This Date in Aviation History: August 29 - August 31

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 08/31/2018 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 August 29 through August 31.

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August 29, 1970 – The first flight of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. In the 1960s, the US Air Force started looking for a large logistical aircraft as part of its CX-HLS program to replace the turboprop-powered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and to provide a larger strategic airlifter to complement to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Douglas began design studies to fulfill the Air Force request in 1967, but Lockheed was the eventual winner of that competition with their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Having put so much time and money into developing a new large military transport, Douglas hoped to salvage something from their efforts by transforming their new aircraft into a large passenger airliner.

he DC-10 prototype (N803U) on display at Lindbergh Field, now San Diego International Airport (San Diego Air and Space Museum)

Ever-increasing numbers of passengers on domestic and international air routes indicated a need for larger airliners, and the move to wide-body airliners was the next step in airliner development. Following the success of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the world’s first widebody airliner, American Airlines announced a specification in 1966 for an airliner that would be somewhat smaller than the 747 and capable of operations from shorter air strips while still maintaining a similar range and payload. Beginning with the work they had done for the Air Force, McDonnell Douglas (the two companies merged in 1967) initially considered a four-engine, double-decker arrangement before settling on a wide-body single-deck configuration with three engines and accommodations for about 400 passengers. The DC-10 marked the combined company’s first foray into commercial jet aviation, and the DC-10 has become one of the most recognizable tri-jet airliners. In 1968, American Airlines placed an order for 25 of the new airliners, followed by United Airlines with 30 orders and an option for 30 more. The first DC-10s entered service with American on August 5, 1971, and with United Airlines two weeks later.

But McDonnell Douglas wasn’t the only manufacturer offering a triple-engined wide-body. Lockheed entered the fray with their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , so McDonnell Douglas hoped to entice buyers by offering different engine configurations that provided different levels of range and economy based on the needs of the airline. The DC-10-10 model was considered the domestic version, while the DC-10-30 and DC-10-40 models were targeted at longer range international customers. Ultimately, the DC-10 far outsold the L-1011 because of delays in production and the higher cost of the Lockheed airliner. McDonnell Douglas ended up building a total of 386 DC-10s over a twenty-year production run, compared to 250 TriStars.

An F-16 Fighting Falcon from a KC-10 Extender of the 40th Flight Test Squadron, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida during Air & Space Power Expo ‘99. (US Air Force)

Early in its service life, the DC-10 garnered a reputation as an unsafe or dangerous aircraft. The airliner suffered a number accidents with the early versions of the aircraft, including the crash of American Flight 191 in Chicago which claimed 273 lives and remains the single worst aviation accident in the United States. But continuous upgrades and improvements eventually put the DC-10 on par with other airliners for safety and reliability. The McDonnell Douglas wide-body saw its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, though today it is flown primarily as a freighter. Following Boeing’s acquisition of McDonnell Douglas, some DC-1os have been fitted with updated avionics that remove the need for a flight engineer and have been redesignated as MD-10, while a stretched and upgraded version became known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The DC-10 was also converted into an aerial tanker for the US Air Force known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , with a total of 60 being built.  

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The first of three Northrop F-20 Tirghersharks adorned with Northrop livery (US Air Force)

August 30, 1982 – The first flight of the Northrop F-20 Tigershark. When the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! first flew the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1959, they were bucking a trend. Fighters of the day had become significantly more complex—and expensive—and Northrop’s little hot rod of a fighter would set the bar for capable fighter aircraft that were effective over the battlefield but not prohibititvely expensive to operate or to service. The F-5 became an excellent low-cost export for nations friendly to the US and eventually saw service in 31 nations. By the late 1970s, restrictions put in place by the US government prohibited the export of the latest American fighter planes for fear that American technology might fall into enemy hands. So the Air Force initiated the FX program to develop a new simple yet powerful fighter to take on the role that had been filled by so well by the F-5.

The first F-20, now in more military livery, flies alongside a second Tigershark with civilian registration (US Air Force)

Both !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! responded to the Air Force program. Northrop presented the F-5G, a further modernized and upgraded version of their venerable little fighter, and General Dynamics proposed the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a downgraded version of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! currently in production for the US Air Force. At first, it appeared that Northrop might have gotten its timing just right to fulfill the expected windfall of export orders, but political waffling in the US Congress and changing export guidelines eventually permitted General Dynamics to export the F-16, along with its advanced technology. Northrop needed to improve the F-5G to match the F-16’s performance in the hopes of winning an export contract of its own.

An F-20 in aggressor livery (US Air Force)

Part of that upgrade took the form of a change in branding. Many still saw the name “F-5" as denoting an inexpensive, second-tier aircraft meant for developing countries. So Northrop lobbied the Air Force to change the designation to F-20, and added the nickname Tigershark. To increase performance, the F-20 was fitted with the same !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! afterburning turbofan that was developed for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which gave the fighter a 60% improvement in thrust over the F-5G. It was also fitted with updated avionics and the ability to fire beyond-visual-range !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! air-to-air missiles, a capability that the F-16 was not able to match.

An F-20 fires an AGM-65 Maverick missile during a test flight (US Air Force)

Testing of the new fighter progressed admirably, and the Tigershark proved to be a formidable aircraft, providing at least as much punch as the F-16 but at a significantly lower cost. It’s single engine gave it a top speed of Mach 2, and it was armed with a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! cannons in the nose and five external hardpoints for a wide range of rockets, missiles and bombs. Ultimately, though, the F-20 proved to be a case of an excellent aircraft with tragically bad timing. With no support from the US government, changing export restrictions that favored the F-16, and a lack of any international buyers after most opted for the more advanced F-16, the F-20 was eventually canceled in 1986 after only three aircraft had been produced. Two of the prototypes were lost to crashes, and the third now resides at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Los Angeles.

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A trio of Vulcans painted in early anti-flash white in 1957 (RAF)

August 30, 1952 – The first flight of the Avro Vulcan. With the arrival of the turbojet engine by the end of WWII, military planners moved quickly to incorporate the new powerplant into their strategic and tactical bomber fleets. In England, development of new jet aircraft was also closely tied to their nascent nuclear weapons program, which began to take shape in 1947. But the British Air Staff was working to stay ahead of the government, and had issued Specification B.35/46 the previous year that called for the creation of a new strategic bomber that would have four jet engines, a cruising speed of 500 knots, and a ceiling of at least 55,000 feet. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! responded to the specification, with each making a unique aircraft that would eventually complement each other and end up serving side by side for many years. Handley Page offered their swept-wing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which served as a bomber, reconnaissance aircraft and aerial tanker until 1993, while Avro developed the delta-winged Vulcan. Along with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , these three aircraft became known as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and the types reached their heyday in the 1960s before slowly being supplanted by ballistic missiles and smaller aircraft with tactical nuclear munitions.

The Vulcan was one of the earliest planes to make use of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and, though delta wing designs matured later in the decade of the 1950s, their use was still novel and untested. To make sure their bomber would fly, Avro started out with a series of scale models to prove the concept. The first was the single-seat !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which first flew in 1949. Though that aircraft crashed, killing the pilot, more models of the 707 followed which solved the problems of handling and ultimately resulted in a very stable aircraft. These scale tests continued until 1952, when Avro finally flew their full-sized bomber for the first time. But concerns about the design remained, and the British government ordered the production of the Valiant in the event that the Vulcan was a failure. Those fears proved to be unfounded, and the Vulcan turned out to be an extremely stable and capable aircraft. After ironing out a few remaining issues, the B.1 model entered service in 1956, and the B.2, with a redesigned wing and more powerful engines, entered service in 1960.

An Avro Vulcan B.2 of the Waddington Wing leads a quartet of English Electric Lightning F.6s of 5 Squadron to mark the formation of RAF Strike Command in 1968 (RAF)

The Vulcan was originally conceived as a long-range nuclear deterrent, and its range was demonstrated during a round-the-world tour soon after the aircraft entered service. Aerial refueling capabilities were also added to further increase range. Though originally designed as a long range nuclear bomber, the Vulcan was also capable of carrying up to 21,000 lbs of conventional bombs. Vulcans saw their first and only combat action in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of 1982, flying an 8,000 mile round trip from tiny Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to bomb Argentine forces. Avro produced a total of 136 Vulcans from 1956-1965, and they were retired by the RAF in 1984. Seven Vulcans remain as museum pieces or ground demonstrators, and one was airworthy before its final retirement in 2015.

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(US Air Force)

August 31, 1956 – The first flight of the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker. In the days of the barnstormers, refueling one aircraft from another was a feat of daring, performed by a daredevil climbing from the wing of one aircraft to another with a can of gasoline strapped to his back. But the earliest successful and even remotely practical experiments with aerial refueling occurred in 1923, when one US Army Air Forces !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! biplane refueled another through a hose draped between the two aircraft. America’s first dedicated strategic tanker, the KC-97, a variant of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , entered service in 1951 but, as the US Air Force entered the jet age, it quickly became apparent that propeller-powered aerial tankers were not fast enough to keep up with the new jet-powered fighters and bombers.

The Dash 80 is rolled out of Boeing’s facility near Seattle, Washington in 1954 (National Air and Space Museum)

In 1954, the Air Force announced its intention to procure a modern tanker/transport aircraft to replace the KC-97, and both Boeing and Lockheed competed for the contract. Lockheed proposed the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a design with two rear-mounted engines, while Boeing offered their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , better known as the Dash 80, a proof-of-concept aircraft that would later be developed into the the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airliner. Though the Lockheed design was declared the winner, their aircraft was still on the drawing board while the Dash 80 was already flying and could be delivered two years ahead of the L-193. So the Air Force changed its mind and instead selected the Boeing design, which received the designation KC-135. (Boeing initially gave the aircraft the designation 717, and it actually predates the civilian 707 airliner.) Though the KC-135 and 707 look very similar, the KC-135 is shorter and narrower than its airliner sibling though, at least initially, they were both powered by the same !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! axial flow turbojet engines. Acting as both an aerial refueler and a cargo plane, the KC-135 could carry more than 31,000 pounds of fuel, a dramatic increase over the 14,900 pounds carried by the KC-97, and could accommodate up to 83,000 pounds of combined fuel and cargo.

A Boeing KC-135A Stratotanker refuels a Boeing B-52D Stratofortress (US Air Force)

In the strategic refueling role, the Air Force expected the KC-135 to provide refueling for long-range !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (SAC) bombers such as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . However, during the Vietnam War, the Air Force (and US Navy and US Marine Corps) learned that having tankers on station near the battlefield could dramatically extend the loiter time of fighters and attack aircraft. Planes that could once only spend minutes over a target could now stay aloft for hours with aerial refueling. So the KC-135, which was originally fitted only with the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! refueling probe used by Air Force aircraft, was modified to support the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! system in use by the Navy and Marine Corps and became an important tactical asset.

Passing the torch—and some fuel. A KC-135A Stratotanker refuels the prototype KC-135R, fitted with new high-bypass turbofan engines, in 1982 (US Air Force)

The Stratotanker has been continually upgraded throughout its service life, receiving more powerful and fuel efficient engines and improved avionics, and it provides refueling services the world over to this day. In ten years of production from 1955-1965, Boeing built just over 800 KC-135s, and it was exported in small numbers to Chile, France, Singapore and Turkey. The KC-135 is also one of only a small handful of aircraft to log over 50 years of service. In current service, the strategic refueling role has largely been supplanted by the larger !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , while the KC-135 has generally taken on the tactical refueling role. Starting in 2018, the KC-135 will begin to be replaced by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airliner.

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Short Takeoff

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(US Air Force)

August 29, 1947 – The first flight of the McDonnell XH-20 Little Henry, an experimental light helicopter developed for the US Air Force. Unlike traditional helicopters of the time that were powered by piston engines, the Little Henry was powered by small !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engines placed at the end of each of the two rotor blades. Even though the XH-20 flew successfully, the ramjet engines were found to be noisy and burned large amounts of fuel, and plans to develop a larger, two-seat helicopter, the XH-29, were abandoned. Two Little Henrys were built, and the first is displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.  

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(NASA)

August 30, 1984 – The first flight of Space Shuttle Discovery , the third of five !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! placed in service by NASA. Discovery’s first flight, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , took off from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Florida and returned to Edwards Air Force Base in California six days later after deploying a commercial communications satellite and performing scientific experiments. Discovery went on to serve for 27 years and spent a total of 365 days in space while completing 39 missions, including the placement of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! into Earth orbit. In all, Discovery traveled 149,000,000 miles and completed 5,830 orbits before its retirement in 2011. The orbiter is now on display at the Smithsonian’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in Virgina.

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(NASA)

August 30, 1983 – Guion “Guy” Bluford becomes the first African American to fly in space. Born on November 22, 1942 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Bluford obtained a degree in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree and PhD in aerospace engineering from the US Air Force Institute of Technology. He flew 144 combat missions in Vietnam, served as a flight instructor, and was chosen for the NASA astronaut corps in 1979. Bluford flew in space for the first time onboard the Space Shuttle !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the first Shuttle mission to both launch and land at night. With three other flights on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Bluford spent a total of 688 hours in space. He retired from NASA in 1993, and was inducted into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1997 and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 2010.

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August 30, 1969 – The first flight of the Tupolev Tu-22M, a long-range supersonic land and maritime bomber. Powered by a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbofans, the Tu-22M, NATO reporting name Backfire , is capable of a maximum speed of Mach 1.8 and employs a swing wing for high-speed flight. Developed from the notoriously poor !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the Backfire first became known to the West through satellite photos taken in 1970. It was unveiled in 1980, and soon began simulated attack missions against NATO naval forces. The Backfire made its first combat appearance over Afghanistan in 1987, where it served until 1989, and more recently flew in support of the Syrian government in 2015, missions which continue to this day, though it continues to suffer from poor construction and maintenance difficulties. A total of 497 were built from 1967-1997.

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August 30, 1913 – American inventor Lawrence Sperry successfully demonstrates the first autopilot. Developed by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1912, the first autopilot was a gyroscopic stabilizing device that hydraulically controlled the aircraft’s elevators and rudder and was capable of keeping an airplane level and on a compass course, thus greatly relieving pilot workload on long flights. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! demonstrated his autopilot in Paris in 1914, flying while holding his hands in the air to show that the autopilot was in fact in control of the aircraft. The first autopilots were used on American military aircraft by 1930 and, in 1947, a US Air Force !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! made the first transatlantic flight, from takeoff to landing, completely controlled by the autopilot.

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August 31, 1969 – World heavyweight champion boxer Rocky Marciano dies in a plane crash. Marciano had retired from professional boxing in 1955, having gone undefeated in his career and successfully defending his title six times. The day before his birthday in 1969, Marciano, along with Frankie Farrell, son of boxer Lew Farrell, were passengers in a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (N3149X) flown by pilot Glenn Belz. Belz was a relatively novice pilot, with only 231 total flying hours and just 35 hours of night flying. While traveling from Chicago to Des Moines, Iowa at night and in poor weather conditions, Belz, who did not possess an instrument flight training certification, tried to land at a small airfield near Newton, Iowa but struck a tree two miles short of the runway, killing all three on board. The National Transportation Safety Board cited the pilot’s inexperience and the continued use of visual flight rules (VFR) in instrument flight conditions (IFR).

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(NASA)

August 31, 1965 – The first flight of the Aero Spacelines Super Guppy, a wide-body, oversize cargo carrier and successor to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The Super Guppy was built on the fuselage of a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the military version of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! airliner. Upgraded !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turboprop engines allowed the Super Guppy to carry a load of 54,000 pounds at 300 mph, and it was used notably for transporting large sections of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! spacecraft. Only one Super Guppy was built before further developments led to the Super Guppy Turbine, of which four were built.

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(US Navy)

August 31, 1958 – The first flight of the North American A-5 Vigilante, an all-weather, carrier-borne, supersonic nuclear strike aircraft designed for the US Navy to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Despite its intended role as a nuclear bomber, the Vigilante performed predominately in the role of conventional tactical strike and reconnaissance as the RA-5C, seeing extensive action in the Vietnam War. With a crew of two, the Vigilante was one of the largest aircraft ever to operate regularly from a US carrier, and was retired in 1979 as multi-role fighters took over its reconnaissance and strike missions.

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August 31, 1947 – The first flight of the Antonov An-2, a jack-of-all-trades biplane produced in large numbers by the Soviet Union. Over 18,000 copies of this rugged, single-engine biplane have been built since production began in 1947 and, when production ceased in 2001, it marked the end of a 54-year production run surpassed only by the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The An-2 saw combat during the Korean War, but it exists today in a host of variants for all manners of reconnaissance, utility, agricultural top dressing, and survey work, just to name a few of its uses. Antonov further developed the biplane into the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , with a turboprop engine replacing the radial engine, though only 25 were built.

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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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KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > ttyymmnn 08/31/2018 at 12:40

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Absolutely nothing beats the Vulcan’s howl

http://www.vulcantothesky.org/news/526/82/We-all-love-the-howl.html

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > ttyymmnn 08/31/2018 at 12:54

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well.. this thing is playing merry hell on my sense of size.... brains stuck on fighterje?bwuh?

facw > ttyymmnn 08/31/2018 at 12:59

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The A-5 was a big boy indeed:

Some bits of the design were apparently shared with the cancelled XF-108 Rapier mach-3 interceptor, also designed by North American :

benjrblant > ttyymmnn 08/31/2018 at 13:00

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Delta wings always get me in the feels.

user314 > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 08/31/2018 at 13:05

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Ivan never does anything small:

facw > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time 08/31/2018 at 13:26

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I’m team Victor myself:

Have a museum piece accidentally taking off:

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time 08/31/2018 at 13:51

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id argue the A-10's bark is better

that said the vulcan does sound like something out of star trek lol

Hamtractor > ttyymmnn 08/31/2018 at 14:22

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Too bad getting the FAA to certify the Antonov for general aviation here in the US is about as likely as a celibate Kardashian...  that’s an awesome utility plane

ttyymmnn > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time 08/31/2018 at 14:28

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You sure that isn’t Rodan?

ttyymmnn > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 08/31/2018 at 14:29

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It’s a big bird.

ttyymmnn > facw 08/31/2018 at 14:30

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I’ve got a piece about the Rapier banging around in my head right now. Maybe I’ll get it out in a few weeks. 

ttyymmnn > facw 08/31/2018 at 14:31

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Also, I miss the carrier decks with a variety of types and manufacturers. I guess homogeneity is good, but it’s boring.

ttyymmnn > Hamtractor 08/31/2018 at 14:33

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I photographed one at an air show a few years ago (can’t find the photo at the moment). Perhaps it was Experimental. I don’t know thatch about certification, to be honest.

facw > ttyymmnn 08/31/2018 at 15:34

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Yep, makes things easy on the logistics to basically only have one type of fighter, plus one type of utility plane. It’s definitely less interesting to look at though.