Development
of Transport Airplanes and Air Transport: Part III—A Period of Commercial
Dependence 1934-1939
During
1934, there was a striking increase in the commercial aerial transportation
of passengers, mail, and express. In fact, within this one year period,
traffic reports revealed that approximately 537,600 passengers, 7,155,000
pounds of mail and 3,000,000 pounds of express were flown over the airlines.
Of these, the most noteworthy was the express transportation. Among the
500 articles included in emergency shipments were sausage casings, surgical
instruments, radium-emanating materials, serums, court exhibits, and ice
cream. In addition to the emergency conveyance of such items, many industries
began to consider commercial air service as an integral part of their transportation
system. Especially identified in this group were the horticulturists who
shipped their products from California and southern states to eastern markets.
To combat the older and more established means of transportation successfully,
commercial airline operators believed that a maximum speed of 200 mph was
essential. To achieve this and yet retain some vestige of payload, twin-engine
installations as well as cleanness of design became imperative. For these
reasons, twin-engined, monocoque low winged monoplanes, with cantilever
tail surfaces and retractable landing gears became the fashion. . . .
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Fairchild Model 95, XC-31 first flew on 22/SEP/34.
(Walter M Jefferies collection) |
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"Catch
Our Smile"( A history of Pacific Southwest Airlines)
It
was a small airline. It was the airline with a smile. But it also became
the world's largest intrastate airline. The airline was called Pacific
Southwest Airlines or simply, PSA. It had an unusual business philosophy—That
flying should be fun.
The
story of PSA starts back in 1949 in the sunny seaport of San Diego, California.
Then a city of only 350,000, San Diego, an important Navy town supporting
the U.S. Pacific Fleet throughout World War II, was just becoming a city
having its own identity, not just a suburban stepchild of the sprawling
metropolis to the north, Los Angeles.
In
1928 San Diego dedicated its own municipal airport after the famous aviator,
Charles A. Lindbergh whose "Spirit of St. Louis" monoplane had been built
by Ryan Aircraft. Ryan was still located at the harborside location of
Lindbergh Field in the summer of 1949 when a group of former Army Air Forces
pilots, operating a flying school at the airport, decided to change their
minds.
After
World War II, many flying schools, small airlines and charter services
came into being as the result of the thousands of pilots returning as war
veterans. Most of the aircraft manufacturers felt that each of these combat-trained
pilots would want his own airplane, and many, in fact did. But even in
the mid and late forties, airplanes did cost a lot of money. Pilots
jobs also weren't too plentiful after the war, so the mass rush to buy
privately-owned aircraft that the manufacturers had envisioned, never materialized.
North American, Ryan and Republic were among those companies that misjudged
the market.
Those
veterans who struggled operating flying schools . . . . .
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PSA's shiny new L-1011 displays its lines and vivid
PSA colors.
(San Diego Aerospace Museum) |
Deal
of the Decade
This
story actually had its beginning, for this student of the subject, in 1958
when, by the Grace of God, my mother managed somehow to conjure up the
$20 necessary for the purchase of a copy of William Green and John Frickeris
classic. The Air Forces of the World, (Hanover House, New York). It remains
book No. I in my personal library, although rather tired looking and slightly
tattered from countless revisits.
Amongst the many wonders of military aviation history that this extremely
well-researched volume brought to this avid reader were the excellent,
by-country summaries of the various Latin American air forces, which held
a special interest then, and which still do after all these years. The
facts that Green and Fricker's compiled were little short of amazing and
have stood the test of time remarkably well.
I can candidly state that this book set me on the journey that led me to
become an avid (some might say rabid) student of the subject, and it similarly
spurred me on to learn even more about these fascinating subjects.
Some
of the facts documented in its pages were tantalizing for a young aircraft
modeler, who had not as yet allowed his enthusiasm for modeling to become
constrained by a singular lack of skill. Although many of the aircraft
suggested in this wonderful book seemed ideal for modeling, it became apparent
very quickly that accurate information on the aircraft, their coloring
and markings, were difficult—if not impossible at the time—to locate.
Of all of these, one of the entries that most captivated my interest was
found on page 88, in this simple phrase: "The FAE (Fuerza Aerea Ecuatoriana)
took over the Junkers Ju 52/3m . . . .
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Seversky SEV-S2 msn 43, NR-70Y probably became C-2
& Later FAE 201 in Ecuador.
(Frank Strnad) |
Strange
B-26s At Old Clark Field
To forestall indignant letters to the editor about my terminology,
let me say up front that during my association with the Douglas Invader,
its Air Force designation was B-26, the Marauder having long since gone
to the Great Storage Yard in the Sky. I am aware it was A-26 before and
after this. dark Field, some 50 miles north of Manila in the Philippines
was, in the 1950s, a major USAF hub in that part of the world. It was headquarters,
13th Air Force, and was also occupied by Southern Air Materiel Area, Pacific
(SAMAP). Besides being a huge depot complex, the primary mission of the
Aircraft Section of SAMAP was support of USAF types in the Far East, and
to provide an IRAN line for B-26s, and later for F-86Ds. IRAN (Inspect,
Repair as Necessary), was not just a visual inspection of the aircraft,
but involved a major teardown, with all systems and components gone over
and repaired or replaced as required. The author was, at the time, the
NCO in charge of the Reciprocating Engine Shop.
Tenants at dark at various times during this period included the 31stAir
Rescue Sqdn, (SA-16s, SH-19s), the 26th Fighter Interceptor Sqdn (F-86Ds),
the 12th Fighter Bomber Sqdn (F-IOOD), which later became the 418th Fighter
(Day) Sqdn. MATS (Military Air Transport Service) Navy and Air Force transports
were daily visitors. There was also a small RAF detachment, and a Philippine
Air Force unit to transition P-51 pilots into F-86Fs, which were to equip
the PAF 6th Fighter Squadron. (this was, and is, the same squadron that
fought the Japanese with hand-me-down P-26s in 1941/42), C-46s, and C-47s
from Vietnam, Laos, China, Korea, Thailand and France were frequent visitors,
along with other odd . . . . .
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Aircraft
History of AirCal
AirCal (OC) started
life as Air California on January 16, 1967, with five flights a day scheduled
between Santa Ana's Orange County Airport (now John Wayne Airport) and
San Francisco. Service started with two Lockheed Electras and 100 employees.
The inaugural flight was actually from Santa Ana on a bus to Ontario Airport,
Electro, aircraft to Half Moon Bay Airport and a bus to San Francisco.
Both Santa Ana and San Francisco were below operating weather minimums
(Half Moon Bay Airport is 35 miles south of San Francisco Airport). With
the arrival of two more Electras, service was initiated on October 23,
1967 from Santa Ana to both San Jose and Oakland.
In the first part of its history, the carrier was an intrastate airline.
With this type of certificate, it was under the control of the State of
California Public Utilities Commission (PUC), not the U.S. Civil Aeronautics
Board (CAB). As an intrastate carrier, it could only fly within California.
Two Douglas DC-9-14s were leased from Douglas on March 6, 1968. Pure jet
service started from Orange County to San Francisco on May 17, 1968. Then
on June II, 1968, the PUC authorized a second Los Angeles area airport
and soon service was started from Ontario to the San Francisco Bay area.
On December 3rd of the same year, service started from a third Los Angeles
airport, Burbank to the San Francisco Bay area.
Then in June 1970, financier C. Arnholt Smith's Westgate-California Corporation
obtained a 70% financial interest in the carrier. In mid 1972, Westgate
agreed to sell its shares in Air California to fellow intrastate carrier
PSA. The sale was approved by the California PUC. Western Airlines . .
. .
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Lockheed L-188C, msn 1082, as seen in Air California
colors at Tahoe Valley Airport.
(Charlie Reno Collection) |
Infamous
Last Flight of NASA's M2-F2 Lifting Body
Have you ever seen the 200,000 pound (90,718 kg) Space Shuttle return from
Earth orbit and glide to a perfect landing? Have you ever wondered about
how the development of the idea of glide-landing, without power, a spacecraft
began? Gliding a Space Shuttle to an Earth landing is similar to landing
a medium-sized airliner, full of passengers, without power and that simply
isn't even thought of except in a most serious and dire emergency. If an
unpowered airliner landing was successful it would be a very tricky maneuver
and an almost miraculous event.
The story that documents the beginning of the "fly back to Earth rather
than 'splash down' at sea concept" takes place back in the 1950s. However,
this story only goes back to the 1960s, to NASA's Flight Research Center
(FRC). That's where our group of engineers actually designed and flight-tested
air vehicles used in the development of techniques to fly back from space
and land horizontally. During the course of our flight-testing we also
experienced the dramatic incident related here.
FRC's business was not really space travel, but flying experimental airplanes.
We were a small flight research installation located in the Mojave Desert
at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB), California on the edge of Rogers Dry Lake.
Rogers Dry Lake is the primary reason that Edwards AFB and FRC were located
there. Rogers Dry Lake is a 64-square mile (166 km2) sediment-filled remnant
of an ancient lake formed eons ago. Today, when the winter rains come,
several inches of water may accumulate on the lakebed. The water, in combination
with the wind, causes a natural smoothing and . . . . .
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The M2-F2 landing approach with F-104 chase plane.
(NASA Photo EC66-1567) |
The
Stealth Vega
The Air Force's GAM-72 Quail decoy missile
program objective was to improve the odds that B-52 bombers could
successfully penetrate enemy air space. To confuse air defense radars several
small cruise missiles carried by each B-52 would be released to fly preprogrammed
courses thus generating multiple targets and making it difficult to track
the mother aircraft. For the scheme to work, the decoy missiles had to
be made to look like B-52s on enemy radar. This was to be accomplished
by fitting the missiles with a transponder which would enhance their radar
echo making them appear to be B-52s.
In 1956 the Air Force contracted with the GE Light Military
Equipment Department (LMED) in Utica, N.Y. to develop the missile
transponder.
Included
in the contract was a requirement to conduct flight testing of the equipment.
In the fall of 1956 LMED project personnel traveled to Schenectady to discuss
the radar flight test requirements with engineers at the GE Schenectady
Flight Test Center (SFTC). What was needed was an airplane with a
low radar reflectivity capable of operating above 15,000 ft, able to supply
considerable electrical power and carry a fair amount of equipment.
In the course of discussions on a suitable aircraft the possibility of
using an all wood or composite design naturally came to mind and the Lockheed
Vega was suggested. It appeared to be a likely prospect but it was obviously
a rare bird and probably hard to come by. In any event the search for a
Vesa was . . . . .
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Lockheed Vega 5C, msn 72 after first rebuild.
(C.I. Hollenbeck photo)
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Adventures
with Junior: Part IV
Ever Been
Knocked Down by a Fish?—Well neither have I, but—After the hectic month
of December, I thought I might get a few days off, but such was not to
be the case. Starting New Year's Day, 1944, it was back into the air again.
Junior was due for an oil change and a periodic inspection which had been
accomplished. His propeller was removed for overhaul and replaced by another.
Sgt. Corey and I were in complete accord on this. He agreed with my findings
on the finish erosion which I had made in San Jose. Wing and tail group
leading edges, engine cowling and main landing gear fairing were all in
fine shape. Inspection completed and a replacement propeller installed,
Sgt. Corey and I test-hopped the Little Guy as was required by Technical
Order 01-1-300 because of the nature of the maintenance which had been
performed. Everything checked out normal and I released him for flight
January 2,1944.
Then it was back to the usual. Personnel reassignment took us to Rio Hato
one day, then the runs to Rey Island and Jaque resumed. On January 5, I
took Sgt. Pappas from the Signal Office to Rey Island and Jaque to inventory
the radio equipment at each installation. We did not initially have anyoneresponsible
for keeping track of what radio gear went where. It was necessary to get
those stations on the air as quickly as possible. Radio was the only means
of communications possible between Sixth Air Force Headquarters and those
two remote sites. Contact with them was vitally important for command .
. . . .
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"The
Beast" - Living With the 3350
A History of the How and
Why of the Marriage of the B-29 and the R-3350) - After
attending several old soldiers' reunions, and especially after the 315
Wing, 20th Air Force reunion in Tucson, Arizona, October 1996, recurring
questions kept popping up such that I felt some answers were in order.The
greatest question was why did the B-29 have so many engine problems? Since
the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 was such a great engine, why was it not
used? What got involved? Like most complex things, there is a reason and
a story involved. For the GIs who suffered through the freezing cold of
Nebraska and Kansas to the heat of India and China, the jungles of Guam,
Saipan and Tinian, it is a trail of events that started several years before
WWII. India, China, Kansas, Iwo Jima and the Marianas were strung like
a string of pearls but tied together with flesh, blood, wrecked airplanes
and changed lives.
There are two parallel histories involved—mine and the B-29 airplane. We
first met in Wichita at the Boeing plant in February 1944, and we battled
each other until May 1946. For my part it started way back with the Hindenburg,
Lindbergh, Jimmy Doolittle, the Cleveland Air Races, all the "airshows"
that I attended all over Indiana and Ohio
during the Depression. My life's ambition was to be in the aviation
world, but I knew early that I was not cut out to be an engineer so chose
another track—business. I figured the engineers could design them, and
I would run the company. I graduated from Tri-State College in 1942, was
hired into the Wright Aeronautical Corp. plant in Cincinnati to work in
production engineering to build the R-2600. This engine was used in the
North American B-25, Douglas A-20, Grumman TBF, Curtiss SB2C, and similar
heavy aircraft. A group of 40 of us were hired into that plant; I was the
only business major along with 39 graduate engineers. Our job was to take
unskilled but willing farm laborers, housewives, and city slickers and
convert them into production people to build a huge complex engine. In
two years that plant grew from open corn fields to a plant for building
an engine with 14,000 parts, producing an engine every 7 minutes, using
36,000 people. After a year, I transitioned . . . . .
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