This Date in Aviation History: June 19 - June 21

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 06/21/2019 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik, TDIAH

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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 June 19 through June 21.

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June 19-20, 1944 –   The Battle of the Philippine Sea. The use of the airplane in warfare began in WWI, and by WWII it had become a formidable weapon. The Japanese demonstrated the enormous power of carrier-based warplanes with the surprise !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the ensuing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! showed that the airplane had finally replaced the battleship as the center of power in the modern battle group. In both battles, no two surface ships ever fired a shot at each other, and Midway proved to be a turning point in the Pacific War, with a decisive American victory finally putting the brakes on what had been a relentless Japanese advance. The initiative had finally turned to America and her allies. Even though Japan had lost four carriers, Japanese naval aviation wasn’t utterly destroyed, though it was severely hobbled. There remained one more epic carrier battle to be fought, and the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the largest carrier battle in history, proved to be the last gasp for Japanese naval air power in WWII.

In the summer of 1944, American forces launched operations as part of their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! campaign to take the Japanese-held islands of Tinian, Saipan, and Guam in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Japanese, despite their losses at Midway, were still able to assemble a fleet that included five heavy carriers and four light carriers, five battleships, 11 heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and 28 destroyers to contest the American advance toward the Japanese homeland. To counter the Japanese fleet, the Americans had !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one of the most powerful armadas ever assembled. Under the command of Admiral !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , TF 58 included seven heavy carriers, eight escort carriers, seven battleships, eight heavy cruisers, 13 light cruisers and 69 destroyers. On June 16, a US submarine discovered the Japanese fleet off the coast of the Philippines as they turned to face the Americans. Mitscher divided his fleet into four carrier task groups and one battleship task group, while the Japanese divided their fleet into four groups based around their carriers.

Japanese scout planes spotted the American fleet on the morning of June 19 and launched the first attack. However, American radar detected the planes 50 miles away from the fleet, and American fighters were waiting for them when they arrived. In the ensuing battle, more than 200 Japanese planes were shot down against the loss of only 23 US aircraft. Meanwhile, US submarines had located the main body of the Japanese fleet. First, the carrier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was struck with torpedoes, and then the carrier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which sank four hours later. The Japanese attacked again, but the planes flew in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, the attackers were detected and annihilated by American fighters.

By the end of the battle on June 20, roughly 600 Japanese aircraft had been destroyed, earning the battle the nickname “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.” Along with the loss of aircraft, the Japanese Navy lost three carriers and an estimated 3,000 dead. The Americans suffered one damaged battleship, 123 aircraft lost, and 109 dead. Though it might have been possible for the Japanese to replace their aircraft, the losses in experienced pilots was a blow from which they would never recover. Even though Japan still had carriers, they no longer had the men or planes to operate effectively from their decks, and the once-proud ships were reduced to the role of a diversionary force four months later in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which resulted in another decisive victory for the US and her allies.

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Short Takeoff

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June 19, 2002 – Adventurer Steve Fossett takes off on the first solo balloon circumnavigation of the Earth. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! departed from Northam, Western Australia on June 19 in a balloon named Spirit of Freedom , and flew eastward across the Pacific Ocean, over Chile and Argentina, then across the southern Atlantic Ocean to South Africa and then across the southern Indian Ocean, arriving back in Australia on July 4. The flight covered 20,626 miles and set numerous distance and flight longevity records. Fossett made other world record flights, including the first solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the Earth in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Fossett died in the crash of his private plane on September 3, 2007.

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June 20, 1983 – The first flight of the Bombardier Dash 8, the first in a series of twin-turboprop, medium-range airliners that were originally known as the de Havilland Canada (DHC) Dash 8. Developed from the four-engine !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Dash 8 is built in four variants capable of accommodating from 39-78 passengers. It entered service in 1984 with the now-defunt !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airline, and was extremely successful as a regional airliner. Despite challenges from newer small !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the lower operating costs of the turboprop engine on shorter flights at lower altitudes have allowed the Dash 8 to remain competitive. The Dash 8 remains in production, and nearly 1,200 have been built to date.  

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(NASA)

June 20, 1966 – Sheila Scott completes the first of three circumnavigations of the globe. Born on April 27, 1922 in Worcester, England, Scott was a record-setting aviatrix and made her first round-the-world flight in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Departing from London Heathrow on May 18, she flew approximately 31,000 miles over the course of 34 days and 189 flying hours. Scott topped that in 1971 with a “world and a half” flight of 34,000 miles, becoming the first person to fly over the North Pole in a single-engine aircraft. She was awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1968 for her exploits, and died in 1988 at the age of 66.

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(US Air Force))

June 20, 1951 – The first flight of the Bell X-5, an aircraft that was inspired by the variable-sweep wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the first aircraft that was capable of changing the angle of wing sweep in flight (the wing sweep of the P.1101 could only be changed on the ground). The X-5 had three settings for the wings, and a full sweep could be accomplished in 30 seconds. However, the aircraft was so unstable that the second prototype was lost in a crash which killed its test pilot. While the X-5 was ultimately a failure, data on swing-wing technology would be used successfully on later production aircraft such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber.

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(US Air Force)

June 20, 1941 – The United States Army Air Forces is created. The US Army Air Forces (USAAF) was the successor to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (USAAC, 1926-1941) and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (USAAS, 1918-1926). The USAAF formed one of three distinct components of the US Army, the others being the Army Ground Forces and the Army Service Forces. The USAAF combined disparate aviation organizations under a single command, which reported to the Army Chief of Staff. The USAAF witnessed extraordinary growth during the Second World War, and boasted 2.4 million personnel and more than 80,000 aircraft by 1945. Drastic cuts in personnel and materiel following the war saw the USAAF dwindle to just 304,000 airmen and less than 30,000 planes. Based on the recommendation of President Harry Truman, Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947 which created the Department of the Air Force, and the USAAF became the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on September 18, 1947.

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June 21, 2004 – SpaceShipOne makes the first privately-funded human spaceflight. SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched, rocket-powered spacecraft that is capable of suborbital flight. Designed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and built by his company !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , SpaceShipOne was the first step in a program to take paying passengers into space, and served as proof-of-concept for the larger !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which first flew in 2010. SpaceShipOne was dropped from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! mothership, and uses a unique feathering system that raises the aircraft’s tail boom to slow the ship during reentry. With the successful flight, the design team won the $10 million !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by reaching an altitude of 100 km twice within a two-week period. SpaceShipOne made 17 test flights, three of which went beyond 100 km in altitude, and the hybrid aircraft/spacecraft is now preserved at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

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(Author unknown)

June 21, 1961 – The first flight of the Aviation Traders Carvair, an aircraft developed from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by entrepreneur !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to allow travelers to take their cars with them on holiday. The DC-4 was modified by placing the flight deck in a raised section above the main fuselage to provide room for five cars and 22 passengers, or three cars and 50 passengers. The flexible design of the Carvair meant that the configuration could be changed on the ground between flights in as little as 40 minutes. A total of 21 DC-4s were converted and flown by various airlines in Europe, and one remains in service, based in Denton, Texas, which set a world record in 2005 when it carried 80 skydivers aloft.

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Royal Air Force)

June 21, 1936 – The first flight of the Handley Page Hampden, a twin-engine medium bomber flown by the Royal Air Force in the early part of WWII. The Hampden entered service with two other early bombers, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though it was the first of the trio to be retired. The Hampden was known as the “flying suitcase” by its crews due to its cramped fuselage, and it carried out the majority of the bombing missions early in the war, and also took part in the so-called “ !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ” against Germany. Though considered modern when it was first built, the Hampden was quickly outclassed by newer designs, and was briefly relegated to night fighter duties before being retired in 1943. A total of 1,430 were produced from 1936-1941.

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(National Air and Space Museum)

June 21, 1913 – Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick becomes the first woman to parachute from an airplane. Tiny Broadwick (neé Thompson), so named because of her small stature and 85-pound weight, was the adopted daughter of pioneering parachutist and showman !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Tiny joined Broadwick’s troupe of aerial performers at the age of 15, and was billed as the “Doll Girl.” She began her career by parachuting from balloons before making her first jump from an airplane piloted by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Though June 21 is recognized as the date of her first jump, she had made two prior jumps during a flight exhibition in Chicago the previous year. While demonstrating a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! jump for the US Army, Broadwick’s line got tangled in the aircraft and she had to cut herself free. Later jumps were made without a static line, making her the first person to perform a free-fall parachute jump. Broadwick retired in 1922 after making 1,100 jumps, and died in 1978.

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(Library of Congress)

June 21, 1906 – The first flight of the AEA June Bug. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (AEA) was founded by Scottish inventor !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to further the study of aeronautics and aircraft design. One of its members, American !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , became a principal rival of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the man credited with creating aircraft production in America. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was an aircraft of Curtiss’ own design and, with most of the Wright’s work being carried out in secret, it made the first public flight in the United States with Curtiss at the controls. (One significant difference between the June Bug and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was that Curtiss’ design took off under its own power, while the Flyer relied on a catapult.) On July 4, 1908, Curtiss won the Scientific American Trophy and its $2,500 prize by completing a flight of 5,080 feet in distance, cementing Curtiss’ place in the pantheon of American aviation pioneers.

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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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Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > ttyymmnn 06/21/2019 at 12:44

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I love me some Dash-8. One toilet the size of a coffin, rows 7-12 are loud, like ear splitting loud, and no separate seating class.

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn 06/21/2019 at 12:45

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Aviation Traders Carvair

the oppo airplane

RacinBob > ttyymmnn 06/21/2019 at 14:29

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Notice how at the beginning of the war, we lost carriers to aerial attack and towards the end the odds swung dramatically against the Japanese flyers. The reason in my estimation was the introduction mid war of the proximity fuse. It’s use as I recall reduced the number of shells needed to hit an incoming  plane from over 1000 to less than 100.

Read The Deadly Fuse. It is a wonderful technical story of the invention of the concept by the British and it’s development and manufacture here. You will walk away with a new appreciation for how complicated ordinance is.

ttyymmnn > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 06/21/2019 at 16:15

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Never flown on one. 

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > ttyymmnn 06/21/2019 at 16:27

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They are actually not bad, and until recently my only option on Alaska from Kalispell.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > RacinBob 06/21/2019 at 23:08

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I haven’t read the book, but there are several other reasons. Japan had an extremely intensive training for pilots, that relied heavily on easy combat missions over China , however prewar were only graduating hundreds, maybe thousands a year. Though top notch, their entire system could not scale up.  

When you add in radar, industrial capacity, aircrat development, resources, japan was fucked.