Welcome to This Date in Aviation History, getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from October 24 through October 27.
October 24, 1953 – The first flight of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger. Following WWII, the US Air Force became particularly enamored with the guided missile, and thought that all future aerial combat would take place between fighters that lobbed missiles at each other rather than duke it out in aerial dogfights. But to hit a moving target with a missile requires an effective fire control system (FCS), so the Air Force decided first to develop an integrated radar, computer, director, and missile system, and then find a plane to put it in. In January 1950, the Air Force requested proposals for a new FCS, and the competition for its development was eventually won by Hughes Aircraft with their AIM-4 Falcon missile, the first operational guided air-to-air missile fielded by the US Air Force.
The Air Force then sought proposals in June of that year for what they dubbed the “1954 Ultimate Interceptor” to deal with the potential threat of waves of Russian strategic bombers flying towards the US. Convair, Republic, and Lockheed all submitted proposals, and the Air Force selected Convair to proceed with development of a delta-winged interceptor that was heavily influenced by Convair’s XF-92 which the company had developed in the late 1940s based on data captured from Germany late in WWII.
Beginning with that basic all-delta configuration of the XF-92, Convair lengthened and narrowed the experimental aircraft and mounted a Pratt & Whitney J57 afterburning turbojet. Once the first prototypes were finished, however, Convair discovered that the YF-102 was unable to break the sound barrier. The problem wasn’t just the underpowered engine. It was actually the shape of the fuselage. Using the new area rule concept developed by NACA engineer Richard Whitcomb, Convair redesigned the fuselage so that it narrowed at the waist over the delta wing. This reduction in the aircraft’s cross section dramatically reduced drag, and other improvements to the wings allowed the redesigned interceptor to pass Mach 1 with ease.
The redesigned interceptor, now designate YF-102A, entered production after its maiden flight in December 1954. The F-102A entered service in April 1956, and a total of 889 were built before production ceased in September 1958. The Delta Dagger saw service in Vietnam primarily as a bomber escort, though some ground attack missions were carried out without much success, since the aircraft was not designed for that role, nor were the pilots properly trained. Fourteen F-102s were lost in combat, one in air-to-air combat. The F-102 was exported to Greece and Turkey, where they served into the late 1970s. By the mid-1960s, most F-102s were transferred to Air National Guard units where they mainly took part in interceptions of Soviet aircraft probing the coastline of North America and testing America’s response. After 20 years of service, the bulk of the fleet was retired in 1976. Most of the remaining Delta Daggers were converted to QF-102A target drones, and the final one was shot down during a training mission in 1986.
October 26, 1940 – The first flight of the North American NA-73X, the prototype of the North American P-51 Mustang. Combatants of all nations produced some truly superb aircraft leading up to and during WWII, and some of them represent the ultimate statement of what is possible with a piston-powered design. It would be difficult to pick a single aircraft as the greatest to come out of the war, but if one were to make a list of the top five, or even the top three, the North American P-51 Mustang would surely find a place on that list. However, in a somewhat ironic twist, one of the greatest fighters produced by the United States during WWII actually owes its existence to the British.
In 1938, the British government saw war in Europe as a tragic inevitability, and they turned to the US to purchase fighter aircraft. They were interested in procuring large numbers of the Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk (the British designation of the Warhawk), but Curtiss was already running at capacity and was unable to fill the British order. So the British approached North American Aviation, who was already providing the RAF with the Harvard trainer (known in the US as the T-6 Texan), and asked if the company would be willing to build Tomahawks under license. North American was not crazy about the idea of producing a fighter designed by a rival company, so they told the British that they could build a better fighter using the same Allison V-1710 V-12 engine that powered the Tomahawk. The British agreed, but stipulated that the first production aircraft must be delivered by January 1941, just eight months time. In a mere 102 days, the North American team, led by designers Raymond Rice and Edgar Schmued presented the British with the NA-73X, the prototype of the Mustang.
While still following the traditional design principles of the day, the NA-73X introduced some novel features. The first was the use of a laminar flow wing which significantly reduced drag. The second was the placement of the radiator behind the pilot, an arrangement which gave the Mustang its iconic underside air intake. The position of the radiator also allowed designers to take advantage of the Meredith Effect, in which heated air leaving the radiator produces a small amount of jet thrust. Early Mustangs had a canopy faired into the fuselage, but that arrangement created a dangerous blind spot for pilots. The P-51D, which became the definitive production model of the Mustang, introduced a graceful teardrop canopy and was armed with six .50 caliber machine guns. By war’s end, nearly 8,000 D models were produced at factories in California and Texas.
As promised, the Mustang was initially fitted with the Allison engine, but the British soon modified the P-51 to accept the remarkable 12-cylinder Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, which transformed the Mustang into a powerful, high-flying fighter that was equal to or better than German designs, with a top speed of 437 mph, one of the fastest fighters of its day. The Americans followed suit by installing the Packard V-1650 Merlin which was built under license in the US. With the Spitfire and Mustang both sharing the mighty Merlin, comparisons were inevitable. Eric “Winkle” Brown, a test pilot for the RAF who eventually flew 487 different aircraft, more than any other pilot in history, said of the two fighters:
“The Mustang was a good fighter and the best escort due to its incredible range, make no mistake about it. It was also the best American dogfighter. But the laminar-flow wing fitted to the Mustang could be a little tricky. It could not by any means out-turn a Spitfire. No way. It had a good rate-of-roll, better than the Spitfire, so I would say the plusses to the Spitfire and the Mustang just about equate. If I were in a dogfight, I’d prefer to be flying the Spitfire. The problem was I wouldn’t like to be in a dogfight near Berlin, because I could never get home to Britain in a Spitfire!”
The Mustang’s exceptional range meant that the US finally had an escort fighter that could accompany daylight bombing raids deep into Germany, resurrecting a foundering bombing campaign that had suffered mightily from lack of fighter protection. The P-51 helped the Allies gain complete control of the skies over Europe by the end of the war, and Mustang pilots claimed almost 5,000 enemy aircraft destroyed. Hermann Göring, commander of the German Luftwaffe, was quoted as saying, “When I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the jig was up.”
Following the war, the Mustang, now called the F-51, was relegated to National Guard units, but were soon called upon to serve in the Korean war, where they mostly flew ground attack and interdiction missions. Mustangs were ultimately replaced by jet fighters in 1953, and the last F-51 was retired from US service in 1957, though Mustangs were flown by the Dominican Air Fore until 1984. With over 15,000 aircraft built of all variants, the Mustang ranks second only to the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt in total number of aircraft produced, and surplus Mustangs have become favorites among civilian air racing pilots and on the international air show circuit.
Short Takeoff
October 24, 2004 – A plane crash claims the life of members of the Hendrick Motorsports team and family. While en route from North Carolina to a race at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia, the Beechcraft King Air 200 (N501RH) carrying members of the Hendrick Motorsport team and other family members crashed in heavy fog after an aborted landing. Among the 10 victims was the president of Hendrick Motorsports John Hendrick, driver Ricky Hendrick, four other members of the Hendrick family, and Randy Dorton, chief engine builder. The pilots were also killed. Though NASCAR officials learned of the crash before the Martinsville race, they did not inform the drivers until after the race had finished. The race was won by Jimmie Johnson, who drove for the Hendrick team. For the remainder of the 2004 season, all Hendrick cars ran with a memorial to the victims, “Always In Our Hearts,” painted on the hood.
October 24, 2000 – The first flight of the Lockheed Martin X-35, the experimental prototype developed as part of the competition to produce the Joint Strike Fighter, a single basic airframe that would serve the US Air Force, US Navy and US Marine Corps. The competition for the lucrative contract pitted the X-35 against the Boeing X-32, and the X-35 was declared the winner on October 26, 2001. The fifth generation fighter entered production in 2006 as the F-35 Lighting II, a single-seat, all-weather, multi-role fighter with stealth capability. The F-35 is currently produced in three variants: the F-35A for the US Air Force, the STOVL F-35B for the US Marine Corps, and the carrier-based F-35C for the US Navy.
October 24, 1991 – The death of Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry is best known as a television producer, screenwriter, and the creator of the Star Trek television series, but his early life was dominated by a career in aviation. Roddenberry was born on August 19, 1921 in El Paso, Texas, and earned his pilot license through the Civilian Pilot Training Program sponsored by the US Army Air Corps. He enlisted just 11 days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and eventually completed 89 combat missions piloting a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and also survived a crash landing that killed two crewmen. His military service earned him both the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Following the war, Roddenberry continued flying as an international airline pilot with Pan Am and survived another crash in the Syrian desert in 1947. He retired from flying the following year to pursue a career in writing for television. Roddenberry died on October 24, 1991 at the age of 70, and some of his ashes were launched into space onboard a Pegasus XL rocket.
October 24, 1947 – The first flight of the Grumman HU-16 Albatross, a twin-engine amphibious flying boat designed as an improvement over the earlier Grumman G-73 Mallard. The Albatross entered service in 1949 primarily in the search and rescue (SAR) and combat search and rescue (CSAR) roles with the US Air Force, where it was initially known as the SA-16. The type saw extensive service during the Korean War rescuing downed pilots. The Albatross was also operated by the US Navy and US Coast Guard, where it functioned as a coastal patrol and SAR aircraft. The Albatross was widely exported, and many surplus aircraft have since found their way to private operators. A total of 466 were produced from 1949-1961.
October 25, 1994 – The death of LT Kara Hultgreen, the first woman US Naval Aviator to be qualified as a carrier-based fighter pilot. While attempting a landing on USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), Hultgreen overshot the centerline and attempted to correct her approach with left rudder application, a maneuver that caused a compressor stall in the left engine. She applied full afterburner to execute a missed approach, but the asymmetrical power caused her Grumman F-14 Tomcat to roll inverted. The radar intercept officer initiated ejection and was shot clear of the aircraft, but Hultgreen, who ejected second in the sequence, was launched straight into the water, killing her instantly. The aircraft was recovered, as was Hultgreen’s body, still strapped to the ejection seat. The incident was controversial, as Hultgreen’s death came at a time when both the Navy and US Air Force were working to integrate female fighter pilots into service, and some accused the Navy of promoting woman pilots regardless of their of their piloting skills.
October 25, 1991 – The first flight of the Airbus A340, a long-range, wide-body airliner that can seat up to 440 passengers depending on variant and seating arrangement. Aimed at the long haul market that had been dominated by American aircraft manufacturers, the A340 was the largest airliner to grow from the original A300 design, and featured four engines and a twin aisle. Depending on the variant, the A340 is capable of flying routes up to 9,000 nautical miles. It entered service with Air France and Lufthansa in 1993, but production ended in 2011 after just 377 had been built. Despite its size and range, the A340 was at a disadvantage to newer twin-jet airliners with comparable size and range that could operate at lower costs, and the type is being phased out by the world’s major airlines.
October 25, 1979 – The 5,057th and final F-4 Phantom II rolls off the McDonnell Douglas production line. One of the iconic aircraft of the Cold War Era, the Phantom II entered service in 1960 with the US Navy and eventually became one of the few fighters to serve concurrently in the Navy, US Marine Corps, and US Air Force. Production of the two-seat, all-weather, multirole fighter began in 1958 and, with addition of 138 Phantoms built by Mitsubishi in Japan, a grand total of 5,195 served the US military along with 11 export countries. The Phantom II is the third most-produced jet fighter in the US after the North American F-86 Sabre/FJ-2/3 Fury and the Republic F-84 Thunderjet. The F-4G Wild Weasel electronic warfare variant served as late as 1991 in the Gulf War and, following the Phantom’s retirement from US service in 1996, remaining F-4s were converted to QF-4 target drones. The final QF-4 was shot down in a training mission in 2016.
October 25, 1955 – The first flight of the Saab 35 Draken, a fighter developed to replace the Saab J29 Tunnan and the first supersonic fighter to be deployed in Western Europe. The Draken (Kite, or Dragon) was introduced in 1969 and was notable for its use of a double-delta (or compound delta) wing configuration that aided in performance at both low and high speeds. Following Swedish defense doctrine, the Draken was designed for operation from public roadways and with the ability to be serviced by minimally trained crews in a short time. The Draken proved to be a successful Cold War fighter, and was exported to Austria, Denmark, Finland, with 652 aircraft produced from 1955 to 1974.
October 25, 1939 – The first flight of the Handley Page Halifax, a heavy four-engine bomber that was designed to fulfill the same RAF requirement for a heavy strategic bomber as the Short Stirling and Avro Lancaster. The Halifax was powered by four Bristol Hercules radial engines which gave it a maximum speed of 282 mph and a range of 1,860 miles with a seven-man crew. Though incapable of carrying the large blockbuster bombs in the RAF inventory, the Halifax still played a major role in Bomber Command’s strategic bombing program. By war’s end, Halifax crews had flown nearly 83,000 sorties and dropped more than 224,000 pounds of bombs. Of the 6,176 Halifaxes built, 1,833 were lost in combat. Though quickly retired from RAF service after the war, the Halifax remained in service with Egypt, France, and Pakistan, and a cargo and transport version was developed as the Handley Page Halton. The type was finally retired by 1961.
October 26, 1973 – The first flight of the Dassault-Breguet/Dornier Alpha Jet, a trainer and light attack aircraft designed through a partnership between France and Germany to replace the Fouga Magister and Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star. The aircraft originally designed to fill this role, the SEPECAT Jaguar, evolved into a full-fledged, nuclear-capable attack fighter-bomber, so designers revisited the trainer requirement and developed the twin-engine, subsonic Alpha Jet in its place. A total of 480 aircraft were produced from 1973-1991, and the Alpha Jet continues to serve 12 nations, though it has been retired by Germany. The Alpha Jet is also flown by the Patrouille de France demonstration team.
October 26, 1972 – The death of Igor Sikorsky. Sikorsky was born on May 25, 1889 in present-day Ukraine, and designed two helicopters soon after the turn of the century before abandoning the project, and helicopters, as impractical at the time. He then made a name for himself as a designer of fixed-wing aircraft, and among his first successful designs were the Russky Vityaz, the world’s first multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft, and the Ilya Muromets, the world’s first practical airliner. After emigrating to the US in 1919, Sikorsky created the Sikorsky Manufacturing Company in 1925 and produced the S-42 flying boat for Pan American Airways. But it was in rotary-winged aircraft that Sikorsky made his greatest mark on aviation history, first with the VS-300, the world’s first successful helicopter to use a single vertical tail rotor, and then the R-4, the world’s first production helicopter. Sikorsky’s significant contribution to helicopter design was his development of a control system using a single engine that is still the fundamental system in use today.
October 26, 1958 – The first commercial flight of the Boeing 707. Boeing developed their first swept-wing airliner with engines housed in pods under the wings, thereby setting the design standard for generations of airliners to follow and creating the first commercially successful jet airliner. Developed from the Boeing 367-80, better known as the Dash 80, the 707 made its first transatlantic flight for Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) on October 17, 1958 carrying VIPs, and its first flight with paying passengers nine days later. When Saha Airlines of Iran flew the final scheduled 707 passenger flight in April 2013, it marked the end of more than 30 million hours of 707 service worldwide, and the 865 707s Boeing built had transported nearly 522 million passengers.
October 26, 1944 – The death of Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, recognized as Japan’s leading fighter ace of WWII. Nishizawa began the war flying the obsolescent Mitsubishi A5M against the US and her allies. Though he claimed his first victory in the A5M, Nishizawa soon transitioned to the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, which far outclassed Allied fighters early in the war. Later, he teamed with ace Saburō Sakai and, at the time of his death, Nishizawa had amassed 87 victories by his own count in the skies over New Guinea, Guadalcanal, and the Philippines, and perhaps as many as 120, though an accurate tally is impossible to determine. Nishizawa was killed over Mindoro Island when his transport plane was attacked and shot down by US Navy Grumman F6F Hellcat fighters. Nishizawa was 24 years old.
October 27, 1942 – The carrier USS Hornet is sunk during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. USS Hornet (CV-8) was commissioned on October 20, 1941 and was the seventh vessel of that name. Originally based out of Norfolk, Virginia, Hornet sailed to California on February 2, 1942 with a load of US Army Air Forces North American B-25 Mitchell bombers which would later be flown from Hornet in the audacious Doolittle Raid, drawing blood on the Japanese homeland for the first time. Hornet took part in the pivotal Battle of Midway on June 4-7, 1942, and fought in the Guadalcanal campaign. As part if that campaign, the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands was fought October 25-27, and was the fourth major battle between the US and Japan. Hornet was teamed with USS Enterprise (CV-6) and faced three Japanese fleet carriers. During the battle on the 26th, Hornet was struck by three bombs, two torpedoes, and two kamikaze aircraft, leaving the carrier dead in the water. The following day, American forces attempted to tow Hornet to safety, but she was struck again by Japanese torpedoes and the order was given to scuttle the carrier. US attempts to sink her were unsuccessful, but two Japanese destroyers later sent her to the bottom. Hornet had been in service for just over one year. Since the loss of Hornet, no other US fleet carrier has ever been lost to enemy fire.
October 26, 1931 – The first flight of the de Havilland Tiger Moth, a primary trainer designed by Geoffrey de Havilland that he hoped would prove superior to his earlier de Havilland Hummingbird and de Havilland DH.51. The Tiger Moth was developed from DH.60 Tiger Moth and entered service with the Royal Air Force in 1932. It proved to be a wild success for de Havilland, and nearly 9,000 were built from 1931-1944. The Tiger Moth provided primary flight training throughout WWII, and also served in reconnaissance and maritime surveillance roles. After its retirement from military service, many surplus aircraft entered the civilian market where they remain flying today, and some Tiger Moths still provide initial flight training for pilots looking to gain experience on tail-dragger aircraft.
October 27, 1957 – The death of Giovanni Caproni. An Italian aeronautical, civil, and electrical engineer, Caproni was born in a part of Austria-Hungary that was annexed by Italy in 1919. After a start building aircraft engines, Caproni founded his own aircraft factory in 1908 and designed his first aircraft, the Caproni Ca. 1, in 1910. A proponent of passenger airplanes, Caproni developed Italy’s first multi-engined aircraft, the Caproni Ca.31, though his first airliner, the Caproni Ca.48, crashed, killing all onboard. Between the World Wars, he designed the Stipa-Caproni, an experimental ducted fan aircraft that presaged the turbofan engine, and his company manufactured bombers and transport aircraft for Italy during WWII.
Connecting Flights
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