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May 10, 1991 – The first flight of the Bombardier CRJ100. The CRJ traces it roots back to 1989 with the beginning of the Canadair Regional Jet program which sought to develop a medium-range jet airliner to seat up to 52 passengers. The design was originally developed as a stretched variant of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! business jet and, following the CRJ100's entry into service, it was quickly developed into the CRJ200 ER and LR, each with increased range. The CRJ100, along with its larger CRJ200 variant, have proven very popular with smaller airlines, as well as some large airlines who use the regional jet to serve smaller airports. A total of 935 aircraft of both variants have been produced, and the airliner remains in service.

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(Tim Shaffer)

May 10, 1986 – The U. S. Navy selects the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet as the official airplane of the Blue Angels. The Blue Angels were founded in 1931, and one of their hallmarks has always been that they fly the same combat aircraft currently in use in the fleet. Beginning with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Blues have flown every frontline fighter since then, transitioning to jets in 1949 with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . With the adoption of the Hornet, the Blues had their first 4th generation fighter and, while they often fly some of the oldest aircraft in the fleet, the 2016-2017 air show season will be the last for the legacy Hornets, as the Blues are scheduled to transition to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 2018.

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(US Air Force)

May 10, 1978 – The first flight of the Dassault Mirage 2000. Based on the delta wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Mirage 2000 was developed in the 1970s as a lightweight fighter to compete with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for the lucrative export market. Since the Mirage 2000 was based on an existing aircraft, the prototype was ready for its first flight in just 27 months. The Mirage 2000 displayed superb handling for a delta-wing aircraft, impressing spectators when it was unveiled at the 1978 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and demonstrating that it was indeed a viable competitor to its American challenger. The Mirage 2000 entered service in November 1982, and over 600 examples were produced, with many sold to Dassault’s export customers.

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(Deutsches Bundesarchiv)

May 10, 1941 – Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland. Hess served as an infantryman and pilot in WWI, then rose to power with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, eventually being named Deputy Führer in 1933. After the outbreak of WWII, Hess feared that Germany faced a ruinous war on two fronts, so he took it upon himself to broker peace with Great Britain. Taking off from Germany in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Hess flew to Scotland and hoped to make contact with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , 14th Duke of Hamilton, whom Hess mistakenly believed was opposed to the war in Europe. Chased by RAF fighters, Hess bailed out and was captured. He spent the remainder of the war as a British captive, never having met British Prime Minister !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Though he was tried at Nuremberg after the war, Hess was not found guilty of war crimes; however, he spent the rest of his life in Spandau Prison, and died there in 1987 at the age of 93. The wreckage of his plane now resides in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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(Author unknown)

May 10, 1913 – The first flight of the Sikorsky Russky Vityaz . While !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! is best known in the West for his pioneering work with helicopters, he first made a name for himself in Russia with the construction of large civilian and military aircraft before he emigrated to the US in 1919. The Russky Vityaz was powered by four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! four-cylinder engines and had a top speed of 56 mph. It could carry up to seven passengers, and the fuselage was large enough that the passengers were able to move about the cabin during flight. Despite the promise of the Russky Vityaz , the sole aircraft was severely damaged when the engine of another airplane fell on it and crushed it. Rather than repair the Russky Vityaz , Sikorsky moved on to develop the even larger !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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(NASA)

May 11, 2009 – The launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-125. When the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (HST) was launched into Earth orbit in 1990, it was a landmark event that put a powerful telescope outside of the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately, the HST had some significant flaws that hindered its capabilities, so a series of five !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! captured the telescope in orbit and effected repairs. STS-125 was the fifth and final Hubble servicing mission (named Servicing Mission 4, as there was a mission 3A and 3B). The crew of Atlantis installed a new data-handling unit, repaired the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , replaced the batteries, and also installed the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , repairs that left the HST fully operational. The crew also installed the Soft Capture Rendezvous System which will allow future manned or robotic missions to safely dispose of Hubble when its mission is complete.

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(Author unknown)

May 11, 1934 – The first flight of the Douglas DC-2, a twin-engine airliner that was developed by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to compete with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . When rival airline !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (later United Air Lines) monopolized the purchase of the 247, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (later TWA) sought their own all-metal monoplane airliner. Douglas responded with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which was quickly developed into the DC-2 with more powerful engines and room for 14 passengers. The DC-2 proved successful, but was ultimately overshadowed by its successor, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which became one of the greatest aircraft in history. Just under 200 DC-2s were built and operated by airlines and militaries around the world.

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(US Navy)

May 11, 1932 – The airship USS Akron takes members of the ground crew into the air in a landing accident. During an attempted landing at Camp Kearny in San Diego, a sudden gust of wind caused the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (ZRS-4) to rise suddenly, and the mooring lines were cut to avoid a potentially catastrophic nose stand. As Akron rapidly ascended, four inexperienced groundcrew members clung to a mooring line and were taken aloft. One quickly let go and fell roughly 15 feet, suffering a broken arm, while two others tried to hang on but ultimately fell to their death. The fourth, Seaman Apprentice Bud Cowart, managed to secure himself to the line and was eventually hoisted aboard the airship after an hour spent dangling beneath the airship. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! captured the accident, and the death of the two crewmen. The incident served as the inspiration for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! television program starring !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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(US Library of Congress)

May 11-14, 1926 – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen departs to make the first airship flight over the North Pole. Amundsen headed a 16-man expedition to cross the North Pole flying an Italian-built semi-rigid airship named !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After leaving Spitzbergen, Norway, the team reached the North Pole at 01:25 (GMT) on May 12 and dropped Norwegian, American and Italian flags onto the polar ice below. They had planned to continue to Nome, Alaska, but a build up of ice on the propellers forced them to land in Teller, Alaska. While others, including !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! all claim to have reached the Pole before Amundsen, those claims remain subject to dispute. Only Amundsen’s flight has been officially verified.

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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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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/11/2018 at 12:08

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The gun’s position beneath the cockpit also helped prevent the ingestion of gun gases into the engines.

*cough, Sabre with originally fitted cannons, cough*

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 05/11/2018 at 12:11

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An interesting read: http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/p86_25.html

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 05/11/2018 at 12:18

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Makes sense that adding a baffle worked. I had not been heretofore aware that they started out attempting to clear gun gas into the engine on purpose, though.

KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > ttyymmnn 05/11/2018 at 12:21

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Go shawty ish yo BRRRRRTTTTTTday

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > ttyymmnn 05/11/2018 at 12:30

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god damn i watched that newsreel footage of the USS Akron and really wish i hadnt, what an awful way to die, probably 3rd worst behind Burning and Drowning. like actually dying from a fall that high is pretty quick but the way down has to feel like an eternity

user314 > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time 05/11/2018 at 14:15

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Jerry is a goddamn genius.

Also, there is Pony of everything

...everything

Derpwagon > ttyymmnn 05/11/2018 at 14:22

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BRRRRT!

ttyymmnn > Derpwagon 05/11/2018 at 14:40

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It’s the Warthog mating call.

OPPOsaurus WRX > ttyymmnn 05/11/2018 at 15:01

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When will the Blue Angels get some F-35's? maybe some F-22's?

ttyymmnn > OPPOsaurus WRX 05/11/2018 at 15:08

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They’re slated to get the Super Hornet next. I thought this year, but perhaps this is the transition year and they’ll debut in the fall. The Blues often fly the oldest ships in the fleet, and the Navy has since retired all legacy Hornets from active duty. I doubt we’ll ever see any F-35Cs, they’re just too expensive and too complex. Boeing will be cranking out Super Hornets for some time to come.

The F-22 belongs to the Air Force, and they don’t have enough of them to go around as it is. Unless they fire up the production line again ( which could actually happen ), the Thunderbirds will be in F-16s for a long time to come.

OPPOsaurus WRX > ttyymmnn 05/11/2018 at 15:38

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i was joking about that. what is there like 180 or so F22's ... I’ve been reading about the F-22restart over at TheWarZone and it just seems BS expensive whcih also seems typical for military stuff. FoxTrotAlfa just hasn;t been the same

ttyymmnn > OPPOsaurus WRX 05/11/2018 at 15:45

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Oh well, you got a long answer for your troubles! I haven’t read FA much at all since Tyler left. I hit TWZ daily. Tyler still needs a good editor, but he and the other authors are doing good work.

f86sabre > ttyymmnn 05/11/2018 at 22:41

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You know two of the aircraft here share what are largely the same engine.

ttyymmnn > f86sabre 05/11/2018 at 23:09

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I’ll take “CRJ100 and A-10" for 1,000, Alex.

f86sabre > ttyymmnn 05/12/2018 at 08:07

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Can you ask that in the form of a question?