FIFTY YEARS OF AVIATION

flight the dream of man for centuries in Greek and Roman mythology there were the waxed wings of Icarus and the winged feet of mercury and the Arabian Knights were filled with the magic of the flying carpet during the Renaissance Da Vinci gave the dream tangible form but not until the late 19th century did man sincerely try to build a flying machine their efforts comical as they appear were as serious as the most sophisticated wind tunnel or flight tests of today yes centuries of dreaming study speculation and experimentation preceded the first successful powered flight at Kitty Hawk North Carolina on December 17th 1903 man's dream of flight materialized when the wri brothers small craft stayed Aloft for 12 seconds and traveled 120 ft this great event in aviation went almost unnoticed at the time during the early days of powered flight the number of men dedicated to the Flying Machine could almost be counted on your fingers many of these early Pioneers were taught to fly by the Wright brothers not until the so-called war to end all wars did the airplane gain wide recognition at first the small frail wooden cloth machines Flew Over the mud fill trenches as observers but as always necessity was quick to realize other uses measures and countermeasures brought accelerated development of new designs more powerful engines and weapons modified to operate more effectively in this new war environment the air men like Captain Eddie rickenbacher and his American hat in the ring Squadron and the French lafay at Escadrille faced men like van rter and his German Flying Circus blazing through the sky at a little over 60 m per hour the first battles for Air Supremacy were fought over 20,000 a conflicts took place in World War I this new invention born in an obscure bicycle shop now baptized by man's most common failure spawned a whole new industry wood-framed factories sprang up like Lewis and VA making trainers like this V7 the V7 had the first really good aircraft engine the 170 horsepower watercooled hispanos Souza it was the first aircraft engine with Sol solid block construction already quite an improvement over the wri brothers 16 horsepower engine top speed of the Vault V7 was 116 mph quite an airplane the great Aviation profit briger General Billy Mitchell said this Vault machine has all the air qualities of the single seater Chase machines and will outmaneuver the French spad the Newport and the English se5 that was saying something wasn't it the war ended the doughbys came home and so did the goggled and silk scarved aviators the doughbys put their guns away but the many military trained Surplus aviators filled with the adventure of flying kept their goggles and scarves and with as little as $50 purchased their own jennies from the stocks of surplus military aircraft barnstorming across the country they thrilled and chilled thousands with their de defying Daredevil flying circuses by 1918 Aviation had captured the interest of most everyone the first regular air mail service was established between New York City and Washington DC and by 1921 service stretched all the way from New York City to San Francisco the first instrument flight was made when Jimmy dittle using a Carpenters level on his in panel and a plum Bob hanging between his feet pulled a hood over the cockpit and took off crude as it was it led to the development of the Artificial Horizon and directional gyro stabilization equipment of today in 1921 the potency of the airplane was proven when army bombers sank the battleship OST Freeland with only eight bombs this was conclud exclusive evidence that the Navy had made a sound decision 2 years before the decision to equip its battleships with spotting planes and to develop an aircraft carrier capability 10 months later routine catapulting from a battleship began when a vault V7 was launched from the USS Maryland on October 17th 1922 the Navy had its first aircraft carrier the converted Collier Jupiter later known as the USS ly the first airplane to take off from its flight deck was a vault V7 takeoffs and landings became routine after this the 150 Vault v7s and v9s the Navy purchased played an important role in early Naval Aviation the Navy selected the Vault U1 as its first Scout and observation plane for Fleet Service they were loaded aboard the Navy's first carrier the USS Langley and shipped via the Panama Canal to the Pacific Fleet 220 horsepower and a top speed of 130 mph it wasn't radar but it gave the big battle wagons Vision Beyond the Horizon for the first time 3 years later a major breakthrough came in aviation a 400 horsepower radial aircooled engine called The Wasp it was 300 lb lighter than a water cooled Engine with the same hor power this weight savings translated to flight meant a faster rate of climb a higher ceiling shorter turning radius and lower landing speed all with equal top speed about the same time another breakthrough came when wood gave way to Steel as the material used for propellers the VA o2u corer was the first airplane designed around the new 400 horsepower wasp engin VA took full advantage of this new engine and designed the o2u with all tubular metal fuselage even the engine mounts the U's top speed was 151 mph and it could climb to 22,170 Ft without a supercharger that doesn't seem like much today but it established four World Records in 1927 8 months later Lieutenant CF schil of the Marines while Under Fire flew one of these o2u Corsair in and out of a small town in Nicaragua to evacuate the wounded for this he was awarded the Medal of Honor Aviation burst with growing pains in the late 20s Lindy made a non-stop flight from New York to Paris in his Spirit of St Louis spatz proved that inflight refueling was practical by staying in the air 7 days and Commercial Aviation was just emerging from the cow pasture airports and barnstorming economics the National Air Races was an annual right at the beginning of the 30s the rich odor of gasoline exhaust and hot oil mingled with the fragrance of hot dogs and popcorn a carnival of the air for a small admission you could watch the racers whiz overhead and around the pylons or watch thundering formations of the best planes the Army and Navy had to offer one of the best the Navy had to offer was the VA su2 Corsair developed from the o2u series it was designed around the 600 horsepower Hornet engine and had a top speed of a little over 170 mph the Navy was so impressed by this airplane they spent $3 million for their first order to get 122 of them perhaps that doesn't sound like much today but with the nation in the grips of a depression it represented a major contract as new airplanes were being designed old ones were being modified improved and sometimes damaged in spite of hardships in the 30s there were surprising gains in aviation technology the variable pitch propeller was developed engines continued to improve and engineers and aircraft manufacturers produced more more dependable products like this VA sbu 1 this was vault's first all metal design it had 700 horsepower engine cowling with adjustable flaps and pressure baffles and a speed breing 200 mph yes airplanes were improving rapidly Now by 1937 longdistance flight records were being broken almost as frequently as they were being made in June 19 37 Amelia aart the first lady of Aviation took off from Miami Florida on around the world flight her last message was received on July 3rd history had claimed one of the last of the barn storming breed at the time Amelia aart became a tragedy of Aviation tensions were mounting throughout the world and convulsing toward a major global conflict American Aviation since its beginning had lived from crisis to crisis this had forced the industry into a constant emphasis on Research experiment and development costly as those were they were a dynamic factor in a dynamic air age even before the war came in 1937 radical departures were being made in aircraft design VA was building a monoplane with retractable landing gear folding wings and capable of carrying a 1,000lb bomb it had an 882 5 horsepower engine and a speed near 250 mph they called it The Vindicator little did they know how well it would live up to its name a year later the fleet got new eyes for its battleships and cruisers and again picked VA to supply them it was the last plane of this type the Navy used they named it the king fisher it was slow but rugged and dependable as the first king Fishers were being delivered to the fleet a new Vault airplane rolled out into the Connecticut sunlight the F4U Corsair it had a strange gull-like shape that was built around a fantastic 2000 horsepower engine the design was so sound it could break 400 mph with a 4,000lb bomb load after racing over a speed course Admiral John Towers head of the Navy 's Bureau of Aeronautics told Witnesses you have just seen a demonstration of the fastest and most powerful fighter in America today the significance of this new airplane and the contribution it would make in the years to follow could not have been imagined by even the most optimistic of those who watched it Fly that first day on December 7th 1941 approximately 100 Japanese carrier-based planes supported by submarines destroyed 18 us vessels including eight battleships casualties were over 3,000 killed or wounded this one swift strike devastated the Navy's principal base in the Pacific and eliminated a major portion of its heavy surface power if it had not already been shown in combat before the war all doubts as to the potency of Naval Air power were removed by this Infamous yet skillfully executed attack the first few months of the war were black with military reverses but the Turning Point came on the 4th of June 1942 when US Navy reconnaissance planes spotted a large Japanese Naval Force 600 M from Midway Island strike aircraft were launched by both the US and Japanese navies the US carrier aircraft gave the Japanese a one-w punch the effectiveness of carrier-based aircraft during a naval engagement was no longer a matter of conjecture the Battle of Midway was a great victory for US carrier-based aircraft the back of the Japanese Navy was broken it lost four carriers two Cruisers and three destroyers after several dark months the US had reestablished Naval superiority 2 months later the US offensive was carried to gule Canal for 6 months after the invasion the Japanese were bombing almost every night without opposition then for the first time the Corsair was brought into action the Corsair stopped the night raids almost immediately and was quick to establish air superiority the Japanese zero that had previously outperformed all us Fighters was no match for the whistling death as the Japanese call them from here the Corsair went on to become one of the great aircraft in military Aviation operating from Island bases and carriers it flew over 64,000 combat sorties it was the only airplane to receive an official citation during World War II 2,140 Japanese planes went down facing the Corsair guns while the Allies were pushing the war to an end at the home front the aircraft industry was developing new aircraft this unusual aircraft would have startled even the most sophisticated aeronautical engineer today don't you know the police switchboards would light up if this went flying around nowadays this flying pancake as it was called was built in 1942 by VA the end of a war and the birth of a new age the atomic age and with with it the jet age emphasis was now on the jet one of the Navy's first Jets was a single engine experimental called the pirate only a few of these were built but it provided a springboard into more advanced design such as this swept-wing twin engine cutas a real departure from the conventional designed from the outset to use a new idea called the afterburner looking more like a rocket ship than an airplane it could shoot up to 45,000 ft and almost break the sound barrier the jet age was just getting a good start when the insatiable appetite of the aggressor lashed out with teeth of Steel Korea a byproduct of the Cold War became a hot testing ground between freedom and oppression it began June 25th 1950 at the 38th parallel and ended July 28th 1950 53 at the 38th parallel Korea was the baptism of fire for the jet high altitude sometimes supersonic dog fights raged through the air Corridor called Mig Alley Speed the asset of the jet in aerial combat was its detriment as a ground support weapon so the old warhorse the Corsair thought obsolete in the jet age was again called back to do the job its propellerless cousins were unable to do get in close to the ground troops and stay on the target longer at the close of the Korean War when the swept wi cutless was on the downhill side of the production line a new design emerged from the drawing board of the Vault Engineers the f8u Crusader it was a farsighted design that carried Naval Aviation from the subsonic to the supersonic age it first flew in March 1955 and was the beginning of a long series of Crusaders it was the first airplane to set a Thompson trophy speed record above the 1,000 mph Mark Major John Glenn set a transcontinental speed record in a photographic version flying supersonic from Los Angeles to New York City following this the Crusader won the 1957 Collier Trophy and a certificate of Merit from the Navy a number of successive models of the Crusader have been produced incorporating Advanced radar and weapons and attaining speeds near m 2 the Crusader was delivered to the fleet in 1957 and is still the Navy's fastest single engine fighter today off the shores of Vietnam it operates around the clock on a day-to-day routine where stamina is pitted against Oriental perseverance jet aircraft being a bird of an entirely different feather than its prop powered cousins flew differently and performed differently as a result Pilots needed to be trained differently Tempco came up with what was needed the Tempco tt1 Pinto the pinto was the Navy's first primary jet trainer it had all the handling characteristics of its big brothers at a fraction of the cost the Advent of advanced aircraft like the Crusader and Pinto brought not only astronut iCal technological problems but also astronomical efforts in research the use of computers and development of sophisticated Electronics became commonplace as a result aircraft and electronic companies joined together pooling their resources for the challenge ahead today at LTV Aerospace it is fully understood from the skilled executive to the skilled aircraft assembler that a second best airplane is no better than a second second best poker hand LTV Aerospace combining the resources and carrying forward the heritage of several companies developed one of the most unusual and versatile airplanes in the world today the tri service XC 142 transport Thomas Edison once said the airplane will be only half invented until it can take off and land without runways the XC 142 made up for the other half of the airplane Mr Edison was talking about it can do anything a helicopter can do and it can do anything an airplane can do or anything in between it can operate from land or Carrier or fly like a conventional airplane at a speed of 430 mph it is the answer to many of the severe logistic problems of limited War one year after First Flight of the XC 142 another TV Aerospace airplane made its first flight the A7 Corsair 2 it is a light attack bomber for the Navy Marine Corps and Air Force the Corsair 2 is designed for pinpoint bombing in support of ground troops in limited Wars such as Vietnam it can carry more than twice the bomb load of earlier light attack bombers the first Corsair twos have already been delivered to the Navy this great new Corsair will soon be patroled ing the perimeters of Freedom the corser 2 built with the same Integrity as its predecessors will carry on its proud Heritage stretching back to 1917 yes LTV Aerospace through its VA Aeronautics division can look back with pride to its 50-year Heritage and to those dedicated daring young men and their flying machines and if through some miracle the 50-year barrier of time could be removed moved and they could see us today they would say we're proud of you too