Flight disaster 2015

Editorial

Aviation museums give an ever-changingand exciting glimpse of our heritage.

' MY RECOLLECTION OF visits to mu-seums in my youth brings back memoriesof glass-cased ancient artifacts, mustyreplicas of long-extinct mammals, diora-mas of forgotten civilizations—awe-in-spiring during the first couple of visits,but my interest soon waned.

All that changed when I discoveredaviation museums. These were not stag-nant displays from long ago but a newsort of history that continued to evolve,with artifacts constantly added as this vi-brant field called aviation developed at abreakneck pace. Along with ever-chang-ing displays, there are interactive exhibits,educational and public outreach pro-grams, great lectures and even simulatorsthat visitors can take a ride in to get thefeel of what it was like to fly in some of theaircraft and spacecraft now on display inmuseums.

Here are a few of the new programs werecently heard about:•The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Wash.,is one of the largest aviation and spacemuseums in the world, hosting more than400,000 visitors a year from around theglobe. This past lune 6, to celebrate the60th anniversary of D-Day, the museumheld the grand opening of its new $53.5million, 88,000-square-foot Persona!Courage Wing, which highlights thestories of heroism, determination, inno-vation and sacrifice of World War I and IIaircrews. It presents the history, aircraftand memorabilia behind those humanexperiences through interactive displaysand exhibits, flight simulators, live thea-ter and multimedia presentations.

The new wing contains 28 meticu-lously restored or replicated fighter air-planes in two main galleries. Among the10 World War II aircraft are representativefighters from the various theaters of thatglobal conflict. Eighteen World War I air-craft are displayed chronologically, be-ginning with the one-of-a-kind ItalianCaproni Ca.2O—touted as the worid's firstfighter plane. For more, check out theirWeb site at: www.museumofflight.org.• The greatly expanded U.S. Air ForceMuseum in Dayton, Ohio, has recognizedits growing stature as a major facility bychanging its name to National Museum

6 AVIATION HISTORY MARCH 2005

of the U.S. Air Force. The complex, whichboasts more than 300 aircraft and 17 acresof indoor exhibit space and hosts nearlyL4 million visitors a year, recently addeda Cold War Gallery and a Missile andSpace Gallery. Coming up is a center tohouse the museum's collection of presi-dential aircraft. Check it all out at www.wpafb.af.mil/museum.• The Smithsonian Institution's NationalAir and Space Museum (NASM) is keep-ing busy with a new art exhibition at itsdowntown Washington, D.C., flagshipmuseum. Titled "Generous Friends: Build-ing an Art Collection for the National Airand Space Museum," the new exhibitionfeatures items from NASM's collection ofmore than 4,000 pieces of art. ft recog-nizes those who have donated works tothe museum and provides a visual historyof the people and events involved in thedevelopment of powered flight and spaceexploration through paintings, drawings.prints, sculptures, jewelry, ceramics andtextiles.

• NASM's Udvar-Hazy Center hasn'trested on its laurels since its grand open-ing in December 2003. It recently fol-lowed through on expansion plans byopening the 53,000-square-foot lames S.McDonnell Space Hangar, where thenewly restored space shuttle Enterpriseanchors a collection of 113 large and 500smaller artifacts that reflect the scope ofspace exploration history. NASM's Website is: www.nasm.si.edu.• We recently heard of the opening of anew museum dedicated to smaller but noless interesting aviation artifacts—theStanzel Model Aircraft Museum in Schu-lenhurg, Texas. This facility has several in-teractive exhibits as well as more than 30static displays illustrating the life work ofVictor and loe Stanzel, pioneer model air-craft designers, model builders and modelairplane toy manufacturers. Included isthe original 1939 Tiger Shark, the firstcontrol-line model airplane kit. You cancheck them out at: www.stanzelmuseum.org.

Want to see more? Go to Google on theInternet and initiate a search for aviationmuseums. But be careful—you might wellfind that this search is addictive. A.H.S.

OnlineCxtrasMarch 2005

You'll tind much more aboutAviation History on the Wfeb's

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Bomb Ploesti at Any Cost—A pilot'sdetailed firsthand account describes amission to bomh Romania's oil refineriesin August 1943.

77ieFfyingOm/Jcs—^Stuntwoman PhoebeFairgrave fell in love with flying as ateenager—then fell in love uith lanky flierVernon Omlie and married him whilethey were barnstorming their way acrossthe United States in the Roaring •20s.

Flying Capronis With 'Fwrello'sFoggiani'^Mler American architectGeorge M.D. Lewis joined a group of U.S.Army Air Service pilots training in Italyunder the command of Captain FiorelfoLaGuardia, he described his roommatesas "eight young men, representingColumbia, Oklahoma, Yale, Chicago,Princeton, Dartmouth, Georgia Techand the University of Pennsylvania."

Eighth Air Force Bombers: Deathon the High Road—\n October 1943,Eighth Air Force bombers flew throughhell to bomb Schweinfurt, Germany.For tbem, Schweinfurt meant only onething: a killer town that was one of themost savagely defended targets alongthe aerial high road above Hitler'sThird Reich.

KUDOSGreat editorial in the November issue! Like you, I was alwaysamazed at the Convair XC-99 every time it passed over my head(many times). I am certainly glad to hear that it may he restored.

I was a member of the class of 53A (multiengine, held at EnidAir Force Base). Like you, I flew Fairchild C-124s—both A and Cmodels. I was assigned to Strategic Air Command's 1st StrategicSupport Squadron at Biggs Air Force Base, El Paso, Texas, and Iloved every hour in the C-124, despite certain shortcomings.

Thanks again for another great issue. The only trouble is, I can'tget any work done on the day each nevî Aviation History arrives.

JackHoytVia e-mail

SLAUGHTER IN THE SKYAs I do with each issue, I read the November 2004 issue cover tocover. Of particular interest was Jon Guttman's article about the11th Aero Squadron, "Slaughter in the Sky." World War I fightersand their pilots are pretty well known, while bombers receivescant attention in most accounts of the air war.

In his description of the September 26,1918, raid on Dun-sur-Meuse, Mr. Guttman mentions the shoot-down and capture of 1stLt. Merian C. Cooper. It may interest your readers to know that thisis the same Merian Cooper who produced KingKongand a numberof other films. In the 1920s he was the real-life Carl Denham, whotraveled the world seeking "cannibal and jungle" documentaries,which were very popular with audiences of the day.

Was Cooper the pilot or the observer during that flight? I alsowonder whether his service in a bomber is the reason why theaircraft diat dispatches Kong in the film is a Vbught Corsair—anaircraft of the same general type as the de Havilland D.H.4,though much improved.

Marc S. RussoBrooklyn, N.Y.

Jon Guttman responds: Longtime readers o/Aviation History mayremember that Merian Cooper's career was covered back in theMarch 1993 issue, in the "People and Planes" department. Spacelimitations—and the fact that Cooper was not in the 11th AeroSquadron but in the neighboring 20th—necessarily kept his rolein my story peripheral.

Cooper, who was a pilot, did indeed have a life as adventurousas the characters in his early films, also flying for Poland in its 1920war against the Bolsheviks, with the American volunteer 7th"Xbsduszto" Eskadra, until he was brought down bygroundfireand taken prisoner. He then escaped with a Polish comrade andmade his way across Russia in winter to rejoin his squadron. In ad-dition to writing King Kong with Edgar Wallace and producingand directing it with Ernest B. Schoedsack, Cooper flew one of theVbught 02Us that shot the big ape off the Empire State Building—with Schoedsack manning the twin guns in the observer's pit.

BACK TO EISENACHI especially enjoyed the article by Lowell Getz, "Forty SecondsOver Eisenach," in the November 2004 issue, which includedmention of the Boeing B- 17G Texas Chubby-TheJ'villeJolter andits co-pilot, 2nd Lt. Frank Gilligan. Frank (or Gilly, as he was called)and I worked together in the Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy De-

partment, in the early 1950s.As Mr. Getz described in his article, Gilligan was preparing to bail

out when there was an explosion and he was thrown from the plane.He told me that, after being stunned and blown out of the aircraft,he opened his eyes and saw bright blue—and thought he was inheaven. The vmd rushing by him brought him back to reality.

BillLigonRockledge, Ela.

Editor's note: Several alert readers noted that the photo on P. 44 of theEisenach article, showing the crew o/Betty Lou's Buggy examining20mm shell damage to theB-17aftera mission to Eschwege, is actu-ally of a different aircraft than the one mentioned in the article. Infact, there were two Betty Lou's Buggys in the 91st Bomb Group, andthe one pictured was the other aircraft. Also note that the date ofthe 91st's mission to Berlin, mentioned as being in September 1943in the caption on P. 41, is incorrect. Groups of the Eighth Air Eorcedid not fly to Berlin until March 1944. We regret the confusion.

WILDCAT WADEI enjoyed the excellent article about Texan pilot and ace Lance"Wildcat" Wade by Michael D. Montgomery in your November2004 issue. It may interest you to know that the Lone Star FlightMuseum of Galveston, Texas, is operating a flight-worthy Super-marine Spitfire whose paint scheme is representative of WingCmdr. Wade's aircraft.

It seems that many of the Allied flghter pilots who served in theMediterranean theater ofWorld War II did not get the recognitionthat their brethren in the European theater received. Another oneis South African Squadron Leader Marmaduke T. St. John "Pat"Pattle of the RAF Pattle was credited with shooting down between40 and 50 Italian and German planes, but many of his victoriescould not be conflrmed. He was shot down and killed over Eleu-sis Bay, Greece, by a Messerschmitt Me-110 on April 20,1941.

As a regular reader, I especially appreciate stories and articleson aerial warfare in the European and Mediterranean theaters.The piece on the 1941 air war in Iraq, for example, in the May issue("Air War Over Iraq," by Kelly Bell) was outstanding. Please keepup the good work.

Robert J. CurtisCataumet, Mass.

I recently read "Forgotten RAF Ace" in the November issue. Thelast paragraph, which states that there were "no markers" tohonor Lance C. Wade's contributions, caught my eye.

I am a retired Air Force pilot and a member of American LegionPost 326 and Longhorn Flight 38 of the Order of Daedalians inAustin, Texas. Perhaps one or both of these organizations may beinterested in helping to establish a marker for Lt. Col. Wade inRecklaw, Texas, or elsewhere. If other groups have already tack-led this worthwhile project, we might still be able to join them.

Fred A. Hannah Jr.E- mailfredngene@evl .net

Send letters to Aviation History Editor, Primedia History Group,741 Miller Drive, Suite D-2, Leesburg VA 20175, or e-mail [email protected]. Please include your name,address and daytime telephone number Letters may be edited.


People & Planes

Lytle Adams struggled to perfect his own airmailpickup system in the 1920s and '30s.

BY MARJORIE S. WERTZ

In January 1940, the airmail picl<up system that was refined and promoted by dentist Lytie S. Adams(right) is demonstrated at an airfield in Coatesviile, Pa.

A SEATTLE DENTIST BY TRADE, Lytle S. Adamsbecame intrigued by the unlimited potential of aviationduring tbe 1920s. His belief tbat technology should ben-efit the majority of people led to a 15-year campaign toperfect the airmail pickup system.

Adams saw aviation as a way to transport mail andother cargo efficiently and economically. If airplanes didnot have to land, he reasoned, mail service could be ex-panded to out-of-the-way tovms and communities thatdid not boast the luxury of an airport. At age 41, Adamsbegan work on his own airmail pickup system in Seattle.Between 1928 and 1934, he applied for and received nu-merous patents on his system, which was based on anearly pickup method devised by Godfrey L. Cabot, aBoston scientist and engineer.

Their systems incorporated the use of a 75-foot-longwire cable with a steel ball attached to a lower section ofthe airplane. The flier would maneuver the cable into ametal trap on the ground, which was wide at one end andenclosed by vertical walls that gradually tapered into asmall slot. While the aircraft was flying at low altitude, theflight mechanic would drop the cable into the trap. The

steel ball would act as a grapple of sorts and slip inside acoupling at the tip of the slot, thereby carrying anythingthat was attached to it, such as a mailbag or package. Atthe same time, the connection at the end ofthe ball op-posite the cable attachment would break, dropping the in-coming mailbag or cargo at the narrow section ofthe trap.

Adams improved on the original system hy adding ashock-absorbing device that precluded any damage to theaircraft caused by the sudden union ofthe ball and cou-pling on the ground. He first used an elastic cord toconnect the cable to the airplane, then devised a springmechanism for hauling in the cable and cargo. When thosedevices didn't adequately cushion the shock, Adams de-signed an adjustable, spring-activated catapult that threwthe package forward at the same speed as the airplane.

Adams constructed hundreds of scale models to test andrefine his system. He gradually moved on to larger modelsbefore designing and constructing a full-scale version thatwas mounted on a turntable. At this stage in the designprocess, Adams received invaluahle support from aircraftbuilder and fellow Seattleite William E. Boeing, whose en-gineers helped to develop the turntable model.

10 AVIATION HISTORV MARCH 2005

By August 1928, after a series of success-fu! test pickups, Adams felt confident enoughto close his dental practice and concentrateon getting financial hacking for his system.He promoted his idea at aviation shows in1929 and formed two companies—AirwaysPatent Holding Corporation, which con-trolled his patents and distrihuted licensingrights to the pickup system; and Adams AirExpress Inc., a New York-based companythat handled publicity.

Adams soon saw a chance to demon-strate the overall effectiveness of his setup.At the time, mail from an incoming ship tookmore than 24 hours to reach Newark, NJ.,which was the eastern terminus for thetranscontinental airmail system. If the mailcould be picked up while a ship was head-ing into port, Adams reasoned, delivery timewould he greatly decreased.

Paul Chapman, president of United StatesLines, agreed to install an airmail pickupsystem on the ship Leviathan. He also out-fitted a Burnelli monoplane with the neces-sary pickup equipment. On May 25, 1929,Leviathan left New York Harbor hound forSouthampton, England. Adams' plan calledfor the Burnelli to meet the ship 600 milesout of New York on its return trip. Adamshimself was aboard the ship to oversee theexperiment.

"I am very anxious that this first pick up

should be a successful one," wrote the in-ventor to Thomas A. Morgan of the SperryGyroscope Company, who was also on thehoard of directors of Adams Air Express."While I do not feel it would mean our defeatI do feel that to make the pick up at the firsttrial would he a tremendous send off for ourcompany." Adams did not get his wish.

After the Burnelli was severely damagedin an accident at Keyport, N.J., on lune 6, aLoening Air Yacht was outfitted with thepickup equipment and sent to meetLeviathan off the coast of Nantucket Island.Stormy weather and a defective radio pre-vented that plane fi"om locating the ship.

Disappointed hut unwilling to give up,Adams tried again. On June 12, Leviathan was60 miles at sea when a Fairchild cahin air-plane deposited a mailbag in the airmailtrap on its deck. But the pickup mechanismmalfunctioned as 2,000 passengers lookedon. The Fairchild's pilot and flight mechanicmade 12 unsuccessful attempts to retrieve themailbag from the trap. The 13th try provedsuccessful, and the mailbag was flown toNewark in the first ship-to-shore mail pickup.

While the Leviathan trial wasn't nearly thesuccess Adams had hoped for, one man whosaw a demonstration in New York wasimpressed. Clifford Ball, operator of theContract Air Mail (CAM) Route 11 betweenPittsburgh and Cleveland, saw the new

system as a way to increase the volume ofmail on his route without having to addstops. After Ball met with Adams, the twoagreed to try out the pickup method onCAM Route 11. Ball was responsible for par-tial funding of the project and getting PostOffice Department approval.

SECOND ASSISTANT POSTMASTER Gen-eralW. Irving Glover declared his satisfactionwith the route and equipment and autho-rized a six-month service test of the equip-ment. However, the department would notunderwrite any of the costs, which had to bepaid by Ball and Adams or any communitieschosen as pickup points along the route.

While Adams supervised the constructionof pickup traps at two stops. Ball readied theairplanes and selected two of his most experi-enced pilots, Trowbridge Sehree and LowellB. Scroggins, to fiy the pickup routes. GeorgeSmith and Dixon Markey were scheduled tohandle the mail and operate the equipment.

Two months after the start of the Adams/Ball business enterprise. Ball asked the PostOffice Department to relieve him of theservice. By September 1930, the Post Officebad stopped the pickup service along Route11. Ball told Post Office officials he was leav-ing the business because of troublesomeequipment problems and disagreements

Continued on page 66

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12 AVIATION HISTOHV MARCH 2005

Enduring Heritage

North Texas, an area rich in flight museums, has anew world-class aviation showplace.

BY C.V. GLINES

PROBABLY NO OTHER STATE HAS as many museumsas Texas. The Lone Star State's Association of Museumslists nearly 500 member museums, including 19 devotedto aviation. In addition, many cities and towns have stat-ues, monuments or plaques to remind present and futuregenerations of contrihutions by individuals, industriesand the military to the state's aerospace history.

The area surrounding the ever-expanding Dallas-FortWorth International Airport (DFW) in north Texas is anespecially thriving mecca for flight enthusiasts. There area dozen aviation museums and archives vdthin a shortdriving distance. And now there is an outstanding newhistory of flight showplace in Dallas.

Texas' newest aviation museum in ttie Dallas-Fort Wortharea showcases 25 mint-condition aircraft on indoorstatic display.

Its origins go back to Richardson, on the outskirts ofnorth Dallas, where the nationally prominent History ofAviation Collection is located at tJie McDermott Libraryon the campus of the University of Texas, Dallas. The col-lection was originally established in 1965 at the Univer-sity of Texas, Austin, by the late George E. Haddaway, anaviation magazine publisher whose donations formed thecore of the collection's aviation hooks and artifacts. Thecollection was transferred to the University of Texas,Dallas, and with donations of material from estates andseveral hundred individuals connected with aviation, itnow includes thousands of books, periodicals, pho-tographs, aircraft maintenance manuals, motion picturesand videotapes covering the entire history of flight.

The collection is especially noted for having acquiredthe extensive personal files and lighter-than-air artifactsof Vice Adm. Charles E. Rosendahl, the U.S. Navy's lead-ing proponent of airships. One continually growing col-lection is represented by the extensive files of the ChinaAir Transport/Air America airlines established by the CIAin Soutbeast Asia. Now declassified, they have been addedto records donated by employees to provide a unique his-tory of American secret activities during the Vietnam War.It is also the home of the James H. Doolittle Library, con-taining tbe books and correspondence files of the aviatorplus the associated archive of his famous Tokyo Raiders.

When the number of three-dimensional donateditems—artifacts such as a glider, aircraft engines and Zep-pelin radio equipment—became too large to house at theuniversity by 1988, tbey were among the initial objectsused to create the Erontiers of Elight Museum at Dallas'Love Eield. The only space at the field then available wasa small area tbat had been a restaurant on the secondfloor of the passenger terminal.

All that changed on the night of May 21, 2004, when1,200 formally attired guests dined at the opening gala inthe entirely new world-class, 100,000-square-foot, free-standing Erontiers of Elight Museum. Located at the southend of the fixed base operators' hangar line on the eastside of Love Eield, the new aerospace showplace occupiesthe former site of a hangar that had become an eyesore.The gathering included Walt Cunningham, lunar modulepilot on the 11-day flight of Apollo 7 in 1968, and ColonelJames H. Doolittle IJI, grandson of the famous Jimmy


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Doolittle, along with industry executives,writers and airline and military pilots. Manyattending admitted they had never antici-pated anything so impressive, rememberingthe austere displays formerly housed in thepassenger terminal. It still hadn't seemedpossible at the groundbreaking ceremonies,held on a frigid day in January 2003. But onthis night they had come to celebrate andpay tribute to the realization of the goal ofthree individuals who had led the way to thisbrand-new aviation museum: U.S. SenatorKay Bailey Hutchison, J. Jan Collmer andWilliam E. Cooper, all well-known Dallasresidents.

Hutchison, the state's senior U.S. senator,is also active chairman of the museum's boardof directors and fully appreciates Texas' richheritage of aviation history and achieve-ment. She said recently: "As a co-founder, Iam especially pleased our dream of a Fron-tiers of Flight Museum is realized. NorthTexas now has a museum of national promi-nence to preserve that legacy and share itwith the community and the country."

Now up and running under the directionof Dan Hamilton, the museum features 25mint-condition aircraft on indoor static dis-play. The initial offering includes a BeechStaggerwing,VbughtA-7 Corsair and RF-8GCrusader, BuckerBii-133/wngmrarer, PittsS-2B (donated by Collmer, an outstandingaerobatic pilot), Bel] UH-1 Huey helicopter,Learfan 2100, D-21 Drone, Glasflugel BS-1sailplane. North American T-38 jet trainer,1928 Temple Monoplane, World War I Sop-with Pup, and the Apollo 7 commandmodule, on loan from the Smithsonian's Na-tional Air and Space Museum. As a Smith-sonian Institution affiliate, it will be able toobtain more airplanes and spacecraft andequipment on loan to provide a constantflow of new exhibits. No aircraft will bestored outdoors.

One of the major features designed intothe structure is the 20,000-square-foot Edu-cation Experience Center. A model-makingshop, simulated control tower, learningkiosks and a fully instrumented SouthwestAirlines Boeing 737 cockpit and simulatorare focal points for three age levels, pre-school, middle school and high school. Eventoddlers have their own make-believe con-trol tower and jumbo jet, and they can alsobuild paper planes and crank a collection ofgears.

There are more than 20 interactive and en-tertaining galleries with displays that teO thehistory of flight from the early dreamers tothe activities of the jet, rocket and space-agepioneers of the new century. A special LoveField exhibit covers the history of the airportfrom its inception during World War I in1917 to its present role as a vital airline hub.The histories of former local companies,such as Braniff International and VoughtCorporation, shomng their impact on local


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aviation's past, are highlighted with three-dimensional artifacts and photo displays. A200-seat multimedia theater will featurespecial films for all age hrackets.

The new museum has been made possi-hle hy a $7.2 million State Transportation En-hancement Project (STEP) grant from theTexas Department of Transportation. Thiswas further funded hy $1.8 million in match-ing funds to expand the facilities and en-hance the collections. More than 350,000visitors are expected during the museum'sfirst 12 months,

Texans are proud of their aviation her-itage and are anxious to show it. In additionto this new showplace, there are the otherestahlished air museums easily accessiblefrom the busy DFW airport. Nearest is theAmerican Airlines/C.R. Smith Museum,conveniently located just off its southhoundary. Displayed are hundreds of avia-tion photographs, airline memorabilia andartifacts including Flagship Knoxville, a life-size American Airlines Douglas DC-3. Its ex-hihits feature the airline's history from thedays when various companies went intoforming the original American Airways,which was then reorganized in 1934 intoAmerican Airlines, now the world's largestinternational airline.

On the west side of Fort Worth atMeacham International Airport is the Vin-tage Flying Museum, where more than 20classic aircraft and a large engine collectionare assembled. There is a heavy emphasison air combat over Europe during WorldWar II. The centerpiece is a Boeing B-17G,the last of the Pathfinder aircraft speciallyconfigured with target acquisition radar.The museum also features an FAA AviationEducation Resource Center, where teachingmaterials and information are available.

Sharing a space with the Vintage FlyingMuseum is the OV-10 Bronco Associationand Museum, dedicated to preserving thehistory of Rockwell International's OV-10turboprop aircraft and the people who flewand serviced it for forward air control andarmed reconnaissance missions in Vietnam.The Texas Air Command, also co-hangaredat the Vintage Flying Museum, features acollection of flyable Vietnam-era militaryhelicopters, including a Bell UH-IH Hueyand two Bell OH-58 Kiowas.

The Pate Museum of Transportation, lo-cated in a suburb of Fort Worth near Cres-son, features antique automobiles, a railroadcar and a mine sweeper, as well as a diversecollection of artifacts represendng the scopeof the technology and history of humantransport. Its 15 airplanes and helicopterson display include a Douglas C-47, VoughtF-8, Republic F-105, North American F-86,Fairchild C-119, McDonnell F-101, Grum-man HU-16 and Kaman HH-43F helicopter.

The Naval Air Station/]oint Reserve Base,formerly Carswell Air Eorce Base, located


northwest of Forth Worth, features some 15aircraft on static display that represent a va-riety of types tised in operations by all themilitary services. The collection of modernfighters includes a Lockheed Martin F-16,Republic F-105, McDonnell Douglas F-4,Grumman F-16, Douglas A-4, North Ameri-can F-86, Lockheed F-80 and a SikorskyUH-34 helicopter.

The Cavanaugh Flight Museum at Addi-son Airport on the north side of Dallas fea-tures one of the finest collections of flyablevintage aircraft in the American West. Theearliest model here is a Sopwith Camel, andone of the latest is a Russian Mikoyan-Gure-vichMiG-31,capahleofMach2. it isoneofthe few locations where visitors can regu-larly get flights in WWII trainers such asthe Stearman N2S-4 and North AmericanAT-6 Texan.

The Dallas/Fort Worth Wing of the Com-memorative Air Force (CAF) at Lancaster Air-port south of Dallas also has a large collectionof flyahle World War II aircraft that partici-pate in airshows all over the country. Head-quartered at Midland, Texas, the CAF'smajor objective is "to preserve in flying con-dition a complete collection of combat air-craft which were flown by all military servicesof the United States during World War II."

Only a half-hour drive north of Dallas/Ft.Worth, at the Texas Women's University Li-brary in Denton, is the archive for theWomen's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS)and the Women Airforce Service Pilots(WASPs), who delivered military aircraftfrom factories to U.S. bases during WorldWar U. Terrell, east of Dallas, has the TerrellHeritage Museum, featuring memorabiliaand photographs from the No. 1 BritishFlight Training School. Several hundredRoyal Air Force pilot trainees received theirinitial flight training at a nearby airfieldduring World War IL

For those interested in glider history, theSilent Wings Museum, formerly located atTerrell, is now established at the interna-tional airport in Lubbock. Its displays,collected by the WWII Glider Pilots Associ-ation, feature the memorabilia, equipmentand history of the wartime American mili-tary glider program.

The Historic Aviation Memorial Museumis located at the airfield in Tyler, an easy driveto east Texas. It features three-phase exhibitareas for contemporary and historic aviationitems and memorabilia. The aircraft collec-tion includes a Russian MiG-17F fighter, aCzech L-29 Delfin trainer and a Polish TF-11trainer. A U.S. Navy North American Fl-4Fury jet fighter and a U.S. Air Force GeneralDynamics F-lllA Aardvark supersonicfighter-bomber are special attractions.

Texans are proud of their many contribu-tions to aerospace history. A trip to any oftheir excellent aviation museums will go along way to explaining why "t"

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MARCH 2005 AVIATION HISTORY

Aerial Oddities

Fokker's twin-engine fighter had potential, hut alsoprohlems—and time ran out hefore they were solved.

BY JON GUTTMAN

ANTHONY FOKKER, WHO WAS BORN in the DutchEast Indies but staited his airplane building career in Ger-many, established an ambiguous reputation during WorldWar 1. On one hand, he hecame renowned for aviation in-novations—the E.I with its forward-firing machine gunsvTichronized to fire through the propeller, the Dr.I tri-plane with its cantilever wing structure and theredoubtable D.VIl hipiane. On at least two occasions,however, the German aircraft inspectorate held up pro-duction on Fokker fighters, the Dr.I and E.V monoplane,because of structural failure attributed largely to faultyqualit\' control.

That duality carried into the 1920s, v^hen Fokker con-tinued to produce great aircraft in both the Netherlandsand the United States, holding on to the fabric-covered,mixed metal and wood structures he had pioneeredduring World War 1. while other aircraft builders wereadopting stressed-skin metal over an all-metal airframe.When a Fokker F- lOA airliner crashed on March 31,1931,killing well-known Notre Dame football coach KnuteRockne, the old suspicions of structural failure due topoor qualit>' control re-emerged. By 1934, Fokker had leftthe United States, but he continued to manufacture air-craft in the Netherlands,

In addition to his commercial endeavors, Fokker builtaircraft for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, such as the T.V

The Fokker D.XXIII was notable for itsfore-and-aft engine arrangement—aswell as aft engine cooling probtems.

bomber and the D.XXI fighter. Neitherplane could be called groundbreakingwhen they entered Dutch service in 1938,but they performed reasonably well andthey were relatively inexpensive, which ap-

„ pealed to nations with limited defense? budgets. In consequence, Fokker D.XXIs—i or licenses to build them—were sold toI Denmark and Finland as well as the Nether-i lands (see Aviation Histon'. March 2004).I Amid that sohd success, Fokker dis-^ played another burst of creativity with the^ G.I Jachtkruiser, a twin-engine, generalI purpose fighter prototype that had causedI a sensation at the 1936 Salon de I'Aero-y nautique in Paris and contributed to as trend among other European countries,

the United States and lapan to build vari-ations on the concept. While development proceeded onproduction variants of the G.I, in late 1937 the Fokker en-gineering team, led by Marius Beeling, set its sights on anew, advanced successor to the D.XXI. As Beeling put it,"After studying all feasible configurations, we had con-cluded that we should concentrate on a twin-enginedfighter with a tandem, fore-and-aft arrangement of thepower plants...."

Beeling's concept was hardly unprecedentedâck in1915 Fokker engineer Martin Kreuzer had experimentedwith that ver)' arrangement on the M.9, and several otheraircraft firms had tried it thereafter. None of thosetandem-engine fighters entered production, however, be-cause of stability and cooling problems inherent in thedesign. Beeling, however, was convinced that those prob-lems could now he overcome, and that the advantages-neutralized torque of the two engines, improved visibilityfor the pilot (who would be seated forward of the wing),fore and aft pilot protection afforded by the engines, a"clean" wing unencumbered by the engines and no lossof stability' in the event of one failing—would make theeffort worthwhile. Although development of the G.I,T.VinW fioatplane torpedo bomber and T.IX mediumbomber had higher priorit)', in December 1937 Beelingand his team began work on the tandem fighter as an ad-



In Jack Fellows' painting Vienna Mission,the Consolidated B-24H Maxwell House:Good to the Last Drop, piloted by FlightOfficer Albert Lowe, is surrounded byflak bursts near the aircraft factory atWiener Neustadt on May 10.1944 (JackFellows, Cactus Air Force Art Project}.

In May 1944. B-24 crews of the 460thBomb Group encountered a deadly stormof flak as they approached the aircraftfactory at Wiener Neustadt.

BY TERRY M.MAYS

Flight Officer Albert Lowe peered from the cockpit of hisConsolidated B-24H, Maxwell House: Good to the LastDrop, and spotted the long runway in the distance. Spinaz-zoia airfield, the hotne roost of the 762nd Bomh Squadron,

460th Bomh Group. Fifteenth Air Force, lay only 10 miles ahead. Thefour-engine heavy bomher was apparently still airworthy despiteserious flak damage from German anti-aircraft guns over the WienerNeustadt aircraft plant earlier in the day The plexiglass over the nosegunner's position had been hlown away when a flak sheO burst nearthe plane. One engine remained feathered and useless, and MaxwellHouse was leaking both fuel and hydraulic fluid. Despite thedamage, the plane limped toward home with an uninjured crew.

Lowe reviewed his approach again in his mind. He would guidethe plane straight toward the airfield, fire a warning flare to alertemergency crews on the ground, and then try for a crash landingon the dirt strip alongside the metal landing mat at Spinazzola.

Then, without warning, the three functional engines gave dyingchugs, followed by dead silence, as the last drops of fuel ran out.Lowe immediately hit the bail-out bell, and the five crew membersin the rear leapt from the B-24 and opened their parachutes. Thenavigator. Lieutenant Thomas Smith, and the engineer, a Sergeant

An aerial photo taken during an earliermission to the Wiener Neustadt factory—on November 2,1943—shows a FifteenthAir Force Liberator over the target.

Truman, moved into the homb bay, andSmith began cranking the doors open. Justthen Smith realized that he had snapped hischest parachute onto his suit backward. Al-though it would have stiiJ operated propedy.Smith let go of the door handles to reversethe chute. When the doors started to rollback down, Truman quickly leapt into thebomb bay and went through the openingjust before the doors closed.

Lowe kept the bomber as steady as possi-ble while the crew members jumped. Afterthe others had left the plane, he planned toturn around and make a running leap intothe bomb bay area and parachute to safety.But Lowe later recalled that his co-pilot's faceappeared extremely pale at that juncture,alerting him that something must have goneuTong with the evacuation. The plane wasfalling rapidly, and there wasn't enough timeto reopen the bomb bay doors, Four crew-men remained in the powerless bomber.

Lowe had been warned that his B-24wasn't capable of gliding, but he startedsearching for an open area in which to crash-land. He ordered his co-pilot. LieutenantRobert Wilson, to pump the flaps. Lowe spot-ted a newly plowed wheat field, and theother crew members assumed their crash|)ositions as the plane descended. The B-24hit the ground with a bone-shattering jolt.Lowe later recalled hearing deafening cracksand pops as the bomber slid through therocky field. Finally, what was left of the B-24 decelerated and came to rest.

They had told Lowe it couldn't be done,but he had done it. He had coaxed a power-

less B-24 into a successful dead-stick landing.Maxwell House was not the only 460th Bomb Group B-24 to suffer

fiak damage over Wiener Neustadt on May 10,1944. In fact, morethan one quarter of the 460th's bombers (eight out of 28) sufferedsubstantial damage from German anti-aircraft guns during the mis-sion. Five hombers were lost, two other heavily damaged planesmanaged to reach other American airfields, and one more B-24limped home to Spinazzola with only half of its crew. The WienerNeustadt mission testified to the deadliness of German anti-aircrafiartillery American daylight bomber crews faced in World War 11.

Lowe, an original pilot with the newly formed 460th Bomb Group,had arrived in Italy with the unit in March 1944. The new groupfound Spinazzola primitive compared to what it had been accus-tomed to during training in the United States. A horse stable servedas the mess facility, and the crews lived in tents. The group's initialbombing missions proved to be milk runs, with little German fighteropposition or flak. The missions became more difficult as the groupwent after more challenging targets such as the Ploesti oil refinery-in Romania. During no other mission they tackled, however, didthey encounter the intense fiak they found over Wiener Neustadton May 10.

24 AVIATION HISTORY MAKCH 2005

An operations sergeant awakenedLowe around 3 a.m. on Uiat fateful morn-ing. The pilot dressed and walked to themess hall for a breakfast of cold pancakesand powdered eggs. After breakfast, thecrews clambered into trucks for thejourney to the briefing room, then sat onbenches while briefers spoke from astage at the head of the room. Onespeaker uncovered a screen on the stageto reveal a map with the day's target—theaircraft plant at Wiener Neustadt, outsideVienna, Austria. Lowe later rememberedhearing a few moans as the men realizedwhat the group would be up against. Thetarget would be heavily defended byanti-aircraft guns, and the pilots couldexpect German fighter opposition both to and from the target.

Armament crews placed eight 500-pound high-explosive bombsin each B-24, and the maintenance personnel preflighted theplanes. Looking back on the raid, Lowe had nothing but praise forhis crew chief, a Master Sgt. Skinner, summing up by saying, "Hewas an excellent aircraft mechanic!" The pilots and crews boardedthe bombers approximately 30 minutes prior to takeoff and initi-ated tbeir preflight checks. When a flare signaled it was time to starttheir engines, the first pilot opened his throttles and headed for atakeoff. As soon as the first plane began accelerating dowTi therunway, the next plane rolled into position. Once airborne, eachsquadron fortned on its leader until tbe formation was complete.By 8:30 a.m. the group had completed its formation and initiated aturn toward the Adriatic Sea.

Atotal of 42 B-24S from the 460di Bomb Group took off fromSpinazzola for the 2M- to 3-hour trip to Vienna. Seven air-craft—the entire low box formation of the first attack u n i t -

aborted the mission because of weather, jettisoned their bombs overthe Adriatic Sea and returned to base. Two aircraft returned early dueto sick aircrew members, four abotted because of engine trouble andanother plane turned back after a parachute was accidentally openedinside the plane. Twenty-eight bombers continued on toward aGerman reception that none ofthe crew members would ever forget.

Surprisingly, as they approached the target at 22,000 feet, theyhad not encountered any German fighters, which must have beenconcentrating on earlier groups. Lowe and the other pilots main-tained a tight formation to help deter any fighters that might be inthe area. The tighter the formation, the greater tlie concentration ofguns that could be massed against an attacking figbter. Lowe com-pared holding a B-24 in a tight formation to driving a truck withoutpower steering, recalling, "You had to kick her, push her, and makeher do what you wanted."

The 460th was the third or fourth bomber group to hit the aircraftfactory that day. Lowe remembered that the Vienna sky erupted asthe first bomber group approached the target: "The sky looked blackwith flak. Aircraft ahead of us were being shot down, and we couldsee them falling out of formation. We could see the black puffseveryu'here as we flew closer to the target. Each puff seemed to begetting closer to us as the gunners acquired our altitude."

The black puffs, often described by aircrews as looking like cottonballs suspended in tbe air, were dangerously deceptive. Any bomberwithin range of an explosion could expect shrapnel damage. Thecloser the flak burst, the greater the chance tbat shrapnel would tearthrough the aircraft, cutting cables and lines and ripping holes infuel tanks, engine components and crew.

German high altitude anti-aircraft artillery employed several types

This 460th Bomb Group B-24 Liberator managed to limp back to Spinazzola airfield aftertaking a hit in its number 2 engine on April 24,1944.

of guns, including the Flak 38, Flak 40 and Flak 41. The Flak 38s couldburl 10-15 rounds of high-explosive shells every minute up to an al-titude of 31,000 feet, The Flak 40s, normally mounted on large per-manent flak towers, boasted 57-pound shells, and an experiencedcrew could fire 8-10 rounds per minute from the two-barrel gun.The Flak 4 Is, which entered service in 1943, incorporated wartimeimprovements in German anti-aircraft artillery. A Flak 41 crew couldfire up to 20 rounds per minute to an altitude of 35,000 feet, but thebarrel had to cool for five minutes after every 25 rounds.

German anti-aircraft gun crews frequently ringed potentialbomber targets. As bombers approached, gunners would often fireat the center ofthe lead formation. All the guns in a battery wouldfire at the same target to increase the odds of scoring hits. The moreguns firing, the greater the chances that Allied bombers would bedowned. Wiener Neustadt's defenders were thoroughly alerted bythe time the 460th's B-24s reached the target.

Two of the planes in the lead box formation were downed by flakeven before they released their bombs, "it momentarily happensbefore your eyes," Lowe recalled. "Tbere was a flash of fire, and thena bomber would drift down from the formation." The first bomberfell at about 12:08 p.m., followed closely by the second at 12:10. Thenflak claimed a third victim, which began losing altitude and was lastseen at approximately 12:47 at 10,000 feet. At least one crew memberfrom that plane parachuted to safet>' and managed to evade cap-ture in Yugoslavia after being picked up by partisan forces. A fourthplane met a similar fate over the target. That plane was last seen hythe other crews at approximately 12:50, continuing to lose altitudebut apparently under control. Ten parachutes were spotted nearby,indicating the entire crew managed to abandon the doomedbomber.

Another of the B-24s limped back to Italy and landed at theAmerican airfield in Foggia with only one engine operating by thetime it arrived. Two crew members had been wounded. A sixtbbomber straggled into the airfield at Vis, an island off the Adriaticcoast, vrith two wounded crew members.

The seventh crippled bomber was hit 20 seconds prior to bombrelease. Sbrapnel exploded the walk-around oxygen bottles and ig-nited a parachute that became wedged in the control cables, forcingthe plane into a steep dive. Two manifold pressure gauge lines weresevered, and a fire erupted on the flight deck. Smoke filled the cock-pit, where the co-pilot. Lieutenant Edward Winters, was clutchinghis side, apparently hit by shrapnel. The pilot. Lieutenant WilliamHammond, ordered his crew to prepare to bail out ofthe strickenplane as Tech. Sgt. Joseph McChesney, tbe engineer, climbed outof the upper turret and began fighting the fire vîth an extinguisher.

McChesney discovered the burning parachute wedged in the cablecontrols and removed it, but the B-24 continued to lose altitude. The

MARCH 2005 AVIATION HISTORY 25

Left: Bombs rain down on Wiener Neustadtfrom a Fifteenth Air Force bomber. Right: Theday after he coaxed the powerless MaxwellHouseXo a successful dead-stick landing in anItalian wheat field, Lowe (left) visited the crashsite. Below right: The force of the landing hadcrushed much of the lower fuselage andplowed a deep furrow in the field.

co-pilot, followed by the bombardier, movedpast McChesney and leapt through the openbomb bay. The nose gunner followed the pair,and the navigator went out the nose exit. Onewaist gunner and the ball-turret gtinner jumpedfrom the rear of the aircraft.

lieutenant Hammond still fought to stabilizethe crippled bomber and allow the rest of hiscrew 10 parachute to safety. McChesney optedto remain on board with his pilot, believingthere was still a chance to save the aircraft. Atthat point, another flak burst rocked thebomber and ripped a large hole in the left wing.1 he radio operator. Tech. Sgt. William Hartman,also had not bailed out. He moved forward tohelp fight the fire and plugged the broken lineswith lead pencils. Hammond somehow man-aged to regain control of the bomber and lev-eled out at 15,000 feet. The tail gunner. Staff Sgt.fames O'Hara, also remained on board. Hemoved to the waist gu ns to be ready in case thecrippled plane encountered enemy fighters onits way back to base.

The B-24 staggered on, despite a ruddercable held together by only two cable strands.The crew had no functional radio and no navi-gational aids. A Messerschmitt Me-109G ap-proached as the bomber passed near Zagreb,but after O'Hara fired a burst from the rightwaist gun as a warning, the fighter did not comeany closer. The four remaining crew memberswere relieved when they crossed the Italian coast and landed atSpinazzola.

M axwell House, the eighth flak victim, shuddered as ashell exploded in front of the plane. "The plexiglasscover on our front gun turret peeled off," remembered

Lowe. "I figured the gunner [Philip McLaughlin] was dead, but I stillcalled to him on the intercom system. McLîughlin held up his handinto the open sky and waved. He was OK!"

Flak had saturated the B-24 with fragments. The hydraulic lineswere leaking in the bomb bay, and a severed fuel line also leakedaviation fuel in the upper deck area. Shattered glass lay everywherein the cockpit. The pilot and co-pilot had been saved by the armorplating in the front of the cockpit, but Lowe recalled that it was aw-fully windy, with much of the glass blown out of the windows.

An oil pressure gauge indicated a dangerous situation with enginenumber 3, which had apparently been hit. Lowe asked co-pilotWilson to shut down the engine and feather the propeller. Mean-while engineer Truman climbed out of the top gun turret and de-voted his attention to the fuel leak. The entire forward deck reekedof aviation fuel and hydraulic fluid. A single spark could easily haveignited the mixture and destroyed the plane and its 10 crew mem-bers in midair, as Lowe had seen happen with other bombers during

the past lew minutes.The battle damage reduced the bomber's speed, and Lowe slowly

pulled it to the right and out of formation as another B-24 automati-cally slid into the lead position. The remaining bombers tightenedtheir formation as Mojcivell House slowly descended over Vienna.Lowe recalled nearly 60 years later that it was a beautiful clear dayover the Austrian city. The bomber still carried its bombload, andLowe reached up to manually salvo the load. But when he pulledthe cable, it simply came out in his hand. The crippled bomber, leak-ing fuel, still carried 4,000 pounds of high-explosive bombs. Lowecalled LieutenaJit John Kellogg, the bombardier, and ordered himto manually release the bombs. Kellogg grabbed a walk-aroundoxygen bottle and proceeded to manually release each bomb. Thenhe slowly cranked shut the bomb bay doors, to reduce drag on thedamaged aircraft.

The crew faced a long journey back to Italy in a crippled B-24 withone engine out, no hydraulics, a flak hole in the right wing flap andleaking fuel. Lowe ordered the crew members to jettison everythingin the bomber, including the guns and ammunition. If they en-countered German fighters, Lowe surmised that he could lower thelanding gear as a sign of surrender and then order the crew to bailout. He had heard that German aviators were reasonable in suchsituations, and he meant to test their sincerity rather than risk car-

MAKOI 20()S AVIATION HISTORY 27

rying the extra weight of guns and ammunition. Thirty minutes later,two specks appeared in the sky and drew closer—Lockheed P-38s.The twin-engine fighters approached Lowe's plane but were not ableto communicate with him. Lowe could see the pilots, however, whowere waving. The fighter pilots slowed their planes and began flyingS-curves to stay with the bomber on its journey hack to Spinazzola.After an hour, one of the P-38 pilots indicated he was low on fueland waved goodbye, and both fighters headed back to their base.

If a crew member was forced to parachute over Yugoslavia, his

Rescue personnel had to use axes to extricate the navigator from the mangled wreckage. More than 25percent of the 460th's bombers were destroyed or crash-landed in the course of the May 10 mission.

prospects after recovery depended on who picked him up. A civil warraged in Yugoslavia as various pro- and anti-German factions battledacross the country. Recovery by a pro-German faction meant death ora German prison camp, while being found by an anti-German parti-san group could mean being turned over to an Allied liaison officerand a clandestine flight back to Italy.

Ditching in the Adriatic Sea was also not a good option. Unlike itsolder stablemate, the Boeing B-17, the B-24 did not ditch well. TheLiberator's bomb bay doors rolled up the fuselage side, while those ofthe B-17 closed flush along the bottomoftbe plane. When a B-24ditched. Its bomb bay doors tended to crumple underneath it, al-lowing water to quickly swamp the aircraft. Crew members were un-likely to make it out before they drowned. Much of tlie flight fromVienna was over Yugoslavia and the Adriatic.

The prospects for a safe arrival at Spinazzola brightened as thebomber approached the eastern coast of Italy. Lowe began to feelhopeful. They cleared the Italian coast at 6,000 feet. Lowe wantedto hold this as a minimum altitude, so the crew could still bail outif necessary. When the other three engines shut down, Lowe quicklyhit the bail-out bell, then glided toward the wheat Held.

Lowe was dazed as he glanced up from die cockpit after slidingthe bomber across the field. A hissing sound indicated there wasprobably a fire somewhere behind him. Glancing to his right, hecould see his co-pilot, Wilson, slumped below what was left of theinstrument panel. He couldn't see any other crew members, but heknew everyone had to get out of the wreckage.

The pilot attempted to move forward, but he couldn't budge. His

harness and seat belt still held him to the pilot's seat. Unhookinghimself, he stepped from the cockpit—right onto the ground. Nor-mally the cockpit of a B-24 sits approximately 12 feet above theground, but the force of the landing had crushed much of the lowerfiiselage, and the lower half of the bomber had plowed a deepfurrow. The nose section of the bomber was missing, and the glassstructure over the cockpit bad been stripped away. Turning towardthe hissing sound, the pilot was relieved to find its source was onlya ruptured oxygen bottle rather than a fire.

Then Lowe heard a muffledcry for help from someone stillinside the fuselage. The naviga-tor. Smith, had been behindLowe as they crashed. He was ap-parently trapped in the wreck-age. Also trapped was the nosegunner, McLaughlin; the uppergun turret had slammed downand pinned his feet. He remainedconscious.

Within minutes, several Italianfarmers arrived on the scene andhelped remove the co-pilot fromunderneath the instrumentpanel. Aside from several cuts onone of his legs, he was not badlyinjured. Lowe continued to talkto his trapped nose gunner. Inless than an hour, a truck andambulance arrived from Spin-azzola, but soon after their ar-rival, McLaughlin suddenlystopped talking and collapsed.Medics determined that he hadhit his head during the crashlanding and died from a con-cussion. A crew used axes to free

Smith from inside the wreckage and then took the men to a fleldhospital. The crew members wbo had hailed out just before the crashhad fared well. The radio operator suffered from facial bruises, butotherwise they escaped unhurt.

Although Germaji flghters did not hit the 460th's bombers on May10, flak had taken a terrible toll on tbe formation. Six of the eight460th Bomb Group B-24s that were severely damaged or totally de-stroyed in the Wiener Neustadt mission belonged to Lowe's outfit,the 762nd Bomb Squadron. The squadron's after-action report listed35 men missing in action, four wounded and McLaughlin killed.Four of the group's bombers, including Maxwell House, were hitbefore they could drop their bombs on the target—surely a successin the eyes of the German defenders.

The next day the squadron operations officer transported Loweback to the crash site. That officer photographed the wreckage andlater gave Lowe a set of the photos as a memento. Lowe completed histour with the 460th Bomb Group, including flve missions over Ploesti,before returning home. As a tribute to his lost comrade, nose gunnerPhilip McLaughlin, Lowe later named his own son Philip Edward, 't

Terry M. Mays is an assistant professor at Tiie Citadel and a frequentcontributor to Primedia History Group publications. For additionalreading, he suggestsTheWM Blue, by Stephen Ambrose.

To read ahout a bomher mission to Romanian oil fields in1943, go to TheHistoryNet at www.thehistorynet.com/

abi and see "Raid on Pioesti," by Lyndon Shubert.


SQUADRON of DEATHBY GERALD A. SCHILLER

Above: The blockbuster Hell's Angels was madeduring barnstorming's golden age, when flyingstuntmen were wooing cinematic audiences(Cinema Photo/Corbis). Opposite: Floyd Parsonstransfers from a speedboat to a Curtiss JN-4 pilotedby Frank Scheltz in 1924 (Courtesy of Art Ronnie).

They flew their rickety aircraft within a fewfeet of the ground, looped them again andagain in dangerous maneuvers and roaredearthward in seemingly suicidal dives,pulling out at the very last minute. Some

clambered out onto the wings thousands of feet abovethe ground to do handstands, swung from ropes totransfer from one plane to another, or hung suspendedfrom the struts of their aircraft and dropped onto othervehicles—planes, speeding boats or automobiles. These


-fib—^

p - ^

A dariii^ group of formerbarnstormers introducedAmerican filin fans to flyingthrills and chills in the 1920s.

were the danger-loving fliers of aviation's early days,widely known as barnstormers.

In the aftermath of World War I, a select group of thesedaredevils found new audiences, performing theirstunts in the silent feature films and serials that prolif-erated throughout the 1920s. The novelty of flying washighly appealing to film producers, and audiences of theday were fascinated by this new technology and its ever-present dangers. An elite group of pilots would gainfame from their cinematic exploits. Dick Kerwood, Al

Wilson, Frank Tomick, Ormer Locklear and Dick Graceall started out performing their stunts on the county faircircuit—until tbe movie industry made them famous-Sadly, the breathtaking stunts that wowed movie audi-ences also claimed the lives of many skilled aviatorsduring those heady years. It was no wonder that stuntpilots became known as the "Squadron of Death."

Efforts to make the stunts appear more realistic on-screen often led to some unintended consequences. loeBonomo, who did many parachute jumps in his career.


A remarkable photo-graphic sequencedocuments a wing-walking perform-ance near Hollywoodby former tJ.S. ArmyAir Service instruc-tor Ormer Locklearon a Curtiss Jennypiloted by Milton"Skeets" Elliott—both of whom diedwhile filming TheSkywayman in1920 (Courtesy ofArt Ronnie).

described one scene that almost resulted in his drown-ing when he bailed out of a plane over water. He and an-other performer were supposed to leap from an aircraftwith only one parachute, but wben no other stunterwould agree to jump with him, he decided to use adummy—which proved to be a wise decision.

When Bonomo hit the water after the jump, the windwas blowing violently and his parachute was pulledthrough the water like a sail at a rapid clip. Using thedummy as both life preserver and shield (to block thewater hitting his face], Bonomo managed to stay con-scious. It was almost half an hour before a speedboat fi-nally arrived to pick him up. Bonomo later quipped,"I'm probably the only man in the world who owes hislife to a dummy."

Such quick thinking under pressure was commonamong stunt pilots—and many would owe their lives toit. Ormer Locklear had built a reputation as a fearlessflier long before he started stunt-flying, while he wasserving as an instructor for the U.S. Army Air Service.Wlien the radiator cap blew off his aircraft during atraining flight, for example, he casually climbed out andstuffed a rag in the opening to prevent boiling waterfrom blowing back into the cockpit. In 1919, while per-forming at a carnival, he made what may have been thefirst public transfer from one plane to another in midair.It was at such carnivals and fairs that Locklear pioneeredmany of the eye-popping stunts other wing-walkerswould copy in the years to come.

Locklear eventually made his way to Hollywood. Oneof his first films was The Great Air Robbery, which en-abled bim to perform many of bis signature moves. Inone scene he changed planes in midair, and in a latersequence he climbed down from a plane to a speedingcar, fought with the villain, then grabbed tbe under-carriage of the plane above him and climbed back intoit just as the car overturned and crashed.

In 1920 Locklear and his friend and pilot Milton"Skeets" Elliott were hired by producer William Fox todo aerial scenes for the film The Skywayman. Locklearperformed a variety of hair-raising stunts for that movie,including a train-to-plane transfer and wing-walking.He even performed at night—rare at the tinte—illumi-

nated by searchlights.On August 2,1920, he and Elliot were to execute the

film's final aerial stunt, a spiraling dive at night over oilfields near Los Angeles from 5,000 feet with phosphorusflares glowing on the wings to give the impression theplane was on fire. Locklear had told the director to killthe searchlights illuminating the dive to signal when itwas time for the pilot to pull out. But for some reasonthe lights were never turned off, and when Locklear andElliot finally realized how low they had fallen, it was toolate. The plane crashed into the pool of an oil well, killingboth occupants.

Not one to sacrifice exciting film footage, producer Foxtook advantage of the publicity and rushed the film intorelease—including the final, fatal plunge. To his credit,however, the moviemaker did earmark 10 percent of thefilm's profits for the families of the men who had died.

Clearly, safety precautions were seldom uppermost inthe minds of early stunt fliers. Few used parachutes, andoften the only safety device involved in stunt sequenceswas a rope tied to the plane's strut and the ankle of the per-former. In a way, stuntmen seemed eager to tempt fate.

Earl Burgess, who had also served as a flying instruc-tor during World War I, became a barnstormer at thewar's end. Hired as the stuntman in a film diat was even-mally dubbed 5^^ Eye, he executed plane-to-plane trans-fers, a leap from a plane to a speeding train, and a fighton the wings of an aircraft in flight.

On February 6,1920, Burgess was doing a scene in afilm for comedian Chester Conklin and accompanied byflier Walter Hawkins. Like too many stunt fliers. Burgesshad refused to wear a parachute. According to some re-ports, he was also out of condition and overweight. Hewas apparently supposed to climb out on a wing, simu-late a fight with a dummy, knock the dummy (the "vil-lain") off the plane, then climb back into the cockpit.

After the scene was filmed the first time, they fiewback to the airfield to give Burgess a rest. However, thescene had to be reshot—either because they needed an-other copy for foreign release or because the directorwas unhappy with the first take (accounts differ).Burgess insisted on doing the second take right awayrather than wait until the next day.


This time, after he threw the dummy from the aircrafr,Burgess began to work his way back to the cockpit. Butwhen he reached the wing skid, the two men in thecamera plane flying nearby couJd tell the stuntman wasclose to exhaustion. A.C. Mann, the pilot of the cameracraft, tried to maneuver below the plane where Burgesshting, so that be coitld get his top wing under the tired per-former. But the stuntman looked across at the other plane,shook his head hopelessly and let go. He fell 500 feet ontosome high-tension wires and died shortly thereafter,

Dick Kerwood, another noted stuntman and aerialperformer, is credited with creating a host of dangerousstunts. Like so many others, he suffered numerous in-juries in his work. In a serial called The Eleuenth Hour.for example, Kerwood was supposed to he in a planethat was hit by gunfire from a submarine below bim. His

aircraft was rigged with an explosive charge that had a10-second delay, to enable bim to bail out just beforethe plane blew up. But tbe delay device did not work,and before he could climb out, the explosion knockedhim unconscious and threw him out of the plane.

Fortunately a piece of shattered wing hit Kerwood,jarring bim awake. He was wearing a parachute, andwhen he saw that most of the debris bad cleared aroundhim, be pulled tbe ripcord and was relieved to see thechute open. But gasoline bad sprayed his chute, and hecould see that it was burning in several places. Hequickly realized tbat unless be could extinguisb tbeflames he would be a goner. With great coolness, hepulled bard on the shroud lines on one side to partiallycollapse tbe chute, then as he fell, let tbe air back in. Byrepeating that maneuver several times, he succeeded in

From left, comedianEl Brendel, RichardArlen, Charles"Buddy" Rogersand an unidentifiedactor are in theforeground of thisstill photo fromWings, which wonthe first AcademyAward for bestpicture.


Like most otherstunt pilots, AlWilson started outperforming on thecounty fair circuit.In 1930 he flewthis 1910 Curtisspusher biplanefrom Chicago toLos Angeles.

subduing tbe flames enough so that he did not end upplummeting uncontrollably into the water. He was laterpicked up by a Na\'y seaplane.

But even the coolheaded Kerwood's luck ran out in1924, when he died in a fall from a rope ladder danglingfrom an aircraft. He became another in the growing listof fatalities among the stunt fliers of the early days of themovies. It was estimated that by tbe early 1930s, of thetop 23 aerial performers, 18 had been killed and fourwere unable to fly after suffering major accidents.

As tbe 1920s came to a close, flying sequences in filmswere becoming more common, but the productionswere also becoming more spectacular. Two such lavishlymade films are still revered today by film historians.

Wings (1927) was directed by William Wellman, him-self a veteran of the Lafayette Flying Corps, a group ofAmerican pilots who flew for France during World War I.The film starred Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen and ClaraBow and included the first brief appearance of a youngGary Cooper. Considered by many the last great silentepic, it was chosen as the winner of the very first Acad-emy Award for best picture.

Wings is highlighted by aerial dogfights, bombingraids, spectacular crashes and a massive re-creation oftbe September 1918 Battle of Saint-Mihiel that involved3,500 infantrymen and five dozen planes. Despite theimpressive numbers of aircraft and performers in-volved. Wings was a relatively safe film, resulting in fewaccidents. Tbere were, however, several major stuntstbat bad to be done, and the always-in-demand DickGrace was hired to execute tbem.

One of tbe top stunt fliers of his day Grace bad earneda reputation for skillful aerial work that spanned manyyears. When Grace saw the deteriorated World War I-eraplanes that were going to be used in the film, he had askilled engineer work with him to rebuild the aging air-

Dick Kerwood's luck ranout in 1924, when he fellfrom a ladder danglingfrom an aircraft.

craft (Spads and German Fokkers). Once the repairswere complete, Grace expertly weakened tbe ones bewould use so tbey would come apart on impact tobeigbten the drama of the crashes.

For one scene the field be was to crash into had beenset up with barbed wire, 6-foot cedar posts, trenchesand shell craters—some as much as 12 feet deep. Theterrain was meant to resemble no man's land. DirectorWellman assured Grace that a 25-foot section would berigged witb flimsy balsa-wood posts and yarn instead ofwire—in case bis crash landing went awry. But the stuntflier would have to bit his mark traveling at almost 100miles per hour—and also avoid hitting several camera-men on the field.

Grace bad an entire emergency crew ready with anambulance, tools to extricate bim from the wreck andanother plane ready to rush him to a hospital if he wasinjured. In late September 1926, all was ready for thescene, and he executed the first crash in a Spad witbconsummate skill, bitting tbe ground just 17 f'eet fromtbe closest camera. Grace himself later described themoment of collision as he roared in at 90 miles per hour:"I jerked tbe stick over to the right, giving just a slight leftrudder. The wing dipped and tbe ftiselage swayed to theleft. In this position I knew tbe ship would be a cincb togo on its back, hut that's what Bill [Wellmanj wanted.

"With a dull thud the wing bit and crumpled, then thelanding carriage crashed. Tbe poor sbip tottered over totbe other wing and broke that, and tbe thing started overon its hack. As it did I ducked my bead forward. It wasmy one measure of protection, but it happened to be justthe right one. Witb a terrific crasb something wedgedbetween my flying coat and the back of the seat."

When be examined tbe wreckage, Grace realized thathe had missed tbe flimsy balsa posts and had bit thehardwood ones. As the plane turned over, two jaggedpieces of cedar fencepost had come through the fuse-lage, and one was just inches from where his bead hadbeen. Ducking his head had probably saved his life.

When Grace performed a second crash—with a FokkerD.VII—he was not so fortunate. As he hit the ground at110 mph, the impact caused the straps holding bim tosnap, and bis head went into the instrument panel. WhenGrace was pulled from the wreckage, be seemed unhurt.But he later collapsed, and an examination revealed abroken neck: Four cervical vertebrae were crusbed, anda fifth was dislocated. Told by doctors that he would bein a cast for a year, Grace refused to follow their advice.After 11 weeks be took off the neck harness and jumpedout of his second-floor hospital room to spend anevening with his girlfriend, Unfortunately his appearance(a slight paralysis on the right side of his face, whichcaused bis features to be twisted out of sbape) shockedthe young lady According to his own explanation, the


next day she decided to become engaged to someone else.Realizing he should finish his therapy before he

ruined any more relationships, Grace completed theprescribed 17-week hospital stay. Even though he wasadvised by doctors not to continue with stunt flying, hewas back at work in 1928, organizing a squadron called"the Buzzards" to perform in a minor film. Lilac Time.He managed to break several ribs in one of the crasheshe did for this film, but again his luck held and he sur-vived. Several other Buzzards, however, were not so for-tunate. Three of them would die shortly after Lilacr/me—though not in film-related accidents.

Another noted aerial movie produced in die latter daysof the 1920s was the brainchild of eccentric billionaireHoward Hughes. Hager to make an aerial film, Hugheshad been furious when the script for Wings (written by hisfriend John Monk Saunders) was bought hy Paramount.The resolute Hughes decided to make his own epic—onethat would outdo Wings. It would be called Hell's Angels.

Then just 23, Hughes hired star actors and spent moretlian half a million dollars buying and renovating 89 air-planes. He put well-known flier Frank Tomick, who hadworked on Wings, in charge of obtaining all the aircrafthe could for the film—on an open budget. BecauseHell's Angels look piace in England, the planes for thefilm had to look British and German, so many of the air-craft Hughes acquired had to be repainted and re-designed to simulate unobtainable foreign aircraft.

He also needed airfields, so he bought a cow pasturenear Van Nuys—just north of Los Angeles—and dubbed

it Caddo Field. There he built hangars and other btuldings,personally supervising construction. He also boughtland in Inglewood, south and west of Los Angeles (in anarea that would later become the site of Los AngelesInternational Airport) and property in Chatsworth, inthe far west part of the San Fernando Valley, whichwould be used to simulate a German base.

One of the final dramatic scenes in the film was thediving, spinning crash of a Sikorsk\' S-29A bomber—re-painted to represent a German Gotha. Both Dick Graceand Frank Clarke had refused to do the stunt for lessthan $10,000, but Al Wilson agreed to perform the dan-gerous dive. Smoke effects would be created by usinglamp black, with a mechanical blower system blasting

A youthful JeanHarlow starred with{left} James Halland Ben Lyon inHell's Angels, vj\}\c\\premiered in 1930.

In the late 1920s,Howard Hughesspent half amillion dollars toequip his Hell's4/?ge/s "squadron,"shown here, withrefurbished WorldWar l-era biplanes.

f

MARCH 2005 AVIATION HISTOHV

Top: Dick Gracesurvived this crash,staged for the filmYoung Eagles in1930, but manyother stunt fliersvtfere not so lucky.Above: Some vet-eran actors fromearly flying filmsgot together for aspecial screening ofW/ngs in 1968, in-cluding (from left):Lucien Hubbard,unidentified,William Weilman,Buddy Rogers andRichard Arlen.

the black "smoke" from the diving plane. A young me-chanic, Phil Jones, volunteered to ride along and oper-ate the smoke machine.

On March 22,1929, with three camera planes in theair to record the stunt, Wilson took the Sikorsky up to7,500 feet. As he started the downward spin, the otherpilots noticed the fabric tearing away from the left uing,and then pieces of cowling from the left engine began tobreak away. Wilson realized he was in trouble, and heclimbed from the cockpit and opened his parachute.

The three cameras recorded the plunge of the planeas they waited for a second parachute to appear. But itnever did. The plane crashed with Phil Jones' bodyinside, his parachute still strapped to him.

Al Wilson was shattered when he learned of the me-chanic's death. He swore he had twice yelled to him tojump, but whether Jones heard him or not, Wilson hadno way of knowing, He received a great deal of criticismafter the accident, but an investigation found him notguilty of negligence. His pilot's license was suspendedbriefly as a result of tlie incident.

Hell's Angels was not completed until 1930, by which

As Al Wilson started hisdownward spin, the otherpilots noticed the fabric tearingaway from the left wing.

time sound had been introduced and audiences wereshunning silent films. Hughes decided to reshoot manyscenes to make what had started as a silent film into asound film. The production ended up costing him $4million—one of the most expensive pictures made upto that time—but it was to prove a success, mainly be-cause of its spectacular aerial scenes.

To highlight the film's premiere on May 27,1930, planesflew low over Hollywood Boulevard, dropping flares andparachutes. Veteran racer Roscoe Turner also partici-pated in the gala event, completing a flight from NewYork to Los Angeles in a record 24 hours and 20 minutes.

Hollywood Boulevard was blocked off in one direc-tion before the movie's initial screening, hut the crowd,eager to see the stars arrive, was immense, and trafficsoon came to a standstill. The film went on to play topacked houses worldwide. Whether or not it eventuallymade a profit is hard to gauge. Hughes always claimedit did, but others were not so sure.

The project had certainly drained a vast amount ofmoney from his odier enterprises. He had shot almost 300times the amount of film tliat was eventually used and lav-ished time and effort on the project. In an interview someyears later, Hughes admitted, "Making Hell's Angels bymyself was my higgest mistake... .Trying to do the work oftwelve men was Just dumbness on my part. I learned bybitter experience that no one man can loiow everything."

Demand for stunt fliers began to wane as the newlyevolving airline industry grew eager to provide film-makers with opportunities to photograph their ownplanes taking off and landing and even made availablemock-ups of their interiors—which they had buih totrain airline staff. Then, as now, product promotion wasbecoming a fact of life for the movie industry. The mili-tary also began cooperating with the industry by pro-viding film companies with both planes and personnel.They saw this as an effective way to recruit young menfor the Army Air Corps.

But a more important reason why there were few ac-cidents in those later days involved the evolution of moresophisticated special effects. Miniatures, rear projectionand matte shot techniques were being developed to apoint where many dangerous scenes could be faked.

Thus the era of the Squadron of Death, which hadclaimed the lives of so many talented fliers, came to anend. It had provided audiencesând the stunt pilotswho survived—with some of the greatest thrills evercaptured on film. +

Gerald A. Schiller is the writer/director of numerous edu-cational films and documentaries. Additional reading:The Motion Picture Pilots and Hollywood's Classic Avia-tion Movies, by H. Hugh Wynne; and Broken Wings:Holl\'wood's Air Crashes, by James H. Farmer.


B-58 HustlerConvair's Supersonic SeCapable of more than Mach 2, the B-58 homhercaptured nearly every speed record in the world.

BY E.R. JOHNSON

You're in an aircraft moving at 20 miles a minute across acloudless sky. Even 10 miles up, the sensation of speed isspine-tingling, the one-mile section lines below flickingpast like crossties on a railroad. There is no sound except

the whispering "white noise" of air flowing past the cockpit. Out-side, there are standing shock waves rippling ahead of the pitotboom and the engine spikes. Inside, the windshield is hot to thetouch. With the aircraft flying level at 50,000 feet, and power reducedjust enough to keep air inlet temperatures within limits, the Machmeter on the instrument panel reads 2,0. Carrying a normal loadof fuel, the aircraft can, if the pilot wishes, maintain this velocityfor another 45 minutes. The pilot is one of the pri\ileged few to flythe Convair B-58 Hustler. He will log more time at Mach 2 on onemission in this aircraft than the average flghter jock of his day ex-periences in an entire career.

The B-58 redeflned perceptions of speed and power. Considerhow it got to Mach 2. First, taking off: With power set at maximumafterburner, 160,000 pounds of aluminum, titanium and lP-4 fuelbegins moving down the runway. Acceleration is spectacular—within 28 seconds, the indicated airspeed moves from zero to 170knots, as the wing bites the air; moments later, at 185 knots, lift ex-ceeds weight and drag, and the rumbling abruptly ceases—theB-58 has become a creature of the air. Then, with the landing geartucked in its wells, the pilot eases back on power to maintain thebest economic climb, about 2,500 feet per minute at 425 knots. Pass-ing through 30,000 feet a little under 12 minutes later, he checks theflight control dampers and center of gravity and makes sure theengine inlet spikes are set on automatic.

Now he's ready to set his hair on fire. He selects maximum after-burner ajid pushes the four throttles up to overspeed. With the nosepulled up slightly, the big plane quickly accelerates through Mach 1and continues on to Mach 2, still climbing. Hard to believe, but thereit is.

When it's time to return to earth, die pilot has to keep in mindthat landing a B-58 changes the concept of "margin of error." In thiscase it means zero—anything above that will kill you. Descendingtoward the base, his first task is to slow the big beast down. Becausethere are no flaps or slats, the pilot eases the nose up to a 12.5-degreeangle of attack, in effect using the entire bottom of the plane as agiant speed brake. Once it's low and slow, in the pattern with thegear down, the B-58 is still rock steady, but tbe pilot is locked into avery delicate balancing act between the forces of lift, drag andthrust. With a careful hand on the throttles, he uses the enormouspower of his four General Electric )79-GE-1 engines to literally holdthis bird in the air. It's no wonder that some of the pilots jokinglyrefer to the aircraft as "a flying manhole cover." On final approachat 200 feet, the nose obstructs forward view of the runway, and thepilot has to feel his way down to the threshold using instruments


nsationStan Stokes' painting Arctic WusWer depicts a Convair B-58A on alow-altitude mission out of Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, in thelate 1960s (Stokes Collection).

and depending on his own peripheraleyesight. On final approach, the pilotdeploys a drogue chute just to get downto touchdown speed. Over the fencenow, looking good at 190 knots. The bigplane settles down, and this is it—themain wheel bogles plant themselves onthe pavement in a protesting screech.The nose has to be held off until speeddissipates. Finally, almost in slow motion,the nose settles. The B-58 has defiedgravity and cheated death again.

As a technological achievement,the process of bringing the B-58into existence should be ranked

up there with tbe Apollo Project tbat putmen on the moon 13 years after the Hus-tler first flew. In the context of the post-war period, the engineering challengeposed—building an airplane that couldsustain speeds equal to the muzzle ve-locity of a .30-caliber bullet, yet functionas a strategic bombing platform—wastotally unprecedented. But much like thecomputer revolution of the last 20 years,American aviation technology moved byleaps and bounds in the decade follow-ing 1945. So much so, in fact, that by late1951 the U.S. Air Force was prepared toissue its first general operating require-ment (GOR) for a supersonic aircraftbomber (SAB). GOR/SAB-51, as it wasknown, specified a bomber with a highsubsonic cruise, supersonic dash capa-bility, an unrefueled range of 2,000 milesand an operational ceiling of 50,000 feet.

The principal contenders for theGOR/SAB-51 project were the BoeingAirplane Company of Seattle and Con-vair Aircraft Corporation of San Diego.Both companies had already devotedconsiderable research to the supersonicbomber problem by 1951 but bad ar-rived at surprisingly different solutions.Boeing's approach was fairly conserva-tive—a four-engine, sweptwing aircraftwith a conventional layout. But Convair'sidea—a smaller, sharply pointed delta-wing plane—looked like anillustration from the pages oi Amazing Stories. Perhaps more thanany other U.S. aviation firm, Convair was wedded to the true (i.e.,tailless) delta-wing concept, having successfully flown its first delta-wing jet in 1948 (the experimental XF-92). In fact, months beforeGOR/SAB-51 was announced, the Air Force authorized Convair topursue a follow-on design for a delta-wing supersonic interceptor,designated the YF-102.

In connection with the SAB competition. Gonvair evolved anumber of highly imaginative concepts for delta-wing bombers ca-pable, in theory, of making a supersonic dash to and from a target.Its MX-1626 design of March 1951 envisioned a comparatively small(100,000 pounds gross weight) true delta with 60-degree leadingedge sweephack, two afterburning engines in wing nacelles and anexpendable weapons pod that also functioned as a rocket-powered,air-to-ground missile. The MX-1964 configuration of mid-1952 was


Left: In 1954 Air Research and Develop-ment Command chief Lt. Gen. ThomasS. Power was a proponent of Convair'sproposed supersonic bomber. Belowleft: Strategic Air Command chiefGeneral Curtis E. LeMay argued thatthe much larger Boeing B-52 was abetter bet for SAC. Right: Followingthe XB-58's first flight on November 11,1956, pilot Beryl Erickson (at left)posed with engineer Charles Harrisonand observer and systems specialistJ.D. McEachern.

40 percent larger (140,000 pounds) andfeatured four afterburning engines slungunder the wings in paired nacelles. Fur-ther refinements of the design reposi-tioned the engine arrangement andplaced fixed fuel pods on the outer wings.The centerline-mounted pod, while nolonger rocket-powered, was longer thanthe airplane itself and had to be jetti-soned before landing. Despite the oper-ational complications posed by the pod,the Air Force's Air Research and Develop-ment Command (ARDC) believed that,compared to its rival Boeing, Convair'sMX-1964 proposal was not only the leastcostly alternative but also representedthe best hope for realizing a supersonicbomber any time in the foreseeablefuture. On November 2, 1952, Convairwas announced the winner of SAB com-petition and authorized to completedesign work on an aircraft that would bedesignated the B-58.

Before the design of the new bombercould be completed, however, both Con-vair and the Air Force would be forced tolearn some costly lessons in delta-wingaerodynamics. In early 1953, extensivewind tunnel testing of a full-scale mock-up of the YF-102A interceptor revealedthat excessive transonic drag wouldrender the airplane incapable of exceed-ing Mach 1 in level fiight. Air Force offi-

cials were stunned, given that the aircraft had already been put intoproduction solely on the basis of detailed design and mock-up work.Despite their expertise, it was obvious that Convair's engineers hadoverlooked sometliing. The solution was found in "area rule," a prin-ciple discovered only the year before by NAGA (later NASA) engi-neer Richard T. Whitcomb. By pinching in the waist of the fuselageto a Goke-bottle shape, the drag buildup at the wing joint was sub-stantially eliminated. Wind tunnel testing of the YF-102A also indi-cated that the plane would be dynamically unstable, so that othermajor modifications—cambered wing leading edges, reflex wingtipsand a rearward relocation of tbe wing itself—were dictated. In effect,a virtual redesign was needed.

Using the lessons learned from the YF- 102A, Gonvair's design stafflaid down the definitive aerodynamic form of the B-58 in August 1954.After considering various options, tlie designers decided to locate thefour afterburning engines in individual nacelles that hung from

pylons beneath the wings. The external weapons pod, which hadcaused much debate, was now shorter than the fuselage and couldbe carried when the plane landed. Increased internal fuel storagestemming from the fuselage redesign allowed elimination of the fuelpods on the wings. Wind tunnel tests of this configuration showed asignificant increase in supersonic performance over earlier MX-1964estimates. The design would thus remain unchanged up to the timeof the first flight. Convair's public relations department probably in-tended to name the futuristic bomber "delta-something," like itsF- 102A Delta Dagger predecessor, but the company's project engi-neers were a step ahead. They'd alreadylabeled it the Hustler,

Ironically, it was at this point that theB-58 almost became an idea that neverhappened; Convair was prepared tobuild the plane, but factions within theAir Force were not sure they wanted it.General Curtis E. LeMay, chief of Stra-tegic Air Command (SAC), was not soldon the "small" supersonic bomber con-cept. He and his staff believed thatBoeing's subsonic B-52 Stratofortress—Tk times heavier and scheduled to enterservice in 1955—would fulfill SAC's stra-tegic bomber requirements beyond thenext decade. In fact, his staff had noteven bothered to include the B-58 in theAir Force's future bomber force projec-tions. On the other side of the argument,ARDC chief Lt. Gen. Thomas S. Powercontended that an aircraft as advanced

A Convair B-36—carrying the fuselageof a B-58 in its bomb bay—lands inOhio prior to B-58 stress testing.

as the B-58 should be built, even if only experimentally, and if SACdid not use it, it might have a role somewhere else.

A review board of top Air Force officials was assembled in early1955 to decide the issue. Generally favoring ARDC's view, the boardsubsequently agreed that 13 B-58s should be huilt for experimentaland service test purposes even if the type was never used as a stra-tegic bomber. The board's next action was to recommend produc-tion of a wing-size unit of B-58s, though it made no provision as towhich Air Force command would actually use the new aircraft. InDecember 1955, the Air Force gave Convair a contract to build 13airframes and 31 pods as the B-58A, and five months later the contractwas enlarged to maintain production at a "minimnm sustainingrate" (i.e., enough to keep the assembly line open) until October1956, when the Air Force would decide whether or not to continue.

The Hustler signified a quantum leap in the materials and meth-ods used to build an aircraft. Supersonic aerodynamic loads, skinheating from friction (250 degrees at Mach 2), and sonic fatigue (171decibels in maximum afterburner) placed new demands on the air-frame. Similar to warship construction, the main structural com-ponents consisted of span-wide duralumin frames set at only 11 - to15-inch intervals, which integrated the wing to the fuselage in anunbroken strucUire. Convair evolved a new duralumin and fiberglass"sandwich" material for the wing skins that was both strong and heatresistant, and two layers of metal were bonded together to form thefuselage. Despite its compact size—96.8 feet long, 56,8-foot wingspanand 163,000 pounds takeoff weight—the B-58 was designed ac-cording to a "high density concept" (that is, much of its interiorvolume was utilized to store fuel). In fact, almost 50 percent of itstakeoff weight (80,000 pounds) consisted of fuel. The system of fueltanks was also used to compensate for the aft movement of thecenter of gravity as the aircraft accelerated to supersonic velocities.

Movable control surfaces consisted of a swept rudder and elevonsalong the wing's trailing edge, interconnected to serve as both ele-vators and ailerons. The conventional stick and rudder pedals werenot mechanically linked to the control surfaces themselves but toan electrohydraulic assembly designed to simulate control feel atvarious speeds and flight attitudes. Anticipating the hazards inher-ent in the Hustler's speed and delta-wing planform, the engineerstried to eliminate as much human error as possihie. For example.

MARCH 2005 AVIATION HISTOHV 41

A cockpit view of the B-58. On finai approach, the bomber's noseobstructed the piiot's forward view, so he had to feei his way downbased on instruments and peripheral vision.

in automatic mode, the flight control system provided three-axisdamping and constant G-limiting, making it effectively impossibleto manually exceed the plane's load limits in supersonic flight—andthe trim system, requiring no input from the pilot, automaticallycompensated for changes in pitch, roll and yaw through takeoff,cruise and landing. Because so much can go wrong so fast in a Mach2 airplane, the designers introduced a highly conspicuous warningand caution light system to immediately alert the pilot to any mal-function, This system was later augmented by an auditory systemin which a female voice warned of 20 different emergencies.

The B-58 carried three crew members, a pilot, a navigator/bom-bardier (N/B) and a defensive systems operator (DSO). seated inself-contained, tandem compartments. The pilot, in front, had ex-

cellent visibility from his multipaneled, wraparound windshield,but the N/B and DSO had only small side windows. The N/B's panelwas equipped with state-of-the-art bombing and navigationalequipment, and the DSO's station contained the aircraft's active andpassive defense system monitors. The B-58 was originally fitted withstandard explosive-propellant ejection seats—virtually uselessabove 600 knots—but these were later replaced by a fully encapsu-lated, rocket-powered system that permitted ejection from groundlevel up to 70,000 feet at Mach 2.

One of the more distinctive features of the B-58's weapons systemwas its multipurpose, 75-foot-long centerline pod. Originally con-ceived as a one-piece, fin-stabilized aerod\Tiamic "shape," it con-tained two fuel tanks and a variable-yield thermonuclear bomb.Because of fuel leakage problems, the one-piece unit was replacedby a two-component pod. which separated the weapon from thefuel and allowed the lower fuel pod to be jettisoned before theweapon was delivered to the target. Defensive armament consistedsolely of a radar-guided 20mm rotary cannon mounted in the tail,which could be fired automatically or manually from the DSO's sta-tion. The Sperr\'-builtASQ-42 navigation/bombing system—prob-ably one of the largest collections of vacuum tubes and mechanicalanalog machinery ever built by man—was developed specificallyfor tbe B-58's high-altitude supersonic mission. Through the flightcomputer/autopilot, the system could guide the plane along a greatcircle track at a constant Mach number to virtually any point on theglobe. In bombing mode, the system kept the plane on a correctheading to the target while compensating for wind drift and Corio-iis effect. At the precise moment calculated to provide an optimalburst over the aiming point, the system would automatically releasethe thermonuclear weapon.

On November 11, 1956, the first YB-58A lifted off the runway atCarswell Air Force Base, Texas, with Convair test pilot Beryl A. Er-ickson at the controls, and three weeks later, on its third flight,punched through the sound barrier at 35.000 feet and throttled upto Mach 1.6 (1,062 mph). Two moreYB-58As were delivered during1957 to augment the flight test program. To say that the aircraft ex-ceeded its performance expectations would be a colossal under-statement: By the end of the year, the plane had attained anastounding maximum speed of Mach 2.11 (1,388 mph) at altitudesover 50,000 feet and had maintained a speed in excess of Mach 1 for

Note the centerline pod, designed to carry fuel as well as athermonuclear bomb, on this photo of a Hustler—whose pilothas deployed a drogue chute to get down to touchdown speed.


Theodore von Karman, Supersonic Prophet

Once described as one of the world's eight true geniuses, Theodorevon Karman was born in Budapest, Hungary, on May 11,1881.

He received his formal education at Gottingen, acquiring a full fel-lowship in the early 1900s to pursue his doctorate in mathematics.The young genius' interest in aeronautics was triggered whilespending a holiday in Paris, where at the suggestion of a friend hewatched French aviator Henri Farman successfully complete a two-kilometer flight. From that point forward, the Hungarian mathe-matician devoted his entire life to the advancement of aeronauticaland astronautical technology.

In 1912, at the age of 31, von K a r m ^ was appointed director andprofessor of the Aeronautical Institute at Aachen, Germany. DuringWorld War I, he was drafted into military service by the Austro-Hun-garian Empire, where he acted as chief of research for the Imperialand Royal Air Service. Working at Austria's Military Aircraft Factoryat Fischamend, von Karman helped develop a helicopter prototypethat proved itself capable of maintaining hovering flight while teth-ered to the ground. Although the project never got past the experi-mental stage, the helicopter was perceived as a potential replace-ment for the highly vulnerable hydrogen balloons then manned byartillery observers.

Returning to his post at Aachen after the war, von Karman begantraveling widely as a lecturer and consultant to the aviation industry.In the fall of 1926, while visiting the United States at the invitationof Donald Douglas, he helped found the Guggenheim AeronauticalLaboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.Four years later, because of growing Nazi influence in German aca-demic circles, von Karman permanently relocated to Southern Cali-fornia, where he became director of the Guggenheim Aeronauticallab. Under his leadership in the 1930s, the lab grew into one of theworld's foremost centers of aeronautical research and development.There, von Karman continued his work on a variety of theoreticalproblems, including the first serious research into the largely un-explored areas of transonic and supersonic aerodynamics.

During World War II, General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, chief of theU.S. Army Air Forces, appointed von Karmdn chairman of the ArmyAir Force's Research and Development Board. Arnold, who foresawthat the United States' military responsibilities would not end withthe war, told the scientist to develop a technological blueprint for apostwar Air Force with global striking powers. Among the militarysystems proposed under von Karman's leadership were remarkablyadvanced concepts for supersonic aircraft, nuclear weapons sys-tems and ballistic missiles. One of the projects fostered by his ef-forts was the rocket-powered Bell X-1, which shattered the soundbarrier on October 14,1947. Emboldened by this and other break-

The B-58's lineage can be traced to pioneering research fosteredby Hungarian-born physicist Theodore von Karman.

throughs, government, scientific community and aircraft industryofficials began working together in earnest to develop a future gen-eration of supersonic aircraft. Among the progeny of their effortswas the Gentury Series of U.S. Air Force fighters and the world's firstsupersonic bomber, the Convair B-58 Hustler.

Among von Karman's many other accomplishments was thefounding of Aerojet General—the first U.S. company to manufac-mre rocket engines. In 1944 he become tbe co-founder of what isknown today as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the first researchprogram sponsored by the U.S. government for the development oflong-range missiles and space exploration. In 1963 von Karmanbecame the first recipient of the National Medal of Science, whichhe was awarded by President John F. Kennedy. He died on May 7,1963. E.RJ.

a period of 91 minutes. Successful pod drops were made from42,000 feet at speeds over Mach 2. Overall flight control and stabil-ity proved excellent. The rigid delta wing produced a steady fiightplatform, exhibiting none of the "air springs" pitch and roll effectsin turbulence common to fiexible-wing aircraft. But as B-58 pilotswould discover, ease of handling did not mean easy to fly, for whenmishandled, the sleek bomber could be fatally unforgiving.

At the same time that the test program Hustlers were setting newstandards for supersonic flight, they were also revealing a long listof serious problems. The experimental YJ79 engines—developed byGeneral Electric specifically for the B-58—generated excessive vi-

bration, and their erratic afterburner operation produced unpre-dictable yawing at supersonic speeds. The nearly new airframes badalready developed cracks along rivet lines in the fuselage from sonicfatigue. Fuel sloshing back and forth in the tanks as the aircraft ac-celerated or slowed created dangerous stability problems. Duringlandings, the tires frequently caught fire. There was still no safemeans of escape—an ejection at supersonic velocities would prob-ably be fatal. And if all those problems were not enough, the super-sophisticated ASQ-42 nav-bomb system was nowhere near readyfor installation and testing.

During 1958 and 1959,27 more preproduction B-58s were deiiv-

MAKCH 2005 AVIATION HISTORY 43

A total of 116 Hustlers were built. In 1965 the DefenseDepartment announced plans to phase out the B-58fleet (John MacNeill).

ered and the aircraft moved into its second phase of testing, de-signed largely to evaluate its operational suitability. By this time,most ofthe Air Force's upper echelons agreed that if used it all, theB-58 should become part of SAC's strategic bomher force. GeneralPower, who had received his fourth star and heen given commandof SAC, wanted the Air Force to huy the Hustler in large numhers toreplace its aging Boeing B-47 Stratojet fleet. LeMay, now serving asthe Air Force's vice chief of staff, still opposed the idea, maintain-ing that the potential cost of the supersonic program outweighedits strategic usefulness, but he stood virtually alone, In June 1959,while Category II testing continued, the Air Force announced plansto acquire 290 B-58s, enough to equip a five-wing homher force—but the controversy was far from over.

Airframe modifications, improved engines, new electronics andother systetn changes rectified many ofthe Htistler's earlier faults, butits accident rate was downright shocking. Between 1958 and 1960,seven ofthe 30 preprodiiction airplanes crashed. SAC officials began

44 AVIATION HISTORY MARCH 2t)05

to bave doubts about tbe bomber's planned operational deploymentand asked for an extension of the test program; the surviving fleet ofB-58s was restricted to subsonic flights until the problems could beaddressed. Investigation ofthe crashes ultimately revealed a majordesign flaw in the flight control system, which was redesigned andcorrected in all remaining aircraft. But the experience effectively leftthe Air Force hesitant about the B-58's future. And even if the super-sonic bomher became operational, there were new questions aboutthe integrity of its mission. A study completed in 1959 by the Rand Cor-poration for tbe Air Force's Air Staff recommended scrapping the B-58program altogether in favor of re-engined B-47s, The study, basedon recent intelligence predictions, claimed that even at supersonicspeeds tbe B-58 would provide only marginally better penetrativeability against the newest Soviet fighters and anti-aircraft defenses.

Despite General Power's best efforts, the B-58 was fast becomingthe unwelcome stepchild of SAC. The only two factors keeping it alive


Build Your Own Convair B-58 Hustler

The Convair B-58 Hustler was theworld's first supersonic jet

bomber, but the Strategic AirCommand's commander in chief.General Curtis E. LeMay, wasn't in-terested in the sleek and technolog-ically advanced aircraft. GeneralLeMay was a "big bomber" advocatewho wanted aircraft like the Consol-idated B-36 and the Boeing B-52 forSAC's arsenal. However, successorGeneral Thomas S. Power, previ-ously the head of the Air Researchand Development Command, cam-paigned for tbe advanced B-58p andSAC finally adopted the Hustler inthe early 1960s.

B-58 models are produced in all gofthe popular scales. The smallest is |from Academy in 1 / 144th scale and 5fits comfortably on desktops or dis-play shelves. (This kit is in the same scale as the B-47Ebuilt for the November 2002 issue.) Construction startswith assembling and painting the interior crew compart-ments gloss aircraft gray, FS-16473. Decals are providedfor the three instrument panels. For a little color con-trast, paint the crew ejection pods a slightly darker gray.

Glue the completed interior to a fuselage side, andtben cement tbe two balves together. Tbe large deltawing should be glued into place next. Note that thewing-to-fuselage joint will take careful fitting to avoid alarge filling and sanding job later. Skip the assembly ofthe landing gear and build up the four General ElectricJ-79 engine pods.

On the real aircraft, the pods were fabricated fromseveral alloys. Painting them varying shades of silver willadd contrast to an otherwise dull color scheme. The ex-haust cones should be airbrushed with Model Master's"magnesium," the aft portion of the main pod with "ti-tanium" and the forward sections with Floquil "oldsilver."

With the engines complete, go back to the fuselageand fill, sand and polish all the seams. An undercoat oflight gray will bring out any construction errors. Metal-izer paints magnify surface scratches and flaws, so workto get a mirroriike finish on the plastic. I painted thefuselage with Floquil's "platinum mist." This is a luster-less color that simulates aluminum which has been sub-jected to wear and high speeds.

Again, to simulate the different types of metal used inthe construction of the aircraft, mask and spray tbeleading edges of the wing and vertical stabilizer withFloquil "bright silver." This will give the impression thatthe metal has been subjected to high temperatures andspeed. (Floquil paints are lacquer-based and should beused with proper ventilation.}

When the fuselage paint has dried completely, maskand paint tbe radome with semigloss black, FS-27038,and the anti-glare panel in front of the cockpit with flat

black, FS-37038. The nose booms on B-58s were gener-ally painted silver or white with a contrasting "barberpole" spiral of red or day-glo orange. Paint the boom ac-cording to your references, but hold off attaching it untilthe model is finished. Note that this piece is very fragileand can easily pop off.

The B-58 landing gear was an "18-wheeler" (16 tireson the main gear and two on tbe nose gear), The tiresare aircraft interior black, FS-37031. To paint the wheelrims, cut the point off of a wooden toothpick and "dot"the centers with Testor's silver.

The final construction steps include painting theinside ofthe crew compartment covers gloss white, tbelanding gear wells and door covers interior green, FS-36151, and constructing and painting the largeweapons-fuel pod located under the fuselage with "plat-inum mist."

With the painting complete, attach the engine podsto the wings. To get a good fit here will require sometrimming and sanding. The kit decals for our mode! rep-resent an aircraft from the 43rd Bomb Wing stationed atLittle Rock Air Force Base, Ark., in 1961. Jay Miller's bookConvair B-58 Hustler, published by AeroFax, is an ex-cellent reference for details and markings.

With the decaling finished, "weather" the model byspraying a very thin mixture of Tamiya's "smoke" instreaks over the pane! lines to simulate exposure to theelements. The less is more principle is best here.

Assemble and attach tbe very delicate landing gear tothe fuselage. You'll need a steady hand to glue the morethan a dozen parts required to complete tbe undercar-riage. Mask the clear sections and paint the pilot's wind-screen, then attach it to the front cockpit along with thehatch covers for the crew compartments.

Finally, glue the needle-size nose boom to the frontofthe radome, and your model ofthe B-58 Hustler willbe ready for display.

Dick Smith

MARCH 2005 AVIATION HISTORY 4=

I N T E R V I E W

Italian IHmotor Ibrpedo

Dalmazio "Dal" Corradini, his four crew membersand the squadrons of the Aerosilurante (torpedobomber service) of Italy's Regia Aeronautica flewsome of the most successful and dangerous mis-sions of World War II, Their attacks, combined withthose of their German allies, came close to stran-gling the British island base of Malta. By 1943, how-ever, the Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79, though stillconsidered the superior torpedo aircraft of its typeby Corradini and his fellow pilots, could not defenditself against the faster, heavily armed fighters ofBritain's Desert Air Force. In an interview with KenAmold, Corradini described the hazardous missionsthat ultimately led to his becoming an Allied POW.Aviation History: Tell us about your background.Corradini: I was born in February 1919 in Naples.My parents were from the Marche region (south ofVenice and east of Florence), on the Adriatic coast.My father had gone to Naples in 1910 to open arestaurant, where he did well until he died in 1931.My mother supported my brother and three sistersby starting a business of making and selling eggnoodles. We did not bave a lot of money, and we didnot have a car. I only started driving after I cameover to the United States in 1947.AH: Who were your heroes as a young man?

Corradini: ItaloBalbo had a lot of admirers.I was one of them. Balbo created a wave

of enthusiasm for Italian aviation whenhe took a formation of 12 sea-

Flying Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79S

andS.M.84s,torpedo bomber

pilots like DalmazioCorradini sank

more Alliedshipping than theentire Italian fleet.

BY KEN ARNOLD

planes over the Atlantic a few years after CharlesLindbergh's crossing. I bad no previous experiencein a\iation. I just came to like it and decided to jointhe air force.AH: When did you join the Reâ Aeronautical.Corradini: At age 19 I joined the air force as atrainee for the officer's school, and I became asecond lieutenant pilot in |une 1940. Italy alwayshad compulsor\^ military ser\'ice for all men on atemporary basis, and career service for people whowanted to stay in the military all their working life.I joined the fiegz'a Aeronautica as a noncareer offi-cer because I had the qualifying diploma of mystudies and was called "ujficiale di complemento."As such, I was supposed to serve 18 months andthen get an honorary discharge and go home tocivilian life. The war changed the time of service,and after the usual 18 months I was "retained in theservice for war reasons." So from the beginning,January 1939, to tbe end, in October 1945,1 spentnearly seven years in tbe air force.AH: What aircraft did you train on?Corradini: I trained on single-engine biplanes,such as tbe Caproni 100, Breda 25, Fiat C.R.20 and


Bomber Pilot

Fiat C.R. Caccia [fighter). Later I trained on multi-engine planes, such as the Savoia-Marchetti S.M,79,S.M.81 and S.M.84. The cadets who scored high onacrohatic flights were assigned to the fighter planegroups. Those who, like me, were classified as goodnavigators and steady fliers were assigned to thehomhardment units. At the end of the course wewould find our names listed on a poster outside ourharracks with a notation by the side, indicating"civilian pilot license" or "military pilot license."Then we would go out, huy the corresponding winghadge and put it on.AH: Did you ever do any joy riding or stunt flying?Corradini: The Italian word for a pilot who doesthat is scapestrato |an individual who uses his headonly to scratch it once in a while]. Once I went upwith my co-pilot and the engineer. The officialreason for the flight was "instmmental flight train-ing," which meant that one of the two pilots wouldfly blind behind a curtain at 3,000 meters' altitudeand only rely on the instruments while the otherpilot would keep his eyes open to avoid hitting amountain or some other plane. That day our in-strumental flight was a series of huzzings over somehoats hy the beach, scaring the daylights out of thepoor fishermen who, at the approach of the plane,

As depicted by ErnieBoyette, this Savoia-

Marchetti S.M.79 torpedobomber was frequently

flown by 2nd Lt.Dalmazio Corradini of

the Italian 228th TorpedoBomber Squadron

(Ernie Boyette).

would either lie flat on the bottom of the boat or, onsome occasions, jump into the water. Everythingwas working out well for us that day, and we werehaving a lot of fun when, with the plane flying atahout 3 or 4 feet from the water, a bunch of ducksflew out of some bushes and were hit hy the plane.With several holes along the edges of the wings, wereturned to the airport. When we saw the squadroncommander 1 explained that, while my co-pilot wasbehind the curtain, these birds came at us andbefore 1 could even see them they were hit by theplane. This is when I was given a week of housearrest hecause, as the commander said, "Ducksdon't fly at 3,000 meters."AH: How and where were you trained in torpedoattack techniques?Corradini: Our training as torpedo pilots startedafter we had been bombardiers for a year or so. Thetorpedo school 1 attended was at the Naples airport,near the sea. I would take off with a disarmed tor-pedo—no explosive in the head, only sand to retainthe normal weight. A small ship, usually a mine-sweeper, would go up and down at different speeds,to give us a chance to work out our "triangle of


launching." This meant trying to figure out thespeed of the ship and setting our aiming instrumentaccordingly. The aiming instrument was a primitivedevice shaped like a horseshoe with several nailssticking out of it. As I saw the ship, I was to estimateits speed. The only clue I had for this was the lengthof the wake; if it was equal to the length of the ship,the speed was estimated at 20 nautical miles perhour. For a wake half the length of the ship, thespeed was estimated at 10 miles per hour. Any otherlength of the wake would give me a correspondingestimated speed of the ship. Once the speed hadbeen estimated, I would aim the corresponding nailof the horseshoe at the ship and launch the torpedoin the direction of the front nail of the device. Thiswould create a triangle, where the ship and theplane were at the two lower points, and the torpedowould bit the ship at the third, higher point. Ourtraining torpedoes would travel at a depth of 15 to20 feet in order to cross under the ship without hit-ting it. By the side of the target ship there was a fastmotorboat that would chase the torpedo and re-cover it with a special net.AH: What was your first operational squadron as-signment?

Corradini: I was with the 228th Sqiiadriglia Aero-siluranti—my assigned S.M.84 was No. 5. The 228th,together with the 229th, formed Gruppo [group] 89.The other group, which with the 89th formed the32nd Stormo [uing], was the 38th. Our units wereinterchangeable, since aircraft were not assigned toany given crew permanently. For instance, myplane was No. 5, but if it was being repaired I wouldbe fiying someone else's plane, irrespective of thenumber or symbols painted on the fuselage. Ourgroup traded in the S.M.84 for the S.M.79 in De-cember 1942 because the old 79s were better thanthe new 84s. I flew both, and like many other pilotsI felt that the 79 was better for size, weight and,most of ail, maneuverahility.AH: How many missions did you fly, and what wereyou armed with most of the time?

Left: "Dal" Corradini at thecontrols of an S.M.79.Right: After completing

his initial training insingle-engine biplanesat Aviano Air Base, heserved for a year as a

bombardier beforeattending torpedo attackschool (Photos: Courtesyof Dalmazjo Corradini).

Corradini: My war missions were five as a bomherand 15 as a torpedo pilot, all against the British fleet.My first mission was on May 10,194I, with bombs,and the last one on March 27, 1943, vidth the tor-pedo. The "mad bombs," bomhe matte, were actu-ally small torpedoes that were parachute-retarded,entered the water when released from the para-chute and, with the rear propeller going, would goaround in an expanding spiral unt^ they hit some-thing or exploded by themselves at the end of theirrun. I had some training with them, but never badoccasion to use them in a war mission.AH: Were there shortages of equipment and tor-pedoes?Corradini: Our group in Sardinia was isolated andtook orders from the air force general in charge ofthe island. If the order was to go out with the bombsbecause there were no torpedoes, we wouldn't haveknown. Therefore, if there were shortages, we werenot told. We knew of spare parts shortages becausevery often the answer to our requests was, "Not instock." In such cases we had to find a way to fix theold or damaged ones. I remember cases when, forlack of tires, we would have our "specialists" make doby using some wire or tape to keep the old tires fromjumping off the rims.AH: Was your group generally successful in at-tacking the convoys and escorts?Corradini: With the exception of the one case w4ienI returned with the torpedo, we always found someship to hit, either with the bombs or witb the tor-pedo. At the end of every mission, we would bave ameeting with our commander and, if it was a col-lective action, with the crews of the other planes. Inthose meetings we would all agree on the results. Forexample, for a bombardment mission: "I saw thebattleship hit by four bombs. I saw the plane carrierhit hy two bombs. I saw one bomb on the cruiser,which was on the right side of the battleship andwas shooting at us like crazy. Look at the pho-tographs and see if you agree," In all cases, it wasalmost Impossible for us to say whether the ship


was sinking or not. lo see tliat, we had to be aroundand take pictures, and very few pilots did that.When I did it, I certainly paid for it.AH: Teil us about the events leading up to yourhnal mission.Corradini: It all started on March 27,1943. At thattime, I was stationed at the military airport of Milisin Sardinia. That morning a motorcycle messengercame to my lodging (a room I shared with my friendRoberto Bocca) and told me that 1 was due on theflying line "right now." 1 shouted goodbye to Robertoand told him that we would have lunch togetherupon my return. Little did I know that I would notsee him again for 20 years. In general, we would flyuntil we didn't come back from a mission—capturedor killed. By now war was a part of our life, and wetook it as it came. Were we superstitious? Yes. Likeeverybody else, we didn't want to be photographedbefore a mission because it was had luck—likesaying, "This is the last time we saw them!" Each oneof us had his ovm silly ways to avoid the "evil eye"and create a good luck situation for himself. Thisincluded special lucky charms we carried with us(usually something received from one of our girls),or some special gesture from the sign of the cross,or scratching some part of our body for good luck.At the airport, my plane's engines had already beenstarted and were warming up. The memhers of mycrew were waiting for me, as was our captain, who,in a few words, told me what the action was about.My plane, with possibly a second one to follow mein reserve, was to go to the Gulf of Philippeville |nowthe Gulf of Skikdal on the Tunisian coast to torpedoa cargo ship coming in from Gibraltar and due toarrive there around 11 a.m. or noon. We were totravel with other aircraft from the squadron, in-cluding the lO5th Gnippo. But our trusted No. 5 suf-fered damage to the right landing strut during thetaxi out to the strip. We had to transfer to anotheraircraft, No. 1. The rest of the squadron formed upbut could not wait. As we tried to catch up, theywent on without us. We came into the action late.

S.M.84S Of the 228thSquadron on Sardinia. InDecember 1942, the last

of the disappointingS.M.84S were replacedby older but superior

S.M.79S.

In general, we would

fly until we didn't

come back from a

mission-captured

or killed.'

behind the main body, and made our attack alone.Our plane was a trimotor S.M.79 that, with a fullload, could travel at about 150 mph. Our slang ex-pression was, "Slow on the way out and fast on theway back," and it made a lot of sense consideringthat on the way out we had a torpedo, a flill load ofgasoline, ammunition for four machine guns and acrew of five. The return was at over 180 mph be-cause we had no torpedo, half tanks of gasolineand, in many cases, only a small residue of ammu-nition. The fked machine gun we bad on the S.M.79was controlled by me, the commander of the plane,and I used it only on those rare occasions when theplane was aiming at the ship, just to distract thegunners and, as they say in Italian, "to make themsuffer a little."AH: What were some of the tactics you used whenfighters were protecting a convoy?Corradini: If the convoy we were going to attackhad an aircraft carrier, or if the action took placeneartheTunisian or Algerian coast, there would befighter planes, either from the carrier or from land.When we were up high, operating with bombs, ifthere were clouds around, they would become ourhiding place. In such cases, soon after dropping thebombs, we would break formation and go sepa-rately into the clouds, spiraling there, hoping thefighters would go away. Sometimes it worked; onother occasions Supermarine Spitfires would be cir-cling around or under the clouds, waiting for us tocome out. When we were in formation, our gunnerswould try to create a defensive area with the cross-fire, but we knew we were in a losing game—withthe higher speed and the higher caliber arms of thefighters, we were like sitting ducks. The one luckything for us was the fact that our planes were madeof light wood and light pipes, covered with cloth.This means that many bullets would go through thefuselage or wings without producing muchdamage. We used the radio very seldom in action,hecause we felt that the British could spot us if wehad the radio on. At that time we did not know there


was a device called radar that could spot our planes.AH: How many were in your crew on that finalMarch 27 mission?Corradini: Our crew of five included the first andsecond pilot, radioman, engineer and machine-gunner. As an officer, I was the first pilot and com-mander of the ship, with my co-pilot, a sergeant,serving as second in command. The other threemen were corporals, each one attending to hisfunction and all assigned to man a machine gunwhen needed. Walter Bonacini had been my co-pilot since he came to my squadron in Septemheror October 1942. We did not have fixed crews per-manently assigned to a commander.AH: What occurred during that last mission?Corradini: By 11:30 a.m. we were by the port. Ourtarget was practically stationary, and therefore itwas easy for me to launch a torpedo directly at it,without considering any angulation for speed anddirection. The torpedo was launched by the firstpilot hy pulling a lever at an estimated distance ofahout 2,000 feet from the side of the ship. This dis-tance was needed to overcome the "dolphin" tra-jectory of the torpedo at the first impact with thewater, until it would stabilize itself at about a 3-footdepth, preset hefore takeoff. In this particular case,with the ship stationary, it was a hull's-eye in a fewseconds. The two corvettes escorting the ship hadjust heard our engines and started shooting at uswhen the torpedo hit and exploded. As torpedo

Left Corradini poses witha (hopefully unarmed)

torpedo during alighthearted moment atMilis, Sardinia. Right:

Ships in the Allied convoyKMS-11 burn in March

1943 after being attackedby the 228tb's S.M.84S

(Photos: Courtesy ofDalmazio Corradini).

The ship split in

two sections...and I

asked the engineer...

to take all 35

exposures of the

sinking vessel. It was

the wrong thing to do.'

pilots, we were operating not in a formation but iso-lated, just to minimize the effects of the hanage fireof the ships. During our attacks, the large shipswould shoot their high-caliber guns, aiming in frontof us. On impact, the shell would raise a hugecolumn of water, sometimes up to over 60 feet high,and if a plane ran into it, it would disintegrate, likehitting a solid harrier.AH: What happened when your torpedo struck?Corradini: The ship split in two sections, forminga "V," with its front and rear in the air and themiddle section slowly sinking. It was a spectacularsight, and 1 asked the engineer, who doubled asphotographer, to take all 35 exposures of the sink-ing vessel. It was the wrong thing to do. As I was gy-rating around the ship, stealing precious minutesfrom my limited getaway time, the two corvetteshad us in their firing range, and this also allowedtwo English fighter planes, the famous Spitfires, toreach us a few miles from the coast, over the opensea, while we were trying to go back home, flyinglow at ahout 10 feet from the water surface.AH: What tactics did the British fighters use?Corradini: The first round of hullets shot ahead ofour plane, a sign language meaning, "I am givingyou a chance to hail out hefore I shoot you down."We were flying too low for any parachute jump, andI kept on going. But it was a short run. Before mythree men could get behind their machine guns, myleft engine, hit hy a cannon round, started smokingand the wing gasoline tank behind the enginestarted burning.

ICorradini had been attacked by Pilot Officers jackTorrance and Robert Turkington of No. 43 Squadron,RAF. Corradini and Bonacini rememher that someof Torrance's fire missed, with the cannon splashesappearing in front of the fleeing S.M.79. Corradini'sinterpretation was that it was a signal to ditch orturn about to surrender, while Bonacini believes


that Torrance jusl missed the target. Bothfeel it was the second plane, flown byTurkington, that scored the hits whichstarted tbe fire in the left engine.]AH: What happened at that point?Corradini: I was lucky to ditch the planehefore it exploded. We hit the water andwere submerged for a while. At this point1 started wondering whether we woulddie hy heing burned or drowned. Butthen, after what seemed to be an eter-nity, I saw the sky again—the plane hadcome up and was floating. Out we wenton tbe wing, got out our rubber raft fromthe plane, and miracle of all miracles, itinflated hy itself at the pull of a lever. Wejumped in, and as we tried to row the raftaway from the plane we were ail talking and crying,screaming and even laughing, because we were stillalive. This was the only time I was wounded in mycareer. The Spitfires circled us, and we feared thatthey might shoot us in the water, as we had heard sto-ries that the South Africans and Australians had beenknown to do this to other crews. These two, how-ever, were gentlemen, and waggled their wingtipsand flew away. Later a small civilian-looking planecame over us and circled. It fired a red flare, and aswe hobbed on the swells of the sea we could see amast coming our way. A ship came to rescue us. Asthey pulled up, someone shouted at us in English,which we did not understand, and then in German:"Are you German or Italian?" One of our crew wasfrom northern Italy's Tyrol province and knewGerman. He answered, "Italian." We were helpedonto the bridge, wet, tired, burned and scared. Myhands were so badly hurned that the fiesh wascoming off. I was taken to a small room and placedon a cot while a crewman helped remove my flyingjacket.The ship landed in the port, and I was carried

In a circa 1940watercolor that appeared

in the French editionof the German journalSignal, S.M.79s bombBritish bases on Malta

(AKG-lmages).

on the cot on the shoulders of some of the crew. Wewere put in an amhulance and taken to a nearhyhospital. It was here for the first time that I saw thereality of war. Before this, war was just another formof sport for me, like boxing—1 beat you or you beatme; or a bullfight—I kill the hull or can even getkilled by the bull. I saw people burned like cbarcoal.They were the sailors of the ship we had torpedoed,and they were suffering much more than we did.This is when I saw what our torpedoes did to the vic-tims and felt ashamed to have caused such damage.AH: How did you come to he an American POW in-stead of a British one?Corradini: An English medical officer who spokeFrench told me that they did not know what to dowith us. They didn't even have enough room fortheir own wounded. The next day an AmericanDouglas DC-3 landed in a nearhy field and broughtsupplies and medicines to the English hospital.Someone must have told the pilot about ourpredicament, because he decided to take us withhim to his base in Casablanca. During the first week

MARCH 2005 AVIATION HISTORV 51

in the hospital. _ __, iher day I was taken to theinfirmary on a cot, given a shot in the arm to be putto sleep and have my bandages changed. My handsand head were completely covered in bandages,with a few openings for my eyes, nostrils andmoulb. One day, as I woke from my medication, Ifound an American sergeant sitting on my cot. As Iopened my eyes, be asked me, in very good halian:"How are you doing? Do you feel better now?" TheAmerican reached for bis cigarettes, put one in mymoutb and lit it. Tben be said, "I'm not bere to ques-tion you about the war, I only want to know if youare from Naples." "Yes," I said, "i am from Naples.What is it to you?" The sergeant asked, "Do you haverelatives in the States?" "Yes, I do," i answered. At thispoint, the sergeant became more and more agitated,started moving bis hands and stuttered, "I wiil tellyou their names: One is Dominic and one is Joe,and.. .and I'm Joe!" He was Joseph Corradini, fromKenosba, Wis., son of Frank Corradini, my fatber'sbrotber. We embraced each other. At that point

Corradini recalled that"many bullets would gothrough the fuselage or

wings without producingmuch damage." Afterone such incident, he

returned to base with thewing damage shownabove (Courtesy of

Dalmazio Corradini).

Kammer, a German POW who had heen looking atus without understanding our conversation, said:"What are you doing? Fraternizing with the enemy?""You are right," I said, "This man is my brother!"AH: What about your family back in Italy?Corradini: The air force notified my mother that Ibad died in action, hut sbe never believed it. A fewweeks later, a relative of ours heard my name in alist of halian POWs given over the radio by RadioLondon and told my mother that I was alive. Whenmy cousin Joe went to see my mother in Naples, heconfirmed that I was alive and in good physicalcondition. Later on, my mother started getting aletter a month from me, which as a POW I was en-titled to send via the Swiss Red Cross.AH: What happened to your crewmen?Corradini: All the members of my crew got out ofthe wreckage, hurned but alive. I lost contact withthem after Casablanca in early April 1943 and neverbeard from them again—with one exception. Afteralmost 60 years, Walter Bonacini and J were re-united in the summer of 2002.AH: What happened to you after tbe war ended in1945?

Corradini: In October 1945,1 was sent back to Italy,resuming my studies until December 1946, wben Iearned a Ph.D. in political science. In 19471 traveledto Detroit, Mich. After an initial period of part-timejobs and study at Wayne State University to learn thelanguage, I got a B.S. in business administration. OnSeptember 3, 1949, I married Amelia Buscb, mylovely wife and mother of our four children. I laterleft the university and worked for several majorcorporations in the automotive industry' beforestriking out on my own. In 1983 I joined SCORE(Service Corps of Retired Executives) as a volunteer.We are sponsored by the Small Business Associa-tion, and our function is to help people who wantto start their own business or who are already inbusiness and want to improve tbeir operation.AH: Had tbere been no war, wbat do you think youwould have become?

Corradini: The usual pattern—school, degree, job,career. In my case, with a Ph.D. in political andsocial science, my career would bave been in tbediplomatic field. But I am glad, war or no war, thatmy life developed the way it did. I was lucky to baveimmigrated to this country and to have become anAmerican citizen—and very proud of it, too. i r

Ken Arnold, who writes from southern New Jersey,participates in a Web-based veterans history projectrecording memories of aircrews and ground crewsfrom around the world. For additional reading, herecommends: Courage Mone, by Chris Dunning; andAir War Italy 1944-45, byNickBeale.


Reviev\/s

Airline pilot Bob Buck translates a lifetime of flyinginto a memorable read.

BY C.V. GLINES

I WAS THE EDITOR OF AIRLINE PILOT magazine, onmy way home from a press junket to Europe and sittingin the cockpit jump seat of a Boeing 747, Behind us inthose preterrorist days was a planeload of passengerstraveling from Paris' Orly Field to New York's JFK Airport.It was a cold, crystal-clear night, and we were fljang oversouthern Greenland, with the aurora borealis flashing itseerie fireworks across the northern sky. Polaris, the brightstar that sits over the North Pole, was high to our right. Itwas one of those unforgettable sights that are difficult totranslate into words. Can anyone really describe it?

Captain Bob Buck can. He is one of those rare airlinepilots who can tell us plainly what it's like to experiencenature's beauty and its wrath and be responsible for trans-porting thousands of passengers during a lifetime offlying. The title of his book North Star Over My Shoulder(Simon & Schuster, New York, 2005, $15) refers to thatsame North Star he saw often as he made so many ocean-spanning flights. He writes, "Whoever created the uni-verse and put Polaris over the North Pole did a big favorfor those who traverse the sea and sky."

Buck's life story provides memorable accounts of theunusual succession of people and places that he has metbecause of his piloting. He began flying at age 15, withan unsuccessful flight in a glider he helped to build. Al-though that craft represented his first crackup, he washooked. He earned his private license in 1930 and pro-gressed through the years, flying in light aircraft, then ad-vancing to aircraft vrith higher horsepower and speed. Atage 16, he flew an open-cockpit Pitcairn Mailwing solocoast-to-coast. It took five days, 23 hours, 47 minutesflying time, then a record for a light aircraft. This was fol-lowed by flights to Cuba and Mexico City.

Buck was the 148th pilot hired by Transcontinental andWestern Air (later TWA) after he had logged 1,300 hoursin lightplanes. He began flying as a co-pilot in DouglasDC-2s and DC-3s. He describes a DC-2 trip from Indi-anapolis to St. Louis with a frozen heating system onewinter night: "God, it was cold. We sat with coats, hats,and gloves on, plus blankets over our shoulders. The pas-sengers were buried beneath blankets, and the hostess—coat, hat, boots, and blanket wrapped around her—triedto serve coffee. It began OK, but the 30-below air inex-orably, cruelly crawled and crept in—to yoitr feet, throughthe weave of the blankets and coats, into the leathergloves, through the walls; Arctic cold is like that. It wasnumbing and the passengers, though none said a word,looked grim, and their eyes revealed second thoughtsabout their enthusiastic Willingness to go."

Many World War II pilotswill certainly recall theirown experiences flying theC-47, the DC-3's militaryversion. They were notedfor their leaking cock-pits, failing heaters, nerve-wracking radio static andice on the windshields, plusthe advisability of landingon the main wheels insteadof trying to make three-point landings, especiallyin crosswinds. Some air-line pilots, although civil-ians, were pressed into serv-

ice during WWII with the Army Air Forces Air TransportCommand, and Buck was one of them. His first flight wasin February 1943 in a four-engine Douglas C-54 over theSouth Atlantic to Cairo. He then made bis first North At-lantic flight to Prestwick, Scotland, followed by a trip fromthere to Marrakech, Morocco, via a course off the coastsof France and Portugal. He flew these transatlantic tripsfor seven months and relates his experiences fighting apilot's worst enemy—the weather.

The rest of Buck's WWII experience deviated from thatof other airline pOots. He flew a Boeing B-17 bomber chas-ing thunderstorms between Point Barrow and the Aleu-tians in Alaska to the Panama Canal Zone, and as far westas Midway Atoll. The hundreds of hours he spent seek-ing the worst weather that could be found were for pre-cipitation static research.

One of Buck's unusual postwar assignments with TWAwas to fly Tyrone Power, the movie actor, to South America,Africa and Europe in a plush former C-47. The requesthad come from Howard Hughes, principal owner of theairline. The result was Buck's first inside look at Hollywoodand a sincere friendship tbat lasted until Power died of aheart attack in 1958.

Buck's life returned to normal as he flew the line andchecked out in Lockheed Constellations, Boeing 707s andevenmally 747s. He takes the reader through these tran-sitions and also provides a rare look at the operations'shortcomings and improvements as the airline expanded.His seniority and experience in weather led to his ap-pointment as chief pilot and to service on governmentcommittees on meteorologv' and flight safety.

Buck, forced to retire at age 60 as are all airline pilots,says he was fortunate to have been part of aviation's


growth at a time thai cannot be experiencedagain, adding: "Now my days of flying liveonly in reverie when I dream of the quiet,dimly lit cockpit of a 747, high over theNorth Atlantic, swiftly cutting across the sk>'creating a precise contrail in the moonlight,headed east to Paris, with my old friend, theNorth Star, over my shoulder."

Those Other Eagles: A CompanionVolume to Aces High, by ChristopherShores, Grub Street, London, 2004,S95.

There are some authors whose namealone is sufficient reason to huy a book, andChristopher Shores is surely one of these.Shores is a leader in that great band ofBritish writers who hold down day jobswhile still cramming in sufficient researchand writing time to delight their fans. Byprofession a chartered surveyor, he servedin the Royal Air Force in the 1950s, so hiswriting bears the stamp of authenticity ofone who has labored in the ill-paid hut oh-so-rewarding vineyard of a\iation.

Shores seems to delight in the challengeof subjects seldom covered, making his con-tributions all the more valuable. His two-volume Bloody Shambles deals with theSoutheast Pacific during World War II andhas no counterpart in the market to myknowledge. Similarly unique are his/i/rlV«rfor Yugoslavia. Greece and Crete; Malta: TheHurricane Years 1940-4I: and FledglingEagles, an account of operations during the"Phony War" and the Norwegian campaign.

His latest work, the monumental ThoseOther Eagles, is as its title states a compan-ion to its well-received predecessor, the two-volume Aces High: A Tribute to the HighestScoring Fighter Pilots of the British andCommonwealth Air Forces in World War II.The latter provides brief histories of each ofthe pilots who had five total aerial victories,individual or shared.

Tliose Other Eagles covers the British. Com-monwealth and Free European fighter pilotswho claimed between two and four victoriesin aerial combat between 1939 and 1982.This extension from beyond World War IIdoes not add a great percentage of entries,but is all the more valuable because so littlehas been written about this long period,which included wars in Malaysia, Korea andthe Palklands. It could be argued that ThoseOther Fagles is actually a more importantwork than Aces High, for it provides infor-mation that only years of research couldproduce, and which probably will not beavailable to future researchers simply be-cause the events and personalities are likelyto be obscured by the passage of time.

In 671 very well-written pages. Shoresprovides more than 1.800 entries, from WingCommander Richard lames Abrahams toSquadron Leader ]ozef Zulikowski, Eachentry gives the name, rank and serial number

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of the flier, the date of the victory, the typeof aircraft shot down, the type of aircraftbeing flown by the victor, and often thelatter's serial number and/or letter mark-ings. The position of the victory is recorded,as is the victor's flying unit. And that is justthe tabular presentation.

Each flier also gets a biographical entrythat is surprising in its detail, taking youfrom the birthday of the pilot through hiseducation, training, units to which he wasassigned and his wartime record, often in-cluding decorations. If he survived—as sadly,so many did not—information on his post-war career is included as well.

Now, this is not a hook you can sit downwith and read straight through, but it is oneyou will return to time and again, not onlyfor reference but simply to dip into the richdetail provided on these vibrant lives. Whereelse would you learn that a U.S citizen. BuckFeldman, would receive one-half credit fordestroying a Ju-88 while flying a Typhoon,then shot down a slew of V- Is while flying aTempest, only to round off his total by de-stroying an Egyptian Macchi M.C.205 whileflying an Israeli Spitfire in 1949?

A tip on enjoying the book—just flipthrough and let the names of the victorioustypes leap out at you. In one single pass Ifound Whirlwind, Defiant, Gladiator II, Buf-falo, Sea Gladiator, Firefly, Beaufighter andSeafire II. You can do the same with victims,and there they are: Me-262, Me-323, M.C.202,S-82, Iu-90, lu-188 with glider bomb, Re-2001,Ar-96, Zeke, Zero, Dinah, Tojo—what fun!

The hook is not inexpensive, but it is wellworth its price, If you decide you cannotafford it, try to persuade your local library tohuy it. Neitheryou nor the lihrary will be sorry.

Wjilter I. Boyne

SPA 124 Lafayette Escadrille:American Volunteer Airmen in WorldWar I, by Jon Guttman, OspreyPublishing, Oxford, England, 2004,$21.95.

There is a possibly apocryphal story toldabout the first attempt to hold a reunion ofthe Lafayette Escadrille during the early1920s. According to the story, more than4,000 people wrote in swearing that theywere a member of the squadron. As therewere only 38 members of the original unit,and only 209 in the Lafayette Flying Corps,that tale gives an indication of the earlypopularityand historical importance of theunit. A variety of films, ranging from the ex-ecrable Lafayette Escadrille starring TabHunter to some excellent documentaries,has ensured that the public maintains avision of the young American men whowent to fly, and too often die, for France.

Ion Guttman pays tribute to the leg-endary quality of this unit, and does it in hisusual fact-filled, color-huttressed style.Readers of his SPA 124 Lafayette Escadrille:

American Volunteer Airmen in World War Iwill come away with a depth of knowledgethat few others could impart. Guttman takesthe Lafayette Escadrille from its idealisticorigins through the moment in February1918 when the battle-hardened unit wastransformed into the 103rd Aero Squadronof the U.S. Air Service. Escadrille Spa.124 didnot die with the transformation, but main-tained its identity as a French unit.

As with all of Guttman's books, excellentillustrations enhance tbe narrative becauseeacb one is provided with an original cap-tion, not just some sliver snipped from thetext. This gives tbe author a chance to riff onhis knowledge of the subject, pointing outdetails of markings, serial numbers and lo-cations that the average reader would cer-tainly miss. The photos are reinforced by theremarkable color profiles of Harry Dempsey.

Tbe author follows tbe unit from its in-ception, giving intimate capsule views of thesquadron members' personalities as well astheir combats. Guttman's previous researchefforts arm him with an amazing array offacts, so that air-to-air combat is not ren-dered between a named escadrille memberand some nameless German, but in mostcases between two well-identified personali-ties. Tbis provides a palpable authenticity tothe book. Tbese are not mere anecdotal sto-ries of air combat—althougb the individualaccounts are fascinating—hut accountssupported by bard evidence, and oftencommentary, from the enemy side,

What a fascinating group of young menthey were. It is one thing to volunteer forsucb service, but it is another to serve it out,day after day, under the rigors of combat.The toll of tbe war is seen in the changes inthe faces of tbe pilots over time. It waslargely a blue-blooded group, but it bad itseartbier members as well, including ofcourse Raoul Lufbery and Bert Hall.

One of tbe most interesting chapters con-cerns the Oberndorf bombing raid of Octo-ber 12,1916, in which Lufbery became thefirst American ace. It speaks of the quality ofthe book that there is an actual in-flightphotograph of a German pilot (LieutenantOtto Kissenbartb) flying the very sameFokker D.II {a comparative rarity in itself) inwhich be opposed the raid. And for the spe-cialist, there is a photograph of Ernst Udet'sFokker D.III, which had a dummy gunnermounted behind the cockpit.

If SPA 124 Lafayette Escadrille: AmericanVolunteer Airmen in World War I attractsyour interest—and it should—you mightalso like to get Dennis Gordon's Lafayette Es-cadrille Pilot Biographies. It is more limitedin overall scope than Guttman's book, butprovides far more details of the pilots' lives.

Walter J. Boyne

For additional reviews, go to www.historybookworld.com.


Art of Flight

The Birth of a Beam documents the advent of a vitalnew technology in World War II Britain.

BY CHARLES J. THOMPSON

Radar apuiaiui^ JMIJ u.iyiiieers who had V.GI Kuu at ii-u,. jouy Manor during World War II contributed to the authenticityof The Birth of a Beam by sharing with the artist their memories of Britain's first operational radar station.

'THE WAR WILL BE WON by science thoughtfully ap-plied to operational requirements," wrote Air Chief Mar-shal Sir Hugh Dowding. commander in chief of Royal AirForce (RAF) Fighter Command, to the head of research atFighter Command. His words summed up the essence ofthe RAF's victory in the Battle of Britain, hut this aspect isoften underplayed in accounts of World War II. Withoutan effective detection system, defending fighters wouldhave had to spend long hours on standing patrols—which,with its limited resources, the RAF could ill-afford to do.

Before 1935, early warning of the approach of enemy air-craft was achieved only hy use of sound detectors. As thethreat of war loomed, a desperate British military beganconstructing huge concave, concrete sound mirrors, 200feet long and 25 feet high with microphones along theirlength, on the heaches facing the English Channel. Theirusefulness was extremely limited, however, so the timelyarrival of a far more efficient device was providential,

Robert Watson Watt is generally credited as the fatherof radio direction finding (RDF), as radar was then called.Working at the Radio Research Establishment, he was re-sponsible for investigating new methods of defense andearly warning systems. The fact that he was asked to lookinto the feasibility of a "death ray" device indicates how

dire the situation was. But Watson Watt instead suggestedthat there was promise in developing an early warningsystem based on the phenomenon of very high frequency(VHF) reception being disrupted by aircraft flying nearthe receiver. An impromptu demonstration was staged ina field near Daventry on February 26,1935, using the radiobroadcasting transmitters situated there, and the modernwonder of radar that is now taken for granted first saw thelight of day. The receiver used on that occasion is now ondisplay at the Science Museum in London.

The origins of my painting The Birth of a Beam beganback in 1996, when I received a letter from Knowler Ed-monds. Both he and his wife had been connected withChain Home radar stations during the war and belongedto the Radar Reunion organization. As editor of the or-ganization's newsletter, he was concerned about the lackof pictorial depictions of radar, and he asked if I couldcreate a circa 1941 aerial view of the vast Bawdsey Manorsite, showing the radar masts along the coastline.

My first reactions were negative. Edmonds was only in-terested in producing prints to sell to members of his re-union group, and a painting without an aircraft in it wasof little use to me, as it would be ineligible for the Guild



Airv\/are

Two recent titles give computer pilots a choicebetween World War I and World War IL

BY BERNARD DY

Far left In Wings of War,both aircraft and terrainoffer impressive variety.Left: A Boeing B-17 FlyingFortress drops its twmbloadin Pacific Fighters.

Wings of WarWings of War ($30, requires Microsoft Windows98/Me/2000/XR lGhz processor, 128 MB RAM, 3D videocard with 32 MB RAM, www.gathering.com, also availablefor the Microsoft Xbox console) gives gamers a rare visitto the skies of World War I. The treatment here is totallyfictional, however, with little attempt at realism. Theplanes in Wings of War fly in a world without physics, andthus flying is more like riding a magic carpet than franti-cally trying to keep a frame of wood and canvas aloft. Andyet this game's collection ofWWI birds offers an impres-sive variety of both fighters and bombers. The graphicsare appealing enough and the game's performance issmooth enough that cruising around in these crates is apleasure. At a reasonable $30, you could do worse than tospend some time playing this with your children. Let itpique their interest and give you an opportunity to tellthem about these funny airplanes with the bright colorsand curiosities called propellers.

Pacific FightersA sharp contrast to Wings ofWar, Pacific Fighters ($50, re-quires Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Pentium Ill-class lGhz processor, 512MB RAM, 3D video card supportwith 64MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM drive, 1.2GB hard drivespace} is a hearty offering for simulation buffs interestedin realism. This shouldn't surprise readers who realize thisnew title comes from the makers of the acclaimed 11-2Sturmovik simulation.

Sturmovik received deserved praise for its deft fusing ofrealism and visual splendor. Perhaps one of the fineststrengths of the title is its developer support. Russian de-velopment team Maddox Games has continued working onthe title constantly since its 2001 release, and the company

is always producing fixes and enhancements. Commer-cial expansion packs like Forgotten Battles keep expand-ing the title's breadth and depth. Pacific Fighters is the nextevolutionary step for this remarkable simulator franchise.

The last major flight game to explore WWlI's Pacifictheater was Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator 2 (CPS2]in 2000. Although CFS2 was a welcome effort, PacificFighters is a generally superior product. The graphical de-tails are stunning, featuring accurate color and insigniaschemes, and dynamic details like bullet holes anddamage accurately appear on the aircraft model as it isstruck. The game offers a strong variety of aircraft in boththe fighter and attack roles, and the developers continueto create historical notes and missions to accompanythem. Other games have done some of these things, butthe Sturmovik franchise is tbe best at putting it all to-gether. There are also various enhancements to the gameengine, but the one with the greatest impact in PacificFighters is the addition of aircraft carrier-based opera-tions. The game takes simulated WWII naval aviation toa new high. Carriers move with the motion of the sea, arefestooned with anti aircraft guns, and mark their move-ment not only with water wakes but also by exhaust fromsmokestacks.

Pacific Fighters comes with scripted missions playahleat any time, as well as several dynamic campaigns thatsimulate tbe careers of military service pilots. The PearlHarbor historical missions are notable and allow the playerto fly for either side of the war. In re-creating the fatefulDecember 7,1941, attack, a player can fly a MitsubishiA6M Zero or an Aichi D3A"Val" and see firsthand the paththe Japanese squadrons flew and the limited resistancethey met that day. Conversely, players can try to defend



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People & PlanesContinued from page 12

between himself and Adams.Besides those difficulties, the Route 11

pickup system was not generating enoughrevenue to keep the husiness afloat. In-stalling group equipment cost ahout $3,500for each community added to the route, andtwo communities. Beaver Falls and NewCastle, raised only $900 between them.Adams either would not or could not helpwith the costs, Ball said, and he had had tomake up the difference himself. It was thefinal straw between the fledgling partners.

The end of the partnership did not deterAdams from continuing to market his in-vention. The airmail pickup system provedto be a complete success at an exhibition inChicago. Yet that success did not lead to anybacking frotn fitianciers or the Post Office.Convinced the setup needed modification,Adams spent the summer of 1935 simplify-ing the trap, and by 1937 be bad received anew patent on bis system.

HAVING MOVED TO IRWIN, PA., in themid-1930s, Adams formed a new partner-ship with Arthur P. Davis, president of theArma Engineering Corporation of Brooklyn,N.Y. The two formed All American AviationInc., chartered as a Delaware company inMarch 1937. Adams and Davis also created asecond corporation, Tri-State Aviation, to actas the operating segment of their business.

Airmail pickup service throughout west-em Pennsylvania and West Virginia was spo-radic. There was no fixed schedule, andTri-State Aviation lost money. But eventhough he had already suffered through adecade of financial losses, Adams was notabout to give up his dream. He convincedfirst ladyEleanorRoosevelt of the reliabilityof his system for rural use. Sbe then spoketo her son. Franklin D. Roosevelt ]r., and hisbride, the former Hthe! du Pont. That con-versation would change Adams' life.

Ethel du Pont's brother, Richard C. duPont, was an experienced glider pilot whobecame very interested in the financial po-tential of the system. He agreed to provideAdams with the backing necessary to makethe system a success, and he loaned Adams$45,000, payable vwithin two years. As collat-eral, Adams gave du Pont his patents, 40 per-cent of Tri-State Aviation's class A stock and51 percent of the company's class B stock.

In 1938 du Pont built a complete corpo-ration around the airmail pickup system,adding a board of directors that would voteon all business relating to Tri-State and AllAmerican Aviation. But Adams was alreadyout of the loop, as du Pont placed his ownkey people throughout the corporations.

On December 13, 1938, All American

received contracts from the Post Office De-partment for two experimental routes, des-ignated 1001 and 1002, that extended fi-omPhiladelphia to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh toWest Virginia, respectively. Du Pont and theboard of directors approved the purchase offour Stinson SR-lOs. equipped vdth 260-hpLycoming engines. Several experiencedpilots and fiight mechanics were also hiredto run the new routes.

Before the airplanes could be put into serv-ice, du Pont wanted modifications completedon Adams' equipment. Adams was not askedto participate in the redesigning of hissystem. Instead, the board offered 750 sharesof All American stock to Godfrey L. Cabot,wbose airmail pickup design of the 1920shad been an early inspiration for Adams'work. The corporation acquired all rights toCâbot's patents in airmail pickup technology'and elected him to the board of directors.

ADAMS BITTERLY resented the changesmade to bis system. He urged du Pont to puthim in charge of overseeing tbe employeesand all revisions made, but du Pont believedAdams was too emotionally involved to beeffective. Engineers hired to work in per-fecting tbe pickup system felt that Adams'method was flawed and dangerous.

Although du Pont did not want Adams'help in modifying the mechanics, he valuedhis input as a promoter. The company paidthe inventor a monthly retainer for his mar-keting skills and important Washington,D.C., contacts. But Adams' resentment in-tensified as time went on.

On May 12, 1939, service for Route 1002from Pittsburgh to West Virginia com-menced when three Stinsons took off for La-trobe. Pa. About 7,000 people, including duPont and Adams, were on hand at tbe Mor-gantown Airport to watch the inauguralpickup. Two days later, service for route 1001began in Camden, N.J. All American Aviationwas officially in the airmail pickup business.

Du Pont was working to completely oustAdams from tlie company, and by lune 1940,the break was complete: Adams resigned asvice president of AJ! American. Witbin twomonths, du Pont canceled tbe loan agree-ment with Adams and gained the majority'of voting stock in the company, a move thatgave du Pont controlling interest in Tri-State. Adams had been outmaneuvered.

In 1943 Richard du Pont was killed whiletesting experimental gliders for tbe military.On March 7, 1949, All American Aviationstopped picking up mail and began flyingpassengers—and was renamed All AmericanAirways. In 1953 it was renamed AlleghenyAirlines, which subsequently became U.S.Air in 1979 and U.S. Airways in 1997.

Lytle Adams left western Pennsylvania in1951 and moved to Arizona, where he con-tinued to dabble with various inventionsuntil his death in 1970. -t"

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OdditiesContinued from page 20

ditional, company-funded venture.The Fokker engineers began with three

concepts built around three different en-gines: the Czechoslovakian-buih, invertedV-12, air-cooled Walter Sagitta; the British 12-cylinder, liquid-cooled Rolls-Royce Merlin II;ajid the French 14-cylinder, air-cooled radialGnome-Rhone 14M4. The Merlin was fa-vored as offering the best performance andfewest cooling problems. The initial plan touse a tail wheel swiftly gave way to a re-tractable tricycle landing gear, which wouldassure sufficient ground clearance for therear propeller. The aft airscrew was also ac-commodated hy a twin-hoom arrange-ment, with the horizontal tailplane sup-ported on twin vertical stabilizers.

Work proceeded in a desultory manneruntil late February 1938, when AnthonyFokker took serious notice and invited Beel-ing and his assistant, Henk Barto, to discussthis new design at his chalet. Fokker was soimpressed that he proposed that the fighterbe publicized as the D.XXIII and that a full-scale mock-up be readied for display at thenext Paris Salon at the end of November.That accelerated demand forced Beeling tobuild the first prototype around the mostimmediately available engine—the 520-hpSagitta I-SR, which the A.S.Walter firm hadreadily loaned to Fokker because of its owninterest in the D.XX1II project.

THE D.XXIII WAS ORIGINALLY supposedto have been the third Fokker to feature anail-metal structure and stressed-skin wings.Given the time constraints they now faced,however, Beeling and his team hastily cob-bled together a mock-up from cheap pinewood, with only the engines and the under-carriage being genuine components. In typi-cal Fokker fashion, carefully finished surfacesand extra pedestal support fooled all but themost observant visitors, and the D.XXIII wasconsidered one of the most unusual and in-teresting designs displayed at the Salon. Inaddition to the mock-up, Fokker displayedalternate engine options, using the Rolls-Royce Kestral XV, Hispano-Suiza 12Xrs,Junkers lumo 210Ga and Isotta-FraschiniDelta RC-35ID.

Fokker's deadline for completion of a fly-able first prototype also imposed compro-mises on Beeling's team—its wings, too,were of wood construction, though the fuse-lage and tail booms were metal. In spite ofthe fighter's unorthodox design, the entirefuselage was sensibly laid out with detach-able panels offering direct access to all in-ternd components as well as the engines. Asbuilt, the D.XXIII had a wingspan of 37 feet8% inches, with a wing area of just over 199

68 AVIATION HISTORY MARCH 200 ]

square feet. The plane's overall length was35 feet 5/j inches, and it stood 12 feet 5-;inches high. Weight was 5,071 poundsempty and 6,614 pounds fully loaded. TheFokker engineers anticipated a maximumspeed of 326 mph at 12,450 feet with theSagitta engines, but expected the Kestrels toraise it to 351 mph at 14,520 feet. Range wasprojected at 540 miles and service ceiling at29,530 feet. The D.XXIII was to he armedwith 7.9mni FN-Browning machine guns oneither side of the pilot's cockpit and boom-mounted 13.2mm FN-Brownings, tlie latterweapons fed by an unusual and complexsystem that conveyed the ammunition fromcircular cartridge magazines in the fuselagethrough the wings to each boom. That ar-mament was never installed, however.

The D.XXIII's first taxiing trials, in April1939, consisted of the mock-up, newly re-turned from Paris, being towed down therujiway by a car. When test pilot Gerben Son-derman taxied the actual prototype in May,he discovered that by gunning the forwardengine and throttling back on the rear one, hecould use the forward propeller's torque toperform a riglit turn, while reversing that pro-cedure would turn left. It was a complicatedway to control an airplane on the ground,however, and the Fokker team concludedthat a steerable nose wheel was essential.

The prototype went up for its first flighton May 30, with die landing gear extended-it would not be fully retracted until luly 3,Almost from the start, Sonderman reportedcooling problems with the rear engine. Al-though it did not exceed the maximumpermissible cylinder temperature of 518 de-grees while running on the ground, it roseas high as 608 degrees during takeoff, andeven while cruising at 13,125 feet, the rearengine's temperature gauge registered onthe red line. Part of the problem was tracedto the unretracted or partially retractedwheels impeding the flow of air to the rearintake. Fully retracting the undercarriageimproved things to such a degree that a spe-cial indicator was installed so the pilot knewwhen it was fully retracted. Beeling's teammanaged to redesign the cooling systemenough to reduce the rear engine tempera-ture to at least an acceptable degree, thoughthey never achieved a completely satisfac-tory level.

Wind tunnel tests conducted on a Ki.-scalemodel early in 1940 showed that the rearpropeller was somewhat more efficient thanthe forward one, and that overall theD.XXIirs configuration was iust as efficientas that of a conventional plane with a singletractor propeller. In practice, however, theprototype suffered from malfunctions in thevariable pitch mechanism of the propellers.

Yet another problem envisioned duringthe D.XXIII's first flights involved how thepilot would exit the plane in an emergencywith a propeller behind him. The Fokker en-

gineers' primitive preliminary solution wasto mount a handrail on the right fuselage sideahead of the cockpit, theoretically allowingthe pilot to clamber out onto the wing beforejumping clear and parachuting to earth.

The German invasion of Poland in Sep-tember 1939 and the outbreak of general hos-tilities in Europe placed a new urgency ondevelopment of Fokker's advanced fighter.Solving its problems impeded its progress,however, and Sonderman was only able totake it up 11 times, accumulating just fourhours of flight time. He found its flying qual-ities to be basically good, but the rear enginetemperatures, still borderline at best, pre-vented him from being able to put it throughtight turns or serious aerobatics. "The Sagittaengines failed to create an impression of re-liability," Beeling wrote, "running unevenlyat cruising altitude and smoking badly."

Ultimately, time ran out for the D,XXIIIwhen the Germans invaded the Nedierlandson May 10,1940, and Luftwaffe aircraft at-tacked Schipol airport, where the prototypewas undergoing tests. Bomb splintersgrounded the fighter for the next three criti-cal days, but after the Dutch surrender, Beel-ing and his colleagues found the damage tobe reparable,

German occupation forces showed con-siderable interest in the D.XX1II, leading theFokker engineers to request permission toconduct three more hours of flight testing inAugust 1940, promising to have the prototypeback in flying condition within three weeks.German interest apparently waned, how-ever, because the only response came in May1941, when they removed tlie Sagitta enginesand returned them to the Walter factory inthe occupied Protectorate of Bohemia andMoravia. The D.XXIII's airframe was de-stroyed in the course of a series of load tests,bringing the development of Fokker's lastsingle-seat fighter to an ignominious end.

No fighter using the fore-and-aft enginearrangement ever got into productionbefore the jet age rendered it a moot point.Nevertheless, the promising concept finallydid achieve success in the United Stateswhen the Cessna Aircraft Gompany, seekingto sidestep the need for a twin-engine pilot'slicense, first flew its "centerline twin" Model336 on February 28, 1961, followed in 1965by the 337 Super Skymaster with retractablelanding gear. Although designed as a privatecabin monoplane with a top speed of only205 mph, the Gessna 337 also saw militaryuse as a forward air control plane during theVietnam War as the 0-2. Soon after demon-strating the Super Skymaster in the Nether-lands, Cessna test pilot Bob Williamsacknowledged its ancestor in the August 31,1967, issue of the Telegraaf, saying, "That theformula of this plane is similar to that of theingenious Fokker fighter of 1939, theD.XX1I1, indicates that there is still a greatfuture for the basic Fokker concept.""!"

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EAA's Spring Celebration of Flight andconvention has something for everyone.

THE EXPERIMENTAL Aircraft Associa-tion each year holds a Spring Celebrationof Flight and convention tliat draws par-ticipants from around the world to Lake-land, Fla., and EAA's Sun 'n Fun campus atLakeland-Under Regional Airport, Theevent, occurring April 12-18, includes a dailyairshow, static aircraft display, more than500 commercial exhibits and many edu-cational opportunities, among them morethan 450 forums and hands-on workshopsthroughout the week. For information seewww.sun-n-fim.org or call 863-644-2431,

Feb. 8: American Flyers of WWII England,featuring the Lockheed P-38 Lightning,Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino Air-port, Chino, Calif. For information call 909-597-3722 or visit www.planesoffame.org.March 2: Industry and career expo on thePrescott, Ariz., campus of Embry-RiddleAeronautical University, Go to www.erau.edu/pr/careers to view previous industryattendees, or call Adriana Hall at 386-226-7018 for information. Embry-Riddle alsomaintains a Daytona Beach, Fla., campusthat holds career fairs as well and extended-campus learning centers in the U.S. andEurope.

March 5: Air Operations Over Iwo Jima, fea-turing the North American P-51 Mustang,Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino Air-port, Chino, Calif. For information call 909-597-3722 or visit www.pianesoffame.org.March 8-10: Aviation Industry Week,Sands Expo and Convention Center, LasVegas, Nev. The event hosts AS3-AviationServices and Suppliers Supershow, the Na-tional Air Transportation Association's(NATA) 2005 annual convention and theProfessional Aviation Maintenance Asso-ciation's [PAMA) 34th Annual AviationMaintenance Symposium. Call 800-827-8009 or visit www.aviationindustryweek.com for more.

March 8-10: SAR 2005-The Americas,Hyatt Regency Hotel, Miami, Fla. Organ-ized by the Shephard Group. Topics in-clude issues facing civil search-and-rescueauthorities and combat SAR particularly ofconcern to the Western Hemisphere. Visitwww.shepberd.co.uk for details.March 22-24: Sea Air Space 2005 Exposi-tion, MarriottWardman Park Hotel, Wash-ington. D.C., presented by the Navy League

70 AVIATION HISTORY MARCH 201)3

of the United States. Seewww.sasexpo.orgfor more information.March 25-26: Parachuting. Easter Boogie,Sky Dive Arizona, in the Sonoran Desertbetween Phoenix and Tucson. Call 520-466-3753 or visit www.skydiveaz.com forinformation.March 30-31: Avionics Expo Europe, Am-sterdam, the Netherlands. SeeavionicsQ5.com for more.

Military flybys are among the attractionsat the Orlando Air Fair, April 2-3.

April 2-3: Orlando Air Fair, Orlando Exec-utive Airport. Go to www.orlandoairfair.com or call 407-894-7331 for information.April 5: Air Power over Southeast Asia,Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino, Calif.For info call 909-597-3722 or visit www.planesoffame.org.^ r i l 7: Aeroexpo 2005. international tradeshow and convention, Toluca Airport andCuernavaca, Mexico City, Mexico. Checkout www.aeroexpo.com.mx for more.April 8-10: London Air Show, trade showand exhibition at Earls Court ExhibitionCenter London, UK. Go to www.tondonairshow.co.uk for more.April 10-12: Helicopter Association ofCanada, convention and trade show, HyattRegency Hotel, Vancouver, B.C. For infor-mation, see www.h-a-c,ca.Every 1st Saturday: Antique Aircraft Dis-play. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Frazier Airpark, Hol-lister, Calif. Call 408-779-2356 or visitwww.frazierlake.com for details.

Mary Beck Desmond

Aviation History welcomes submissions.Please send to: Events Editor, Aviation His-tory Magazine, 741 Miller Driue, Suite D-2,Leesburg, VA 20175 or via e-mail [email protected].

Art of FlightContinued from page 62

of Aviation Artists or the American Societyof Aviation Artists annual exhibitions. Butfour years later I got another call from Ed-monds, who was now willing to purchasethe painting, which he planned to hang atBawdsey Manor. I was supplied with mas-sive amounts of reference material and war-time photographs. 1 also had an aerialphotograph taken of the whole complex onwhich to base my painting, and 1 was verylucky to capture an image of the last remain-ing radar mast, a 350-foot transmitter aerialstill standing on the site.

Years before WWII began, a team of sci-entists and electronic engineers headed byWatson Watt initially set up their laboratoriesand workshops near the tiny fishing villageof Orfordness, facing the North Sea. By theend of 1935. they were forced to move tolarger premises at Bawdsey Manor, fartherdown the East Anglia coast. Bawdsey Manorbecame the first operational radar stationand the model for all others that followed.Eventually, they lined the shores of south-ern and eastern England and hecameknown as the Chain Home defense system.

Once the system was complete, it was pos-sible not only to detect enemy planes beforethey crossed the Channel but also to deter-mine their number, altitude and bearing.Once the enemy crossed inland, the job oftracking them was taken over by the Ob-server Corps. All this information was sent toa central filter room, where the informationwas plotted onto maps and the siuiation as-sessed before fighters were dispatched todeal with the enemy intruders.

My painting The Birth of a Beam looksnorth-by-nortbeast, Tbe North Sea can beseen at the top and the Dehen River at thebottom. Four 350-foot transmitter masts areat the top left, with four 250-foot receivermasts scattered farther to the right. The red-roofed manor lies at the top edge of the largegrass lawn on the right.

Naturally a lot of the landscape hadchanged since 1941, and as the painting pro-gressed I got help from several former radaroperators and engineers who had workedthere. Their contributions were vital to thehistorical authenticity of the painting.

Today visitors to Bawdsey Manor can seeThe Birth of a Beam. They will also find aplaque mounted in the main hall that reads:

In the year 1936 at Bawdsey ManorRobert Watson Watt

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AirwareContinued from page 64

against the attack by flying one of the fewCurtiss P-40Warhawks that tnanaged to getairborne.

Beyond the Pearl Harbor sorties, however,there's a dearth of static historical missions,which is one of the few disappointments.This is effectively mitigated hy the inclusionof scenario-building tools, which allow foreasy creation of scripted missions. The dy-namic campaigns, called dynamic hecausethey change the course of the war based onplayer success, may not he exactingly accu-rate from a historical perspective, but theydo add a bit more urgency to the player's in-volvement in the game. Pacific Fighters in-cludes some interesting alternatives to theexpected Imperial Japanese Navy, ImperialJapanese Army, U.S. Navy and U.S. MarineCorps campaigns. Available too are careerswith the U.S. Army Air Forces, the RoyalNavy and the Royal Australian Air Force, TheSturmovik franchise, of course, would notbe what it is without both popular and ob-scure aircraft in the stable. U.S. Army AirForces strike pilots will begin their cam-paigns flying the Douglas A-20 Havoc, whilethe Australian pilots will fly the Bristol Beau-fighter Mk.21, aircraft not modeled in otherpopular simulations.

Many of the campaigns also offer differ-ent specializations, so actually there areabout 11 to choose from, and because thecampaigns are dynamic, they have a higbreplay factor. As a stand-alone product, theindividual missions, campaigns, scenariobuilder and multiplayer support give PacificFighters plenty of' material to enjoy. If youhave II-2 Sturmovik and its two expansionpacks [Forgotten Battles and the Ace Expan-sion Pack] installed. Pacific Fighters can in-stall as an expansion to the existing group ofsimulations, giving you a giant simulationthat spans hoth war fronts.

Despite the title's strengths, no one famil-iar with the franchise should be surprisedthere are a few flaws in Pacific Fighters. Asoutstanding as the game's presentation is, itremains largely old-school, with simple butfunctional menus, canned noninteractivetutorials, sometimes-quirky artificial intel-ligence and—for all its technical brilliance—a demure ambiance. While there are severalrealism toggles, to permit tailoring the diffi-culty level to player preference, even withthese the title can still be intimidating to thenovice. And it still requires a fast PC andvideo card if a player wants to see it at itsbest. Still, these criticisms should not detersimulation fanatics from putting this excel-lent product on their wish list, as PacificFighters catches the three-wire where itcounts tbe most, "t"


Legacy of Flight

BY NAN SIEGEL

APRIL 15,1952, SEATTLE, WASH.-The second prototype ofthe Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, the YB-52, took off for the firsttime. The hig homher fiew from Boeing Field to Moses Lake,Wash., with legendary' test pilot A.M. "Tex" Johnson and Lt. Col.Guy M. Townsend at the controls. While the first prototype hadsecretly been rolled out some four months hefore, on November9,1951, it did not take to the air until October 2,1952.

The venerable Boeing B-52 was still doing yeomanservice during 1991's Operation Desert Storm, 39years after the Stratofortress first flew.

Powered by eight Pratt & Whitney YI57-8-3 turbo-jets, it was capable of 556 mph at 40,000 feet. Thanksto its mammoth 185-foot wingspan, it also necessi-tated a top-secret crossuind main landing gear thatwould make it possible to land safely even in a cross-wind of 43 knots. Another design feature was the useof a pneumatic system as the primary power sourcefor all auxiliary functions.

The initial production order had already beenplaced for 13 B-52As in February 1951, and those

production aircraft would be notably different in terms of thecockpit. Where both prototypes had a tandem seating arrange-ment for the pilot and co-piiot—as in the B-47—production ver-sions of the B-52 would have side-by-side seating, Today, 57 yearsafter the design process for this venerable warhorse began, anupdated model of the Stratofortress is still in service, the B-52H,which was most recently deployed over Kosovo and Iraq, "t"

95 Years Ago This MonthMARCH 18,1910, DIGGER'S REST, VICTORIA, AUSTRAUA-A few short months after teaching himself to fly in Hamburg,Germany, the world's hest-known escape artist tackled a newchallenge. This time, however, no illusions or tricks would beinvolved. Ehrich Weiss, better known as Harry Houdini, wotildensure himself a legitimate place in aviation history by maldngthe first significant fiight in Austraiia. He had been inspiredin part by a theater manager from Down Under who offeredhim a salary to undertake the long sea voyage with his newlyacquired Voisin biplane.

With characteristic showmanship, the 36-year-old entertainer took pains to publicize hislatest feat. He had already emblazoned his stagename in huge letters on the aircraft, and nowhe aiso arranged to have his fiights filmed. Infact, the whole setup echoed the performer'svery first efforts at self-promotion at age 9—abackyard "circus" for which he charged 5 centsadmission and billed himself as "Ehrich, thePrince of the Air" for a trapeze act. His unprece-dented March 18 flight at Digger's Rest, duringwhich he traveled more than two miles, en-abled him to upstage efforts by a handful ofcompetitors, including Colin Defries, Fred Con-stance and Ralph Banks.

Interviewed for the newspaper The Age aftera six-mile flight later that month, Houdini de-clared: "I am perfectly satisfied. I can now fly,and my machine is a perfect piece of mecha-nism, i never have enjoyed any experience somuch."

like other performers of his day, Houdini

later capitalized on the public's growing fascination with fiyingby taking the lead in stunt-fiying sequences for film (see re-lated story, P. 30). Most notably, he would incorporate hair-raising wing-walking moves in The Grim Game, one of thethree serial thrillers in which he starred in 1919. In that film—the first to record an air collision (actuaUy an accident aroundwhich the original script was rewritten on the spot)—he firstused his escape powers to free himself fi-om jail and then per-formed a lengthy series of stunts in midair.

A grim-looking Harry Houdini clings to a wing strtit in this still shot takenduring production of the 1919 silent film The Grim Game.


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