This Date in Aviation History: June 13 - June 16

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 06/16/2020 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 13 through June 16.

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(US Air Force)

June 15, 1945 – The first flight of the North American F-82 Twin Mustang. When the airwar against the Japanese Empire began in the early stages of WWII, the only way for the Allies to attack targets on the Japanese mainland was by flying over the Himalayas from Burma and India. But as the war progressed, the Allies carried out their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! campaign to seize Japanese-held islands in the Pacific Ocean, building airfields closer and closer to the Japanese homeland, and making it easier for long-range bombers to reach their targets. However, the US still did not have a fighter that was capable of escorting bombers on long over-water missions, some of which could last up to eight hours. Even fighters that proved to be excellent long-range escorts in Europe, such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , were unable to accompany the bombers on these long flights. And, even if the fighters were able to make the flight, such long missions put an enormous strain on a single pilot. What the US Army Air Forces in the Pacific needed was a fighter with extreme range, but also one with excellent maneuverability, and a second pilot to help with navigation over vast expanses of open ocean.

Front view of North American XF-82 fitted with 445-gallon centerline drop tank, ten 5-inch rockets, a 110-gallon drop tank and a chemical tank. Note the six .50 caliber machine guns in the center wing section. (US Air Force)

Using the remarkable P-51 Mustang as the starting point, North American began work in 1943 on a fighter with an unrefueled range of 2,000 miles. Design Chief !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! began with two P-51H fuselages that had been lengthened behind the cockpit to allow for the installation of additional fuel and other equipment. The fuselages were then connected by a central wing section that housed six .50 caliber machine guns for heavy concentrated fire, while the outer wings were strengthened to carry additional ordnance. The vertical stabilizer was also enlarged to improve single-engine handling. Both cockpits were outfitted with full controls, an arrangement that allowed the two pilots to take turns flying on long missions. A night fighter variant, the F-82F, was fitted with a large radome under the center wing section, and the right cockpit became the radar operator’s station.

The F-82 Betty Jo departs from Hickam Field, Hawai’i on a record-breaking flight to New York. (US Air Force)

The F-82 was originally powered by two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! V-12 engines, but the Air Force wanted the Twin Mustang to be powered by American engines. So the Merlins were replaced by less powerful !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines for full production, and the earlier Merlin-powered aircraft were converted to trainers, creating the unique situation where the trainer aircraft were actually faster than the production fighters. The F-82 was finally adopted by the Air Force in the summer of 1945, but WWII ended soon after and orders were cut drastically. With no immediate wartime mission, the true long-range capability of the Twin Mustang was dramatically demonstrated in February 1947 when an F-82B named Betty Jo flew from Hawaii to New York without refueling, covering 5,051 miles and setting a record for piston-engined fighters that still stands.

North American F-82F Twin Mustang night fighter. Note the radome mounted under the center wing section. (US Air Force)

Though the F-82 was too late to service in WWII, there was still work for the unique aircraft to do. It’s long range made it well-suited to escort early Cold War bombers of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Had the Cold War turned hot, Twin Mustangs would have been capable of taking off from London for an escort mission to Moscow, with enough fuel for 30 minutes of loiter time over the target, then a return flight to England. The F-82 was also one of the first American fighters to see action in the skies over Korea, and was responsible for downing the first three enemy aircraft of the war. The Twin Mustang was retired in 1953 after production of 272 aircraft. Only five F-82s survived scrap yard, and all but one of those are on display in museums or undergoing restoration. After a 10-year !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one Twin Mustang, an exceedingly rare preproduction XP-82 prototype, took its first post-restoration flight on January 28, 2019.

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The sole surviving Ar 234 on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. (Tim Shaffer)

June 15, 1943 – The first flight of the Arado Ar 234. In many ways, German military technology was far ahead that of the Allied powers, particularly in the area of jet-powered aircraft. The British eventually gained a measure of parity when they deployed the turbojet-powered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but it was the Germans who fielded the world’s first operational jet fighter in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and also the world’s first operational jet-powered bomber, the Arado Ar 234 Blitz .

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The history of the Blitz ( Lightning ) began in 1940, when the German Ministry of Aviation ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , or RLM) requested designs for a high-speed, jet-powered reconnaissance aircraft with a range of 1,340 miles. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was the only company to respond, and they offered their E.370 project. Though the range was less than what the RLM requested, the Ministry was still impressed with the design and ordered two prototypes. The Blitz featured a high, straight wing with one engine suspended underneath each wing. Similar to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the cockpit was placed directly at the front end of the fuselage, providing a sleek nose but also offering the pilot no rearward visibility. Initial designs had rearward-firing defensive machine guns that were aimed by a periscope in the cockpit, but the system was considered useless in practice and the guns were omitted from production aircraft. The periscope, however, was retained.

An early Ar 234 taking off from a rolling sled. Production aircraft used a tricycle landing gear. (Author unknown)

Original plans also called for the Ar 234 to take off from a three-wheeled trolley which was jettisoned after take off. After returning to base, the aircraft would land on retractable skids. This allowed the entire fuselage to be filled with fuel, but it also meant that returning bombers would be strewn around the airfield with no easy way to move them. Therefore, production aircraft were fitted with a traditional tricycle landing gear at the sacrifice of fuel capacity. With the fuselage crammed with fuel and landing gear, the Blitz had enough room left over for one bomb recessed under the fuselage, or one smaller bomb under each wing. Though the airframe was ready by the end of 1941, problems in development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines delayed the first flight until July of 1943. Later models replaced the Jumo, which was needed for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! jet fighter, with four !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines. This increased the power and speed, but only a handful were built before the war ended.

An Arado Ar 234 V8, with four BMW turbojets in place of the two Jumo engines. (Author unknown)

The Blitz finally entered service in 1944 as the world’s first operational jet bomber and, with a maximum speed of 459 mph, the Blitz outpaced all Allied piston-powered fighters of the time. It’s first combat mission was a reconnaissance flight over the Normandy beachheads in August of 1944, where it flew unmolested over the Allied positions and gained valuable intelligence on the landings. The Ar 234 also participated in attacks on the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! at Remagen, where the Allies had secured a crossing of the Rhine. However, the attacks were ineffective, and a number of bombers were lost to antiaircraft fire. Though the Ar 234 was used sparingly, it proved nearly impossible to intercept, and it was the last Luftwaffe aircraft to fly over England during the war. Fortunately for the Allies, only 210 aircraft were produced and, like the Me 262, the Ar 234 came too late to have a significant impact on the outcome of the war.

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Short Takeoff

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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 was selected in 1958 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. After returning to Beirut, more armed hijackers boarded the plane, and 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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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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(UK Ministry of Defence)

June 15, 1936 – The first flight of the Vickers Wellington, a twin-engine long-range strategic medium bomber designed in the 1930s to provide the RAF with a modern high-performance bomber. The Wellington was designed using the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! construction developed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that consisted of duralumin beams formed into a lattice then covered with fabric and dope. The construction technique gave the Wellington remarkable strength, and maintained integrity even when entire sections of the lattice were destroyed. Wellingtons carried out the first RAF bombing missions of WWII, and the bomber was eventually converted to a night bomber and maritime patrol aircraft. The Wellington was the only British bomber to be produced continuously throughout the war, and Vickers built 11,461 Wellingtons before production ended in 1945. The Wellington was retired in 1953.

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June 15, 1936 – The first flight of the Westland Lysander, a high-wing single-engine aircraft originally designed for the roles of liaison and co-operation (delivering messages and spotting for artillery) for the British army. Though soon rendered obsolete in the co-operation role, the Lysander’s excellent short takeoff and landing capabilities made it particularly well-suited for clandestine operations behind enemy lines, and it was often used to insert or extract Allied agents and to support the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! during the German !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of France. The Lysander also served as a target tug, and was widely exported to British allies around the world. Nearly 1,800 were produced before the type was retired by the British in 1946.

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(Author unknown)

June 15, 1916 – The first flight of the Boeing Model 1, a single-engine biplane seaplane and the first aircraft designed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Known also as the B&W Seaplane in recognition of its co-designer Lt. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Model 1 was of traditional wood frame construction braced by wire, and it resembled the Martin trainer owned by Boeing, though Boeing’s airplane had improved pontoons and a more powerful engine. Two aircraft were built and offered to the US Navy, and when the Navy chose not to adopt them, they were sold to the New Zealand Flying School, where they set a New Zealand altitude record of 6,500 feet. The aircraft, named Bluebill and Mallard , also became the first airmail planes in New Zealand.

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June 16, 1984 – The flight of the first all-female commercial airline flight crew. When !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was hired by Frontier Airlines in 1973, she was the only woman working as a pilot for a major US airline and. In 1976, she was the first female pilot to be promoted to captain. In the five years following her hire, the number of female pilots rose to 300. By chance, Warner’s name appeared on the pilot rotation paired with first officer Barbara Cookfor Flight 244, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! service from Denver, Colorado to Lexington, Kentucky. The flight marked the first time that an airliner cockpit was crewed by two women.

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(Author unknown)

June 16, 1963 – Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to fly in space. The Soviet Union scored a significant propaganda victory when it put !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! into space in 1961, just three weeks ahead of American !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . To follow that feat, the Soviets thought they could score another victory by being the first to put a woman into space. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one of five female cosmonauts, launched onboard !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and spent nearly three days in space, completing 48 orbits of the Earth. It would be 20 years before !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! became the first American woman in space (and third woman overall) when she launched onboard the Space Shuttle !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , just two days after the 20th anniversary of Tereshkova’s launch.

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(US Navy)

June 16, 1954 – The first flight of the Lockheed XFV, an experimental aircraft developed by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in an attempt to provide a fighter aircraft that could operate from the afterdecks of conventional warships. The XFV was designed to take off from a vertical position, transition to horizontal flight, then transition back to vertical and land on its tail. For testing, the XFV was fitted with long landing gear for a traditional horizontal take off, and while some transitions from level to vertical flight and hovering were undertaken, the XFV never took off vertically, due in large part to its underpowered engine. Only one XFV was completed before the project was canceled in 1955.

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Connecting Flights

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. You can find more posts about aviation history, aviators, and aviation oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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user314 > ttyymmnn 06/16/2020 at 13:30

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I have an Ar-234C Huckepack V-1 carrier in my (sadly now numbering in the double digits) stack of models to build.

I’ve built a P-82G night fighter, but I’m not sure if I still have it stored somewhere or if it got tossed during a purge .  

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 06/16/2020 at 14:26

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And if you wish to see an F-82 in person , go to the Lackland AFB Visitor’s Center in San Antonio.

ttyymmnn > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/16/2020 at 14:50

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The NMUSAF has two, one of which is the Betty Jo . Didn’t know that Lackland had one, though. Are those static displays inside the gate or out? Dyess AFB in Abilene has a fantastic airpark displaying their whole history, but it’s inside the gate and after 9/11 you can’t visit it without a military ID.

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 06/16/2020 at 15:04

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It looks like it’s inside the gate . I remember seeing this plane when I was 9 or 10. It was a hellaciously hot day. We were there with a friend of my mom’s. Her daughter was in the Air Force and was scheduled for some kind of surgery. We went along so she’d have someone to help with the long drive and for moral support. I was bummed because that trip was on my birthday and I didn’t get to have a party. The trip to the display helped make up for that.

Perhaps we were given passes because of our affiliation with this lady and her daughter. Maybe they open up that area for visitors. There’s a parking lot right next to the visitor center entrance and that’s right next to the static displays.

ttyymmnn > TheRealBicycleBuck 06/16/2020 at 15:15

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That was back in the day when you could fill out a form and be allowed access to the base. I think all you had to do was show your ID and proof of insurance. Osama bin Laden changed all that. Bastard. 

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 06/16/2020 at 15:22

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Looks like you need a sponsor these days.

https://www.jbsa.mil/Information/Gate-Hours-Visitor-Information/

glemon > ttyymmnn 06/17/2020 at 01:20

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Had no idea they made so many P-82s. I thought it was just a weird cool one off, last gasp  of the prop fighter planes.  Also interesting that adding basically another Mustang to a Mustang increases range.  Suppose it could carry a lot more fuel.

ttyymmnn > glemon 06/17/2020 at 09:16

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Lots more fuel. I think you are also getting the benefits of a twin engine airplane without so much airplane.