November 2012

Published on November 30, 2012 “The war-time aviator gets a lot of thrills, risks his neck innumerable times, and — if he comes out of it alive — has a lot of very exciting stories to tell the folks back home.  But if he happens, in addition, to be a soldier of fortune, fighting in [...]

Published on November 29, 1944 The largest aircraft carrier built in all of World War II, Japan’s 72,000 ton Shinano, was well on the way to achieving operational status when the first B-29 Superfortress launched from Saipan and made a reconnaissance flight over the ship in dry dock at Yokosuka.  Immediately, the Japanese Naval Command [...]

Published on November 28, 2012 On this date in aviation history, in 1916, two German men took off in an LVG C.IV (s/n 262/16) and flew to London on a lone bombing mission.  It was the first time a fixed wing aircraft had been used to try and bomb the capital city of England.  The [...]

Published on November 27, 2012 By August 1944, the US had captured Saipan in the Marianas, one of the last in a series of island invasions that were the hallmark of the Pacific Campaign against the Japanese in World War II.  Within days, the US Navy’s famed Seabees were at work building a new airbase [...]

“The people of Sheerness are not altogether alone in their ability to hear German airships passing overhead.  A correspondent writing to the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch has also became so uneasy that he was prompted to communicate his experience to the Press.  He says that from his window overlooking the Firth of Forth he saw a [...]

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Without an engine, clearly a glider. Designed for training rather than pleasure. Extremely sensitive on the rudders. A French tail flash gives an obtuse clue. Launched by bungee cord. So do you know what this aircraft is? When was it flew and why in this livery?     [...]

Published on November 25, 2012 On this date in aviation history, November 25, 1940, the Martin B-26 Marauder made its first flight.  A radical design, it was a sleek, bullet-shaped medium bomber that had powerful engines and an extremely small wing.  Relying on speed, it was offered to the US Army Air Corps as the [...]

Published on November 24, 2012 On this date in aviation history, November 24, 1971, an unidentified man going by the nom de crime of “Dan Cooper”, hijacked a Boeing 727-100 aircraft (N467US) that departed Portland, Oregon, for Seattle, Washington — a short 30 minute flight north.  The hijacking was fairly momentous.  The man was seated [...]

Published on November 23, 2012 It was just an airplane, nothing more than that one might say.  Code-named Argo 16, it wasn’t even new, but rather a World War II era C-47 that had been converted into a day-to-day intelligence gathering airplane.  It worked for the Italian Government with CIA sponsorship, carrying various electronics and [...]

Published on November 22, 2012 By Thomas Van Hare Descending through fog on approach into San Francisco, JAL Flight #2 passed through 600 feet on the pressure altimeter.  On his Radar Altimeter, Captain Asoh noted that his static pressure altimeter reported 500 feet.  Seeing a deviation, he asked his copilot, Joseph Hazen, for regular 100 [...]

Published on November 21, 2012 By November 1917, the Great War had expanded to the farthest reaches of Germany’s colonial holdings in Africa.  British troops were marching on General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck’s bush army in German East Africa, a sub-equatorial area that today is split into the states of Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi along Africa’s [...]

Published on November 20, 2012 Coming in from due west, the C-130E(I) Combat Talon code-named “Cherry 01″ made a pass at 1,500 feet over the target compound, dropping illumination flares.  The pilot keyed the mic — “Alpha, Alpha, Alpha”, he called and then banked hard into a right descending 270 degree turn that curved around [...]

Published on November 19, 2012 The history of aviation and military air power are deeply linked.  Yet this past is more than just a study of machines and of triumph in battle, rather it is about the men and women whose personal experiences at war were as often courageous as they were tragic.  With war [...]

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Those corrugated aluminum wings remind us of a Ford Trimotor. A mid-wing design when most others were high wing or biplanes. A radial engine on the nose, but was it enough power to fly? Was it built to set records or for some other reason? So do you [...]

Published on November 18, 2012 Night flying was a new experience for aviators 100 years ago, carrying untold risks and yet drawing the interest of many who heard tales of how the world seen by moonlight from above was magical, as if lit with thousands of points of light similar to stars spread across the [...]

Published on November 17, 2012 The convoy had departed Gibraltar two days earlier at dawn.  Royal Navy Admiral James Somerville’s command included the aircraft carriers HMS Argus and HMS Ark Royal, escorted by the battle cruiser HMS Renown, the cruisers HMS Despatch and HMS Sheffield as well as seven destroyers.  Their mission, code-named Operation White, [...]

Published on November 16, 2012 The storm winds were picking up as the French officers yelled to their men to hold onto the lines of the greatdirigible.  With 200 men, it seemed that they should have been able to hold it, yet the winds blew stronger.  The dirigible, filled with gas, was pulling upward and [...]

Published on November 15, 2012 “The KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the award of the Air Force Cross to Mr. Thomas Neville Stack (Flying Officer, Reserve of Air Force Officers), in recognition of the distinguished service rendered to aviation by his recent flight in a light aeroplane from London to Delhi.” A [...]

Published on November 14, 2012 On November 14, 1910, the light cruiser USS Birmingham was at anchor in the harbor at Hampton Roads, Virginia.  On its foredeck, a makeshift wooden platform had been constructed and a Curtiss Pusher aeroplane had been hoisted aboard for the tests.  The plane’s pilot, Eugene Ely, ran up his engine [...]

Published on November 13, 2012 Seventy years ago today in aviation history, deep in the South Pacific, three men sat in a single life raft adrift at sea.  Earlier, there had been three rafts tied together holding seven men, but in the past two days, four of the men had set out separately, hoping to [...]

Published on November 12, 2012 Things have come a long way over the years.  No story illustrates that more clearly than the tale of Wesley May, Frank Hawks and Earl Daugherty who together achieved the world’s first aerial refueling by manually transferring gasoline from one plane to another in 1921.  While undoubtedly most would think [...]

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Built by an unlikely company in an unexpected place. Highly streamlined — for speed records or for something else. Massive in size with a huge wing and tail — a giveaway there? Plagued by autopilot problems in its first record attempts. So do you know what this aircraft [...]

Published on November 11, 2012 On this day in aviation history, at the 11th Hour, on the 11th Day of the 11th Month, in 1918, the Armistice was signed in a rail car in a wood in France.  Thus ended the Great War, a horrific conflict between the Great Powers of Europe.  On this special [...]

Published on November 10, 2012 The two aeroplanes had just arrived in India after a long transit by ship from England.  They were hoisted ashore into the dockyards of Bombay and preparations were attempted for a first air show in India.  The Farman Biplane was owned by Baron Pierre de Caters.  The other aeroplane, a [...]

Published on November 9, 2012 VF-111, known as “The Sundowners”, was deployed off the coast of Korea.  It was late 1950 and the Korean War had turned finally to the favor of the UN forces.  In the previous eight weeks, the tide had turned with the landings at Inchon and then the breakout from the [...]

Published on November 8, 2012 Like all Australians, Professor Frank Cotton of the University of Sydney was apprehensive about the war.  Japan had invaded China and was threatening much of the Pacific, including Australia.  In the meantime, England had just emerged from the hard times of the Battle of Britain.  The United States, while neutral, [...]

“The United States Air Force RB-29 of the Ninety-First Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, which crashed yesterday morning, went down after it was fired upon by two Russian-built MiG-type fighters.  Both MiGs made two firing passes at the reconnaissance bomber, setting it afire.  All eleven crew members bailed out.  The plane crashed on the Island of Hokkaido, [...]

Published on November 6, 2012 On this day in aviation history, November 6, 1945, just a few months after the end of the war, the US Navy achieved the first landing on an aircraft carrier by a jet-powered aircraft when a Ryan FR-1 Fireball landed on the deck of the USS Wake Island (CVE-65), a [...]

Published on November 5, 2012 The prize money was extraordinary, $50,000 offered by the famed publisher named William Randolph Hearst for the first “ocean to ocean” flight across the United States.  For Calbraith Perry Rodgers, it was an opportunity of a lifetime.  Unable to afford the flight on his own, he scouted for sponsorship and [...]

This Week’s Hints to help you along: This curious design was displayed at the Grand Palais in November 1912. 100 years ago today this was one of the most innovative designs in France. It sported a single engine and featured a stable canard configuration. A civilian plane, not a military one. So do you know [...]

Published on November 4, 2012 Paying just one franc apiece for entry to the Grand Palais, Parisians and others who came from far and wide came to the Paris Air Salon to see the latest that their country had to offer, and chief among the attractions was that the French military had made a special [...]

Published on November 3, 2012 A group of young Japanese women sat on their knees in a gymnasium floor carefully gluing three squares of mulberry leaf paper together with a kon-nyaku paste.  Starving, some ate bits of the edible paste and at night, they would smuggle some home to their families.  The mulberry leaf paper [...]

Published on November 2, 2012 The giant flying boat is the largest ever built.  On November 2, 1947, it taxied out into Long Beach Harbor.  Inside were 32 people, including the pilot and crew.  There were eight engines to run up.  Verifying performance was important.  Conditions on the water were perfect.  The plane was lightly [...]

Published on November 1, 2012 “Today I have decided to try to throw bombs from the aeroplane. It is the first time that we will try this and if I succeed, I will be really pleased to be the first person to do it,” wrote Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti to his father. With other military aviators [...]