This Date in Aviation History: June 12 - June 14

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 06/14/2019 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 June 12 through June 14.

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(Tim Shaffer)

June 12, 1994 – The first flight of the Boeing 777. As the commercial airline industry progressed through the 1950s and 1960s, airliners got longer but not necessarily wider. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! dominated the market, but they were limited to six-across seating, and there were practical limits on just how long an aircraft could be made. International airlines clamored for higher passenger loads, so the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! responded with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the world’s first !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airliner, which entered service in 1970. They followed the 747 with the narrow-body !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and wide-body !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in response to new airliners manufactured by their main rival !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and both the 757 and 767 were immediately successful and continue flying today, though in decreasing numbers.

Following Boeing’s pioneering launch of the 747, Douglas followed suit with their own wide-body !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and Lockheed introduced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , both of which were three-engined trijets. However, Boeing found themselves with a gap in passenger capacity between the 767 and 747, so they began to develop their own trijet to fill the void. But advances in engine technology meant that transoceanic flights could now be made with airliners that had only two engines, and airlines had begun flying the twinjet 767 regularly on long intercontinental routes. So Boeing dropped the trijet concept and went instead with an enlarged 767, which they called the 767X. They also proposed a 767 with a larger cross-section while retaining the commonality of the earlier 767 cockpit. But the airlines weren’t interested, saying that they wanted an even wider fuselage with more interior options, intercontinental range, and lower operating costs.

So Boeing went back to the drawing board and developed an entirely new airliner, the first to be designed entirely using !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (CAD) and Boeing’s first to use !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! controls. Boeing also allowed their potential customers to have a say in the design and development of the aircraft. Based on their input, Boeing offered 9-across seating in coach with the ability to accommodate as many as 325 passengers. To make room for all the seats and cargo, Boeing designed the 777 as the first airliner with a fully circular cross section and the largest twinjet in the world. The 777 comes with engine options from Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce and General Electric, with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! being the largest and most powerful high bypass turbofan in use today, producing 115,000 pounds of thrust. An even larger engine will be made available with the launch of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 2019. In a three-class seating arrangement, the 777-300ER, the most popular variant, can accommodate nearly 400 passengers with a range of 8,400 miles. The 777-200LR is capable of even greater range, and can fly halfway around the globe without refueling.

On May 15, 1995, United Airlines received the first 777, powered by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines, and the first revenue flight took place on June 7, 1995 from London Heathrow to Dulles International in Washington, DC. British Airways debuted the first GE90-engined 777 in November of that year, while Thai Airways International received the first 777 to be powered by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines in March 1996. Today, the Triple-Seven is flown by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! worldwide, with Dubai-based Emirates operating the lion’s share of aircraft with 161 in the air. United Airlines is a distant second with 88 in service. Before the arrival of the Airbus A350-900 flying a route for Singapore Airlines from Newark to Singapore, 777s of Qatar Airlines held the record for the longest passenger flight, from Qatar to New Zealand, a distance of 9,032 miles.

Currently, Boeing has received orders for nearly 2,000 777s of all variants, with over 1,950 deliveries, though only the 777-300ER, 777F freighter remain in production. Boeing has plans for further development of the 777 with its 777X program, which will see new carbon-fiber-reinforced wings for greater efficiency and folding wingtips for complete airport gate compatibility. The cabin will also be widened and enhanced based on experience learned from development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Two variants of the 777X—the 777-8 and 777-9—are expected to enter service in 2020.

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June 12, 1944 – The first V-1 flying bomb falls on England. The V-1 flying bomb, along with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ballistic rocket, were known to the Germans as Vergeltungswaffen , or retaliatory weapons . The Allies often referred to them as vengeance weapons, and when guided bombs began appearing in the skies in the final year of the war, the V-weapons were often seen as the last gasp of a desperate Germany as it faced the inevitable prospect of losing WWII. But the history of the V-1 actually began began three years before the war with the work of German engineer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! who developed a remotely-controlled aircraft in 1936. In 1939, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!   (German Air Ministry) received a proposal for a flying bomb that could carry a 2,200-pound payload over 300 miles, but it was plagued with inaccuracy. Even though most of the problems with the guidance system were worked out by 1941, Adolf Hitler did not approve the project until June 1944, soon after the Allied invasion of occupied Europe on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

A cutaway drawing shows the compass in the nose, the warhead, fuel tank, and compressed air tanks to power the gyroscopes and pressurize the fuel. (Imperial War Museum)

The V-1 featured a welded sheet metal fuselage, plywood wings, and was powered by a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine, the first of its kind to power an aircraft. The pulsejet had a distinctive sound as it flew, and the Allies nicknamed the V-1 “buzz bomb” and “doodlebug.” As the progenitor to the modern cruise missile, the V-1 was controlled in flight by an internal gyroscope. A propeller-driven odometer measured the distance the missile was to fly, and then explosive bolts disabled the control system and the flying bomb dove towards the target. Though fairly inaccurate at first, refinements in the control system eventually enabled the V-1 to strike with an accuracy of roughly seven miles around the intended target. This certainly wasn’t accurate enough for use as a tactical weapon, but as a strategic weapon of terror, it was close enough, as most of its targets were large cities and their civilian populations. At the peak of operation, more than 100 V-1s per day were fired at southeast England, but continuing problems with guidance systems and poor engine reliability meant that only about 25-percent of the buzz bombs actually reached their targets. Nevertheless, over 6,000 British civilians fell victim to the V-1. In addition to the ground-launched bombs, about 1,200 V-1s were also air-launched from modified !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which increased the bomb’s operational range.

A V-1 falls on London on June 15, 1944. (US Air Force)

When the first V-1s appeared over England, the only aircraft fast enough to intercept the low-flying bombs was the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though eventually !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! were modified to increase their speed. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! also proved relatively effective, and the early jet-powered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! claimed a handful of buzz bombs as well. The relatively small size of the V-1 made it a difficult target for guns, and the most effective method to stop the V-1s was to fly alongside, put a wingtip underneath the V-1's wingtip, then flip the flying bomb over, causing it to crash.

A Supermarine Spitfire uses its wing to tip over a V-1 in flight. (Imperial War Museum)

As the Allies started retaking France and began capturing territory in Germany, they overran the V-1 launch sites and the number of attacks dropped sharply. Towards the end of the war, V-1s were launched against Antwerp and other sites in Belgium before the final launch site was captured in October 1944. While the bombs themselves weren’t terribly effective, the attacks did cause the Allies to divert about a quarter of their bomber force to attack the launch sites, often without effect. By the end of V-1 operations, 9,521 buzz bombs had been launched against England and Belgium, an impressive number that nevertheless had a negligible affect on the ultimate outcome of the war.

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Short Takeoff

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(NASA)

June 12, 1979 – The Gossamer Albatross flies across the English Channel. Designed and built by American aeronautical engineer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and built by his company !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Albatross was the first human-powered aircraft to cross the English Channel, claiming the second !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! along with its £100,000 purse. The Albatross was MacCready’s second human-powererd aircraft after the earlier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which had won the first Kremer prize in 1974 for completing a one-mile figure-eight course. Powered and flown by amateur cyclist and hang glider pilot !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Albatross completed the 22.2-mile crossing in 2 hours and 49 minutes at a top speed of 18 mph and an altitude of just 5 feet.

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June 12, 1965 – The first flight of the Britten-Norman Islander, a light utility aircraft, regional airliner and cargo aircraft, and one of the best-selling commercial aircraft produced in Europe. Designers !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! developed the Islander to satisfy a demand for an inexpensive twin-engine transport, and sought to produce an aircraft that was capable of carrying heavy loads while still being simple to maintain. With 1,280 built since 1965, the Islander has proven to be a tremendous success, and it remains in production today. The Islander was developed into numerous variants, and serves with the British Army and UK police forces, as well as over 30 military operators and many civilian operators worldwide.

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June 12, 1934 – The Air Mail Act of 1934 is enacted. As a result of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of the 1930s, and following congressional investigations into the awarding of Air Mail contracts to certain airlines, the Air Mail Act reintroduced competitive bidding for lucrative air mail routes and prevented aircraft manufacturers from operating passenger airlines. The new act superseded the earlier act of 1930, and resulted in the restructuring of the airline industry, brought new regulations for passenger flight, and spurred the modernization of the US Army Air Corps. To circumvent the new restrictions, aircraft manufacturers simply changed their names, resulting in the creation of American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Eastern Airlines and United Airlines.

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June 12, 1930 – The first flight of the Handley Page Heyford, a biplane night bomber developed to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in RAF service. The Heyford arose from the 1927 Air Ministry specification B.19/27 which called for a heavy night bomber that could carry 1,546 pounds of bombs at a range of 920 miles. The Heyford’s two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! 12-cylinder engines provided a top speed of 142 mph. As the last biplane bomber to serve the RAF, the Heyford displayed an interesting mixture of both WWI-era and more modern construction, with metal frame, fabric-covered wings supporting an aluminum monocoque forward fuselage, and a fabric-covered tail. The Heyford, named for the base where it was first deployed, entered service in 1933 and eventually filled nine squadrons by the end of 1936. With the arrival of more modern monoplane bombers by 1937, the Heyford was retired in 1939.

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(NASA)

June 13, 1993 – The death of Donald Kent “Deke” Slayton. Slayton was born on March 1, 1924 in Sparta, Wisconsin and enlisted in the US Army Air Forces in 1942 where he trained as a bomber pilot flying the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Following the war, Slayton served as a test pilot and, in 1958, was selected as a member of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , America’s first group of astronauts. Due to an irregular heartbeat, Slayton was the only member of the group never to fly a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! mission, but he remained in NASA service as the Chief of the Astronaut Office and later as the Director of Flight Crew Operations. Slayton finally went to space as a member of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that saw a Soviet and an American spacecraft dock together in Earth orbit. Slayton played a managerial role in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and retired from NASA in 1982.

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(NASA)

June 13, 1983 – Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the Solar System. The Pioneer 10 space probe was developed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to explore Jupiter. Launched on March 3, 1972, Pioneer 10 reached the largest planet in our Solar System in November 1973 and transmitted roughly 500 images as it passed as close as 82,000 miles to the planet. Following its successful flyby of Jupiter, Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to achieve !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! from the Solar System. On January 23, 2003, at a distance of 12 billion kilometers from Earth, radio communications were lost when the transmitter ran out of electrical power. If left undisturbed, Pioneer 10 will continue towards the star !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! more than 68 light years away, though it will take more than two million years to reach the star at its current velocity.

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Captain John Testrake with unidentified hijacker. (Author unknown)

June 14, 1985 – The hijacking of TWA Flight 847, a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (N64339) flight from Cairo to San Diego with scheduled stops in Athens, Rome, Boston and Los Angeles. After taking off from Athens, the flight was hijacked by members of the groups !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! who were seeking the release of 700 Shi’ite Muslim prisoners in Israeli custody. The hijackers diverted the flight to Beirut, then Algiers, where 20 hostages were released. Then it flew back to Beirut, where more armed hijackers boarded the plane, then flew again to Algiers, and finally to Beirut once more. There, the remaining hostages were released, though one passenger, US Navy diver !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , was executed and his body dumped on the tarmac in Beirut. Israel released the 700 prisoners, though they claimed that it was not a result of the hijacking. The Arleigh Burke -class destroyer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (DDG-63) was named in honor of Robert Stethem, and the highjacking served as the inspiration for the 1986 film !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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June 14, 1945 – The first flight of the Avro Tudor, a piston-powered airliner derived from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber and Britain’s first pressurized airliner. Though a successful design in its own right, the Tudor was seen by the airlines as nothing more than a pressurized !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which had garnered much success since its introduction in 1942, and customers showed more interest in the American airliner. Where the DC-4 featured a tricycle landing gear, the Tudor’s tail-dragger arrangement was seen as less desirable. Though the Tudor was continuously upgraded by more powerful engines and greater carrying capacity, only 38 were built, and it served mainly with British carriers. The Tudor did serve as the basis for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbojet powered airliner, but that aircraft was never intended for production.

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Alcock and Brown lift off from Newfoundland (Author unknown)

June 14, 1919 – Capt. John Alcock and Lt. Arthur Whitten-Brown complete the first nonstop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. In 1913, the London newspaper Daily Mail offered a prize of £10,000 for the first aviators to cross the Atlantic ocean in less than 72 hours. The contest was suspended during WWI, but then restarted in 1918. Flying a modified !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber, Alcock and Brown took off from Lester’s Field in Newfoundland and headed for Ireland, the closest point from North America. Flying through thick fog, rain, and snow, and battling equipment failures that left their aircraft unheated and difficult to control, the team nearly crashed twice before a rough landing in Clifden, Ireland 16-and-a-half hours later after covering nearly 2,000 miles of open ocean. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Secretary of State for Air, awarded Alcock and Brown the cash prize, and the pair was also awarded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by King George V.

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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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Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 12:49

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I believe that the 777 was the first Boeing jetliner with a circular fuselage. Other wide bodies have used this in the past, most notably the A300, but it was the first time Boeing used this in a fuselage.

BahamaTodd > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 13:05

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I knew about the 777 since it has always been a favorite of mine, but I guess the time around my birthday (June 12) is pretty popular for aero nautics.

Too bad the 777x continues to be delayed. They could have aimed for the 12th again, and now they’re also going to miss the Paris Air Show.

I still remember watching the PBS special about the 777 when it first came out. I think it was every Monday night at 8.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168444/

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuRtndaei9jr5YGEff9DA1YsAXigIO4jg

ttyymmnn > BahamaTodd 06/14/2019 at 13:27

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Fun fact about the GE9X: the engine diameter is greater than the diameter of a 737.

https://oppositelock.kinja.com/the-largest-jet-engine-in-de-vooorld-1820987446

facw > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 13:44

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Pretty amazing to think that we went from this:

To this:

in just 5 years

facw > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 13:46

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Seriously, this is a real plane:

user314 > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 14:01

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Interesting that within three weeks of the first V-1 hitting London the US had a reverse-engineered pulse-jet built and being tested at Wright-Pat, and was testing the Republic-Ford JB-2 , a near-faithful copy of the Buzz Bomb by October ‘44. The war in Europe ended before the JB-2 was ready, but plans were in motion to use Loons as part of the invasion of Japan (OPERATION Downfall). JB-2s were to be launched from LSTs and ground installations, and tests were carried out launching them from B-17s, B-29s, and subs.

ttyymmnn > facw 06/14/2019 at 14:22

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And that is a real big engine.

ttyymmnn > user314 06/14/2019 at 14:26

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That B-17 photo is wild. I’d never seen it before. I wonder how the handling was with those two buzz bombs hanging off the wing. Thanks for posting.

facw > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 14:32

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Cairo to San Diego with scheduled stops in Athens, Rome, Boston and Los Angeles

I’m curious where else this flight usually stopped. Rome > Boston is like twice the range of 727. You couldn’t even do it via Iceland or the Azores (maybe with the advanced model?) . Boston > LA would also be too far. Did they serve a single “flight” with multiple aircraft? Otherwise it seems like you’d have to be doing Rome > Shannon > Gander > Boston or something.

user314 > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 14:38

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I’d really like to see a shot of a B-29 with a pair of Loons, but so far this is the best one I’ve found:

...... I’m now really having to talk myself out of picking up a pair of 1/72 Loon kits along with a B-29. I have too many unbuilt kits now....

Supposedly the Navy worked up procedures to launch their version of the Loon from Privateers , but there’s no indication they ever actually tested them.

ttyymmnn > facw 06/14/2019 at 14:46

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No idea, but it’s a good question. Admittedly, I got that from Wiki. 

user314 > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 14:48

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Make it b igger!

ttyymmnn > user314 06/14/2019 at 15:04

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BahamaTodd > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 15:34

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Actually got to get up pretty close to the GE90 on an Air Canada 777-300ER in Shanghai since t hey didn’t have any gates available and had to bus us to the plane .

Yes, its big.

ttyymmnn > BahamaTodd 06/14/2019 at 15:52

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Thanks for the documentary link. I’ll enjoy watching that.

facw > user314 06/14/2019 at 16:35

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Not to ignore your joke, but as long as we are doing KLM, TU Delft recently proposed this, which they say will cut fuel consumption 20%:

user314 > facw 06/14/2019 at 16:45

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I saw an article over on Ars about that; I’m dubious about it.

facw > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 16:49

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Not quite the same, but when looking at building a larger 767, Boeing did consider attaching a section of 757 cabin at the top rear of a 767:

ttyymmnn > facw 06/14/2019 at 17:03

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It’s a good thing they didn’t. That thing is fugly. 

ttyymmnn > facw 06/14/2019 at 18:13

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Is that model in the Prologue Room at Boeing  in St. Louis?

BahamaTodd > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 18:49

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I’ve also started watching it again. Some interesting comments starting at 32:15.

* Cough*MCAS

ttyymmnn > BahamaTodd 06/14/2019 at 20:16

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“Fly like a conventional airplane from a pilot’s point of view.”

I remember watching some documentary about plane crashes, and they interviewed a Lufthansa pilot who talked about how Boeing still used a yoke rather than a side stick, in a nod to Boeing’s more pilot-focused design ethos. I think that statement above means that Boeing was going to keep the pilot as the primary flyer, and not the computer. I think MCAS, if it had stayed in its original form, would have kept control in the hands of the pilot. After all, it was only designed to make the MAX mimic the NextGen in certain flight regimes. In fact, Boeing engineers at first said that it would probably never come into play. But then it morphed into something significantly more powerful and nobody bothered to look at all the possible worst-case scenarios. Boeing lost its way, and I hope they find it soon.

facw > ttyymmnn 06/14/2019 at 21:03

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Somewhere in St. Louis.

ttyymmnn > facw 06/14/2019 at 23:30

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This is the Prologue Room at Boeing HQ in St. Louis. We visited in 2017.

I was particularly fascinated by this this “aquaeroplane”  drawing signed by Donald Douglas.

facw > ttyymmnn 06/15/2019 at 09:53

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Hmm, apparently I lied. I misremembered, this wall is apparently in Everett: https://aviationweek.com/blog/boeings-wonder-wall