This Date in Aviation History: May 4 - May 6

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 05/06/2016 at 12:35 • Filed to: planelopnik, planelopnik history

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from May 4 - May 6.

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May 4-8, 1942 – The Battle of the Coral Sea. Ever since the first cannon was placed on a warship back in the 13th century, naval battles have been relatively close-up affairs. Ships had to within cannon range to bombard each other, with the eventual aim of boarding the enemy ship and finishing the job hand-to-hand. As the guns got bigger, the ships could duel from greater distances, but you still had to see the enemy to direct the most effective fire. But the arrival of the airplane in WWI had a profound affect on naval tactics. Far ranging aircraft could attack enemy ships from beyond the horizon, and the aircraft carrier soon supplanted the battleship as the center of naval strategy. Following the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , where Royal Navy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! biplane torpedo bombers flying from the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! sank battleships of the Italian Navy lying at anchor, and the Japanese aerial attack on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , it was clear that a sea change had occurred in naval warfare, and the Battle of the Coral Sea would mark the point where the airplane became the most powerful weapon in the world’s navies. In the months following Pearl Harbor, the Japanese continued to make territorial gains in the Pacific as the Allies struggled to slow them down. In order to strengthen their defensive positions and form a buffer zone against Australia, the Japanese carried out !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which called for the capture of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in New Guinea and an invasion of the island of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in the southeastern !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , near !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Japanese combined fleet included a carrier striking force based on the fleet carriers !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and a covering group including the light carrier !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The American and Australian opposition was centered around the carriers !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Arriving in the area on May 4, the Allies were too late to stop the invasion of Tulagi which took place on May 3. Still, Yorktown’s aircraft harassed the Japanese forces on the island, then the carrier turned south to join Lexington . For two days, the opposing fleets searched for each other unsuccessfully, but at 11:00 am on May 7, dive bombers from Yorktown and Lexington located the covering group and the carrier Shh . Swooping in on the attack, American !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! dive bombers struck the Shh , which eventually sank. The next morning, both sides located each other and launched attacks. The Japanese carrier Shkaku was disabled, and the American carrier Lexington was severely damaged. Though still afloat, she was later abandoned and then sunk by torpedoes from the destroyer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . While both sides lost an aircraft carrier, the Japanese could claim a tactical victory simply by the number and type of ships lost. With the sinking of the Lexington , the US had lost one-quarter of their carrier fleet, and following the withdrawal of Yorktown from the Solomons the Allies ceded the battlefield to the Japanese. However, from a strategic standpoint, the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first serious check on Japanese expansion in the South Pacific. The Allies prevented the capture of Port Moresby by sea, they kept open the vital supply lines to Australia, and the simple fact that the Allies were able to stand toe-to-toe against the seemingly unstoppable Japanese provided them with a strong boost to national morale. And for the first time in history, a battle had been carried out between two opposing naval forces in which no two capital ships ever sighted each other nor engaged each other directly. The airplane had become the dominant weapon in the world’s oceans. Just one month later, Japanese and American carriers would face off again in the pivotal !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , in which American warplanes would sink all four Japanese heavy carriers, shifting the balance of power and turning the tide of the Pacific War decisively in the American’s favor. ( Death of the Shoho illustrated for US Navy by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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May 6, 1941 – The first flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. From its inception in WWI up until the middle of WWII, the single-engine fighter generally was, by design, a relatively small aircraft. Designers and fighter pilots believed that a smaller, lighter aircraft would more agile and more maneuverable in the air. Fighters such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! are perhaps the finest examples of this way of thinking. So when the enormous P-47 Thunderbolt arrived on the scene, weighing in at 10,000 pounds (about 2,500 pounds more than a P-51, and fully twice the weight of a Spitfire), pilots were skeptical. But that skepticism would be proven wrong, and the Thunderbolt would find a place as one of the greatest fighters of the war. But the P-47 didn’t start out as a huge aircraft. It traces its roots back to 1939, when Republic proposed the development of a lightweight fighter, similar in size and capability to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which had been rejected by the US Army Air Corps. The Army wasn’t interested in Republic’s proposal either, so designer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! continued work on the design, and the aircraft gradually got bigger and bigger as more guns were added to it. The proposal now called for two .50 caliber machine guns in the nose and eight .50 caliber guns in the wings, and the fighter was to have been powered by an Allison V-12 engine turning a 10-foot diameter propeller. But as development progressed, reports from the front lines in Europe indicated that even this aircraft would not be adequate for the Army’s needs. Kartveli now proposed a massive fighter that would be powered by a supercharged 18-cylinder !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engine, the same engine that was used in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and would also power the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . In a nod to the importance of the supercharger, its design and layout were actually developed first, and the airplane was essentially built around it. Though the supercharger ended up in the tail of the aircraft, it actually proved to be quite successful, and rarely suffered any battle damage. The 10-foot diameter propeller of the P-47's predecessor gave way to a massive 12-foot diameter Curtiss Electric !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . But the huge prop created design difficulties of its own, as the landing gear needed to be long enough to keep the prop from striking the ground. Kartveli’s team solved that by creating a telescoping strut that extended by 9 inches after it was lowered. Early models of the P-47 used a razorback canopy configuration, but pilots complained about the poor visibility in the arrangement. To help increase pilot visibility, the British fitted a P-47 with a bubble canopy taken from a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and soon all Thunderbolts were built with such a canopy, becoming the definitive model through the rest of the war. Nearly two years of testing followed the Thunderbolt’s first fight, and the P-47 flew its first combat missions in April of 1943. Pilots who were dubious of the huge fighter at first soon discovered that the Thunderbolt, or Jug as it came to be affectionately known, could out dive anything in the sky, and its rugged construction became legendary for bringing pilots home after suffering massive battle damage. Although initially supplanted by the P-51 in the bombers escort mission, the P-47 eventually regained that role as continued development increased its range, and many Thunderbolts would escort bombers to the target and then drop down near the ground on the return flight to attack targets of opportunity along their path with machine guns, bombs or rockets. With the end of the war, orders for 6,000 more P-47s were canceled, but by that time more than 15,600 had already been built, just beating out the Mustang as the most-produced American fighter in history. (Photo by Kogo via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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May 6, 1937 – The crash of the Zeppelin Hindenburg . Before transatlantic passenger aircraft became common around 1940, flying passengers across the Atlantic Ocean was the the bailiwick of the rigid airship. These “ocean liners of the sky” grew ever larger, with increasing ranges, culminating in the Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin II , the largest aircraft ever to take to the skies. The Hindenburg , German dirigible LZ-129 ( Luftschiff Zeppelin #129, registration D-LZ129) was a rigid airship and the lead ship of the Hindenburg class. Designed and built by the Zeppelin Company !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ), Hindenburg was named after the late Field Marshal !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the President of Germany from 1925-1934 and was constructed of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! frame fitted with 16 cotton gas bags. The outer skin of the dirigible was made of cotton fabric that was covered with a reflective coating meant to protect the gas bags from ultraviolet and infrared radiation. Power for the Hindenburg was provided by four 16-cylinder !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! diesel engines which produced 1,200 hp each, and gave the airship a top speed of 85 mph. Hindenburg took its maiden flight on March 4, 1936, and was soon plying the route from Germany to America, with its first crossing of the Atlantic completed on May 6, 1936. That crossing set a record for the time, completing the voyage 64 hours, 40 minutes. Eastward transatlantic flights, with help from prevailing winds, averaged around 55 hours. Hindenburg was originally intended to be filled with helium, but at that time, helium was rare and came at an exorbitant cost. The Zeppelin designers knew they would have trouble obtaining helium from the US, where it was a byproduct of natural gas mining. When the US refused to lift the export ban on helium, the designers made the fateful decision to switch to hydrogen. They were confident this wouldn’t be a problem, as they had many years of safe, hydrogen-filled dirigible operations under their belt. On May 3, 1937, Hindenburg departed Frankfurt for a transatlantic crossing to Lakehurst, New Jersey. Slowed by strong headwinds, she arrived over New Jersey on May 7, but the landing was delayed by a line of thunderstorms. Hindenburg was finally cleared to land at about 7:00 pm. At 7:21 pm, shortly after dropping mooring lines to the ground crew, Hindenburg suddenly burst into flames and crashed next to the mooring mast, and within thirty seconds, Hindenburg had been reduced to a smoldering wreck of twisted, charred metal. Thirty-five passengers and crew died in the crash and flames, and one man on the ground was killed. The cause of the crash has been the topic of much debate and remains somewhat of a mystery to this day. Some suspect sabotage, while others suggest atmospheric conditions could have played a role in the explosion and fire. One of the more plausible theories is that hydrogen gas leaking from one of the cells was ignited by static electricity. During Hindenburg’s landing, witnesses reported seeing large amounts of water ballast being dumped, which could indicate a significant leak of hydrogen that caused the airship to descend more rapidly than normal. After the crash, the duralumin hulk was returned to Germany where it was recycled for use in the construction of Luftwaffe aircraft. The crash marked the effective end of transatlantic Zeppelin transport, despite a long list of passengers who were still willing to cross the ocean in an airship. With WWII under way in Europe, Graf Zeppelin II was scrapped in 1940, its duralumin frame also going to support the war effort. (US Navy photo)

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Short Take Off

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May 4, 1982 – Argentine fighters sink the Royal Navy guided missile destroyer HMS Sheffield . As part of the British response to the Argentine !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of the Falkland Islands, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (D80) was attacked by two !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! fighters armed with French-made !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! anti-ship missiles. One of the missiles struck Sheffield amidships just above the waterline, killing 20 crew members and injuring 20 others, and starting fires that burned unchecked for days after the ship was abandoned. Sheffield eventually sank on May 10. Sheffield was one of four ships lost in the conflict, two of which were struck by Exocet missiles. England eventually prevailed in the conflict, and retained control of the disputed islands. (Photo by Martin Clever/PA Archive)

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May 4, 1963 – The first flight of the Dassault Falcon 20. In 1961, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! approved the production of an eight- or ten-seat executive jet. The new plane was called the Dassault-Breguet Mystère 20, and the first prototype, registered F-WLKB, made its first flight at Bordeaux-Merignac. The Falcon 20 was the first of what is now an entire line of business jets that has been extremely successful for Dassault which now includes aircraft capable of intercontinental flight. In 1973, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! chose a Falcon 20 as the aircraft to start its package delivery service, and in 2012 a Falcon 20 became the first civilian jet to fly using biofuel. (Photo via !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )

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May 4, 1955 – The death of Louis Charles Bréguet, a pioneer in aviation notable for the design and production of numerous French aircraft. Bréguet built his first aircraft, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , in 1909, and was a pioneer in the development of metal aircraft, with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! reconnaissance biplane being built in large numbers and serving in WWI. Following the war, Bréguet founded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one of the world’s first airlines, a company which eventually evolved into Air France. Other notable Bréguet aircraft were the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! double-deck airliner and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! anti-submarine aircraft. In 1971, Bréguet merged with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to form Aviations Marcel Dassault-Bréguet Aviation . (Photo author unknown)

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May 5, 1961 – Alan Shepard becomes the first American and second person to fly in space. The first manned mission of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Shepard’s Freedom 7 capsule was launched atop a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and reached an altitude of 263.1 nautical miles in a flight that lasted 15-and-a-half minutes. Shepard named his ship Freedom 7 in honor of all !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , conveying a sense of teamwork rather than an individual accomplishment. Though the mission was a success, the nation was still stinging from the fact that the Russians had beaten the US into space by only 23 days, with cosmonaut !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! orbiting the Earth in his Vostok 1 space capsule on April 12, 1961. (NASA photo)

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May 5, 1948 – The McDonnel FH Phantom enters service with the US Navy, the first jet-powered aircraft to land on an American carrier and the first jet flown by the US Marine Corps. Designed in the waning days of WWII and too late to see action in that conflict, the FH Phantom was the first production aircraft for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a company that would go on to design some of the greatest American combat jets. The Phantom was only built in small numbers, but it proved the viability of jet operations from carriers and helped usher US Naval aviation into the Jet Age. Following the development of the more advanced !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , production on the FH Phantom was halted, cutting the program off at only sixty-two examples. The Phantom was retired from frontline service in 1949, though it flew with the US Naval Reserve until 1954. (US Navy photo)

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May 6, 2006 – The US Air Force retires the Hanoi Taxi , the last Lockheed C-141 Starlifter. The Starlifter was a strategic airlifter that entered service with the Air Force in 1965 and saw extensive service during the Vietnam War. Starlifter serial number 66-0177, known as the Hanoi Taxi , found fame as the aircraft that repatriated the first prisoners of war released from Vietnam as part of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1973. After the war, the Hanoi Taxi continued its regular airlift duties, and aided in the evacuation of victims of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 2005. With the scheduled retirement of the final eight Starlifters, veterans and former POWs were given the opportunity to fly in the Hanoi Taxi once more and, on its arrival at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the aircraft was enshrined into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (US Air Force photo)

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May 6, 1942 – The first flight of the Kawanishi N1K Kyf , originally developed as a floatplane fighter for the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII. When the floatplane version turned out to be ineffective, the N1K was developed into the N1K-J ( Shiden ), a land-based fighter known to the Allies as the George, and proved to be one of the most effective fighters of the war. It was heavily armed and highly maneuverable, and was equipped with a mercury switch that automatically extended the flaps, helping to decrease the turning radius during a dogfight. In battle, the Shiden proved a match for the best Allied fighters, but came too late in the war, and in insufficient numbers, to make a significant contribution to the Japanese war effort. (US Air Force photo)

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May 6, 1935 – The first flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk. A contemporary of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the P-36, also known as the Hawk Model 75, was an early example of the new generation of metal monoplane fighters. Introduced in 1938, the Hawk saw little service in WWII with the US Army Air Corps, but found great success as an export fighter, and was used with good effect by the French during the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . It is perhaps best known as the predecessor to its much more famous descendant, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Only 215 Hawks were built for the US Army Air Corps, but 900 were exported to international customers. The last Hawks were retired by the Argentine Air Force in 1954. (US Air Force photo)

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May 6, 1930 – The first flight of the Boeing Monomail. The Monomail, so named because of it monoplane design and its designed purpose as a mail plane, was an important development not only for its monoplane design but also for its all-metal construction, featuring a streamlined design that included fully-retractable landing gear. Eventually stretched to carry six passengers, the Monomail suffered from an underpowered engine and the lack of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and was soon surpassed by more modern designs. However, many of the technological advances made with the Monomail found their way into later Boeing designs, notably the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bomber and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . (Photo author unknown)

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Recent Aviation History Posts

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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!!! .

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Jcarr > ttyymmnn 05/06/2016 at 12:43

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I got to walk through the Hanoi Taxi during its retirement tour. It was pretty special. It was before I had a digital camera, though, so I don’t have any pictures handy.

MonkeePuzzle > ttyymmnn 05/06/2016 at 12:52

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its design and layout were actually developed first, and the airplane was essentially built around it. Though the supercharger ended up in the tail of the aircraft, it actually proved to be quite successful

had to go look that up, and wow, yeah, you can see the shape of the plane in this setup alone

MonkeePuzzle > ttyymmnn 05/06/2016 at 12:56

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Power for the Hindenburg was provided by four 16-cylinder Daimler-Benz DB 602 diesel engines which produced 1,200 hp each, and gave the airship a top speed of 85 mph

85mph! I did not expect that. that’s actually quite acceptable, especially in an age when a boat trip would be well less than half that speed, and even cars cross country would struggle to achieve such a speed

MonkeePuzzle > ttyymmnn 05/06/2016 at 13:07

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However, many of the technological advances made with the Monomail found their way into later Boeing designs, notably the YB-9 bomber and the P-26 Peashooter

such different planes the YB-9 and P-26 are to have shared tech with the monomail

ttyymmnn > MonkeePuzzle 05/06/2016 at 13:32

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Indeed. But the move to the all-metal monoplane would have profound effect on the history of the airplane. And as with so many things, the Germans did it first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_J…

ttyymmnn > MonkeePuzzle 05/06/2016 at 13:33

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That’s a great picture, thanks for posting. So much ducting!

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > MonkeePuzzle 05/06/2016 at 14:08

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That is just a phenomenal amount of air being moved around inside the Jug. It always blows my mind seeing how big WWII airplane turbos are.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 05/06/2016 at 14:09

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Warbirds always look best in polished aluminum. The P-36 and P-40 are such good looking little fighters.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 05/06/2016 at 14:19

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Truly the epitome of the classic late-30s form.

RallyWrench > ttyymmnn 05/06/2016 at 15:54

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Wow, lots of important events this week. A good read as always!

ttyymmnn > RallyWrench 05/06/2016 at 16:09

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Thanks! Some posts are definitely more interesting than others. But I can’t do anything about the calendar! A-10 is next week.

slipperysallylikespenguins > ttyymmnn 05/06/2016 at 19:12

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I had no idea that the Hindenburg was used to cross the Ocean, or that it crashed in the US. That would have been a really cool trip(except for the last one).

ttyymmnn > slipperysallylikespenguins 05/06/2016 at 19:59

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You shaved about a day off the Atlantic crossing with the Zeppelin. And that was from more inland German cities, while the ocean liners, of course, put in at sea ports. Transatlantic ocean crossings weren’t exactly luxury cruises, either. It was cold in the North Atlantic, so you didn’t get to bask in the sun on the lido deck. The age of the Zeppelin was relatively short, as it was soon supplanted by airliners, and halted by WWII, but for a time, it was THE way to travel between the US and Europe.