This Date in Aviation History: May 1 - May 3

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 05/03/2019 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 May 1 through May 3.

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(US Air Force)

May 1, 1960 – Central Intelligence Agency pilot Francis Gary Powers is shot down over the Soviet Union. During the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the United States was desperate for timely, accurate intelligence on Russian military activities. Today, that sort of information is gained by powerful satellites, but space-based reconnaissance was in its infancy in the 1960s. Not only was it unreliable, it was also not at all timely, since film had to be ejected from the orbiting satellites and returned to Earth for pickup, usually snatched from the air as they descended by parachute. It was not a foolproof system, and many rolls of film were lost. Closer to the ground, American reconnaissance planes had been probing the edges of the Soviet Union, but it was hazardous duty, and many planes and pilots !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to Russian fighters.

The first Lockheed U-2, known as Article 001 to mask its true mission. The prototype took its maiden flight on August 4, 1955. (US Air Force)

What the US sorely needed was an aircraft that could take reconnaissance photos of military installations, missile tests, or other high-value assets while flying high enough to be out of the reach of Soviet fighters, then return to have the images analyzed immediately. At the time, there was perhaps nobody better suited to tackle the job of creating such an aircraft than !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , head of Lockheed’s super-secret !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the result of his work was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . With the U-2, Johnson and his team of engineers produced an aircraft that was capable of flying at 70,000 feet and, though the “Dragon Lady” was by no means a fast aircraft, its extreme operating altitude made it immune to interception by enemy fighters. But as Soviet antiaircraft missile technology improved, the US knew it was just a matter of time before one of their pilots was shot down.

Power’s’ planned flight path over the Soviet Union (CIA)

For three years, the U-2 flew undisturbed, but on May 1, 1960 CIA pilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was shot down while on a spy mission over Russia. Powers had taken off from Pakistan and flown northward to photograph ICBM sites at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . After photographing the sites, his flight plan dictated that he continue north and land in Norway. By now, these reconnaissance flights had become somewhat routine, and Powers was flying a predictable route. Soon after entering Soviet airspace north of Kazakhstan, his aircraft was detected near Chelyabinsk and fighters were sent to intercept it. Despite their best efforts, the fighters were unable to reach the spy plane at its extreme altitude. Next, the Soviets launched eight !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! missiles at Powers’ aircraft. One of the missiles destroyed at least one of the fighters sent to intercept Powers, but another detonated directly behind the U-2, showering it with shrapnel. Powers ejected from his damaged aircraft, but the plane came to earth relatively intact. He was captured, but chose not to take the poison capsule that the CIA had given him, though its use was optional.

Powers on trial in Moscow for espionage (Author unknown)

At first, the US denied that Powers was on a spy mission, and the unmarked U-2 was said to be an errant weather plane that had accidentally flown off course. As part of the cover up, NASA released a detailed account to the media of how one of its research planes had flown off course, and other U-2s were hastily painted with NASA markings to lend credibility to the ruse. But the Soviets were not fooled, and the incident dealt another blow to already-brittle US-Soviet relations. Despite American attempts at obfuscation, the Eisenhower administration was forced to admit the true nature of the flight, and Powers pled guilty at what was essentially a propaganda show trial. He was convicted of espionage and received a sentence of ten years in prison, including seven years of hard labor. Ultimately, Powers served only 21 months of his sentence and, on February 10, 1962, he was exchanged for KGB spy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who had been convicted for espionage in what was known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Kelly Johnson, head of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, with Gary Powers in 1966. A Lockheed U-2 can be even in the background. (US Air Force)

Following the incident, the US halted flights over the Soviet Union and accelerated its work on satellite reconnaissance. But the true legacy of the Powers incident was the CIA’s Oxcart program and the development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , aircraft whose combination of extreme altitude and Mach 3 speed made them capable of flying over enemy territory with complete impunity. Powers returned to the US and worked as a test pilot for Lockheed, though he remained on the CIA payroll. After leaving Lockheed, Powers worked as a helicopter pilot for a Los Angeles television station, and died in 1977 when his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ran out of fuel and crashed while covering a news a story.

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May 1, 1940 – The first flight of the Douglas SBD Dauntless. In the summer of 1921, US Army Air Service Brig. Gen. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! carried out a series of tests to demonstrate his belief that air power alone could destroy ships at sea. Flying lumbering !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bombers, with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighters acting as dive bombers, Mitchell’s unit was successful in sinking the captured German battleship !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but the results were controversial. Though the battleship sank, no direct hits were made by the large level bombers, and the Ostfriesland and other target ships were all lying at anchor and making no attempts to defend themselves. Nevertheless, Mitchell’s experiment proved the potential of air power against sea power, and it was the dedicated dive bomber that turned the tide of battle in the Pacific during WWII.

Northrop BT-1, which served as the basis for the SBD Dauntless (US Navy)

The Douglas SBD Dauntless traces its lineage back to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a two-seat, single-engine dive bomber developed for the US Navy that first flew in 1935. Diving headlong at a target is a dangerous business, and an innovative feature of the BT was its perforated spilt flaps which helped eliminate tail buffeting during dives. These innovative flaps became a trademark of the later Dauntless. When Northrop was taken over by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1937, work on Northrop projects continued. Development of the Dauntless was taken over by a team led by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the SBD (Scout Bomber Douglas) became the first in a long list of great warplanes that Heinemann helped to develop.

A Douglas A-24 Banshee, the US Army variant of the SBD Dauntless, displays its perforated split flaps used for dive bombing attacks (US Army)

The first production models of the Dauntless were the SBD-1, which went into service with the US Navy, and the SBD-2, which served with the US Marine Corps. Both were powered by a 1,000 hp Wright Cyclone engine, and differed only in that the Marine Corps version had an increased fuel capacity and different armament. Development progressed to the SBD-3 in early 1941 with the addition of more armor plating to protect the crew, increased firepower from four machine guns, and self-sealing fuel tanks. But it was the SBD-5 that became the mainstay of the US Navy in the early years of the war. The most marked change in the SBD-5 was the inclusion of a more powerful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine, the same engine that powered the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The R-1820 boosted the SBD’s power up to 1,200 hp and gave it a top speed of 255 mph, though still 100 mph slower than the Japanese !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . In addition to its two rearward-firing .30 caliber defensive machine guns, the SBD-5 also featured two forward-firing .50 caliber machine guns which proved quite effective against more lightly built Japanese fighters.

Dive flaps extended, a US Navy SBD Dauntless dives on its target and releases its bomb (US Navy)

Following the Japanese !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on December 7, 1941, the Dauntless went directly into battle, attacking Japanese positions throughout the Pacific Theater. The first significant contribution made by the Dauntless and her crews was in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on May 4-8, 1942, when SBDs flying from the carriers !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! sank the Japanese light carrier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   and damaged the fleet carrier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which had taken part in the Pearl Harbor attack. The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval battle in history fought entirely by air, with no surface ships of the opposing navies ever sighting each other. While a tactical victory for the Japanese, the battle slowed Japanese expansion north of Australia, and set the stage for the pivotal !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! a month later, when four squadrons of SBDs flying from the American carriers Yorktown , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! sank the Japanese fleet carriers !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , all of which had taken part in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Americans lost one carrier, but the balance of power in the Pacific, and the initiative, shifted decisively to the Americans.

Though the Dauntless was meant to be replaced by the more powerful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the SBD soldiered on, and fought effectively throughout the Pacific War against both Japanese shipping and ground targets. The US Army evaluated a land-based version called the A-24 Banshee that was identical save for the removal of the tail hook and the inclusion of an inflated tail wheel, but it was not nearly as successful as the Dauntless. When production of the SBD and A-24 finished in 1944, nearly 6,000 aircraft had been built. Despite their exemplary service, the Dauntless had become obsolete, and they were quickly retired at the end of the war. Today, a number of aircraft are on display or undergoing restoration, while another six examples remain airworthy.

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Short Takeoff

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(Author unknown)

May 1, 1912 – The first flight of the Avro Type F. Though only one was ever built, the Type F is notable as the world’s first aircraft to feature an enclosed cabin as part of the design. The diminutive aircraft had room for just one pilot, who entered through an aluminum sheet metal trapdoor in the top of the fuselage. The Type F also had circular holes in the side windows so the pilot could stick his head out in case the windscreen became fouled by oil. The wire-braced monoplane made a number of test flights, but was eventually damaged beyond repair four months after its maiden fight. It’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engine is on display at the Science Museum in London, and its rudder belongs to the Royal Aero Club.

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(Tim Shaffer)

May 2, 1998 – The 100th and final Rockwell B-1B Lancer is delivered . The Rockwell B-1 was originally envisioned as a Mach 2, long-range nuclear bomber to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The B-1A was canceled in 1977 by the Carter administration, but was resurrected during the Reagan administration as the B-1B, and its mission was changed to low-level bombing with conventional armament. Despite the recent emphasis on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the B-1B has become a mainstay of the US Air Force, serving in all US conflicts since !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1998. Despite recent !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the “Bone” is will start to be phased out in 2015, and will be fully retired by 2036. It is likely, though, that the B-52, the aircraft the Lancer was meant to replace, will still be in service.

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(UK Government)

May 2, 1952 – The world’s first regularly scheduled jet passenger flights begin. The age of passenger flight took off in the 1930s, the so-called Golden Age of aviation, but the 1950s marked the transition from piston-powered to jet-powered airliners. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , with its four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojets, took its maiden flight on July 27, 1949, and the first production airliner, registered G-ALYP, carried fare-paying passengers for the first time on a flight from London to Johannesburg. In their first year of service, Comets carried 30,000 passengers, but soon major aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing, Convair and Douglas in the US, and later Airbus in Europe, joined the jet airliner business. Today nearly 37 million flights a year take place the world over, transporting more than three billion passengers.

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(NASA)

May 3, 2007 – The death of American astronaut Walter Marty “Wally” Schirra. Schirra was born on March 12, 1923 in Hackensack, New Jersey, graduated from the US Naval Academy, and became a Naval Aviator in 1948. Schirra served in Korea, and later as a test pilot, before becoming a member of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , America’s first group of astronauts, and flew the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! mission in 1962 which orbited the Earth six times. In 1965, Schirra joined astronaut Thomas Stafford in the flight of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and maneuvered his spacecraft to within one foot of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , completing the first rendezvous in space between two manned spacecraft. In 1968, Schirra commanded !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the first manned launch of the Apllo program. The Apollo flight made Schirra the first man to go to space three times, and the only astronaut to have flown in all three American manned space programs.  

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(US Air Force)

May 3, 1952 – The first American aircraft lands at the North Pole. US Air Force pilots Lt. Col. William P. Benedict and Lt. Col. Joseph Fletcher beat the US Navy to the North Pole while flying a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! equipped with landing skis. The landing was the team’s second attempt during what was dubbed Operation Oil Drum, and Fletcher became the first person to undisputedly stand at the exact geographic North Pole. On the flight along with Flecther and Benedict was scientist Dr. Albert Crary, who would travel to the South Pole in 1961 and become the first person to stand at both poles.

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May 3, 1945 – British aircraft sink German ships carrying concentration camp prisoners. Three days after the death of Adolf Hitler and just one day before Germany’s unconditional surrender ending WWII in Europe, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! left Baltic Sea ports loaded with nearly 8,000 prisoners who had been transferred from German prison camps. Neither of the ships was marked as a hospital ship, though a third ship, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , had one white funnel with a red cross on it from its days as a hospital ship. Despite warnings from the International Red Cross about the true nature of the ships’ cargo, British naval commanders believed that the ships carried members of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) fleeing to Norway, and attacked all three ships. Thielbek sank in roughly 20 minutes, while Cap Arcona burned before sinking, and British warplanes machine-gunned the survivors floating in the water. In all, 7,800 former prisoners died in the attack, marking one of the heaviest losses of life in naval history.

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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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Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 05/03/2019 at 13:09

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Question: what do you know of Soviet air reconnaissance over US-held assets during the cold war? Obviously, no high-flying MiGs were ever going to take pics of ICBM silos in the US plains, but what about more peripheral US facilities and allies in Asia and Europe? Did they operate a program analogous to our U-2 and Blackbird flights?

I could look all this stuff up, but I’d rather be lazy and just ask you if that’s a topic for a Planelopnik post.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > ttyymmnn 05/03/2019 at 13:11

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For a guy who doesn’t math you just scienced the hell out of this article with the Pitot and Darcy piece.

user314 > Chariotoflove 05/03/2019 at 13:30

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There wasn’t anything directly analogous to the U-2, aside from the Myasishchev M-55 , which didn’t fly until the late 70's, and is more concerned with high-a ltitude science missions, similar to the ER-2 .

There have been tactical recce variants of various planes like the MiG-25/31 and the Yak-25RV, and there have been Tu-95 and Tu-22s flying around the continental US as well as following our carriers around since before any of us were born. Mostly though their observations of the US mainland were done by any number of Kosmos sa tellites.

user314 > ttyymmnn 05/03/2019 at 13:32

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since Operation Desert Fox in 1988.

I think you mean 1998.

ttyymmnn > user314 05/03/2019 at 13:35

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I think I do. Thanks. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 05/03/2019 at 16:39

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One of the reason for pitot tube covers is mud daubers. For some reason, the wasps like to nest inside pitot tubes, rendering them inoperable. 

ttyymmnn > TheRealBicycleBuck 05/03/2019 at 16:59

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I recently read about a crash that was attributed to that. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 05/03/2019 at 17:17

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Interesting. Planes will still fly without an airspeed indicator. What was the eventual cause? Did they not pull up at takeoff?

ttyymmnn > TheRealBicycleBuck 05/03/2019 at 19:24

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I don’t remember. I just remember hearing about wasp nests in pitot tubes and critical openings. 

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn 05/04/2019 at 15:30

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Like TRBB said, that is weird. Pitot tubes don’t have any impact on the ability of the plane to fly. 

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW 05/04/2019 at 15:33

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We’re all assuming my memory is correct....

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn 05/04/2019 at 19:53

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Well it can be a contributing factor to a perfectly good airplane crashing. Like AF  447.

Only Vespas... > ttyymmnn 05/07/2019 at 00:24

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Hey, great job this month of editing the events of the history of aviation. I do so look forward to each Week in Aviation. One little glitch is in your Dauntless segment.The photo labeled depicting an A-24 is clearly an S BD. That arresting hook. Those Navy squadron markings. FYI the A-24 was built by Douglas in Tulsa in the same facility that built the B-24, A-26, modified B-47s and A4Ds which later served for Argentina against the British in the Falklands.

ttyymmnn > Only Vespas... 05/07/2019 at 01:44

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Thank you for the kind words, and thanks for reading. Now, about that photo.

I don’t remember where I found it , but that photo has been in my desktop collection for ages, and a GIS identifies the aircraft as an A-24 (I must admit, I never even noticed the tail hook). After some digging, i t turns out that it’s actually a modern B&W photo of an aircraft owned by the Commemorative Air Force and was taken in Harlingen in 1980 (back when it was known as the Confederate Air Force) . The aircraft was registered N54532 at the time of the photo , and is now registered N82GA. It’s based in Georgia and now has a later US Navy livery . Here’s a color picture of the a/c in the livery from the B&W photo, and below it, one of the current livery.

But something still didn’t quite add up. I kept seeing this aircraft referred to as an A-24. So   more internet sleuthing led me to Wikipedia (not necessarily the most accurate source, but also not always wrong). Wikimedia Commons has the following photograph, with attached description:

A Douglas A-24B-10-DT Dauntless (USAAF s/n 42-54532) of the Confederate Air Force (today: Commemorative Air Force) at Ottumwa, Iowa (USA). This aircraft was operated by the Mexican government as an aerial photography platform after World War II. Acquired by American Ed Maloney in 1965, it was subsequently purchased by the Confederate Air Force in 1970. The aircaft was painted as a U.S. Navy SBD-3 in early 1942 (as shown). Between 1991 and 1999 it underwent an extensive restoration and it is currently painted in the markings of an SBD-5 flown at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944.

I’m not sure why it’s called an A-24 Dauntless instead of an A-24 Banshee . So I searched “usaaf s/n 42-54532" and found an Excel database of serial numbers that lists USAAF s/n 42-54532, but identifies it as an SBD-5. It also gives the following information:

A-24B-10-DT 42-54532 USAAF, NL94513 (1947), _____ FAM, XB-QUC (by 1960), N54532 (1970), to Confederate Air Force (1979/10), gear retracted on landing roll at Rockford IL (1981/7/3), restored (1995-1999), N82GA (1996/8), first post-restoration flight (1999/2)

It’s my understanding that the A-24 was basically a rebadged SBD-5, but without the arrestor hook and with an inflated rear tire.

A t the end of the night (it’s late, and I have to go to bed) , my best guess is that this aircraft began life in 1942 as an A-24B Banshee belonging to the USAAF , survived the war, went to Mexico, was repatriated to the US in 1970 , and then restored as a US Navy SBD-5 . Therefore , based on prima facie evidence , you are correct. However, based on the s/n, I am correct, though I wouldn’t have known it from the photo alone . I propose we call it a friendly draw .

I appreciate your attention to detail, and I’ll have to find another photo of an actual A-24, though I really liked that one for the way it displayed the dive brakes. Thank you for bringing it to my attention . C orrections are always welcome, and I really enjoyed digging into the history of this aircraft .

And thanks again for reading.

Darkbrador > TheRealBicycleBuck 05/07/2019 at 14:24

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hence the “instruments in the green, airspeed is alive” check while you roll on for take off ... 

Only Vespas... > ttyymmnn 05/07/2019 at 18:18

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Of course! I assumed the photo was vintage. [love the dive brakes display]

All bets are off if it was a modified contemporary warbird. With AT-6s mo dded to look like Vals [Aichi D3A] and all sorts of incorrect markings who’s to say?