Chicago Examiner 1911

Cal Rodgers, Robert Fowler and the First Flights Coast-to-Coast
By Jon Welte

The daunting breadth of the North American continent is a defining characteristic of the United States. From the early 19th century the American flag flew from sea to shining sea, but travel from east to west across the largely uninhabited frontier was an arduous process, especially before the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.

Aviation long held the promise of bringing east and west together. In 1910, William Randolph Hearst offered a prize of $50,000 for the first pilot to fly across the United States in 30 days or less. The Hearst Transcontinental Prize was one of many prizes offered by newspapers and other supporters of aviation achievement in the early days of flight. Louis Bleriot crossed the English Channel in 1909 to win a prize offered by London’s Daily Mail, and in later years the Orteig Prize inspired Charles Lindbergh to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

Private pilot Calbraith (“Cal”) Perry Rodgers was one of several pilots to attempt to win this prize. Perry’s family had a long history of service in the United States Navy, and his cousin John Rodgers was one of the first pilots in the US Navy’s Aerial Corps. Cal Rodgers trained with Orville Wright at the Wright Brothers’ flying field in Ohio to earn his pilot certificate.

Rodger’s airplane for the transcontinental journey was a Wright Model EX. The EX was a single-seat version of the Wright Model B Flyer modified to reduce drag and boost airspeed to 55 miles per hour, a breathtaking pace for 1911. The EX’s additional airspeed proved popular with exhibition flyers and made it an ideal candidate for the Hearst Transcontinental Prize.

To support the cross-country mission, Rodgers secured sponsorship from food processing magnate J. Ogden Armour, who christened the aircraft Vin Fiz after his company’s grape-flavored soda. The flight was planned with multiple stops across the country, a necessity given the airplane’s limited range of scarcely over 100 miles. A crucial element of the flight plan was a dedicated train that would accompany Rodgers from stop to stop to refuel and service the aircraft.

Rodgers departed Sheepshead Bay, New York, on September 17th, 1911. Rodgers was followed by the train and its support crew, including the Wright Brothers’ original mechanic, Charlie Taylor. Taylor had been hired on by Rodgers to maintain the EX during its long odyssey. 70 flights, seven weeks and over a dozen crash landings later, Rodgers arrived in Pasadena, California, on November 5th 1911—missing the deadline for the Hearst Transcontinental Prize by some 19 days. Most of the original structure of the Vin Fiz was repaired or replaced during the journey, and little of its material completed the full voyage from New York to California.

Four days before reaching Pasadena, Rodgers made a stop at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Awaiting him there was aviator Robert Fowler in his Cole Flyer, a Wright Model B airplane. Fowler was another contender for the Hearst Prize, but his flight plan led from west to east.

By the time the two men met in Arizona on November 1st, 1911, there was little doubt that Rodgers would be the first to fly the continent. Only weeks earlier, however, Fowler had held the advantage. A Bay Area native and automobile aficionado, Fowler had taken to aviation. After an early career that included exhibition flying with both Glen Curtiss and the Wright Brothers, Rodgers secured sponsorship from the Cole Motor Company to pursue the Hearst Prize. He departed San Francisco for New York on September 11th, 1911, on a route that began across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Reno.

The Wrights themselves had counseled Fowler against taking a northerly route across the country, due to the high altitudes required. Rodgers insisted on departing from his hometown, however, and by the second day of the journey discovered the validity of the Wrights’ concerns. Strong winds approaching the Sierra crest buffeted the airplane, and a mechanical problem sent the Cole Flyer down into the trees near Alta, California between Colfax and Reno. Heroic efforts repaired the airplane in less than two weeks, but a second forced landing just short of the summit doomed Fowler’s chances of crossing the mountains before the snows of winter.

Resigned to flying a southerly route, Fowler started again in late October 1911, this time from Los Angeles. The deadline for the Hearst Prize had already lapsed, but Fowler launched nonetheless and reached Tucson in time for his encounter with the westbound Cal Rodgers. Fowler continued east and was in Texas on December 10th, 1911, when Rodgers landed on the beach at Long Beach, California, and taxied the wheels of the Vin Fiz into the sea. Two months later, after braving abysmal winter weather in an open biplane, Fowler arrived in Jacksonville, Florida, to a cheering crowd and later emulated Rodgers’ symbolic final leg with a surfside touchdown at Pablo Beach.

Despite the failure of either contestant to claim the Hearst Transcontinental Prize, both Rodgers and Fowler had each flown routes of some 4,000 miles. Wherever either man flew, enthusiasm for flight reached a fever pitch and thousands of Americans from coast to coast caught a glimpse of an airplane in flight for the first time.

Parts that flew as part of the original Vin Fiz were reassembled into two different aircraft in the years following Cal Rodgers’ death in 1912. One aircraft was destroyed in a fire while awaiting restoration, but the other was donated to the Carnegie Institution in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1917. This surviving aircraft was subsequently donated to the Smithsonian Institution, and today it is housed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The Hiller Aviation Museum displays a full size replica of the Vin Fiz aircraft.

Robert Fowler survived his days as a pioneer aviator, living to the age of 82. The airframe of the Cole Flyer was not preserved, but the four cylinder engine that powered his Wright Model B across the country is on display today at the Hiller Aviation Museum.

The Museum highlights its special role as a repository of artifacts related to the first transcontinental flights of North America on the centennial of the conclusion of the flight of Cal Rodgers. Join us on Saturday, December 10th, 2011 for a celebration of the accomplishment of these intrepid aviators.

Resources

Maria Schell Burden. The Life and Times of Robert G. Fowler, 1999
Smithsonian Air & Space Museum
US Centennial of Flight Commission
Wright Brothers Organization

Reid Dennis Albatross at Hiller

Circling the Globe With Private Pilot Reid Dennis and Astronaut Ed Lu
By Jon Welte

Eratosthenes of Cyrene made the first accurate measure of the circumference of the Earth some 2,200 years ago. At nearly 25,000 miles, this distance has daunted the navigators and travelers of the world ever since. Going “around the world” seemed an absurdly difficult task, with the world so much vaster than everyday human experience many could not grasp the reality of living upon a spherical world. It was not until 1522 that the survivors of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition became the first humans to circumnavigate the globe after a tortuous three year journey.

Although the airplane’s first flight covered a distance of but 120 feet, aviation has always held the promise of bringing the far places of the world closer together. Barely two decades after Kitty Hawk, a pair of specially modified Douglas DT torpedo planes landed in Seattle, Washington to complete the first circumnavigation of Earth by air. The mission lasted six months from first takeoff to final landing, but a new way around the world had opened in the skies. Only a few years later the giant airship Graf Zeppelin circled the globe in just three weeks, and today aircraft have lapped our planet in a matter of days.

Modern long distance travel is often imagined as a journey requiring massive airliners or sleek military aircraft, but a modestly sized, appropriately equipped general aviation airplane is capable of such flights when operated by an experienced, well-prepared pilot. That aptly describes San Carlos-area aviator Reid Dennis. Dennis earned a private pilot certificate in the 1960s for business use, flying a twin Cessna throughout the Midwest to meet with local sales representatives. In 1970 he, his wife Peggy, and another local pilot took a modified Cessna 320 on an extended business trip—from San Carlos to Europe. Equipped with long range radios, detailed weather forecasts and an auxiliary fuel tank, the small plane made the journey hopping from island to island across the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap.

As Dennis continued to make long-distance business trips on an ongoing basis, he also developed an interest in amphibious aircraft. In the 1970s he acquired and restored a Grumman Mallard, a vintage design intended for use as a small 10-seat airline aircraft able to fly from both runways and open water. In the 1990s he commissioned a restoration of a larger Grumman Albatross, widening its wingspan, updating its cockpit and installing a new interior ideally suited for long distance adventures. It was with this aircraft, Albatross N44RD, that Dennis completed the ultimate aviation journey—a flight around the world.

The Albatross restoration project was not undertaken with an around-the-world mission in mind, but as it approached FAA recertification Dennis came into contact with pilot Linda Finch. Finch was rebuilding a Lockheed Electra 10E landplane, a rare aircraft identical to that flown by famed American pilot Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan on an ill-fated attempt at circumnavigating the globe in 1937. Earhart and Noonan disappeared over the Pacific while attempting to locate remote Howland Island midway between Australia and Hawaii. Finch’s goal was to complete that flight on its 60th anniversary.

Dennis’ Albatross was an ideal support plane, and together the two aircraft departed Oakland International Airport—starting point of Earhart’s final journey—in March, 1997. Six months, 26,000 miles and nearly 200 flying hours later, the pair returned to Oakland. More than thirty stops across six continents were needed to complete the epic mission.

Even today, flying a piston-engined airplane around the world is a long and arduous endeavor. In contrast, spacecraft orbiting just beyond the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere are bound by the laws of physics to travel all the way around the globe in little more than 90 minutes. The first person to complete such a journey was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, whose mission aboard Vostok 1 in 1961 opened the era of human space exploration. This flight made an uneasy transition from an era of airborne aviation to one of spaceflight—Gagarin bailed out from his spacecraft at an altitude of some 20,000’ and descended back to Earth by parachute, as Vostok had not been designed to make a soft landing. However, Soviet officials for years reported that Gagarin had landed aboard the vehicle, since the world body governing aeronautical records would not certify a flight in which the pilot jumped out before landing.

Since November 2000, humans have inhabited low Earth orbit on a continuous basis. Most activity has centered on the International Space Station, along with shorter missions flown by the recently-retired NASA space shuttle and free flying Soyuz spacecraft operated by the Russian Space Agency. Astronaut Ed Lu is one of a select group of spacefarers to have flown aboard all three spacecraft, as well as the Mir space station operated by Russia through the 1990s. At an orbital speed of over 17,000 miles per hour, distances pass by on the planet below at a rate unimaginable in winged flight. During a mission aboard space shuttle Atlantis in 2000, Lu conducted a spacewalk with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko to prepare the first modules of the then-unmanned International Space Station for regular habitation. Their extra-vehicular activity lasted some six hours, and during the jaunt the two spacefarers circled the world four times—an achievement that would have astounded Magellan some five centuries earlier.

This fall, the Hiller Aviation Museum welcomes two very different world-circlers to its annual Above and Beyond Benefit Celebration. The Museum will recognize Reid Dennis as this year’s recipient of the Stanley Hiller, Jr. Intrepid Pioneer Award. Astronaut Edward Lu joins the festivities to give a brief presentation on the future of America’s human spaceflight program. Join us at the Hiller Aviation Museum on Saturday, November 5th, to support the Museum’s ongoing mission and encounter two remarkable individuals in the realms of air and space.

Resources

Dean, Patrick. “Return of the Albatross”. Warbird Digest, July/August 2006. Pg. 2-7.

Paull, Mike. Tales From The Sky Kitchen, 2011. Pg. 71-83.

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Aerospace/Douglas_World_Trip/Aero27.htm. Downloaded 31 July 2011.

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/lu.html. Downloaded 31 July 2011.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-106.html. Downloaded 1 August 2011.

World travel is an integral part of the Presidency of the United States. Missions to China, summits with the Soviet Union, goodwill journeys through Latin America, and even surprise holiday visits to US soldiers in combat zones overseas have been commonplace for America’s President. Yet scarcely a century ago, Presidential international travel was unheard of.

The United States is separated from much of the world by the oceans that lap the shores of North America. Early settlers from Europe relished this isolation, yet the long transit times posed challenges to diplomacy and governance. At the dawn of the American revolution news from the first clashes at Lexington and Concord were rushed to London by sailing ship, yet even the speediest dispatches did not arrive on an English dock until six weeks after the shot heard ‘round the world.

To the leaders of a new nation, the sea represented an effectively impassible obstacle. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, no President of the United States traveled overseas while in office. It was not until Theodore Roosevelt visited the Panama Canal Zone in 1906 that a sitting US President made an official visit to a foreign nation.

In 1910, Roosevelt also became the first President to fly aboard an airplane—albeit over a year after leaving office. It was 1943 before Franklin D. Roosevelt undertook the first of three overseas trips by air to become the first President to fly in office. A Pan Am Boeing 314 flying boat carried out this unique mission, flying the President quickly and safely over seas infested with hostile submarines.

In 1947 the newly-formed United States Air Force took over operation of presidential aircraft for both domestic and overseas flights. The aircraft used their USAF registration numbers as radio call signs when communicating with air traffic controllers. In 1953, controllers confused the Lockheed Constellation carrying President Eisenhower with a commercial airliner in the same sector using a similar call sign. As a result of this incident, USAF aircraft carrying the President began to use the call sign “Air Force One” in 1959.

Since then the Air Force One mission has been flown by a dizzying array of airplanes, ranging from the diminutive twin engine Aero Commander to cargo-hauling C-17 transports. The airplane that defined the image of Air Force One, however, was the VC-137.

The genesis of the VC-137 was the Boeing 707 jetliner, used during the final two years of President Eisenhower’s administration. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy—at the encouragement of his wife, Jacqueline—commissioned a redesign of the airplane’s livery and its interior. The result transformed Air Force One into one of the world’s most recognizable aircraft, with a vibrant dual-blue hue accented with the seal of the President of the United States, the American flag emblazoned on the vertical stabilizer and the words “United States of America” boldly painted along the fuselage. The VC-137 redefined Presidential travel, flying with sufficient speed and range to make journeys to Europe and Latin America commonplace and voyages to Asia feasible for the first time. Initially associated with JFK, VC-137s flew eight US Presidents around the world.

Today the mission of long-range Presidential transport falls to the VC-25, a modified Boeing 747-200 first flown in 1990 with much the same livery as its 707-based predecessor. The expanded communications facilities onboard make the modern Air Force One a veritable flying White House, providing the President with a wide range of command and control ability. As a result, Presidential travel has increased dramatically since the VC-25 was introduced in 1990.

Fixed-wing aircraft are not the only means by which the President travels by air. President Eisenhower was the first President to travel by helicopter in 1957, and by the early 1960s helicopter operations from the South Lawn of the White House were commonplace. Today, the President’s helicopter transportation is operated by the United States Marine Corps, and any Marine helicopter carrying the President of the United States uses the call sign Marine One.

When Presidential helicopter operations were first initiated, responsibility for flying the President was shared between the US Army and US Marine Corps. The same helicopters were flown by both services, with the call sign “Army One” in use when Army aircrew operated the helicopter. One of the most memorable Presidential helicopter flights occurred when President Richard Nixon boarded a VH-3 flown as Army One after the announcement of his resignation, but before the resignation took effect. Responsibility for operation of the Presidential helicopter fleet transferred entirely to the US Marine Corps shortly afterwards as a cost-cutting move, and the last Army One flight was completed in 1976.

Today’s Marine One force is a mixed fleet of Sikorsky VH-3 and VH-60 helicopters. Derived from the SH-3 Sea King and UH-60 Blackhawk designs, these helicopters permit quick transfers for the President between ground locations and Air Force One. By tradition, a US Marine in full dress uniform is always deployed at the Marine One landing zone to salute the President as he disembarks the helicopter.

Flying across oceans and continents, aircraft have been instrumental in transforming the President of the United States into a leader of free nations everywhere. From the deserts of Saudi Arabia to the shadow of the Berlin Wall, Air Force One has transported our chief executive to the forefront of the world’s crises for nearly half a century. Washington or Jefferson would never have imagined how the office they held would be transformed by the technology of flight.

This year’s Helifest aviation exposition at the Hiller Aviation Museum features an exclusive peek into Presidential Aviation. Lt. Colonel Gene Boyer flew Army One for nearly two decades as a White House senior pilot. In collaboration with Jackie Boor, he recently completed Inside the President’s Helicopter, a detailed first-person account of Presidential aviation through the turbulent 1950s, 60s and 70s. Ms. Boor will be a featured speaker at the Helifest, and autographed copies of Colonel Boyer’s book will be available.

Resources

The Flying White House, J. F terHorst & Col. Ralph Albertazzie

Inside the President’s Helicopter, LTC Gene Boyer

http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/air-force-one, downloaded 5/1/11

Aeronautical Prizes from Louis Bleriot to Burt Rutan

By Jon Welte

The airplane was born at Kitty Hawk on a cold December day in 1903, but the marvelous invention wrought by the creativity and hard work of Wilbur and Orville Wright was at first little more than a curiosity. The Wright Brothers themselves spent several more years developing their design into an aircraft that they considered “practical”, and even then most who saw it in flight scoffed at the idea that such devices might ever serve a useful role.

In 1906, a new means of expediting the growth of aviation appeared: publicly-announced prizes for achievement in flight. The Daily Mail, a sensation-seeking British newspaper, offered a prize of some £10,000 for the first flight from London to Manchester. Other prizes were offered soon thereafter, some obscure yet others historic. In 1909, Louis Bleriot crossed the English Channel to claim a smaller Daily Mail purse. Ten years later John Alcock and Arthur Brown flew a Vickers Vimy bomber nonstop from Newfoundland to Ireland to claim a Daily Mail prize for the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

Often inventors and aviators who pursued these prizes spent far more than the prize itself on the achievement, but the public attention focused on the competition and the fruitful technological advancements that followed each triumph provided ample incentive to pursue the goals, no matter how outlandish. And in the dawn years of aviation, even outlandish prizes were claimed in remarkably short times: flying the English Channel seemed impossible in 1908, yet Bleriot’s flight occurred scarcely a year later.

The popularity of prizes as a tool to advance and promote aviation was directly responsible for the establishment of the Orteig Prize, announced in 1919. The Orteig Prize called for the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris. This prize went unclaimed for nearly a decade, but when young Charles Lindbergh made the journey in a Ryan monoplane in 1927, aviation experienced a worldwide boom the Wright Brothers could scarcely have imagined at Kitty Hawk only a quarter century before.

During and after World War II, achievement prizes fell into disuse as massive government-funded programs overtook entrepreneurial efforts to expand the aviation frontier. Supersonic flight and the first human landing on the moon were among the many achievements of this period, but by the mid-1990s development of space vehicles had reached a plateau. The space race between nations that dominated research and development efforts in the 1950s and 60s was supplanted by peaceful cooperation of former adversaries, and as the Cold War urgency abated some supporters of aerospace development looked again to private industry to take the lead.

In 1996 an organization that would eventually become the X Prize Foundation was formed. Its mission was simple: establish a prize for a reusable airplane able to carry a human being to an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers). Such heights had been reached by rocket planes before, most notably the North American X-15 research airplane that flew as high as 67 miles during a 1960s research program. The X-15, however, was a multiyear program funded by NASA and the USAF. The Ansari X Prize was reserved for a privately-funded endeavor. Within a decade, the prize was won by a team headed by maverick aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan.

Rutan was an alumnus of the Air Force’s test program at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s high desert. He founded the Rutan Aircraft Factory and later Scaled Composites, both dedicated to producing highly efficient aircraft of unconventional design. With funding in hand from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Rutan’s team embarked on what was later described as the first privately-financed space program.

The X-Prize required only a brief spaceflight on a suborbital trajectory, less demanding than a flight to Earth orbit. Nonetheless, to reach the required altitude—some 328,000’—required use of technologies never before harnessed outside of a military or civil space program. Scaled Composites developed two separate aircraft to accomplish its mission, the White Knight carrier aircraft and a smaller rocket plane, christened SpaceShipOne. Much like the X-15, SpaceShipOne was carried aloft by a jet-powered airplane. Upon reaching altitude, the rocket plane dropped away and ignited a single hybrid-fuelled rocket engine. The aircraft used traditional aerodynamic controls to pitch up into an accelerating climb.

SpaceShipOne’s rocket motor burned for less than 90 seconds, yet the vehicle achieved maximum speeds in excess of three times the speed of sound. Following this rapid acceleration, SpaceShipOne continued upwards like a cannonball, flying to the edge of the atmosphere as its pilot experienced a few short minutes of microgravity.

To prevent the spaceplane from overheating upon atmospheric re-entry, SpaceShipOne used a “feathering” mechanism in which both stabilizer booms bent at a severe angle, pulling the stabilizers into a position akin to a badminton birdie. The increase to aircraft drag slowed the returning aircraft at a gradual pace, alleviating heating problems. After returning to the atmosphere the pilot returned the stabilizers to the normal position and glided the aircraft to a runway landing.

Test flights of SpaceShipOne began in May 2003, and SpaceShipOne satisfied the Ansari X-Prize requirements with back-to-back flights on September 29th and October 4th, 2004, winning the X-Prize with a final altitude of just under 70 miles.

Since the award of the X-Prize, Scaled Composites has moved on to develop a larger vehicle for use by the Virgin Galactic company to fly paying passengers on suborbital trips to space. The X-Prize Foundation has continued to post prizes for achievements not merely in astronautics but in other research fields as well, continuing the tradition started by The Daily Mail over 100 years ago.

The thrilling pursuit of the Ansari X-Prize is the subject of SpaceShipOne: An Illustrated History by Dan Linehan. Mr. Linehan will speak at the Hiller Aviation Museum on Saturday, March 5th, at 11 AM to share his insights into this remarkable program and the winning of the X-Prize.

Resources

Ansari X-Prize Foundation. http://www.xprize.org/, downloaded 31 January 11.

Dan Linehan. http://www.dslinehan.com/, downloaded 31 January 11.

Roger Launius. http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/the-power-of-aerospace-prizes-for-innovation/, downloaded 1 February 11.

Scaled Composites. http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/, downloaded 1 February 11.

Eugene Ely

Eugene Ely and the Centennial of Naval Aviation
By Jon Welte

A century ago, the world’s navies relied on battleships to rule the seas. These giant floating fortresses of steel were built with great effort and expense by leading seafaring nations. Their size and power captivated the imaginations of millions and often influenced events ashore without firing a shot.

Against this backdrop, few would have expected the newly-invented flying machine—still a frail-looking contraption of wood and fabric—to play any role in a future victory at sea, much less prove to be utterly decisive. Yet one of the first steps towards the ultimate ascendancy of airplanes at sea occurred in San Francisco Bay on January 18th, 1911.

In the fall of 1910 the United States Navy appointed Captain Washington Chambers as the first head of “Naval Aviation”. Despite a lack of official support and a career that was nearing retirement, Chambers perceived the possibilities offered by the new technology of aviation and sought to demonstrate them to the fleet. He developed a relationship with aircraft designer Glenn Curtiss and one of Curtiss’ contract pilots, young Eugene Ely. Together they conceived a plan to operate a conventional airplane from a deck placed upon a Navy ship.

Spurred by reports of a similar project underway in German, the Navy authorized a demonstration in Hampton Roads near the base at Norfolk, Virginia. A short wooden deck was built over the bow of the cruiser Birmingham, and on November 14th, 1910, Ely flew a Curtiss Model D pusher off the deck and into the air. The 57-foot takeoff run from the anchored cruiser was inadequate for even the light Curtiss airplane, and Ely’s departure included a disconcerting dive to the wavetops—the landing gear and propeller struck the water before the Model D reached flying speed. Damage to the propeller prompted Ely to make an immediate emergency landing at the closest beach, but the first shipboard launch of an airplane had been a success.

Buoyed by this outcome and by considerable public interest, Captain Chambers succeeded in securing permission for a second, more challenging demonstration: a landing aboard the cruiser Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay. Construction of a larger platform for installation aboard the Pennsylvania began at Mare Island Shipyard in the North Bay, and the same Curtiss Model D flown by Ely for the original demonstration was brought to California for the newest feat.

The expanded “flight deck” installed aboard the Pennsylvania was still just 120’ long, a fraction of the distance normally needed to halt the brakeless Curtiss. Although Ely’s airplane was modified with extended wings to reduce the landing speed, the landing roll seemed far too likely to end up in the canvas barrier erected between the flight deck and the cruiser’s superstructure. Ultimately, a new system for arresting the landing roll of the airplane was developed. Three large hooks were installed on the undercarriage of the Model D, and 22 ropes weighted with 50 lb sandbags at each end were stretched across the flight deck. The hooks would catch on the ropes upon landing, and the weight of the sandbags would provide a swift and certain stop.

Ely practiced this landing method repeatedly at the Tanforan flying field, near modern-day SFO. Soon he was able to regularly hook a practice rope placed in a rectangle the size of Pennsylvania’s flight deck. Wearing a leather football helmet and bicycle inner tubes for safety, Ely launched from Tanforan on the morning of January 18th, 1911, bound for the Pennsylvania.

Conditions aboard the cruiser were far from ideal. Her captain insisted on remaining at anchor in the narrow confines of San Francisco Bay, and tides through the Bay swung her until the wind blew up onto her landing deck. The tailwind would increase the landing speed, but Ely persisted. A single flyby of the Pennsylvania showed that the landing deck and its 22 lines were in readiness. A clutch of spectator boats and rescue vessels swarmed the waters around the Navy cruiser. Ely turned his plane onto final approach.

Almost immediately Ely noticed that a crosswind had developed. Crosswind landings were unheard of in 1911—in a world without runways, pilots simply landed straight into the wind upon reaching a large, open field. Ely adjusted his flight path to adjust for the wind and pulled off all engine power 50 feet from the deck, as the looming superstructure of the cruiser dead ahead made a go-around impossible. Committed to the landing and quietly drifting aboard, Ely clearly heard commands shouted by officers to the silently assembled sailors. Upon reaching Pennsylvania’s fantail, turbulent airflow bucked the Model D upwards, eliciting a gasp from the observers. Ely forced the pusher down onto the deck, halfway along, engaging the arresting lines and bringing the plane to a halt with 50’ to spare. The wheels stopped at 10:59 AM Pacific Time, and naval aviation was born.

After a moment of silent disbelief, the crew of the Pennsylvania broke into cheers, accompanied by sirens and horns from the escorting flotilla. Ely’s wife was aboard the ship and was the first to greet him, followed by a warm welcome from the ship’s commander. Within an hour, The Model D was turned around and Ely was in the air again, bound once more for Tanforan and another hero’s welcome.

Eugene Ely’s demonstrations opened the way for the development of true aircraft carriers during the first half of the 20th century, and today naval aviation remains a crucial part of the national defense. Modern carrier aircraft weigh up to 60 times as much as Ely’s Model D and operate at speeds unimaginable in 1911. Yet even the highest performance naval aircraft in use today use the same tailhook arresting technology first used by Ely aboard the Pennsylvania.

On Saturday, January 15th, 2011, the Hiller Aviation Museum joins the naval aviation community in commemorating the 100th anniversary of Eugene Ely’s landing in San Francisco Bay. Join us as the Museum highlights its full-scale replica of Ely’s airplane with a panel of distinguished speakers, a fly-in of vintage naval aircraft, special flight simulations and (weather permitting) a dramatic flyby by a modern US Navy fighter—a fitting tribute to a milestone aviation achievement attained on the waters of San Francisco Bay.

Resources

Johnson, Brian. Fly Navy—The History of Naval Aviation (New York, 1981).

http://www.glennhcurtissmuseum.org/educational/articles/albany_flyer.html, downloaded 29 October 2010.

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/fa18ef/, downloaded 29 October 2010.

Wilbur and Orville Wright took aloft the world’s first successful airplane on a cold December morning at the dawn of the 20th century. Their achievement was remarkable, yet in the decades immediately afterwards the airplane struggled to find its place in the peaceful commerce of the world. Mechanical liability concerns, performance limitations and safety worries ensured that trains and ships continued their role as the prime means of long distance human transport, much as they had in the years leading up to that first flight at Kitty Hawk.

On December 17th, 1935—thirty-two years to the day after the Wrights’ triumphant foray into the air—an airplane that would fulfill the airplane’s promise of shrinking the worlds’ distances made its first flight in the skies over Santa Monica, California. That airplane was the third civil transport designed by the Douglas Aircraft Company, one of many new aircraft manufacturing ventures begun in the 1920s beneath the sunny skies of Southern California.

Donald Douglas’ company had long since developed a name for itself building airplanes for military use, including the Douglas World Cruiser seaplanes that completed the first circumnavigation of the world by air in 1924. By the early 1930s, it had built its first airplanes for the airline market, the prototype DC-1 and subsequent DC-2. The DC-2 proved to be a moderately successful design. Its sleek, all-metal wings mounted two powerful Wright Cyclone engines, and its sturdy metal fuselage could comfortably carry 14 passengers. Over 150 DC-2s were built and put into service across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Although successful, the DC-2 suffered from mild stability issues and its passenger capacity made it difficult to operate profitably. In response to a request from American Airlines, Douglas’ team, led by Arthur Raymond, redesigned the plane with a wider fuselage to permit installation of overnight sleeping bunks. The new fuselage design also allowed seating in the daytime configuration to jump to 24 passengers, and at a stroke the new DC-3 was able to pay its way on fare-paying passengers alone.

Following a fast-paced flight test program, the DC-3 entered revenue service in 1936. Its speed and range allowed it to complete transcontinental trips in under 18 hours, a shorter journey than any comparable trip by train. The DC-3’s performance as a passenger-carrying airliner was far superior to any of its contemporaries, so much so that in 1939 90% of all world airline traffic was carried by this remarkable aircraft.

During World War II the DC-3 was produced around the world as the C-47. It was pressed into service ferrying troops and supplies through every theater of the war. Its utility was such that Dwight Eisenhower, commander of Allied forces in Europe, later listed it as one of the four technological inventions most essential to victory.

Nearly 11,000 DC-3 and C-47 aircraft were built by Douglas at its plants in Santa Monica, Long Beach and Oklahoma City. Thousands more were built overseas under license, both as part of the war effort and afterwards as repurposed C-47s fueled a boom in postwar airline service around the world. Hundreds remain in service today, hauling passengers and cargo around the world—from the wilderness of Africa and Alaska to busy commercial airports in California and elsewhere. No other aircraft has yet to approach the DC-3’s universal appeal and longevity in service, or match the DC-3’s role in making air travel practicable throughout the world.

Join the Hiller Aviation Museum this December as we celebrate the 75th birthday of this world-changing aircraft. Weather permitting, up to four flying DC-3s and C-47s will arrive at San Carlos Airport on Friday, December 17th. Tour these amazing airplanes, learn how they work, and try your hand at flying one in the Museum’s Flight Sim Zone. Be on hand as these proud birds depart at the end of festivities on Saturday, December 18th. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience the Douglas DC-3.

By Jon Welte

The world in 2010 is in many ways a far smaller place than it once was. Scarcely 200 years ago, Spanish missionaries spent a full month toiling the length of California along El Camino Real. Today, tourists and business travelers soar between San Francisco and San Diego in scarcely more than an hour. For modern travelers, even the most distantly removed major cities are hardly more than a single day’s travel away.

Although many technological developments contributed to this shrinking of Earth’s surface, one remarkable achievement stands out in making rapid, long-distance travel a reality: Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic journey from New York to Paris. Before Lindbergh’s arrival at Le Bourget on May 21st, 1927, air travel was a dangerous novelty that few believed had practical use in times of peace. Afterwards, aviation became an engine for commerce that tied the world together in ways even its most ardent supports could have scarcely imagined.

Charles Lindbergh was an unlikely candidate to change the world. Born the son of a Minnesota Congressman and a schoolteacher from Detroit, Lindbergh was barely 20 when he dropped out of engineering school to pursue his first formal flight training in 1922. His early years as a pilot were filled with harrowing encounters—he flew as a barnstormer before having soloed an airplane and survived a mid-air collision in a De Haviland DH-4 while training with the US Army Air Service in 1925.

By the end of 1925, Lindbergh had signed on with a National Guard squadron flying the mail on a route between Chicago and St. Louis. With timely delivery of the mail a high priority, the simple aircraft available at the time were often pushed to their limits day and night in atrocious weather. Accidents were common—Lindbergh himself made two parachute jumps when nighttime fogs descended on his landing fields. Yet the experiences gained through these adventures were instrumental in awakening Lindbergh to the possibility of transoceanic flight.

Some years earlier, New York hotelier Raymond Orteig had offered a substantial cash prize to the first pilot (or pilots) able to complete a nonstop flight between Paris and New York. Airplanes had flown across the Atlantic Ocean as early as 1919, but the 3,600 statute mile distance between New York and Paris, coupled with the nonstop requirement, proved a daunting challenge. Many aviators tried for the prize and failed, but through 1926 none had been able to claim it.

On a long mail flight, Charles Lindbergh began to reflect on the technical requirements for such a flight. His experiences with the US Mail led him to several key conclusions: an single-engined airplane would be more efficient and less likely to experience engine failure than a multi-engined design; a monoplane aircraft would experience less drag and have concurrently longer range than a biplane; and flying with a single pilot, rather than a pilot and navigator, would reduce the weight to be carried and increase the available fuel. Lindbergh cultivated a number of sponsors in the St. Louis area and secured their support for a bid at the Orteig Prize. In February 1927, Ryan Airlines of San Diego received an order to build an airplane to Lindbergh’s specifications. Construction began at once, and in only two months the one-of-a-kind Ryan NYP entered flight test with Lindbergh at the controls.

By mid-May 1927 Lindbergh and the Ryan monoplane, christened Spirit of St. Louis to honor its sponsors, had arrived on Long Island to begin the flight at the first report of favorable weather. On the evening of May 19th reports of clearing skies and building high pressure across the North Atlantic committed Lindbergh to launch the next morning. Shortly before 8 AM on May 20th, the heavily-loaded Spirit of St. Louis lumbered off the airstrip at Roosevelt Field in Garden City, New York, bound for Europe.

Modern pilots traversing the “pond” are accustomed to soaring across the seas more than six miles high. Lindbergh’s experience was far different. The single 220-hp engine operated best at low altitude, and nearly the entire 36-hour flight was completed below 1,000 feet—and often far lower, as Lindbergh sought an added boost from “ground effect” by flying within a wingspan of the wavetops. From such a low vantage point Lindbergh could easily judge wind speed and direction by watching foam blow off the ocean swells, and even attempted to confirm his navigation by shouting questions at sailors on passing ships.

Hour by hour at a cruising speed of just 100 miles per hour, Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic—through two days and a night, and into night again. Twenty-eight hours after departure, Ireland materialized out of the mists ahead. Six hours later, Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget Airport outside of Paris to the acclaim of an enormous crowd. As The Spirit of St. Louis rolled to a halt in Paris on the evening of May 21st, 1927, the world at last looked upon aviation as a gateway between the continents.

Some 75 years after Charles Lindbergh’s journey across the North Atlantic, Erik Lindbergh—grandson of the great aviator—started the single engine of a small airplane on Long Island, New York, and contemplated the 3,600 miles that lie between New York and Paris. On May 2nd, 2002, the younger Lindbergh commemorated his grandfather’s flight by retracing it, this time in a modern Lancair Columbia 300. The sleek, composite airplane traversed the Atlantic in half the time that the Spirit of St. Louis required, arriving in Le Bourget just over 17 hours after departure.

Today, Erik Lindbergh pursues a wide range of interests from engineering to sculpture. His aviation connections include past roles with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing and the X-Prize Foundation. The Hiller Aviation Museum is pleased to welcome Mr. Lindbergh as its featured speaker at the annual Wings, Wheels and Whirlybirds benefit, to be held at the Museum on Saturday, October 16th.

Sources

“The Spirit of St. Louis”, Charles A. Lindbergh, 1953

“We”, Charles A. Lindbergh, 1927.

http://www.charleslindbergh.com/history/erik.asp, 4 August 2010

97H back home at Bud Field's Aviation

Day 7 – Home

Flagstaff is a beautiful place. Sitting at 7,000 feet and covered in pine trees you get the feel of Lake Tahoe but with out the crowds. The airport was a busy place. About 4 days ago an Allegiant Airliner had an engine fire traveling to Phoenix and had to make an emergency landing at Flagstaff and they were replacing the engine while we were there. The most entertaining thing we saw was a Robinson R-22 trying to take off at that altitude. Apparently they were passing through and landing is not a problem but taking off at that altitude is a different story. Fully loaded with fuel, baggage and two people that little helicopter just didn’t want to fly. Having a couple of helicopter pilots on our plane made watching this unfold very interesting. They had enough power to just barely lift up the helicopter so what they ended up doing was virtually skidding across the ramp out to the runway and the skidding down the runway until they had enough forward speed to lift off, kind of like an airplane but with no wheels. Needless to say they made it and it was very amusing.

Our route home took us over the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, Palmdale and then direct to Hayward. Landing at Hayward was bittersweet. We all were looking forward to getting home but none of us wanted the trip to end. This has been a trip of a life time. They appropriately named the event in Rock Falls “The Last Time” because this will probably not happen again getting this many DC-3’s/C-47’s together from all over the country. I haven’t heard the total number of aircraft yet at Oshkosh but I bet it is over 40 and something like this only comes around every 75 years!

Here are a few quick statistics from the trip

We flew 28.7 hours
4276 miles roundtrip
We used 2669 gallons of fuel
Oil consumed was 27 gallons
27 total airplanes at Rock Falls
21 planes open the show at Oshkosh

We woke up to rain today. Another front passed through Oshkosh, the one thing they didn’t need more off – rain!

After going on a donut run, they make the best donuts right on the field, and filling the original coffee container from 1945 galley of the plane we were ready to start heading home.

We were parked in the grass in the warbird area and if you have been following this blog you know how much rain they have got recently in Oshkosh so you guessed it, the plane tires sunk a little bit in the ground. After recruiting a fair number of people we pushed the tail of 97H to the left to make sure we didn’t send a few T-6’s into orbit that were parked behind us when we fired up.

Once we felt we were clear the crew jumped in the plane and we fired up the left engine which started without a hitch. Then the right engine, nothing. We all figured it had to be the switch because nothing was happening, so we shut down and headed out to the engine to figure out the problem. There is one thing that is for sure, if you break down you want to do so when you’re in Oshkosh because there are so many experts, everywhere.

Someone said, “Just bang on the starter solenoid” So one of the crew standing on the right tire climbed up inside the nacelle and started banging on the suspected problem. Sure enough the propeller started to turn. Everybody back inside and she started right up.

We lifted off at 10am under a grey sky but the rain had stopped. We climbed to 5500 feet and we were direct to Liberal Kansas. Liberal is an old military base with runways everywhere, mostly closed but a good stop after 5 hours of flying. The debate at Liberal was which way to fly. There was a line of thunderstorms across New Mexico up to Colorado and we had to decide what the best route would be. After much debate we decided to hold course and head to Flagstaff AZ.

We had to repeat the banging on the right solenoid to get a spark and we were off. It was a beautiful flight. Some of the comments from the cockpit were “this is the only way to see the country” and “we go to fast, we need to slow down and enjoy” which is what we did.

We landed at Flagstaff after 9 total hours of flying. Some might think that is a long time considering these days you could fly from San Francisco to London in that time frame, but to us it went way to fast and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Tomorrow July 29 is our last leg, Flagstaff to Hayward CA.

The sky over New Mexico from a DC-3

What can you say about Oshkosh that has not already been said? Anything and everything related to aviation is here. We are only here one full day so there was so much to do and see that we didn’t spend allot of time with the plane.

With all the rains and the fact that Oshkosh is so big the DC-3’s/C-47’s are spread out all over the place. We’re not sure how many planes made it. It must be out on the internet somewhere but all we know is there are a whole bunch here.

This evening Bassler Aviation through a party for all the attending airplanes. Bassler is a DC-3 turbo conversion company based here in Oshkosh. They take run out old DC-3’s and modify them with turbo jet engines. There is obviously mixed feeling with old purist DC-3 lovers but changing the good old round engines for more modern ones. But the conversion also reemphasizes just what a great design the aircraft was and that with new modern engines the plane has new life in doing jobs she has been doing for 75 years.

Tomorrow July 28 we are departing at 9am. Our goal is to make it all the way to Flagstaff AZ for the night and then back to Hayward on Thursday – weather permitting.

97H at Oshkosh