This Date in Aviation History: August 22 - August 24

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 08/24/2018 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 August 22 through August 24.

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(US Air Force)

August 23, 1990 – The Boeing VC-25, better known as Air Force One when transporting the President of the United States, enters service. Aircraft that transport world leaders around the world have become an important symbol of national power, pride, and technological prowess. In 1959, Soviet leader !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! arrived in the US in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a huge 4-engine turboprop airliner, and his arrival caused quite a stir among the Western press because the plane represented a higher level of aircraft development than the West had thought the Soviets capable of. The history of American presidential air transport began more out of necessity than propaganda, but the modern symbolism of the US President arriving on a large airliner, decked out in the iconic United States livery designed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , has since become an important part of showing the US flag in foreign countries.

The size and presence of Air Force One makes a statement of its own. (US Air Force)

American presidential aviation dates back to 1945, when President Franklin Roosevelt flew on a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , named the Sacred Cow , to attend the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Later, President Harry Truman flew in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (VC-118 Liftmaster) named Independence , and President Dwight Eisenhower had Columbine II and Columbine III , both !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . It was during President Eisenhower’s administration that the name “Air Force One” came into use, a call sign created in 1953 to indicate any Air Force aircraft that is carrying the president to differentiate it from other civilian aircraft (if the president is flying in a civilian aircraft, the call sign becomes Executive One, a Marine aircraft becomes Marine One, etc). President Eisenhower brought presidential aviation into the jet age when he ordered three !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! aircraft, based on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and those aircraft served all the following presidents through !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! we know today from the TV news and in !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (Air Force designation VC-25), didn’t start serving the president until September 1990.

In 1985, the Air Force began looking for a replacement for the aging VC-137s currently in service. The new aircraft was required to have at least three engines for added safety and be capable of flying 6,000 miles without refueling. The only two aircraft that fit those criteria were the Boeing 747 and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . One the Air Force had chosen the 747, President Reagan ordered two aircraft which were given tail numbers 28000 and 29000. Rather than modify existing airliners, construction began on two purpose-built aircraft, with interiors designed by First Lady Nancy Reagan. The first VC-25 took its maiden flight on May 16, 1987, but the first completed aircraft wasn’t delivered until 1990 during the first term of President !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

President Obama holds a meeting in the airborne Oval Office in 2011. (White House)

Inside, the VC-25 features a suite of offices and sleeping quarters for the president, as well as other meeting rooms and quarters for the staff. There is also a medical suite, with an operating table, staffed by a doctor and nurse. In addition to transporting the president, Air Force One can also function as a flying military command center in the event of war or other national emergency and, following the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of September 11, 2001, the VC-25 was modified to give the President the ability to speak to the entire nation from the air. The VC-25 has the capability for aerial refueling and is armed with classified defensive missile countermeasures, though, as popularly shown in the movie !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , it does not have a rear cargo ramp. As the current fleet of VC-25s ages, plans are in the works to replace them with a pair of 747-8 aircraft that had originally been built for the Russian airline Transaero. President Donald Trump has also said that the iconic Raymond Loewy livery will be replaced, but a final decision remains to be made.

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(US Air Force)

August 23, 1954 – The first flight of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. During WWII, the true power of the aircraft became clear, not only as a weapon of destruction but also as a tool of logistics and supply. After the war, development of large tactical haulers continued, and the piston engines gave way to powerful turboprops. And perhaps the greatest of these was the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. The C-13o, in all of its myriad variants, has become a ubiquitous transport and logistics aircraft for the United States military and many partner countries, and has seen action in every theater of combat from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to the conflicts of the present day. It has become a true workhorse, tackling jobs from troop transport to logistical support to counterinsurgency to reconnaissance, and also exists in gunship variants and as an electronic spy and propaganda platform.

Lockheed C-130 prototype (US Air Force)

The Hercules traces its origin back to 1951, as the US was embroiled in the Korean War. The US Air Force discovered that the WWII-era piston-powered airlifts were unsuited to the demands of the Korean War, and not up to the task of supplying the troops in the field and were unsuited to modern logistical requirements. So the Air Force decided to acquire a new turboprop transport for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (MATS), which later became the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (MAC). But rather than develop a new freighter from an existing aircraft, as they had done in the past, the Air Force requirements called for a completely new plane designed from the wheels up as a heavy lifter. The request from the Air Force led to the creation of the C-130, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (later canceled before any prototypes were built), and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a plane of similar design yet much larger and built in significantly fewer numbers. The Air Force settled on the C-130, which was powered by four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turboprop engines designed specifically for the Hercules. These engines gave the plane a greater operating range than thirsty turbojet engines and allowed the C-130 to operate from rough, unimproved and shorter runways. The engines also had enough power to allow the Hercules to be fully operational with only three engines.

An Air Force C-130 performs a low altitude parachute extraction system (LAPES) delivery of supplies to an airbase in Vietnam (US Air Force)

The Hercules, known as the Herk, set a new standard for modern airlift aircraft design, with a fully pressurized cabin and unprecedented range and capability. The high wing and external landing gear pods allowed for copious internal cargo space, and a rear cargo door allowed pallets and vehicles to be driven directly on board, with a low deck for ease of loading. After the successful flight of the two prototypes, the Air Force awarded an initial production contract in July 1951, and production of the Hercules, albeit in a significantly upgraded form, continues to this day.

The remarkable C-130 has been adapted into a myriad of roles, from cargo hauling to personnel carrying to gunship. Here, a C-130 from the 302nd Air Wing makes a water drop over New Mexico during a training mission. (US Air Force)

The C-130 entered service with the US Air Force in 1956, followed by Australia in 1958. Herks flew their first combat missions in Vietnam in 1964, and the type has served in every theater of war since. In 1963, a Hercules set the record for the largest aircraft to land and take off from an aircraft carrier when it carried out trials aboard USS Forrestal , a record that remains unbroken. The basic design has allowed for more than 40 variants with upgraded engines and avionics for a host of different mission profiles, both military and civilian, including a gunship version, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which is armed with miniguns and cannons for support of ground troops. It all started with the C-130A, and Lockheed is now producing the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , with the most powerful engines yet, a glass cockpit and modern flight deck. Over 2,500 Herks have been produced, and this 50-year-old design shows no sign of being retired any time soon.

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August 24, 2001 – Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean and glides to a landing in the Azores. Flying across the great expanses of the open ocean has always been a risky proposition. In the early days of commercial aviation, transoceanic flight was the bailiwick of large flying boats that could land on the surface of the water should an emergency arise when they were far from land. Following the flying boat era, transoceanic flights were restricted to airliners with more than two engines for added insurance, until new regulations, known as !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , recognized the reliability of modern jet engines and allowed for travel with two-engined airliners.

But any engine, be it piston, turboprop or turbojet, requires fuel to run, and rigorous calculations are required to prevent an aircraft from running out of fuel. These calculations also include extra fuel to allow for holding patterns and diversions to different airfields. But if those calculations are done incorrectly, an airliner can become starved of fuel and turn into a giant glider, as happened famously in 1983 to an Air Canada flight known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . In that case, crews simply didn’t put a sufficient amount of fuel onboard the airliner. But undetected mechanical faults can also lead to fuel starvation, and the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is a terrible place see your fuel gauge reading empty.

Air Transat Flight 236 was an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (C-GITS) flying from Toronto, Canada to Lisbon, Portugal. The flight, carrying 293 passengers and 13 crew, took off without incident, but a little more than four hours into the crossing the flight deck crew received a warning for low oil temperature and high oil pressure in the number two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine. Twenty minutes later, the crew received a warning for fuel imbalance, and they responded by transferring fuel from the left wing tank to the right wing tank, which was nearly empty. What the crew did not realize was that a leak had caused the imbalance, and the fuel transfer caused what fuel they had remaining to flow through the leaking fuel line and drain out at roughly one gallon per second. The pilots declared a fuel emergency and decided to divert to Lajes Air Base in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which lies in the Atlantic Ocean 850 miles west of Portugal.

Air Transat 236 on the ground at Lajes (Author unknown)

Within ten minutes, and still far from Lajes, both engines flamed out, and the Airbus lost all primary electrical power, as well as its main hydraulic power. The captain of the flight, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , an experienced glider pilot, put all his gliding skills to use as he and First Officer Dirk de Jager worked to control the powerless plane with minimal controls. Their skill kept the plane in the air for 19 minutes and roughly 75 miles, the longest distance ever flown by an unpowered passenger jet. Military air traffic controllers at Lajes guided the plane to the runway, and the plane touched down at a speed of 200 knots, resulting in a fire in the braking system that caused the loss of all eight main wheels.

Fourteen passengers and two crew members received minor injuries during the evacuation, and two passengers were seriously hurt. The plane experienced damage to the landing gear and lower fuselage. Investigators traced the cause of the leak in the number two engine to the installation of an incorrect part in the hydraulics system by Air Transat maintenance staff, and though pilot error was also listed for the crew’s failure to identify the fuel leak, Captain Piché was awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by the Air Line Pilots Association. The French aeronautics board also issued a directive leading to a revision in the flight manual to prevent future incidents.

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Short Takeoff

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August 22, 1989 – The death of Alexander Yakovlev, a Soviet aeronautical engineer and founder of the Yakovlev Design Bureau, where he served as chief designer until his retirement in 1984. Yakovlev was born in Moscow on April 1, 1906 and began his design work as part of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . His design bureau produced a large number of fighter aircraft for Russia during WWII, such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and highly successful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Yakovlov served as Vice-Minister of Russia’s Aviation Industry under !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! until 1946, and also designed Russia’s first jet powered fighter, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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August 22, 1980 – The death of James McDonnell. Born on April 9, 1899 in Denver Colorado, McDonnell was one of America’s great aviation pioneers and aircraft producers. He began his design career in 1928, setting up J.S. McDonnell & Associates, where he built his first aircraft. In 1938, he founded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and provided the US with some of its most iconic military aircraft, including the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the US Navy’s first purely jet-powered fighter, and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one of the era’s greatest all-weather fighter interceptors. His company also built the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! space capsules. In 1967, McDonell Aircraft merged with Douglas Aviation to form McDonnell Douglas, and the new company went on to create still more great aircraft, such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airliner and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . For his life’s work, McDonnell was awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1980.

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August 23, 1977 – The MacReady Gossamer Condor wins the first Kremer prize for human-powered flight. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was established in 1959 by industrialist Henry Kremer to award pioneers in the realm of human-powered flight. To claim the £50,000 prize, an aircraft had to complete a figure-eight course of one mile while crossing over a ten-foot pole placed at the beginning and the end of the course. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , designed by aeronautical engineer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , was constructed of aluminum poles covered in lightweight plastic, with a gondola underneath housing the pilot and fitted with a forward !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for control. Amateur bicyclist and hang glider pilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! flew the Condor on its prize-winning flight at at Minter Field in Shafter, California. MacCready followed up with the larger !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which crossed the English Channel in 1979.

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(US Air Force)

August 23, 1948 – The first flight of the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin. In the early days of transoceanic bombers, fighters were incapable of escorting the bombers on their extended missions. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , first developed to be launched from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! during WWI, seemed to be the solution, with the fighters carried by a host bomber and released if needed. The diminutive Goblin was designed to be carried by a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and was powered by a single !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet engine. Though flight tests demonstrated that the Goblin flew well, its performance was inferior to contemporary fighter aircraft. Combined with the development of reliable aerial refueling procedures, the Goblin was canceled in 1949 after the production of two prototypes.

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(Author unknown)

August 23, 1938 – The death of Frank Hawks. Born on March 28, 1897, Hawks served as a flight instructor during WWI and went on to perform as a barnstormer after the war. During the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in the 1930s, Hawks made a name for himself as a demonstration pilot and racer, famously flying a series of aircraft sponsored by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and setting no less than 214 point-to-point records in the US and Europe. He also starred in the 1937 movie serial !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , where he was billed as “The Fastest Man Alive.” After his retirement from competitive flying in 1937, Hawks became the vice president of the Gwinn Aircar Company, where he marketed the company’s novel aircraft. Having ominously predicted that he would die in an airplane, Hawks was killed in the crash of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in East Aurora, New York.

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(Author unknown)

August 24, 1979 – The death of Hanna Reitsch, a German aviatrix and test pilot and the only woman awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for her service during WWII. Reitsch was born March 29, 1912, and set over 40 altitude and endurance records flying gliders. She later served as a test pilot on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! rocket plane. She was the first female helicopter pilot and one of the few to fly the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the world’s first fully controllable helicopter, which she famously !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! inside the Deutschlandhalle during the International Automobile Exhibition in Berlin in 1938. Reitsch was captured near the end of the war and, after her release, she continued flying gliders, setting yet more records.

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(US Air Force; US Department of Defense)

August 24, 1951 – US Air Force Major Louis J. Sebille is posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH). After serving as a bomber pilot in WWII, Maj. Sebille later served as the commander of the 67th Squadron, Jet stationed in the Philippines before transferring to Japan at the outbreak of the Korean War. In the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! early in the War, United Nations forces were pushed back to the South Korean city of Pusan and nearly overrun by North Korean forces. While supporting UN troops in the Perimeter, Maj. Sebille was flying a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and attacked a column of North Korean armored vehicles. When the first of his two 500-pound bombs malfunctioned, Maj. Sebille, gravely wounded by North Korean antiaircraft fire, turned and dove directly into the line of vehicles, firing his machine guns as he struck the column. Maj. Sebille was the first member of the newly-formed United States Air Force to receive the Medal of Honor, and the first of four USAF pilots to be awarded the CMH in Korea, all of whom were killed in action.

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August 24, 1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States. America’s most famous aviatrix, Amelia Earhart set a number of flying records for her day and achieved many firsts for female pilots. Perhaps her greatest feat was her solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean on May 20-21, 1932, but she followed that just three months later with another first, becoming the the first woman to fly nonstop across the United States. In doing so, she also set a new transcontinental speed record in her !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by completing the 2,448 mile journey in 19 hours 5 minutes, a record she would break the following year. Earhart, along with navigator Fred Noonan, disappeared on July 2, 1937 while attempting to fly around the world.

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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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CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn 08/24/2018 at 12:46

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With modern polymers, computers and engine tech, do you think we could make a version of the Goblin that would be practical today?

I’d love to see that. Also, a modern version of the M3 Stuart would be really cool, especially for today’s urban battlefields.

Essentially, I like tiny military things.

Ash78, voting early and often > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/24/2018 at 12:50

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We definitely could, but the tech is so good, we just use land-launched drones now instead.

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 08/24/2018 at 12:51

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Azores, not bad for a glide. Now I feel a lot worse for all of Sully’s passengers who had to land in the Hudson.

Fresh Gulf Stream Air > New Jersey Air

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > Ash78, voting early and often 08/24/2018 at 12:55

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Fair point. SAD!

By the way, what do you think about planes like the A-29 and AT-6?  I am a huge fan of these

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 08/24/2018 at 13:01

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At least the Gimli Glider was over land and they had more options. If that had happened maybe 15 minutes earlier, they don’t make it to the Azores.

ttyymmnn > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/24/2018 at 13:03

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You didn’t ask me, but I think it is a good, cost effective solution to the modern low-intensity battlefield. But it looks like now the AF is only going to buy a small number of them. 

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn 08/24/2018 at 13:05

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oops.  Thanks for the answer anyways.  I kinda look forward to seeing them in action (via youtube) one day.

facw > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/24/2018 at 13:09

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The Air Force was considering (not especially seriously) a 747 packed will small jet fighters in the ‘70s:

There would be packed with some sort of mircofighter:

Ash78 is right though, today these would be drones.

facw > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/24/2018 at 13:09

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CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > facw 08/24/2018 at 13:10

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that would have been so kickass.

user314 > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/24/2018 at 13:18

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Oh, they already are. Dozens of Perdix micro-UAVs have been dropped by F-16 and F-18F aircraft in tests beginning in 2014.

Right now they just carry a camera, but even that will give you an advantage.

They’re also talking about armed swarm drones being control led by F-35s.

facw > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 08/24/2018 at 13:18

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It would have been very cool, but I believe the Air Force decided that aerial refueling was a better way to do things, especially since those microfighters would have been short-ranged, so the 747 would have to be dangerously close to the action, and at considerable risk.

AfromanGTO > ttyymmnn 08/24/2018 at 13:20

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The C130 and A10 are going to be in service forever. Now if Congress would get their heads out of their ass and their lobbyist ass as well and realized this the military budget would somewhat lower. Plus the Tomcat needs to be included in this and get rid of the new F35.

user314 > facw 08/24/2018 at 13:23

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Looks like Boeing was cribbing from Rockwell’s HiMAT .

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 08/24/2018 at 13:57

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The Yak-15 is a fascinating aircraft. Apart from melting runways, it’s actually a little surprising that there weren’t more serious problems than lower fuselage heat damage and repeated tailwheel problems.

The original tailwheel wasn’t suited for rough landings and jet service, so the they beefed up the suspension, and then the problem became one of frying it to a crisp after a while in service. Also, the lower fuselage kept getting melty. So then, in a Soviet sort of problem-solving, they made the wheel solid steel, and put a steel heat shield on the lower fuselage . That worked after a fashion, but they revised to the Yak 17 for nearly the sole purpose of putting tall tricycle gear in a bulge under the engine, due to sustained problems.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 08/24/2018 at 14:12

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I seem to recall reading somewhere that they had lots of problems not only with heat in the cockpit but also oil smoke. I doubt it was a very comfortable ride. Alexander Kartveli also thought about slapping a jet engine in a taildragger, that being the P-47.

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 08/24/2018 at 14:23

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My favorite disaster story of all time is probably Japan Airlines 123. Even though it had a tragic end, there was a helluva lot of creativity and bravery on the flight deck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123

Not unlike United 232, the famous Sioux City emergency landing , which had similar loss of control, but under much better circumstances and with a lot lower casualty count. You wouldn’t have known it from the fiery video, though.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232

user314 > AfromanGTO 08/24/2018 at 14:29

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The Herc yes, Musk is probably working on a version for Mars. The Hog though, we’ll probably be seeing them in the Boneyard within the next ten years. Now, the B-52? I would not be surprised to see them still flying for the 100th anniversary of the type. 

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 08/24/2018 at 14:31

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The Douglas Skyknight somehow found a way to have nearly all the disadvantages of being a jet taildragger while being ostensibly a trike:

Low intake FOD, probably some thermal issues on the fuselage, and issues with setting decks and temporary strips on fire.

ttyymmnn > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 08/24/2018 at 15:10

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It’s not going to win any beauty contests, but it TCOB. The Skyknight downed more enemy aircraft in Korea than any other single type of naval aircraft, and a Skyknight was the first to shoot down an  aircraft with a radar track and lock-on and without visual contact. It was also an important testbed, and helped develop the Sparrow missile.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > ttyymmnn 08/24/2018 at 15:18

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Quite. I like it a lot, but its flaws are amusing. I have a book with a picture in it of one with FOD screens in place due to the incessant problems the Marines were having. Inlet screens reminiscent of velocity stack screens on a race engine to stop gravel.