Aviation History 2011-11

NOVEMBER 2011

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China Air Task Force Successors to the American Volunteer Group "Flying Tigers," the Army airmen of the CATF included veteran pilot Johnny Alison.

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Grumman F4F Wildcat Often outnumbered and outclassed by its Japanese opponents, the U.S. Navy fighter performed yeoman service when times were toughest early in World War II. The Unconventional Burt Rutan Rutan's signature designs have included everything from canard homebuilts to SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded aircraft to achieve suborbital flight.

BRIEFING

Twin Mustang Prototype to Fly Again ruth be told, the North American F-82 wasn't just two mated Mustangs. Most of us who have never gotten our hands greasy on one have assumed the very-long-range postwar twin was simply two P-51 fuselages riveted to a wing center section and horizontal stabilizer. "We've found that there are very few parts common to the World War II Mustang series," says restoration pro Tom Reilly of Douglas, Ga., who has spent three years totally rebuilding the rarest Twin Mustang to survive—the number-two XP-82 prototype—and who estimates he still has a year and a half to go before his airplane flies.

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The second prototype North American XP-82 undergoes flight testing.

And fly it will, for Reilly is Left: The XP-82's ieft famous among warbirders for fuseiage is recovered putting back into the air projfrom Waiter Sopiata's ects ranging from Stearmans to salvage yard. Right: The B-24s that had been consigned right fuseiage. Below to scrapheaps. Indeed, Reilly's right: The ieft fuseiage XP-82 came largely from two nears completion. junkyards—one outside Fairbanks, Alaska, and the other fVom late Ohioan Walter Soplata's Calif., shop. Vintage VI 2s, famous back-lot salvage yard of rare warbirds. found a brand-new one in a Reilly isn't doing the job on a shoestring, as you can see by visitgarage in Mexico City, ing his detailed website, xp-82twinmustangproject.com. After all, though it remains a mystery the zero-timed Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and brand-new props how it got there, but no for his project have cost over half a mulion dollars alone. With spare backward P-82 props more than 40 years of experience at the warbird restoration game, exist. The German company however, Reilly has put together a small consortium of investors MT Propellers is building who are bankrolling the project in hopes of a multi-million-dollar both props for Reilly, with composite blades on new MT hubs. sale of the finished airplane to a collector. No other P- or F-82s are Not to be outdone, Reilly and his small crew of craftspeople flying anywhere in the world, and chances are that only one ever (with occasional hands-on help from the project's investorwill: an equally classy restoration of an F-82E currently underway enthusiasts) have buut from scratch the bulk of the right-hand by Pat Harker and his C&P Aviation crew in Anoka, Minn. fuselage, using the original left unit—the only complete fuselage they were able to acquire—as a master. Why The rarest parts of the XP-82 are its rightnot just buy a scrapped P-51H ftiselage, side Merlin engine and propeller, which turn since popular lore has it that two of them counterclockwise (as seen from the cockpit) were used to cobble up Twin Mustangs? while the left engine rotates conventionally. "Although fuel in the tanks is Because they are actually quite different; the That entire main engine block, nose case, oil XP-82's fuselages are nearly 5 feet longer, for pan and crankshaft are unique to the Twin limited, gravity is forever." one thing. Twin "Mustang" indeed. Mustang, and hardly any have survived. —test pilot Corky Meyer Engine-builder Mike Nixon's Tehachapi, Stephan Wilkinson

Air Quotes

8 AVIATION HISTORY NOVEMBER 2011

Looks Can Be Deceiving Left: The Martin B-26B Marauder Flak-Bait drops its ordnance. Beiow ieft: The bomt«r's maritings refiect its record 207 missions.

ne of the most famous bombers of World War II is back in the air. Flak-Bait, a Martin B-26B Marauder that completed 207 missions over Europe—an Air Force record that is unbroken to this day—is right up there with Enola Gay and Memphis Belle as a superstar of the air war. Marauders are of course best remembered through myth, rumor and innuendo as crew-killers too dangerous to fly. Though the B-26 ultimately had the best combat safety

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meant a crash, and even at safer climbout speeds the engine needed to be feathered right quick. (Those 1,950-hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800s were the first examples of the ubiquitous 18-cylinder engine to see comtjat.) Okay, we're kidding about the real Flak-Bait flying again, since anybody who has been to the National Air & Space Museum knows that the bomber's entire forward fuselage and cockpit is on exhibit there. It's hard to believe, but the B-26 shown here is actually a 1/6th-scale radio-controlled model powered by two 6-hp, 2-cycle Zenoah engines, with fully operable scale landing gear, bomb-bay doors, bombdropping mechanism, flaps, flight controls and pneumatic wheel brakes. It was built by a team of professional English modelers for Brian O'Meara in Denver, Colo., who paid well into five figures for the finished model. The model is made of wood and weighs 102 pounds, and the project took almost a decade to complete. To read more about it and view a remarkable in-flight video filmed from an on-board camera, go to builder Stephen Carr's website, sacarr.co.uk. Stephan Wilkinson

MYSTERY SHIP

record of any U.S. medium bomber, "One a Day Into Tampa Bay," "Widowmaker" and "Baltimore Whore" are its popular legacy, the result of a combination of high (for its time) wing loading, a brisk approach speed (again, for its time) and young, low-time pilots who had never flown anything more challenging than a dumpy Cessna AT-17—the infamous "Bamboo Bomber." With a high single-engine minimum control speed, an engine failure on takeoff almost always

What makes this little civil aircraft such a rarity? Turn to R 12 for the answer.

NOVEMBER 2011

AVIATION HISTORY

9

BRIEFING

Flight 1549 Compietes Its Journey

n a press conference the day after US Airways Flight 1549 lost engine power following a bird strike and landed on the Hudson River, NTSB spokesperson Kitty Higgins praised the pilots and crew for their quick thinking under pressure. The Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte—which has acquired the Airbus A320 and is preparing it for exhibition—plans to give Captain Chesley Sullenberger and his crew their due, but, says project manager Shawn Dorsch, the airplane itself wül be equally important, including the advanced safety technology that gave the puots enough time to react. "It is possible that visitors will come away [from the exhibit] thinking that Flight 1549 wasn't a miracle at all, but a product of 100 years of design change," he says.

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The inspiration for the display came two years ago, when Dorsch saw the Safety Promotion Center at Tokyo International Airport, complete with flowcharts of safety improvements that resulted from the crash of Japan Air Lines Flight 123. These changes included redesigned seats and luggage bins that wouldn't collapse and prevent people from exiting, features that helped save Flight 1549 passengers. The museum plans to highlight advances made after the Hudson River crash, such as new life vest configurations

meant to encourage passengers to don the devices (only a few Flight 1549 passengers took their vests with them before exiting onto the wings), and steps taken to put life vests on 100 percent of airliners. The "Miracle on the Hudson" A320, partially submerged for several days, is being conserved and reassembled at the museum's main hangar, though the damaged underbelly and hole in the rear luggage compartment will remain to show how it looked just after impact. The plane will be opened up in certain places to reveal critical safety features, including the racks that held the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, and the auxiliary power unit (APU) that powered the flight controls and flaps after the engines failed. Plans are for the airliner to be reassembled by January 15,2012, the third anniversary of the crash, though visitors can watch the work in progress. Theftiselageof the A320—the first to be displayed in a museum—arrived on June 10. The fact that the Carolinas Aviation Museum is in Charlotte, the original destination of Flight 1549, helped the staff to acquire the plane in the face of competing bids from the Smithsonian Institution and the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum. For more info, visit carolinasaviation.org. Stephen Mauro

WWI Wings & Wheels or the first time, a World War I aviation theme pervaded the annual Wings & Wheels Extravaganza held July 9-10 at the Golden Age Air Museum at Grimes Field, just outside of Bethel, Pa. Although civil aircraft ranging from the 1920s to the present were on hand—both the museum's and those flown in by owners from all over the northeast—the weekend's focus was on the 7/8th-scale replica Rumpler C.V that had bombed an Arab village in the 1961 film Lawrence ofArabia; the wooden airframe of a replica Sopwith Pup still under construction; a newly completed Fokker Dr.I replica in the markings of Red Baron brother Lothar von Richthofen, with an authentic Le Rhône rotary engine; and the crown jewel in the museum's collection, an original 1918 Curtiss JN-4D Jenny trainer. On a weekend marred elsewhere by the crackups of a 1961 Beechcraft and a replica Fokker Dr.I at Geneseo, N.Y. (fortunately

F

10 AVIATION HISTORY

NOVEMBER 2011

The Curtiss JN-4D Jenny taxis for taiceoff from Grimes Fieid.

resulting in no serious injuries), the Golden Age Air Museum put its Jenny, triplane and movie star Rumpler through their aerial paces without mishap, in addition to flying adventurous paying customers on 15- or 30-minute hops in its Bird and Waco biplanes. The museum will likely continue the World War I theme on an annual basis. Find out more at goldenageair.org. Jon Guttman

BRIEFING B-25J Lands at Flying Heritage Collection

By the Numbers: Marianas Turkey Shoot

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he June 1944 First Batde of the Philippine Sea was history's largest carrier fight, with 1 5 American flattops squaring off against 9 Japanese carriers. Aboard Vice Adm. Marc Mitscher's carriers were 9 0 5 airplanes, opposing some 4 5 0 Japanese planes on their carriers. The Japanese would lose 9 0 percent of their landbased and carrier planes—a total of 635—in the two-day struggle, compared to just 1 2 3 American aircraft lost during that same period. Of the Japanese carrier-based planes, only 3 5 would survive the batde. About 8 0 American planes were lost due to ftiel exhaustion and landing accidents.

n June 7 a newly restored B-25J Mitchell touched down at Paine Field in Everett, Wash., to join the ranks of the Flying Heritage Collection, Paul Allen's incomparable array of historic military aircraft. After purchasing the medium bomber in 1999, the Microsoft cofounder commissioned a restoration, 12 years in the making, to return the plane to its WWJJ-era specs, including two Wright R-2600 Cyclone engines and 13 .50-caliber machine guns. The B-25J is painted in the olive green and blue of the 490th Bomb Squadron, a tribute to Master Sgt. Arnold Spielberg, a 490th crewman and father of Allen's film director friend Steven Spielberg. On July 16 close to 1,000 spectators gathered to watch the venerable Mitchell and a P-51 escort buzz the runway for one of FHC's summer "Fly Days" events.

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Thunderbolt Hits Duxford

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n June 14 the Imperial War Museum at Duxford unveiled the newest member of The Fighter Collection: a meticulously restored Curtiss P-47G Thunderbolt. The airplane, serial no. 42-25068, enjoyed pride of place at Flying Legends, the warbird airshow held at Duxford July 9 and 10. Though P-47Gs, license-built Curtiss versions of Republic's P-47D, were usually used as fighter trainers Stateside, Duxford's airplane is finished in the markings of Lieutenant Severino Calderon's P-47D of the 84th Squadron, 78th Fighter Group, which was based at the airfield during World War II.

MYSTERY SHIP ANSWER Raymond Andrew "Rae" Rearwin founded the aircraft manufacturer that bears his name in 1928, producing a number of successful private planes in Kansas City until 1942, when the company was sold to Commonwealth Aircraft—which continued to build Rearwin's last design, the Skyranger, until 1946. An intriguing rarity in the Rearwin stable is the Speedster, a promising design with clean lines, originally powered by a 95-hp inverted inline Ace Cirrus engine that gave it a maximum speed of 144 mph and a climb rate of 600 feet per minute. Unfortunately for Rearwin, it came out in 1934 amid

12 AVIATION HISTORY

NOVEMBER 2011

the Depression, first flying in 1935 and failing the Civil Aviation Authority's stringent spin tests. Rearwin hired engineer Bob Rummell to solve the problem, which he did with a larger tail, achieving certification in 1937. By then, with only two Speedster 6000Cs built, the Ace Cinxis was no longer in production, but Rearwin produced another 12 6000M models using the 125-hp Menasco C-4, which gave it an even better 166-mph speed and 750-feet-per-minute climb rate. Although the Speedster was a popular type among modelers, only four are known to fly today The super-rare 6000C shown here at this year's EAA AirVenture is currently owned by the company founder's great-grandson, Eric Rearwin.

EXTREMES

By Stephan Wilkinson

Flying Ships Russian dreams of gigantic ground-effect planes are dead in the water

he story of modern transportation is Uttered with vehicles that were supposed to be game-changers but that invariably became yet more deposits in the dustbin of history. Maglev trains, monorails, superblimps, Segways, jetpacks, hovercraft, hydrofoils, skycycles,flyingcars... the list goes on. One of the strangest was a half-ship, half-airplane Soviet specialty called the ekranoplan—Russian for "ground-effect plane." (The past tense is intentional; though there are still small ekranoplans being buut by entrepreneurs and enthusiasts, and perennial proposals for ekranoplans the size of Poughkeepsie that never get any further than the pages of Popular Science, the concept is essentially, shall we say, dead in the water.)

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Ekranoplans—also called WIG vehicles, for wing in ground efïect—were exactly that: airplanes that flew in ground effect. Well, maybe not exactly that. Some would say that ekranoplans were not airplanes but ships that skimmed above the sea. It is perhaps telling that many photographs of cruising ekranoplans show them no farther out of the water than an unlimited hydroplane racer riding its prop. Like any well-developed bureaucracy, the Soviets wasted lots of time arguing about whether they should be developed by shipyards or aircraft companies, flown by pilots or driven by mariners, or be subject to aviation or maritime rules. Though a Finnish engineer flew a twinengine ekranoplan in 1935 and the Soviets began to seriously develop the concept in the early 1960s, the world's first big ekrano was actually American: Howard Hughes' infamous eight-engine "Spruce Goose" flying boat, which flew only in ground effect, just as ekranoplans eventually would. Had that been Hughes' intent, the H-4 Hercules might have gone on to become a successful wave-skimmer, making regular runs to Honolulu, rather than the Edsel of airplanes. Many ekranoplan designers were actually

14 AVIATION HISTORY

NOVEMBER 2011

The 242-foot, 400-ton MD-160 was the sole Lun-class ekranoplan built by the Soviets.

wrong about why their quasi-airplanes flew. Until recently, generations of commercial and military ground school instructors had told their students that ground effect was created by a "cushion of air" under an airplane's wings when it was flying close to the ground or water at a distance typically equal to half its wingspan, and the ekranoplan developers knew no better. Some stui don't. It made sense that a wing close to the ground would somehow trap a swirl of air to buoy the airplane, but it was a myth. A harmless one, though. In the words of aircraft designer-builder and writer Peter Garrison, "Like creation myths, it offered a simple, easily memorized way to get people to stop asking unanswerable questions." For ground effect is a complex, difficult-toexplain phenomenon best left to textbooks. And like creation myths, it is best accepted on faith. Suffice it to say that an airplane flying very close to water (or level ground, such as a runway) experiences less induced drag. The downwash angle is reduced, and this rotates the lift vector forward, thus allowing an aircraft to stay aloft using less power and less fuel (or, to put it another way, carrying more weight than it could otherwise lift outside of ground effect). Ekranoplans certainly worked, after a fashion. The Soviet Union was blessed with sev-

eral enormous bodies of water, both lakes and seas—the Caspian, Black, Baltic and Barents seas and Lake Baikal, primarily—which served as either test sites or potential operating zones for enormous cargo-, passenger- or troop-carrying ground-effect vehicles. And enormous they were. The Soviets went straight from building small proof-ofconcept vehicles to impossibly huge sea skimmers. It was as though Boeing (which itself briefly dallied with an enormous ekranoplan heavy-lifter concept called the Pelican) had looked at a Piper Cherokee and said, "Guys, 1 think we could scale this way up, put a bunch of turbofans on it, double-deck it and carry 1,000 passengers." The Soviets always had a thing for mine'sbigger-than-yours aerial gigantism. Igor Sikorsky's 1913 Ilya Muromets was so large that crewmen strolled atop the fuselage in flight. The enormous Tupolev ANT-20 Maxim Gorky, horribly wrecked by a stunt-flying fighter over Moscow in 1935, was the biggest landplane of its time. Today's six-engine Antonov An-225, at 1,323,000 pounds the heaviest airplane ever tofly,makes welterweights of Lockheed C-5s and double-deck Airbus A380s. So it's no surprise that the Soviets, and today the Russians, have been attracted to the possibilities offered byflyingships. Beriev, the company that has designed and manufac-

tured the world's most advanced flying boats and amphibians, started experimenting with WIG vehicles in the early 1960s. However, its only full-size, manned ekranoplan—a singleseat turbojet that was designed to use hydrofoils to lift it to a takeoff stance—never was able to achieve ground-effect flight. Yet this hasn't prevented Beriev from proposing WIGs so big they'd make Boeing blush. The 12-turbofan Beriev Be-2500 cargolifter, a scale model of which was unveiled at an aviation exposition in September 2000, would weigh 2,500 metric tons (2,750 U.S. tons). But wait, there's more: The proposed Be-5000—yes, 5,000 metric tons—would have 23 engines and weigh more than eight

anything but an enormous desert or a trackless prairie. And to make the concept even more confusing, the Soviets set out to develop three categories of ekranos: Type A, which could cruise only in pure ground effect; Type B, which could maintain flight out of ground effect to altitudes of perhaps 500 feet; and Type C, which supposedly could fly at thousands of feet above ground level, like a conventional airplane. (Type Cs were only proposed, never built.)

At any altitude, ekranoplans made lousy airplanes. Relatively stable longitudinally while flying very close to the water but less stable in roll, they became wallowing monstrosities, according to at least some experitimes as much as the AJI-225. enced Soviet test pilots brave enough to speak Actually, very few true ekranoplans were their minds, when out of ground effect. ever built by the Soviets—perhaps 30, includObviously, a sophisticated, WIG-specific ing small prototypes and proof-of-concept autopilot was needed for such situations. So vehicles. The most impressive was the 10-jet, ekranoplan developers, officially part of the 550-ton KM, the so-called "Caspian Sea navy's hydrofoil-design department, asked Monster," which, legend has it, put the wind their aviation counterparts for help. "Nonup the CIA when satellite surveillance showed sense," said the fly-guy bureaucrats. "Soviet the squat-winged, neither fish nor fowl giant aviation regulations make it illegal to use an under construction in the mid-1960s. The autopilot at any altitude under 500 meters Monster today sits derelict at its Caspian Sea [about 1,600 feet], so there's no point in purdocking facility. The amphibious Orlyonok suing such development." (Russian for eaglet), with wheels for beach The promoters of enormous commercial assaults, was a high-speed transport with an ekranoplans eventually seemed to realize that enormous contrarotating turboprop atop its yes, they were moderately fast, but they really T-tail; only tour ever flew, and just one sur- didn't have that big a payload per unit of vives, outside a Moscow museum. Scariest of horsepower, particularly compared to surface all was the 400-ton Lun (harrier), which car- vessels. Proponents of military ekranoplans ried six big anti-ship missiles in launch tubes that would sneak across oceans under the on its back; only one was built, and it too is radar to fire off missiles or land troops must "in storage," essentially abandoned outdoors. have decided that radar was so 1970s, and In any collection of ekranoplan photo- that satellite surveillance would pick off huge graphs and illustrations, the two phrases loping ekrano fleets as soon as they cast oil most frequently seen in captions are "artist's their moorings. Tactically, ekranoplans would impre.ssion" and "computer-generated image." have been useless, able like a ship to maneuFevered dreams and fertile imagination have ver in only one dimension, and ponderously lifted far more ekranos than ground effect at that. P-5 Is could have picked them off. ever did. Many of those photos are of fancy Ultimately, the Soviets' problem was their scale models on display at airshows. Some- fascination with gigantism—their overreachtimes the models are of existing ekranoplans, ing to make monsters rather than developing for one ekrano problem is that if they are smaller, more efficient, more utilitarian ekrabuilt on a lake or inland sea, they are pretty nos suited to the needs of their sea, lake and much trapped there forever, short of substan- river commerce. Instead, they buried what tial disassembly for barging or trucking to a might have been worthwhile efforts under new site. Imagine building a guided-missile what at times seemed to be a quest for world cruiser on the Lake of the Ozarks and then domination by ekranoplan. Today, despite needing it for action in the Persian Gulf. mutterings about reopening the KM pro gram, all the Russians are left with is a few Ekranoplans can fly in ground effect over corroded hulks, and dreams of what might land as well as water, technically, but at 250 or have been. "Í" 300 mph, you wouldn't want to do it over

The KM, aka the "Caspian Sea Monster," had 10 turbofan engines and weighed 5 5 0 tons.

i The tun's rear gun turret is situatec beneath two of its six anti-ship missile launch tubes.

[One example of the Orlyonok amphibious [ transport survives at a Moscow mus.eum.

Beriev's 12-turbofan Be-2500 design was I unveiled in 2000—in scale model form only.

NOVEMBER 2011

AVIATION HISTORY 15

RESTORED

By Russ Albertson

Corky's Avenger A legendary test pilot brings a long-abandoned TBM back to life

estoring a World War II aircraft is such a major undertaking that few but fanatical hobbyists or professional mechanics are wuling to take it on. Pilot Corwin H. "Corky" Meyer not only tackled such a project, he picked an Eastern Aircraft TBM Avenger, a huge airplane with complicated systems—and he started working on it at age 71 ! Meyer, who died on June 1 of this year, wasn't your average pUot, however. He became a test pilot for Grumman Aircraft on Long Island in 1942, and within just a few days was testing a new version of its TBF Avenger torpedo bomber.

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One of the largest single-engine planes of World War II, the Avenger was complex for its day, with folding wings, hydraulically powered bomb bay and powered gun turret at the rear of the canopy. The version Meyer tested was equipped with a new Wright R-2600 engine, producing 1,900 hp. On his first TBF flight, the supercharger failed and he was forced to dead stick the big Grumman. On his second flight, the carburetor failed, v*dth the same result. On his third flight, accompanied by a mechanic who had been asking for a ride, a partial engine failure necessitated a quick return—"the longest five minutes of my life," as Meyer later described it. When the smoking TBF hit the runway, the mechanic bailed out before it stopped and never asked for another ride. Eventually the engine problems were worked out, after which the Avenger faithfully served the U.S. Navy until 1954. Meyer went on to test the Grumman F6F, F7F, F8F, F9F Panther jet and Fl IF Tiger. He continued his test-flying career at Edwards Air Force Base from 1952 to 1954, where he puoted the experimental Grumman XFIOF Jaguar with variable-sweep wings. The first civilian pilot to be carrier qualified by the U.S. Navy, Meyer later became CEO for Grumman American. It seemed only natural that Meyer would pick a Grumman plane to rebuild. In 1988 he

16 AVIATION HISTORV

NOVEMBER 2011

Top: Corky Meyer pilots his restored Eastern Aircraft TBM-3E. Above: The TBM as it appears today under the ownership of the Freeberq famiiy, wearing the colors of VC-13.

found a nearly flyable TBM-3E, purchased it for $75,000 and transported it to his home at the Leeward Air Ranch in Ocala, Fla. A licensebuUt version of the TBF produced by the Eastern Aircraft division of General Motors, the TBM-3E was a later version of the torpedo bomber equipped for anti-submarine warfare. The Navy removed the aft powered turret, since the TBM-3E operated in areas where enemy aircraft were not a threat, and armed it with depth charges instead of a torpedo. An observer position, with large windows, replaced the turret. As soon as the aircraft arrived at Leeward, the wings and control surfaces were removed. Since the fuselage was too large for Meyer's hangar, he stored it in a friend's wooden hangar. Unfortunately, the hangar caught fire one night and burned to the ground, destroy-

ing the fuselage. Meyer eventually found another one in Connecticut that had been sitting in a field for 20 years. It was structurally sound, though it was missing Plexiglas and the bomb bay doors. Corky had to cut down five trees that had grown up around the fuselage before it could be moved. About this time Meyer met Art Miller, an aircraft inspector and mechanic who agreed to help. Miller started removing all the parts and stripping off the paint and zinc chromate preservative. They used an air gun that shot crushed walnut shells to clean every nook and cranny prior to repainting. Meanwhile Meyer spent a year locating the engine, propeller, canopy, pumps, fittings, instruments and hundreds of other parts for the big Grumman. Miller recalled that among the hardest components to find were the

missing bomb bay doors. Rigging the cables and hydraulics for the bomb bay doors proved to be a major challenge. In addition, removing and repairing the self-sealing bladder fuel tanks led to problems. During the years the fuselage had spent in the open fleld, small animals and insects had found a home in the tanks. The resulting debris made it all but impossible to collapse and pull the tanks out of the access hole. When he finally managed to extract them. Miller recalled, it "was like birthing a whale!" Many hours went into repairing, rebuilding or replacing the hydraulic lines and pumps, as well as rewiring the electrical system, wingfolding system, instruments and avionics and replacing the fabric on the control surfaces.

The Freebergs' TBM is painted in the colors of composite squadron VC-13 in WWII. Since VC-13 sank six U-boats in the Adantic and two Japanese ships in the Pacific, the squadron kill markings are painted on the Avenger's fuselage. I was recently treated to a flight with Forbes in the TBM on a beautiful fall day. Walking up to the aircraft, I was impressed by its sheer size. With a wingspan of a little over 52 feet and length of 40 feet, it weighs in at just over 18,000 pounds. It must have been a handful to land on a small carrier deck— and a beast for crews to move around on a pitching ship. I was strapped into a seat just aft of the cockpit equipped with a nonstandard control Finally, after 3M years of 60-hour weeks, the stick, throtde and instrument panel. Forbes day came for the TBM's first flight, in May fired up the 14-cylinder R-2600 and unfolded 1994. The first engine start revealed a genera- the wings. Extended, the wings looked enortor problem, which wasfixed.Then, as Meyer mous fi-om my vantage point. When Forbes climbed into the cockpit, he remarked that it pushed the throttle up to takeoff power, I felt had been more than 51 years since his last a slow, deliberate acceleration to liftoff at 75 Avenger flight. Miller recalled that Corky was knots. We climbed out to 3,000 feet and stabisomewhat apprehensive about using lOOLL lized at 170 knots. Forbes told me we were gasoline in the big Wright due to its lower burning 75 gallons per hour as we cruised octane rating, resulting in lower horsepower. along. The view from the back seat was specThe engine was designed to use 114/145 oc- tacular, but forward visibility was limited due tane fuel, and no doubt Meyer was thinking the armored rollover pylon between Forbes back to his first few flights in the Avenger. The and me. I could see around it enough to get a flight went well, however. In his autobiogra- sense of where we were headed. phy. Corky Meyer's Flight Journal, he wrote, Forbes offered to let me fly, and as I took "The very second I felt the landing gear hit the controls and started a turn I again got the the lock-up after takeoff I felt like I had test feeling that this plane could be a handful flown another Avenger only a few hours landing on a gusty carrier deck. The ailerons before. The smells, noises, vibrations, and the seemed very heavy, though pitch control was picture view from the cockpit all came back more normal. to me and it was spellbinding." We headed back to base, with Forbes at the Meyer found that the Avenger was nose- controls. The tower approved an overhead apheavy with the aft turret and armament proach, and at the runway's far end Forbes removed. The lower weight made up for the rolled hard left, for a perfect Navy "break." He loss of horsepower, but ballast would need to rolled out on the downwind and lowered the be added to allow three-point landings. Miller flaps and gear. We slowed to about 75 knots said he had expected to see a "brown trail of on final, and Forbes flew the Avenger down walnut shells" following the Avenger on its for a smooth touchdown and rollout. first flight, since they were still finding them As Forbes folded the wings, I thought everywhere in the plane years after they about all the time, effort and money that had stripped off the old paint. gone into rebuilding and maintaining this Meyer ended up selling the Avenger after beautiful airplane. Thanks to Corky Meyer, flying it for a short time. Now owned by the Art Miller, the Freeberg family and Boh Freeberg family and based in Ramona, Calif., Forbes, this piece of living history still take.s it's flown by Bob Forbes, an experienced wing and makes appearances at airshow.s TBM pilot. In fact Forbes, who has logged (including a scheduled stop at MCAS Miramore than 600 hours in the Avenger, flew mar's September 30-October 2 salute to the TBMs for the California Department of naval aviation centennial), reminding us all Forestry, dropping borate on forest fires. of the debt we owe our military forces, "t"

Ine replacement tuseiage arrives tor tne i bM.

Art Miller and Meyer (right) with thi» Avenger.

The pilot's instrument panel in the TBM.

I

The rear cockpit lacked the TBM-1's Daii turret.

NOVEMBER 2011

AVIATION HISTODY 17

AVIATDRS

By Jon Guttman

An American Stork The top gun in France's squadron of aces in 1918 wasn't a Frenchman scadrille Spa.3, known as "Les Cigognes" for the stork emblem on the sides of its airplanes, was the most famous squadron in the French air service during World War 1. It was credited with the most enemy planes—175—and boasted some of France's most renowned fighter pilots, including second-ranking ace Georges Guynemer. Guynemer's death on September 11,1917, seemed to take some of the élan out of the unit, but a new generation of pilots upheld his tradition in the war's final year. Foremost among them, curiously enough, was an American, Frank Baylies.

of how Baylies returned to base from a dawn patrol wearing his flying suit over his pajamas, with his main fuel tank almost empty—to see a lot of unfamiliar airplanes marked with black crosses. The Germans had just overrun the aerodrome. Baylies spun his Spad around and headed back down the runway with two Germans grabbing his wings, shouting for him to surrender. When his engine began sputtering, Baylies switched to his auxiliary gravity tank. Ten minutes after taking off in a fusillade of rifle fire, he landed at GC.12's new airfield.

E

Born in New Bedford, Mass., on September 23, 1895, Frank Leaman Baylies was the son of a grain merchant, for whom he later worked as a salesman. While in New York, a speech by a minister just returned from the Western Front inspired him to volunteer for the American Ambulance Service on February 26,1916. Awarded the Croix de Guerre for his courage under fire at Verdun, Baylies transferred to Salonika, then enlisted in the air service on May 21, 1917, through the Lafayette Flying Corps (LFC). After training at Avord and Pau, on November 17 Corporal Baylies reported to Spa.73 of Groupe de Combat 12. As the 13th puot on the squadron roster at the time, he was assigned Spad XIII no. 13, about which he commented in a letter home: "Cannot afford to be superstitious; nothing like being a fatalist." On December 1, Baylies was joined by Corporal Edward David Judd, a 23-year-old LFC volunteer from Boston. Both airmen were transferred on December 18 to GC.12's top squadron as Spa.3's first American members. On January 22,1918, Judd left to accept a commission in the U.S. Navy. Baylies scored his first victory on February 19, 1918, when he shot down a twoseater in flames. "It was mighty exciting," he wrote, "much better than duck shooting and much more profitable." On February 26, Spa.3 got its third Ameri-

18 AVIATION HISTORY

NOVEMBER 2011

Sergeant Frank Baylies poses with his Spad Xiii, no. 21 of Spa.3, in May 1918.

can, Edwin Charles Parsons. "Ted" Parsons had learned to fly in 1912, and briefly trained airmen for Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Vula. Later serving in N.I24, the famed Lafayette Escadrüle, he chose to remain with the French when Spa.l24's American personnel transferred en masse to the U.S. Army Air Service on February 18,1918. Baylies' best friends at Spa.3 included future aces Benjamin Bozon-Verduraz, Louis Risacher and André Dubonnet, scion of the famous wine-making family. "I had none but the greatest admiration for Baylies," Risacher said. After scoring his second victory on March 7, Baylies was promoted to sergeant and downed an enemy fighter on March 16. Then, on the 21st, the Germans launched their last great offensive, hoping to destroy the British army and take Paris before the U.S. Army could arrive on the Western Front in full strength. As the Germans approached Montdidier, Spa.3 fell back on Mesnil-St.Georges aerodrome on March 24, withdrawing to Raray the next day. Amid the retreat, Ted Parsons told a tale

On March 28, Baylies had what he called another "real dime novel affair." As he attacked a two-seater over Montdidier his engine quit, its magneto wire severed by a bullet. He glided to a rough landing in no man's land, then sprinted for his life whue French troops shot three pursuing Germans. On Apru 11, Baylies shot down an artilleryspotting plane in flames. He became an ace the next day by downing another two-seater. Whue returning from a patrol on May 2, he spotted three Rumplers overhead. Baylies wrote that he stood the Spad on its tail and "let Mr. Hun have the benefit of two perfectly-working, well-regulated machine guns. He didn't have much to say and.. .fell out of control, hit the ground with an awful blow, and lay there a crumpled mass of debris." The next afternoon Baylies and Dubonnet destroyed a two-seater. Ted Parsons opened his account at Spa.3 by shooting down a two-seater on May 6. On the 9th he and Baylies were subjected to a lecture on tactics by Lieutenant René Fonck, leading ace of Spa.103, whose manner rubbed many GC.12 pilots the wrong way. Parsons wrote, "Baylies and I bet Fonck a bottle of champagne that on the patrol on which we were all leaving shortly, we would get a Hun before he did." The Americans lost contact in the haze, but Parsons found a Halberstadt CL.II at 12,000 feet and was about to engage when he saw another Spad attack it from the side

and recognized the Spa.3 stork and Baylies' number 21. Parsons claimed he and Bayues caught the Halberstadt "in a merciless cross fire" until it went down. Only Baylies was credited, but both Americans basked in the glory until Fonck came bacL Delayed by ground fog, Fonck took off at about 1500 hours, but an hour later he shot down three German two-seaters. In a second patrol that afternoon, he downed an Albatros two-seater and two Pfalz escorts in just eight seconds. With six victories in one afternoon, Fonck won the champagne. Baylies and Georges Clément downed a two-seater on May 10, while Dubonnet got another. After a bout of bad weather, Baylies caught a German fighter menacing a French artillery spotter on May 28, shooting it down near Courtemanch. He downed another enemy plane the next day, and on the 31 st he and Dubonnet teamed up to wreck a twoseater, bringing his total to 12. On June 17, Baylies was leading Dubonnet and Sergeant François Macari on patrol when they spotted four rotary-engine planes above them that they assumed were British Sopwith Camels. As they climbed to join them, Dubonnet reported that Baylies' Spad suddenly "leaped upward and then swung over on one wing" as he realized his error and three Fokker Dr.Is dived on him. Baylies looped onto the tail of one triplane, but the fourth German, flying top cover for the other three, pounced on his Spad and shot it down in flames near RoUot. Macari disengaged safely, while Dubonnet just barely managed to nurse his riddled Spad over the lines to make a pancake landing. Baylies and Dubonnet were credited to Lieutenants Wilhelm Leusch and Rudolf Rienau of Jasta 19. On July 6, a German plane dropped a message in the French lines: "Pilot Baylies killed in combat. Buried with military honors." In 1927 Baylies' remains were reinterred at the Memorial de l'Escadrille Lafayette in the Pare Revue Villeneuve l'Étang, outside of Paris. At a ceremony held in New Bedford's Fort Tabor Park on April 6, 2008, the 91st anniversary of America's entry in the war, François Gauthier, consul general of the French embassy, presented Baylies' medals— the Légion d'Honneur, Médaille Militaire and Croix de Guerre with 12 Palms—to the 74year-old son of his father's cousin, also named Frank Baylies, "t"

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19

LETTER FRDM AVIATIDN HISTDRY Legends of Aviation

Chuck Yeager

Bob iHoover

Burt Rutan

It's not often you get to see a living legend in person, never mind three of them in the span of a few short days. But if you were lucky enough to be one of the 541,000 aviation fans in attendance at this year's June 25-31 EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wise, (see "Postcards From Oshkosh," P. 54), that's just what you were treated to. When radical airplane designer Burt Rutan (profiled in "Top Pencil," November 2009 issue) announced his retirement earlier this year, it seemed only natural that the Experimental Aircraft Association would pay tribute to him at Oshkosh. More than 100 Rutan homebuilts and one-offs flew in for the celebration. Rutan—along with brother Dick, longtime chief pilot Mike MelviH and Scaled Composites president Doug Shane—spent a couple of hours recounting the highlights of his illustrious career, from his phenomenally successfiil VariEze canard homebuilt to the X Prize-winning SpaceShipOne. Asked how long it takes to finish one of his airplanes. Rutan didn't miss a beat: "About a wife and a half." At Oshkosh he unveiled his latest design, the BiPod flying car, an indication that his "retirement" will likely involve more than playing golf. Is there a more famous puot on the planet than Chuck Yeager? Seems unlikely. Brigadier General Yeager, interviewed hy Aviation History on the 50th anniversary of his supersonic flight in the Bell XS-1 (May and July 1998 issues), never fails to impress audiences, and yes, stir up a bit of controversy. At 88 as sharp as ever, he retold for the umpteenth time stories from his earlyflyingdays ("I went toflyingschool and puked all over my airplane on thefirstflight");World War II combat missions, which included five victories in a single day ("I found five dumb Germans"); and test pilot career at Edwards Air Force Base (yep, he really did fall off his horse and crack some ribs before the first supersonic flight, requiring a sawed-ofïbroom handle to latch the XS-1 door). Legendary aerial showman Bob Hoover, whoflewchase for Yeager during the XS-1 flights, was also on hand for a special tribute. Eew would argue with his introduction as "the greatest stick-and-rudder pilot.. .ever." (Well, maybe Yeager would.) In a talk given in front of a restored Supermarine Spitfire and replica Focke-Wulf Fw-190, the softspoken Hoover, 89, recalled how, after being shot down in a Spitfire over southern France during WWII and taken prisoner, he escaped from the German POW camp follovrâig 16 months of captivity, then stole an Fw-190 andflewit to safety in Holland. After crash-landing and seeing Dutch farmers who assumed he was German advancing on him with pitchforks. Hoover said, "I sat there thinking how dumb I was." Of course all three of these larger-than-life figures have their share of detractors—it comes with the territory. As with most legends, it's easy to forget that all three men are human beings, with human foibles. But the fact remains that they've accomplished things most of us don't even dream of doing. In this issue we pay tribute to two other legends of aviation. Air Force icon Johnny Alison ("American Eagle," P. 36) and Grumman test pilot Corky Meyer ("Restored," P. 16), who died within days of each other this past June. Their passing underscores an immutable truth: Legends live on, but men like these don't. See them while you can. "t"

NOVEMBER 2011 AVIATION RISTOKY

21

OLD-FASHIONED

TURKEY SHOOT The greatest aircraft carrier battle of all time devolved into a one-sided slaughter in which Japanese attackers served as little more than targets By John W. Lambert

"Vector 245 degrees, distance 60 miles." The message from USS Essex's combat information center crackled through the radio of Air Group 15 commander David McCampbell. He was leading 10 Grumman F6F-3 Hellcats of VF-15 at 25,000 feet, looking to intercept another approaching swarm of Japanese attackers—one of the many desperate raids the enemy would fling at the U.S. Navy west of the Mariana Islands on June 19,1944. Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's Task Force 58 (TF-58)—a huge armada of 15 fleet aircraft carriers and escorting battleships, cruisers and destroyers—had closed on the Marianas a few days earlier. The flattops carried more than 900 warplanes: Hellcats, Grumman TBF/TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, new Curtiss SB2C-1 Helldivers and a few ofthe old, reliable Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless dive bombers. In the van of this great fleet was a landing force of eight escort carriers, transports and escort vessels, intent on seizing Japan's mid-Pacific bastions—Saipan, Tinian and Guam. The Japanese had controlled Saipan, Tinian and Rota since 1914, and the American territory of Guam since the December 1941 invasion. More than 600 Japanese aircraft were based on the four islands, along with a garrison of some 62,000 troops. The strategic Marianas were just 1,300 mues south of Japan's Home Islands. Their seizure would leapfrog Allied forces past Japanese bases in the Caroline Islands and flank the occupied Philippines to the west. Thus it seemed extraordinary that units of the Imperial Japanese Navy were so slow to react to the Marianas menace. TF-58 began the pre-invasion pounding of Saipan and Tinian and the reduction of their air defenses on June 11, but it was not until the 13th that Vice Adm. Jisaburo Ozawa

22

AVIATION HISTORV

NOVEMBER 2011

An F6F-5 Hellcat pursues an A6M3 Zsro, in a scene reminiscent of the dogfights during the First Battle of the Philippine Sea.

sortied the Japanese Combined Fleet from bases in Borneo, 1,000 miles distant. By then Japanese air strength in the Marianas had been mauled on the ground or in the air (more than 120 aircraft destroyed in two days), and U.S. Marines had landed on Saipan on June 15. Still, a few remaining serviceable Japanese planes from the Marianas and others flying from distant bases sought to interfere, only to be summarily dispatched by vigilant TF-58 air patrols. Ozawa's task force numbered nine carriers and escorts, with about 450 aircraft. But the problems of defending far-flung islands, as well as years of attri- "Hwo Douglas SBD-5 Dauntlesses from VB-16 prepare to land aboard the aircraft carrier Lexington. tion among its veteran aircrews, had left the Combined Fleet at a disadvantage in numbers and quality. ond attack was made on a Judy on the right flank, which burned fiercely As the Japanese groped their way toward Mitscher's fleet, they were and fell away out of control. sighted and shadowed by patrolling U.S. submarines. My efforts were directed towards retaining as much speed as possible The battles that ensued on June 19-20 involved hundreds of airand working myself ahead and into position for an attack on the leader. craft in what most consider history's greatest carrier-versus-carrier A third pass was made from below rear on a Judy which was hit and engagement—before or since. smoking as it pulled out and down from the formation.

Commander McCampbell's 10 Hellcats identified Essex's radar plot at a distance of two miles 5,000 feet below them—some 50 Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero (or Zeke) fighters and Yokosuka D4Y1 Judy dive bombers. It was but one of many raiding forces intent on the destruction of the American carriers. McCampbell's after-action report described the engagement: Immediately upon sighting the enemy formation a high speed closing approach was initiated by nosing over and converting altitude advantage to speed. The initial attack was commenced in the form of a high-side, high-speed run, by sections in formation, while four planes retained altitude and acted as top cover according to doctrine. My first target was a Judy on the left tlank and approximately half way back in the formation. It was my intention, after completing this run on the plane, to pass under it, Commander David McCampbell, retire across the formation and leader of Essex's Air Group 15. take under fire a plane on the right flank with a low side attack. These plans became upset when the first target blew up, practically iji my face, and caused a pullout above the entire formation. I remember being unable to get to the other side fast enough feeling as though every rear gunner had his fire directed at me. My sec-

24 AVIATION HISTORY

NOVEMBER 2011

Retirement was made up and to the side which placed me in position for an above, rear run on the lapanese leader, closely formed with his port wingman, the other wingman trailing somewhat to the right rear. After my first pass on the leader with no visible damage observed, my pullout was made below and to the left. Concentrating on the port wingman, my next pass was an above rear run from 7 o clock, causing the wingman to explode in an envelope of flame. Breaking away down and to the left placed me in a position for a below rear run on the leader from 5 o'clock. I worked on his tail until he burned furiously and spiraled downward out of control. During my last bursts on this formation leader I experienced gun stoppages.

After charging his guns and noting that VF-15 had decimated the formation, McCampbell pursued a second, lower formation of Japanese dive bombers: "A Judy that apparentJy had been leading, offered itself as a target. I made a modified high side run and only my starboard guns fired which threw me into a violent skid and an early pullout was made after a short burst. Guns were charged twice again and since my target had pushed over and gained high speed, a stern chase ensued. There were short bursts of my starboard guns alone before they ceased to fire. The Judy pulled up into a high wingover before plummeting into the sea. Neither the puot nor the rear-seat man attempted to parachute. While witnessing this crash I attempted to clear the gun stoppages without success and assumed that all ammo had been expended." The VF-15 Hellcats had broken that attack, downing 21 enemy aircraft with three probables. Dave McCampbell had destroyed five himself. One Hellcat pilot was missing in action. Circling to the north, avoiding the AA umbrella that the warships had spread over the fleet.

McGampbell witnessed a Japanese bomb hit South Dakota. It resulted in some 30 casualties, but the battleship ploughed forward majestically. "One very vivid picture stands out in my mind," McGampbell recalled, "that of many fires and ou slicks closely strung in nearly a direct line along the track of the enemy raid for a distance of 10-12 miles on the water." After landing, refueling and rearming, the VF-15 pilots took to the air again. On his second sortie McGampbell claimed two more kills near Guam. The Yokosuka D4Y1 Suisei (comet) dive bomber was code-named "Judy" by the Allies. The carrier Lexington also had its Hellcats in the thick of the fight over the fleet. Lieutenant Alex Vraciu of from their attack by taking VF-16 was elated to find so many targets: "This is going to be a cinch, advantage of scattered clouds I thought, and still lots more were around. They were like a swarm of and the superior speed of the bees; they were so thick against the water below. I felt like a kid with a D4Y. 1 ran out of fuel and plate of cookies—afraid someone else was going to take some even could not avoid a forced landing on Rota." Abe survived, though I had all 1 could stufï." but the Pearl Harbor veteran's aircraft was destroyed in suba U.S. destroyer that held its AA fire as he downed both attackers. "All sequent strafing attacks, and flamed like gasoline-soaked tissue," he recalled. Inside a furious 30- he was stranded on Rota until the end of hostilities. minute period Vraciu downed six Judys. Aflightfrom Hornet's VF-2 Ensign Walter Albert, also of VF-16, was in his first air battle. He pulled alongside a Japanese bomber, wanting to make sure of his tar- patrolling near Guam enget. "Sure enough I spotted his tail hook," he reported. "Then I saw the countered many more aprear gunner with his gun poking out at me. But he didn't shoot. He proaching Zeros and Vals, low just folded down that gun, pulled the canopy shut over him and on fuel. VF-2's Hellcats shrank clear out of sight. I guess he was scared to death. Then I eased engaged the orphans and Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa fed back on his tail and—b-r-r-p—down went the plane." Albert also downed 20 along with several the Japanese Combined Fieet. destroyed a Nakajima B6N2 Jül torpedo bomber within minutes of his probables. Ensign Wilbur B. Webb was credited vnth six Vals destroyed and two probables, though first victory. Lieutenant Zenji Abe's flight from the carrier/wnyo's 652nd Kokutai his F6F-3 took considerable punishment from the rear gunners. Webb (air group) was typical ofthe attacking Japanese units. His group con- recovered aboard Hornet, but his Hellcat was so badly damaged that it tained both the new D4Y1 Judy and a few older Aichi D3A2 Val dive was jettisoned. bombers escorted by Zeros. The 400-mile flight was intended as a oneAt dusk the 13-hour onslaught against TF-58finallysubsided. Essex way mission, to attack the American fleet and then land on Guam. had launched a final flight of Hellcats led by VF-15's Commander "We were pursued persistently by four Grummans," Abe related, "and Charles W. Brewer. Airborne for his second time that day. Brewer enI lost all of my subordinate planes in my sight and was alone. I escaped countered final stragglers from the Japanese attackers seeking haven

v'raciu caught two of his victims near

We were pursued persistently by four Grummans, and I lost all of my subordinate planes in my sight and was alone. I escaped from their attack by taking advantage of scattered clouds and the superior speed of the D4Y. Lieutenant Zenji Abe on Akagi In 1941.

NOVEMBER 2011 AVIATION HISTORY 25

on Guam. He led his unit into the traffic pattern for Orote airfield and began picking ofï Zeros. Brewer had just flamed his fifth fighter of the day, and his wingman. Ensign Thomas Tarr, had downed another, when a flight of Zeros from higher altitude shot down and killed both men. The remaining VF-15 pilots claimed eight more victories.

As the historic battle of June 19 ended,

to the west located the balance of Ozawa's fleet, and Lieutenants Robert Nelson and James Moore radioed the location. It was near 4:30, late in the day for a strike of some 250 miles' distance, but Mitscher began launching his bombers and fighters. The strike force, numbering some 227 aircraft and heavily weighted to Hellcats carrying 500-pound bombs, bore west across the Philippine Sea toward a lowering sun. With only 75 minutes until sunset, the probability of the strike force returning in the dark raised the anxiety level throughout TF-58. Daytime carrier operations were dangerous, but night operations, especially in a war zone, were particularly perilous and rare. Only a few of TF-58's air groups had practiced night landings. The Americans sighted the Japanese fleet two hours and 300 miles later. Cumulus cloud buildups in the dusk made the approach more difficult. Some of the Helldivers went for the nearest ships, four fleet

TF-58 had taken some physical punishment but remained intact. It had lost 18 fighters, 12 bombers and 27 airmen, a few to Navy flak. However, the Japanese had lost an astounding total of 429 aircraft, including attackers from Ozawa's force and land-based planes from Rota and Guam. In the VF-16 ready room on Lexington, Lieutenant Ziegel W. Neff reported his encounters to intelligence officers. He had downed a JiU around noon 60 miles fiom the task force and then, on a second mission in midafternoon, he bagged a lone Aichi E13A1 Jake floatplane and a pair of Zeros. Neff famously commented, "Hell, this is like an old-fashioned turkey shoot." Barely 100 aircraft returned to the Japanese fleet. The loss of so many carrier aircraft and crews was not the only disaster for the Combined Fleet. U.S. submarines Albacore and Cavalla, shadowing the Japanese, scored fatal torpedo hits on the carrier Taiho (Ozawa's flagship) and Pearl Harbor veteran Shokaku. Believing that he still had substantial air assets available in the Marianas, Ozawa (who had transferred his flag to the heavy cruiser Haguro) ordered the few remaining carrier planes and the shore-based survivors to have another go at TF-58 on June 20. Once again the Japanese lost many aircrews, with negligible results. Vals, Jakes, Kates, bomb-carrying Vapor rings form around a Hellcat's propeller as it throttles up for takeoff from Yorktown. Zeros, Jills and even twin-engine Mitsubishi G4M2 Betty bombers attacked in small gaggles or singly. Few could oilers, whue the rest of the strike force concentrated on the carriers penetrate the defensive screen of anti-aircraft fire and F6Fs. Japanese and warships surrounding them. pilots who avoided being torn up by flak or mauled by Hellcats made Japanese fighters quickly appeared, as Lt. Cmdr. James D. Ramage, for Guam and Rota, only to find that the runways had been cratered CO of VB-10, recalled: "David J. Cawley [rear-seat gunner in the SBD] by prior attacks. Crashed aircraft soon littered the airfields. informed me of several Zekes on our port quarter. Each time they By mid-afternoon on the 20th, two Enterprise Avengers scouting far would commence a run our Air Group Commander [William R.

This is going to be a cinch, I thought.... They were like a swarm of bees; they were so thick against the water below. I felt like a kid with a plate of cookies— afraid someone else was going to take some even though I had all I could stuff. Lieutenant Alex Vraciu celebrates on Lexington.

26

AVIATION HISTORY

NOVEMBER 2011

Officers and crew aboard the light cruiser Birmingham enjoy a ringside seat as American fliers have an "old-fashioned turkey shoot."

"Killer" Kane] would nose into them with the F6Fs. The Japanese would break off the attack, apparently deciding to wait untU our most vulnerable time, the point of roU into the attack." As Ramage began his dive on the carrier Junyo, he heard Gawley firing his twin .30-caliber guns. "I looked over to the right and within five feet of me, passing below, was a Zero. The dive brakes had thrown him off his aim. My dive was a good standard 70-degree attack. At about 5,000 feet I opened up with my two .50-caliber machine guns, the tracers going direcdy into the forward elevator. The carrier was steaming directly Into the wind. Allowing for vnnd and target motion.

I moved the pipper to just ahead of the bow of the carrier and released at 1,800 feet." Ramage's division of Dauntlesses, Avengers of VT-10 and Hellcats of VF-10 dived together toward the twisting Japane.se ships. Don Gordon of VF-10 strafed Junyo's port catwalk and saw three hits. "As we departed at very low altitude," he reported, "I saw a Zero heading in the opposite direction about 500 feet above us. I pulled up with my wingman for an upside down overhead. It worked. My wingman fired when I did. The Zero blew apart and we completed our loop through the debris to rejoin the formation for the long ride home."

1 looked over to my right and within five feet of me, passing below, was a Zero....My dive COURTESY OF BARRETT TILLMAN

was a good standard 70-degree attack. At about 5,000 feet 1 opened up with my two .50-caliber machine guns, the tracery going directly into the forward elevator. Lt. Cmdr. James Ramage led VB-10 on June 20.

28 AVIATION HISTORY NOVEMBER 2011

Four TBMs from Belleau Wood's VT-24 were the only Avengers carrying torpedoes. Led by Lieutenant George P. Brown, they dived through a blizzard of flak and fighters as they fanned out to bracket another Japanese carrier. The VT-24 fliers had to pass over the escorts' blazing AA batteries to get within torpedo drop range of Hiyo. Brown's Avenger was hit and seen to be on fire, but Hiyo took at least one torpedo and later sank. The returning strike force, minus several planes that were lost in the raid, straggled through the darkness, homing on a signal from TF-58. Like kindred lost In an action photo taken during the battle by the crew of an Eastern Aircraft TBM-1 Avenger from souls, aircraft of various units the carrier Hornet, an Aichi E13A1 fioatpiane traiis smoke after being shot up by a VF-2 iHeilcat. gathered together, gaining comfort in numbers. Some planes had better range than others, and some 200 other guys I was a brand new ensign facing my first fleet action, exercised better fuel economy measures. A few pilots who were low on combating the extreme in every way: heavy opposition, long range fuel elected to ditch together. and no gas, bad weather, confusion, and a return at night for a carrier Finally, finding TF-58 turned out to be easy. Per orders from Ad- landing. Fortunately I made it back v^dth only a few bullet holes, and miral Mitscher, the lights of the many ships plus some star shells fired my reactions were like every other pUot—scared as hell!" by escorts made the fleet visible for 30 miles—a risky move given the possibility of Japanese submarines in the area. Fighters and bombers swarmed like bees returning to the hive, but crash landings were com- the Philippine Sea had been a virtual coup de grâce to its once domimon and carrier decks were fouled for precious minutes. As their nant carrier aviation force. TF-58's long-range strike had sunk Hiyo tanks ran dry, pilots landed on any carrier available. Lieutenant Com- and damaged Zuikaku, ¡unyo and Chiyoda, two cruisers and the battlemander Ramage of Enterprise brought his Dauntless down on York- ship Haruna. Twofleetoilers had also been sunk and one damaged. Of town, where a plane director signaled him to fold his wings. (Avengers the carriers' air complements, only 35 aircraft survived the battle from and Helldivers could fold their an original force of some 470. For the remainder of the war that once wings, but not the old SBD.) superb Japanese carrier air arm could only be used as a decoy. In the Some of the airmen, including Second Battle of the Philippine Sea, the decisive October 1944 strugCommander Kane, CO of Air gle off Leyte, the Japanese could muster just 116 carrier aircraft. ZuiGroup 10, ditched near destroykaku, Chitóse, Chiyoda and Zuiho would all be sent to the bottotn. ers. Returning to his carrier the But it was not Ozawa's strategy in the epic June 19-20 air battles that next day, he admitted, "Everyone had virtually eliminated Japan's naval air arm as a force in the Pacific was running out of gas but I ran War, so much as the wishful assumptions on which it was based. The out of altitude." He had flown fatal wounds to Japan's carrier aviation were largely self-inflicted. The into the water and had two black Japanese fleet commanders made overly optimistic estimates based oti eyes and 13 stitches in his head. pure conjecture: They assumed the land-based air units on Guam and Rota had somehow survived and were a viable offensive force; they Before the chaotic night endimagined that their air attacks of Jtme 19 had stuik up to four Ameried, 79 aircraft had been lost: 17 in can aircraft carriers; and despite the lack of available fighters to defend combat and the rest in the ocean the Combined Fleet, they did not distance themselves from TF-58 on or in carrier crash landings. HerJune 20, but lurked in the Philippine Sea in hopes of a ship-to-ship culean search-and-rescue opera- Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher engagement. Thus through the closing months of the war, the survivtions began immediately and commanded Task Force 58. ing land-based, largely inexperienced Japanese aviators were obliged extended west along the track of the attack even to the area vacated by the Japanese fleet. In a final to employ a terrifying new tactic: kamikaze assaults. "Í" accounting, the Navy had lost 16 pilots and 33 enlisted air crewmen. Ensign Cyrus S. Beard, of VF-50 from the carrier Bataan, downed ]ohn W. "Jack" Lambert has written extensively about World War II air two Zeros over the Japanese fleet and damaged another as he fought to combat. Additional reading: Clash of the Carriers: The True Story of protect his flight of Avengers. He summed up the historic action: "Like the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II, by Barrett Tillman.

For the Japanese navy, the First Battle of

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Fairchild Aviation's visionary founder valued innovation above all else By Anthony Brandt

herman Fairchild seemed born to tinker with mechani- friends. He was also an inventor, a cal devices. When his parents gave him a camera for his bit of an architect and someone who 9th birthday, he didn't take pictures with it; he took it could sit across a table from eight or apart to see how it worked. His father, George, ran a nine engineers specializing in eight business that made time clocks, the machines that or nine different fields and talk to workers punched in and out on, and from an early age Sherman was each one of them as an equal. He constantly in the shop, messing around with the equipment. lived, in short, on the cutting edge, and he always had. That time clock company was a consolidation of several smaller When I joined the dozen people who worked for him personally, he businesses that his father had renamed the International Time Re- had recently been on the cover of Time and before that the cover of cording Company. In 1911 he put together another consolidation, Fortune. He didn't go to college long enough to acquire an engineering buying up a company that made butcher scales or any other kind of degree, but he subscribed and a third that produced punch-card tabulatto some 200 technical journals in fields ranging ing machines to form G-T-R, the Computingfrom aircraft design to the technology of sound Tabulating-Recording Company. In 1924 they reproduction, in a variety of languages. He changed the name to International Business couldn't read the foreign languages, but he could Machines. When his father died on the last day decipher charts, formulas and design plans. of that year, Sherman Fairchild became IBM's In the 1960s he was hot news because it was largest individual shareholder, and remained so his drive, and his sense of the potential inuntil his death in 1971. volved, that was getting one of his two major Fairchild was an extraordinary man, creative, companies, Fairchild Camera and Instrument, unconventional and what you might call multiinto the exciting new industry of semiconducdexterous. He hired me fresh out of grad school tors and integrated circuitry. He had recently in 1962 to compile an archive of his career and put his money behind Robert Noyce to found the history of his various companies, and to the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation as a write a book that would naü down the complidivision of Fairchild Camera. Noyce would leave cated story of his life. "Complicated" may Fairchild a decade later to found Intel. understate the case. He was an aviation pioneer, Fairchild's father had married into the Mills the "father of aerial photography," a one-time A seif-taught engineer, Sherman Miils family, whose most notable member was playboy and among Howard Hughes' few close Fairchild never earned a college degree. Darius Ogden Mills, at one time among the 30 AVIATION HISTORY

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richest men in the country. His wife's money made it possible for George Fairchild to invest in the time recorder company, and it no doubt helped him win a seat in Congress, where he served fiom 1907 to 1919. It was his father's influence in Washington that got Sherman his first break. After contracting tuberculosis, Sherman had dropped out of Harvard to live in Arizona, where it was hoped the dry air would cure him. He came back from Arizona healthy, and wanted nothing more than to get into World War I when the United States joined the fight in 1917. But his history with tuberculosis made that impossible, so he asked his father to recommend him to the Signal Corps, which had an Aeronautical Division. The Signal Corps officers laughed at him when he first showed up (as an engineer, Fairchild was completely self-trained), but he was a congressman's son, so they had to give him the time of day. An officer showed him through the Signal Corps labs and explained to him the problems they were having with their aerial cameras. One was a spacing problem with the camera's take-up reel. Sherman went home, made a few sketches and solved the problem overnight. Fairchild's first patent was on the device he invented that night to make the spacing t)n the take-up reel even as the reel's diameter increased with each photograph taken. Suddenly the Signal Corps was interested. The bigger problem, however, was the aerial camera shutter. Aerial

cameras are sizable; to be of any use they have to take large pictures, and the only way to do so at the time was to use a focal plane shutter, which works by moving a lightproof curtain with a slit in it across the focal plane to expose the film. Because the whole film is not exposed at a single instant, any movement of the subject or camera will distort the image. And in aerial photography, of course, the camera moves constantly—in WWI, at maybe 80 mph over enemy territory, often dodging enemy fire while trying to get a fix on trench fortifications, artillery batteries or field headquarters. What was needed was a between-the-lens shutter that exposed the image all at once. Fairchild was familiar with this type of shutter, having taken plenty of them apart in small cameras, but nobody had ever made a between-the-lens shutter for a large aerial camera. The lenses were 3 inches in diameter. The metal leaves the shutter consisted of had to move back and forth across those 3 inches in a hundredth of a second, which was considered the longest permissible exposure for an aerial camera. At that speed, with the sudden stops and starts, the metal would routinely bend, jam and tear itself apart. Young and overconfident, Fairchild told the Signal Corps he could make one that didn't jam. But this was not to be an overnight sketch. It took him two years, working with a Swedish master mechanic from his father's firm, to develop the first between-the-lens shutter for a large camera that did the job reliably. By then the war was over, and

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An airman uses a Fairchiid F-14 rapid-action camera in 1935.

the military market for aerial cameras had almost disappeared. But aerial photography had many applications beyond reconnaissance. It would also revolutionize the mapping industry, and it had subsidiary uses in things like archaeology. Seen from the air, for example, farm fields in England revealed ancient patterns of ctiltivation, stul visible in the colors of the soü. By 1921 Fairchiid had built a camera around his shutter. The first aerial camera to take pictures that were not distorted, it included the spacing device he had invented—and the Army Air Corps was willing to pay $2,000 for it. Two years later that first model, the K-3, became the standard aerial camera for both the Army and Navy air services. The Fairchiid Aerial Camera Corporation was now solidly in business, and it would go on to sell thousands of K-3s and subsequent models. Fairchüd aerial cameras were found in Japanese aircraft shot down over Pearl Harbor. They mapped most of South America from the air, and all of North America. Through World War II and beyond they dominated the market for aerial surveillance equipment. Fairchüd cameras were used on the first U.S. space flight. They mapped the far side of the moon. t's a great business story, but Sherman Fairchüd was not, in fact, a great businessman. He didn't have the patience to handie orders, deal with customers and do all the necessary grunt work that is involved in managing a company. A new product, a new idea always took priority; his wiüingness to finance Robert Noyce and jump headfirst into semiconductors was typical of his style. Before George Fairchüd died, he wisely hired someone out of IBM to run his son's company. Sherman was young, and he was beginning to have a good time. Going through his papers, ! came across a scrapbook he had kept of theater tickets, invitations to debutante parties and all the rest that goes with being young, rich and unattached, and it was crammed full. He would become a perpetual item in the gossip columns, showing up at nightclubs with this model or that actress, or double dating with Howard Hughes. He taught himself how to play piano by watching the keys move on a player piano, and became a habitué of the jazz clubs, making friends with the legends of the genre. He lived for years in a triplex on New York's Park Avenue, and held parties there with jazz greats as guests.

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A Fairchiid Aerial Surveys image shows New York City in 1930. The moon's Euler crater (left) was photographed by the Fairchiid Lunar Mapping Camera (beiow).

But he was an entrepreneur first, a playboy second. He and Hughes would hunch over the table at the Stork Club or Copacabana, talking with each other about aüeron design or the strength per pound of spruce versus steel (pound for pound, spruce is stronger), while their bored dates sat there wondering why they were being ignored. The camera business led naturally to the aerial mapping business. Fairchüd was the first to create an aerial map of New York City. I've seen it: It's about 10 feet tall and it shows every buüding, every alleyway in, yes, photographic detail. When his pilots started to complain about the inadequacies of the planes they were flying, he threw himself into the business of making a better airplane. The first, the 1925 FC-1, was a high-wing monoplane with a heated, enclosed cabin. His puots loved it. At last they cotüd fly warm. Mapping flights were pretty dull; you flew in parallel rows, back and forth over the landscape. It was the safest of all flying. You couldn't take pictures in bad weather, so you neverflewin a storm.

or even ordinary rainy weather; you had to maintain a constant altitude; and since you weren't really going anywhere, it was difficult to get lost. Although designed especially for aerial photography, the FG-1 had virtues that appealed to others, too. Its high-wing design dramatically improved visibility, and also made the plane more stable. The wings folded, making it easy to store. In 1927 Fairchild modified the design a bit: The razorback fuselage became square, which added both space and strength, and the airplane could now be mounted on skis or pontoons. So good were Fairchüd pontoon designs, in fact, that for a little while the company made racing boats based on them.

The U.S. Army's YF-1 photoreconnaissance píane was a militarized version of Fairchlld's FC-2.

Fairchild was now expanding on all fronts. He bought the rights to a radial engine designed by Harold Gaminez at McGook Field, the Air Gorps' experimental station outside Dayton, Ohio, and hired Gaminez himself to start building and testing engines. These peculiar power plants did away with the crankshaft and connecting rods by feeding power direcdy from the four pistons to a large figureeight-shaped cam. Each piston fired twice on every revolution of the cam, doubling the power per revolution. The engine had fewer moving parts and was much lighter Fairchiid buiit his F-46 using Duramold, at a time when the pubiic wanted metai airpiiines. than a regular radial or in-line engine. But it never went into production. No matter how hard Gaminez tried to invented by Golonel Virginius E. Glark, another of those geniuses Fairiron out the problems, the engine vibrated so badly that it threatened child was so attracted to. Glark was already known for the Glark Y airto tear the airplane apart. foil, which is stul used in model airplane design. Duramold was a Fairchild was like that. If it was new and revolutionary, he wanted to process for electronicaüy cooking plywood sheets under pressure in a be involved. He had an unquenchable appetite for innovation. In the mold and bonding them together with plastic glues. It was well suited 1930s he became fascinated by the Duramold process, which had been to making fuselages and wings In one piece. Fairchild bought the process, hired Glark and once again launched into the new and revolutionary. In the late 1930s the result was the F-46, a handsome, lightweight and very fast low-wing monoplane for the private plane market, with a skin free of rivets and as smooth as glass. The trouble was, nobody wanted wooden airplanes. Fairchild understood technology—he loved the experimental and the new, and he harbored a deep passion for solving problems—^but he had little feel for markets, for what people wanted. What they wanted was metal airplanes. Planes were getting larger, carrying capacity was increasing, and aluminum gave the public the appearance of safety. At the same time FairchUd was committing himself to wood, Donald Douglas was designing the DG-1. The only person Fairchild was able to interest in the Duramold process was Howard Hughes, who in 1939 bought the rights to use it in the construction of his infamous "Spruce Goose" giant flying boat. Fairchild himself used the process for the tail siu'faces of his PT-19 trainer. It was mostly suited to smaller aircraft. PT-19S stretch to the horizon at Hatbox Field in Muskogee, Okla.

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r

This F-24 W46, which has served as a bush plane since 1948, is stiii being fiown by Dave Hadfieid from a grass strip at Aiiiston, Ontario.

he late 1920s was Fairchüd's golden age, when he had the most fun with his enterprises. He was buuding airplanes, his aerial cameras were doing a brisk business, he had begun manufacturing aircraft engines (the Caminez project morphed into Fairchüd Ranger engines, which were much more successful) and the aviation industry as a whole was popping. Fairchüd's FC-2 series pioneered passenger travel in South America, and demand in Canada was so strong that he established a Canadian subsidiary to buüd them. On skis, they became the bush aircraft of choice in Alaska and subarctic Canada. Fairchüd hired flamboyant publicist Harry Bruno to promote the plane. Bruno's first idea was to spread the rumor that the hollow steel tubes used as the FC-2's frame were being filled with contraband liquor by smugglers in Canada and flown into the U.S. It was brilliant, but it wasn't true. Those tubes were lined with ou, not whiskey, to keep them from rusting from the inside out. Fairchüd wanted to fly the plane into and out of a tennis court, to demonstrate its short takeoff and landing capabüities, but he could never find anyone wüling to let him try. It was an expansive time, and in early 1929 Fairchüd let himself be seduced into becoming part of an unwieldy Wall Street holding company called the Aviation Corporation, one of those conglomerations that look good on paper but don't come together on the ground. Some 50 separate companies took part in the Aviation Corporation. After the balloon burst in October 1929, and the economy went into free fall, the only survivors were a maker of miscellaneous aircraft products named Avco and American Airlines. Fairchüd found himself in the position of having to buy back his own companies. By this time he had moved his aircraft operation from Long Island to Hagerstown, Md., where he had acquired a small biplane manufac-

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turer known as Kreider-Reisner in 1928. Fairchüd struggled like everyone else in the 1930s. The camera company was relatively secure and stayed profitable, but not many people were buying airplanes. He managed to keep the Fairchüd Aircraft Corporation alive, just barely, by designing and buuding a fourseat private plane, the F-24. Fairchüd buüt more than 1,500 of them in the 1930s and into the '40s. They were sturdy and comfortable, with roll-down automobüe-style windows (Plymouth windows in this case), and came with a choice of engines: a 200-hp Ranger in-line or a 164-hp Warner Scarab radial. Raymond Loewy designed the interior, which one puot described as "sort of likeflyingyour living room." Mike Kelly, president of the Fairchüd Club, who restores antique airplanes and used to own an F-24, said it's "not at au a hard airplane to fly." That may be why so many Hollywood stars bought them. Jimmy Stewart, Robert Taylor, Tyrone Power and Mary Pickford aU owned F-24s. During WWII the military used them as auxüiary aircraft, but some of those flown by the Coast Guard were fitted with two 100-pound bombs and were credited with German U-boats küls off the East Coast. As with the rest of the aviation industry, the war rescued Sherman Fairchüd. In 1939 he won a müitary competition against 17 other manufacturers for a new primary trainer. The PT-19 was an opencockpit, low-wing monoplane that trained more military puots, it's believed, than any other aircraft ever buüt. During the war Fairchüd and its subcontractors made some 8,000 of them. Mike Kelly, who flies a restored PT-26 (a Canadian-built version with a canopy), had nothing but praise for its flying qualities: "It handles nicely, it's smooth in the air, the controls are easy to manage and it has an oleo type of landing gear so you don't even notice you've touched down. It's a good, husky, well-buüt airplane."

I

A 314th Troop Carrier Group C-119 Flying Boxcar delivers materiel in Korea. The transport would later pack Vulcan miniguns in Vietnam.

As the trainer market wound down, Fairchild turned to cargo planes. Toward the end of the war the company won a contract to build the G-82 Packet, better known as the Flying Boxcar or, to those who flew in it, the "shuddering shithouse." The C-82 was originally designed to ferry airborne troops to Japan, but the war ended before that became necessary. It did prove useful during the Berlin Airlift in 1948. The Packet had serious problems, however. Its twin booms were weak and occasionally fell off, dooming everyone aboard, and it was underpowered. Fairchild strengthened the booms with dorsal fins, rebuilt the empennage and installed more-powerful engines. The changes were significant enough that the designation was changed to C-119—the Dollar Nineteen. This clumsy-looking beast could carry just about anything. Itflewin the Korean War, and was brought out of mothballs during the Vietnam War to become a gunship. Many C-119s eventually wound up in Air Force Reserve squadrons or in air rescue service groups. More than 1,100 of them were built, making it one of Fairchild's most successful airplanes. y this time Fairchud himself was no longer much involved in the management or operations of the aircraft company. When I worked for him he had not one but two companies bearing his name on the Fortune 500 list, and between them they employed something like 30,000 people. But he had not changed. His passion was for the new, the untried. Fairchild lived in a townhouse on East 65th Street in Manhattan designed, with his help, by the great George Nelson. On his Long Island estate he had an indoor tennis facility he had designed in Quonset hut style, with innovative cooling and heating systems. At the Manhattan townhouse his twin baby grand pianos stood on a living room floor

mounted on springs, to absorb vibration. Overlooking the pianos was a recording studio where he could tape the jazz greats who still came to play. When he first looked into the recording process, he saw right away that it could be improved upon, so he founded the Fairchild Recording Equipment Company to make sound equipment according to his own theories. His products were extremely expensive; they were also the best in the business. His passion when 1 came aboard was for a studio camera that used a front-projection system for snapping subjects against a projected background. The problem here was that all other front-projecticm systems created a black outline around the subject where the subject's shadow fell on the screen. He thought he should solve that problem. So he formed a company. He hired employees. He may have known that it would never make any money, but he didn't care. It was never about money for him. I once calculated how much money he would have had if he had not sold so much of his IBM stock in the early days to finance his own enterprises. The figure came to $500 million. In 1971 dollars, that was huge. When he died he was worth a mere $200 million, chump change to current hedge fund managers. But no hedge fiind manager was ever so creative; none ever held 30 U.S. patents, as Sherman Fairchild did; and I doubt any of them was ever curious enough to take a camera apart to see how it worked, and how to make it better, "t" Anthony Brandt is a freelance writer and historian whose articles have appeared in American Heritage, The Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, Military History and other magazines. His most recent book is The Man Wlio Ate His Boots, an account of 19th-century British attempts to discover the Northwest Passage. Further reading: Fairchild Aircraft, by Frank and Suanne Woodring; and Fairchild Aircraft 1926-1987, by Kent A. Mitchell.

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AMERICAN

EAGLE

Air Force legend Johnny Alison enjoyed an amazing life in aviation By Richard P. Hal I ion

S

ometimes little things make a big difference. But for a quarterinch, Johnny Alison—Allied fighter ace, pioneer air commando, civu aviation executive and influential U.S. Air Force leader—might have been flying Navy Grumman F4F Wüdcats at Midway, not Army Air Corps Curtiss P-40 Warhawks over China. That quarterinch set Alison on a career path that would make him an Air Force icon, enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame as "a courageous and innovative military strategist," before his death this year at age 98. Born in 1912 in central Florida, John Richardson Alison grew up in a Southern culture emphasizing honor, integrity, thrift, hard work and the outdoor life. On his 12th birthday, his father gave him his first shotgun and fishing rod. Thereafter young Alison joined his dad for days of hunting and fishing in the woods, rivers and lakes around Micanopy. Concerned that the three Alison boys get a good education, their parents moved to nearby Gainesville. There, Alison revealed the leadership qualities he displayed years later in the crucible of combat, winning the respect and fiiendship of his classmates, serving as president of his high school class and, later, as president of his college fraternity. One day while Alison sat in study hall. Lieutenant Ralph Ruddy, a local boy who had become an Army pilot, returned to Gaines-

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ville, buzzing the town in a sleek Curtiss P-1 biplane. After hearing the strident roar of its engine, Alison immediately determined he wanted to become a pilot. Thereafter, all through high school and during his undergraduate years at the University of Florida (where he studied industrial engineering and was a member of the school's Army reserve officer training program), he nurtured this dream. But as his interest in flight grew, so too did his parents' fears for his safety. When he wanted to leave the university after two years to become an Army aviation cadet, they wisely insisted he stay and complete his degree. Hoping he'd discover he disliked being aloft, they let him take a few flying lessons fiom a local instructor in a Travel Air biplane. Instead, Alison's enthusiasm grew stronger still, and his now-alarmed parents forbade further flights. A self-described "obedient child," he complied—but informed them that, even so, he still wanted to fly. When he graduated they tried one last, desperate ploy, securing him a state government position as a surveyor at $125 a month, $50 more than the monthly salary of a flying cadet, and a tidy sum during the Depression era. But Alison remained firm, refusing the surveying position. Though he had always wanted to be an Army pilot, a year earlier his two closest fraternity brothers had become naval aviation cadets. Now close to receiving their golden

wings, they invited him to Pensacola after he finished his degree. The appeal of joining them proved irresistible, and he drove across the Florida Panhandle to the fabled base on the Emerald Coast.

A

lison was keen of vision, lean, tough, wiry and athletic. He had played end on his high school football team, captained its swim team and was intramural wrestling champion at the university. He seemingly had every expectation of quick acceptance as a naval aviation cadet. But a ruler-wielding "by-the-book" flight surgeon matter-of-facdy informed him that, at 5 feet 5% inches, Alison was a quarter-inch too short to be a Navy puot. Stunned, Alison re-

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF ALISON FAMILY VIA DOUG BIRKEY/AFA, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

quested a waiver: no luck. Even after Florida Senator Duncan Fletcher appealed to the Navy on his behalf, the answer was still no. The Navy's loss was the Air Corps' gain: Its minimum height requirement for airmen was 5 feet 4 inches. And so, in the early summer of 1936, young Alison drove to Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Ala., where he passed the physical and took his oath as an aviation cadet. The Air Corps assigned him to a class that had already started preflight training at Randolph Field, so Alison raced to Texas to catch up, arriving ("much to my delight," he later recalled) too late to experience the hazing that all newly arriving cadets experienced. He later looked back on his year of flight training as "the most pleasant [and] carefree of my life. I reaQy enjoyed it. I loved flying. It

was a great thriU, a great exhüaration. It was something that I always wanted to do and I just was not going to fail." Randolph, in open land outside San Antonio, was popularly known as the "West Point of the Air." At the time Alison began his müitary flight training, the Air Corps was transitioning from the era of the open-cockpit, fabric-covered biplane with fixed landing gear to the era of the streamlined, all-metal monoplane with an enclosed cabin and retractable landing gear. His first forays aloft were in Consolidated PT-3s, progressing to the Douglas BT-2, a big two-place biplane derived from the O-2 observation plane. Both were rugged, forgiving, low-performance aircraft, products of an older and by then obsolete form of design.

Cadet John R. Aiison poses with a Consoiidated PT-3 at Randolph Field.

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The basic training syllabus introduced two new monoplanes, Seversky's ungainly looking BT-8 and North American's sleek BT-9. With them, cadets entered a more modern and dangerous world. The Seversky was a close-coupled airplane, prone to violently ground-loop and wind up on its back. The BT-9—predecessor of the famed T-6/SNJ used to train hundreds of thousands of Allied airmen—was seemingly more docüe but had its own vice: a vicious stall during tight turns. The BT-9's problem was its wingtip design. In a tight turn, airflow would separate from the tip, reducing the wing's lift. The other wing's greater lift would then flick-roü the BT-9 over on its back—almost always fatal at low altitude. North American installed automatic leading-edge slats on later BT-9s, curing the problem, but not soon enough for Alison's class, which experienced at least two accidents from the nasty quirk, one fatal. During advanced training, students moved to nearby Kelly Field, where they were evaluated before being sent to pursuit (fighter), bomber, attack or observation "tracks." There they flew aging open-cockpit, twin-engine Keystone biplane bombers, low-wing Gurtiss Shrike attack bombers and frisky Boeing P-12 biplanes. (Alison had the base parachute shop make up a 4-inch-thick cushion so he could fly the big Keystone). He excelled in the P-12, which fit its pilot like a glove and earned the affection of all who flew it. Academically first in his class, Alison was sent to the pursuit section. His instructors had such confidence in him that they largely left him on his own while he buüt solo time and honed his aerobatics. By the time he graduated in June 1937, he had more than 300flyinghours and a perfectionist's obsession with precision flying. ow a newly minted second lieutenant with a Regular Army commission, Alison went to the 1st Pursuit Group at Lang\ ley Field, Va. He considered it a "wonderful situation," for the Air Gorps was a "very small community where you really got to know people." His neighbors included a galaxy of ftiture notables such as 1st Lt. Gurtis LeMay; Majors Garl Spaatz, Harold George and Galeb Haynes; and Lt. Gol. Robert Olds, whose young son Robin, himself destined to become a legendary fighter ace and inspirational leader, roamed the neighborhood. Langley was a hotbed of Air Gorps innova-

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Above: An aerial view of Randoiph Fieid in 1936 shows its distinctive layout. Left: A Seversity BT-8 warms up on the tarmac at Randolph for a night training flight. Below: A Boeing P-12E of the 27th Pursuit Sguadron. Aiison exceiied in the P-12, which was a favorite of ail who flew it.

tion befitting the times: German, Italian and Russian airmen were already battling over Spain, as were Japanese and Ghinese airmen over Ghina. Few in the American aviation community doubted that war would eventually come, and that it would involve the United States. At Langley, airmen flexed the Air Gorps' growing long-range strategic muscle with early service-test Boeing YB-17s. Others, Alison among them, exercised the service's first modern monoplane fighters. They evaluated the turbocharged two-seat Gonsolidated PB-2, Bell's weird multiplace twin-pusher YFM-1 Airacuda gunship and more practical designs such as the elegant Gurtiss P-36 Hawk and its turbocharged inline-engine derivative, the YP-37. Alison had no difficulty intercepting the 2nd Bomb Wing's much-hyped "Flying Fortresses," an ominous sign that bomber enthusiasts ignored untü Ploesti, Schweinfurt and Regensburg utterly discredited the notion of sending massed formations of unescorted B-17s and B-24s deep into hostüe territory. Like fighter püots everywhere, Langley's tested their sküls "1 v 1 " against each other, learning by doing, and sometimes at a price: One of Alison's roommates was Idlled after an Ul-considered maneuver triggered a fatal collision. Flying remained a risky business for the Air Gorps. FuUy 10 percent of Alison's graduating class perished in their first year of

service, and another 10 percent the year afterward. Those who remained developed survival skills that served them well in future years, when the threat came not only from flying but from the enemy—only two of his classmates would die in World War II. The accidents highlighted the importance of realistic training, something Alison would stress when he rose to command, and afterward, when he was vice president of Northrop, manufacturer of the superb T-38 trainer. Alison stayed at Langley until October 1940, when he was transferred to Mitchel Field, on Long Island,flyingthe P-40 with the 8th Pursuit Group. In early 1941, having further solidified his reputation as a "golden arm," Alison received a summons to Washington to demonstrate the P-40 before a Ghinese delegation headed by Glaire Ghennault, a former AAG fighter tactician serving as air adviser to the Ghinese government. Off he flew, south to Boiling Field, nesfled at the confluence of the Potomac and Ana-

costia rivers, across from downtown D.C. The day was clear and cold, with a bitter latewinter wind gusting oft^ the Potomac and straight down Boiling's runway. The Air Corps and Curtiss officials at Boiling seemed uncertain how thoroughly Alison should detnonstrate the fighter, and the company reps even wondered if their own test pilot should fly it. But Alison had no intention of letting anyone else fill his role. He strapped in, pointed the P-40 straight into the wind, added throttle and leapt into the air, raising the landing gear and overboosting the engine. Alison pulled straight into an Immelmann, then slow-roUed the P-40 as he descended to make five tight wingsnear-vertical, max-power turns. He rolled out downwind, pointing down the runway, accelerated until he passed over the runway threshold, executed another Immelmann and, now pointed back into the wind, dropped the gear and descended to land, taxiing in, shutting down, unstrapping and dismounting from the fighter as its prop flipped through a last few revolutions to a stop. It had been an astonishing demonstration by a pilot totally in harmony with his aircraft—and it had lasted less than two rnin-

utes. One of the Chinese generals accompanying Chennault broke the stunned süence. Pointing enthusiastically at the P-40, he exclaimed, "We need a hundred of those!" "No, General," chuckled Chennault, tapping Alison on the chest; "you need a hundred of those." Soon to lead the American Volunteer Group, the famed "Flying Tigers," Chennault never forgot Alison's extraordinary flying display. "Alison was the kind of pilot I needed for the AVG," Chennault recalled. "Without one hundred of the men for whom Johnny Alison was a prototype, the P-40s might just as well have rusted on the Rangoon docks." ronically, for a man whose combat career is inextricably intertwined with the war in Asia, Alison's wartime service began in Britain. Short of airplanes. Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted as many U.S. aircraft as he could get, and by mid-August 1940 a British purchasing commission already had 20,000 American airplanes of various kinds on order, as well as 42,000 engines. Among these were P-40fighters—somany, in fact, that the commission sought a second source of production from North American, leading, eventually, to that firm's designing

Aiison stands beside a P-12D. The frisky bipiane was weii suited to aerobatics.

the famed NA-73, the progenitor of the P-51 Mustang famüy. Shortly after his Chennault demonstration, as Royal Air Force squadrons began transitioning into the P-40, Alison and his friend (and future ace) Hubert "Hub" /'emke went to Britain to advise the RAF on its use

An early Curtiss P-40B. After his P-40 demonstration impressed Chinese officials in 1941, Alison went on to fly the P-40E in combat.

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Aiison with the captured Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero he got to test fiy in China.

and maintenance. Their arrival coincided with the Blitz, and they quickly grew used to the sound of bomb blasts and sirens, as well as negotiating debris-filled streets. They found that British fighter pilots, having won the Battle of Britain with the elegant Spitfire and plucky Hurricane, regarded the P-40 as just a drab American cousin compared to their own stalwarts. Alison, after flying all three, judged the P-40 better than either the Spitfire or Hurricane at low altitude, and was not afraid to prove it. One RAF Hurricane ace who challenged him soon found Alison locked at his six o'clock, and couldn't shake him off. He later told Alison he had no idea the P-40 was so good—and hadn't thought "you Yanks would be as competent as you are." RAF airmen subsequently took successive models of the Curtiss fighter to the Middle East, where it proved to be an outstanding swing-role low-altitude fighterbomber over the Western Desert and Italy.

establish the Lend-Lease pro gram with the Stalin government. The next few months brought home the bitterness of the Russo-German war, as Alison witnessed the chaotic evacuation of Moscow, watched the withdrawal of Soviet industry to beyond the Urals and saw train crews dumping the naked bodies Members of the exclusive "Zero Club" pose for a photo. of dead prisoners by the side of From left: (standing) Casey Vincent, Aiison and Bruce the tracks, while surviving in- Hoiioway; (kneeling) Ajax Baumler and Grant Mahony. mates scavenged their clothes and possessions. accident. After a similar incident there, durThere was much to admire as well, particu- ing which he was able to manipulate engine larly the dedication of Russian airmen and power sufficiently to safely land, mechanics mechanics who worked assiduously to master found that Curtiss production line workers the P-40 and take it to war. While in Russia had carelessly left numerous bolts and nuts Alison learned what had caused his British in the fuselage, one of which had worked its

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lison had one close call in Britain when he had to parachute from a Lend-Lease P-40 after its control stick mysteriously jammed during a low-altitude slow roll, fortunately leaving the plane upright, though in a slight dive. With no elevator authority, Alison added engine power to climb, then jumped over open country, escaping with sprained ankles. He enjoyed an impromptu tea with the local Home Guard before the RAF came to fetch him. In July 1941, he went to Russia, accompanying President Franklin D. Roosevelt's emissary Harry Hopkins and other notables to

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Aiison, "Tex" Hill, Baumler and Mack MItcheii with a 23rd Fighter Group P-40E in 1942.

way into the control linkage as the plane rolled. An urgent message resulted, ordering Curtiss-Wright to immediately tighten inspection procedures. In early 1942, Alison relocated to Basra, Iraq, where he supervised the start-up of Lend-Lease delivery of Douglas A-20s and other aircraft to the Soviet Union through Iran. Alison longed to get into combat, however. In July 1942, he at last received orders fiom Army Air Forces chief General Henry "Hap" Arnold to proceed to China, where Chennault's AVG had transformed into the 23rd Fighter Group. Upon arriving at Hengyang, he joined the 75th Fighter Squadron, led by Major David "Tex" Hill. The lean and rangy Hill—a former Navy torpedo and dive bomber pilot—was an outstanding airman and combat leader. He and Alison swiftly became good fiiends. Frustrated one night at watching Japanese Army Air Force Mitsubishi Ki-21s bombing Hengyang, Alison decided to do something about it. The next night, alerted by Chennault's excellent warning service of an approaching raid, he scrambled aloft, accompanied by Albert "Ajax" Baumler, a tempestuous veteran of the Spanish Civu War. It is a measure of Alison's faith that when he closed behind a formation of Ki-21s, his first thought was a prayer: "Lord, forgive me for what I am about to do." He swiftly shot down

two, but not before a Japanese gunner had riddled the P-40's engine and prop, grazing Alison. With his engine running rough and the fighter streaming smoke, Alison wisely abandoned the fight. He guided his ailing P-40 earthward, and ditched in a river. The impact threw him into the gunsight, cutting his head and dazing him, but a courageous Chinese youth braved the dark waters to pull him from the cockpit. (Years later, Alison by chance met his rescuer, then an engineer, who had emigrated to America and joined a defense firm run by Northrop.) So great was the need for planes that his battered P-40 was recovered, repaired and returned to service.

In 1943 Alison and Philip Cochran co-commanded the

While in China, Alison and 1st Air Commando, a powerfui air expeditionary force. fellow pilots Baumler, Bruce Holloway, Clinton D. "Casey" Vincent and rguably Alison's greatest conGratton "Grant" Mahony—all of whom had tribution to the Allied war test-flown a captured Mitsubishi A6M2— effort was partnering with formed the "Zero Club." Though acknowlColonel Philip Cochran, one of edging the Zero was a "beautiful flying his old Langley roommates, in machine," Alison still favored the P-40 establishing and leading an elite force in a because of its guns and ruggedness. "When week-long air assault deep behind Japianese our six .50-caliber guns hit a Japanese air- lines in Burma, dubbed Operation Thursday. plane," he recalled, "the airplane In 1943 Brigadier Orde Wingate, a chariscame apart." matic and unconventional British combat Alison left China in May 1943, leader, was waging a grim guerrilla war in ••• 0 - t . having shot down six enemy air- Burma. His commandos, called "Chindits" I ow.VINTLNT craft, flown numerous ground- after the Chinthe, a mythic temple guardian attack sorties and led the 75th spirit, needed air support, mobility and casuSquadron and the Chinese alty evacuation. Hap Arnold picked Cochran fighter command in combat. As a and Alison for the effort, appointed them cocommander, he stressed training, commanders and ordered them to circumflight discipline and competency, vent any and all bureaucratic obstacles, concentrating on ensuring that exclaiming, "To hell with the paperwork, go new pilots joining the squadron out and fight!" (many with only 200 hours aloft) They did. First, Alison, always more conwere given adequate training and cerned with accomplishing the mission than experience before going into personal glory, told Cochran with charactercombat. In his concern for train- istic modesty that in the interest of a clear ing and teamwork he was very chain of command, he'd serve as Cochran's much like Germany's Oswald deputy. Then the two put together a powerful Boelcke, Britain's Edward "Mick" air expeditionary force, the 5318th ProviMannock or America's Raoul sional Air Unit: 30 P-51 A Mustangs, 12 Lufbery, and he anticipated jet 75mm-cannon-armed B-25H Mitchells, 13 age fighter leaders who followed C-47 transports, 150 Waco CG-4A gliders, him such as Robin Olds and 12 UC-64 Norseman light transports, a mix Richard "Moody" Suter. of L-1 and L-5 light aircraft for medevac and Ciaire Chennauit reviews the 23rd's "honor roii" board.

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six of Sikorsky's new YR-4 helicopters. Altogether, it numbered 348 aircraft. On the night of March 5, 1944, Alison puoted a CG-4A into Broadway, one of two jungle landing sites, an experience he later compared to "going through hell a second at a time." The flight and landing were extraordinarüy hazardous; most of the 40 gliders that flew into Broadway that night cracketl up, and 28 airmen and Chindits perishetl Alison soon supervised preparation of ,i landing strip for the larger C-47s, which brought in heavy equipment to clear an even larger landing area. It was risky work, for gliders were stul landing, and, as he recalled, "You had to be mighty quick to get out of the way." Afterward Brigadier "Mad Mike" Calvert, one of Wingate's Chindit commanders, complimented Alison for doing "a wonderful job in appalling circumstances." Altogether the Thursday landings inserted more than 9,000 troops, 175 horses, 1,283 mules and over 250 tons of supplies. Supported by the strike and transport aircraft of the Air Commandos, the Chindits subsequently savaged Japanese forces before withdrawing. For his contributions to the success of Operation Thursday, Alison was awarded the Legion of Merit. The 5318th would become the 1st Air Commando, a combat force that has evolved over time into today's globeranging Air Force Special Operations Forces.

Alison (second from left) confers with Brigadier Orde Wingate (second from right) in Burma.

Aiison developed the Broadway landing site in Burma's Jungle to accommodate C-47s.

A North American P-51A Mustang of the 5318th Provisionai Air Unit, which iater became the 1st Air Commando, in the course of the grim guerriila war in Burma, Air Commandos used Mustangs to provide ground support for the Chindits, in addition to aeriai combat.

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Left: Alison checits on wounded troops in Burma. Right: CG-4A giiders have already had their cargo unloaded after ianding at Broadway.

^ ^ ^ ollowing his success at Broadway, Alison briefed General Dwight " ^ Eisenhower, then overseeing final preparations for the Normandy invasion, on the practicalities of using gliders for night assault. He returned to the States, where Hap Arnold had him supervise the formation of two more Air Gommando units. He then deployed to the Pacific as operations officer for the Fifth Air Force under Maj. Gen. Ennis Whitehead, participating in the landings in the Phüippines, during which he narrowly escaped a flaming kamikaze that struck the bridge of the battleship New Mexico, küling 30 (including its captain) and wounding 87. Having begun the war as a first lieutenant, lohnny Alison finished it a colonel, with the Distinguished Service Gross, Distinguished Flying Gross, SOver Star, Purple Heart, Legion of Merit, Air Medal and British Distinguished Service Order to his credit. He resigned from the AAF in 1947, but returned to government service as assistant secretary of commerce, advocating development of new aircraft to meet the challenge of postwar air transport. He joined the Air Force Reserve during the Korean War, and was promoted to major general before retiring in 1955. Afterward he became an international businessman, then a senior vice president with Northrop, serving that company until 1984, during which time Northrop developed the T-38 and F-5, the F-20, the YF-17, the Tacit Blue steahh demonstrator and designed the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. Stül, he kept his eyes on the future. "He was sharp as a tack, and captivated by advanced

propulsion," recalled Mark Lewis, former chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force. "At age 95, he was stu] exploring various ideas and their implications for future aerospace vehicles." Major General John Alison died on June 6, 2011, mourned by those who knew him as a great man as well as a consummate airman— one who had loved his country with a deep and abiding passion and who always placed others ahead of himself "Dedication to the Air Force was ingrained in his being," his friend Douglas Birkey recalled. "During his last days he stiü wanted to discuss the future

of the Air Force. An amazing individual." Amazing indeed. "í" Richard P. Hallion is a former U.S. Air Force historian and the author of numerous works on aviation history. Forfiirther reading, he recommends: Operation Thursday: Birth of the Air Gommandos, by Herbert Mason and Scgeant Randy G. Bergeron; Way of the Fighter: The Memoirs of Glaire Lee Ghennault, by General Claire Lee Chennault, with Robert Hotz, ed.; Back to Mandalay, by Lowell Tlionuv; and Global Mission, by General Henry H. Arnold.

In May 2010, Alison was reunited with a 1st Air Commando-mari
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WORKHORSE OF THE

FLEET

Vought's versatile Kingfisher served as a gun spotter, patrol plane, anti-submarine scout, utility transport and trainer, but downed aircrews remembered it best as an "angel on floats" By E.R. Johnson

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egendary World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker owed his life to a Vought OS2U Kingfisher. After the B-17 in which he wasflyingditched in the Pacific in 1942, Rickenbacker and other survivors spent more than three weeks in life rafts. With all hope seemingly lost. Kingfisher pilot Lieutenant William F. Ealie spotted Rickenbacker's raft on November 12 and picked up the starving, dehydrated men. It was but one of many instances when airmen were plucked ftom the sea and returned to safety—sometimes after water taxiing for long distances—by Kingfishers during the war. And it was a far cry fi-om the role originally envisioned for the rugged floatplane. In 1919 U.S. Navy experiments had established that the accuracy of battleship gunfire beyond 10 mues increased by 200 percent if aircraft were used to pinpoint targets. By 1925 aerial gun spotting was an essential element of fleet battle doctrine, and all 18 of the Navy's battleships had been fitted with cataptilts to launch float-equipped observation planes. Floatplanes also became standard equipment aboard Navy cruisers during the 1920s, used chiefly as long-range scouts rather than gun spotters. Battleships and cruisers had originally carried the same types of two-seat floatplanes, Vought UOs and O2Us. As newer hangarequipped heavy cruisers reached service during the early 1930s, however, the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) began issuing distinct

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requirements for two types of floatplanes: observation-scout (OS) for battleships and scout-observation (SO) for cruisers. Requirements for a new SO type circulated by BuAer in 1933 resulted in the selection of the Curtiss SOC-1 as the fleet's standard cruiser floatplane in 1935. With SOC-1 production underway, BuAer finally turned to the problem of finding a modern replacement for the aging fleet of Vought O3U-ls and -3s then serving aboard battleships. In addition, more floatplanes would soon be needed to equip two new battleships. The first OS requirement, announced in early 1936, called for a two-seat aircraft, convertible to either wheels or floats, with a loaded weight not exceeding 5,550 pounds, a wingspan of no more than 36 feet, a maximum range of 1,000 miles and the abüity to fly off a P-6 catapult at about 60 mph. Folding wings were not specified. BuAer awarded development contracts in May 1936 to the Chance Vought Division of United Aircraft and to the Naval Aircraft Factory (NAF), both of which were to build a single biplane prototype. Although the Navy was then in the process of acquiring monoplane torpedo- and scout-bombers to reequip carrier squadrons (Douglas TBD-ls and Vought SB2U-ls), BuAer officials remained skeptical that a monoplane could achieve the low takeoff speeds necessary for catapult operations. Vought's XOSU-1 prototype, an O3U-3

incorporating a flap system that allowed slightly higher takeoff weights, appeared in late 1936. Following brief trials conducted at NAS Anacostia, Md., officials determined that the XOSU-1 did not offer a suftîcient improvement in performance over existing O3Us to merit further development. The XOSN-1 was ready to fly ft-om NAF's Philadelphia plant in early 1937. Though it was a biplane, it was also the first floatplane to be skinned entirely in aluminum. Large automatic slats incorporated into the upper wing's leading edges were designed to lower catapult takeoff speeds, and an I-strut system eliminated the need for interplane bracing wires. Whue the XOSN-1 showed a 40-percent improvement in range over the O3U-3 during early testing, its general performance was

A catapuit-mounted Vought 0S2U-3 Kingfisher is poised above crewmen of the battieship USS Missouri in 1944.

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marginally less than that of an SOC-1 with the same 550-hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340 power plant. In the spring of 1937, aiming for an OS design with better development potential, BuAer authorized construction of two more prototypes, a monoplane proposed by Vought as the XOS2U-1 and a biplane from Boeing's Stearman Division, the XOSS-1. But this didn't solve the immediate problem: Even if a decision between the two competing prototypes could be made by late 1938 or early 1939, production aircraft would not enter service aboard battleships until sometime in 1940. As a stopgap measure, BuAer ordered 83 SOC-3s from Gurtiss in May 1937. When they were delivered in 1938 and 1939, 40 aircraft were earmarked for duty

within the four battleships divisions. The engineering team at Vought, led by designer Rex Beisel, worked nonstop on its XOS2U-1, progressing from a detailed design to a completed prototype in less than a year. Rolling out of Vought's Stratford, Conn., plant, the XOS2U-1 made its first flight with wheels on March 1, 1938, then completed factory testing with floats by the end of May. That same month Stearman's XOSS-1 prototype underwent initial flight-testing from the company's plant in Wichita, Kan. Powered by an R-1340, the XOSS-1 emerged as an allmetal biplane, very similar in general layout to the XOSN-1. Required takeoff speeds were achieved via Junkers-type trailing-edge flaps that ran the full span ofthe upper vráig. All three of the OS prototypes arrived at

NAS Anacostia during the summer of 1938 and commenced competitive trials in September. Whereas the XOSN-1 and XOSS-1 biplanes both demonstrated incremental improvements over the O3U series, the XOS2U-1 established a new state ofthe art in floatplane design. To save weight and simultaneously reduce fuel consumption, Beisel had decided early in the project to power his prototype with a 450-hp Pratt & Wliitney R-985 Wasp Junior instead of the bigger R-1340 Wasp used by his competitors. With 30 percent less wing area, 22 percent less horsepower and 15 percent less gross weight, Beisel's pioneering concept outperformed the competition in every flight category— speed, ceiling and range—while posting a comparable takeoff speed (55.6 mph).

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The XOS2U-rs wide operating speeds were made possible by utilizing a broadchord wing design that incorporated large full-span trailing-edge flaps for slow flight, with spoilers on the upper wing surfaces to provide roll control. It was also the first American military aircraft of any type to employ spot-welding in its primary airfiame components, a structural technique that would be seen again in the design of Beisels V-166B project, the legendary XF4U-1 Corsair prototype. During the course of operational trials, the only changes made to the XOS2U-1 airframe were the addition of a third strut to the main float afterbody and a small step incorporated into the bottoms of the wingtip floats.

Top ieft: The first aiuminum-skinned U.S. Navy fioatpiane, the Navai Aircraft Factory's XOSN-1 aiso operated with wheeied undercarriage. Top right: The Stearman XOSS-1 prototype prepares to fiy in 1938. Above: The innovative X0S2U-1 in iandpiane configuration.

The OS competition officially ended in May 1939, when Vought was declared the of protection and firepower, had been winner and awarded a production contract prompted by intelligence reports of air comfor 54 OS2U-1S. Deliveries of all production bat in Europe and the Far East. U.S. naval models to the Navy were completed between planners were also becoming increasingly May and November 1940. Departing fiom the concerned about the potential threat to tradition of naming its floatplanes Corsairs, American shipping lanes posed by hostile Vought dubbed the new type Kingfisher. The submarines, with the result that 113 of the OS2U-rs first operational deployment OS2U-2S delivered from November 1940 commenced aboard USS Colorado in August onward were completed as landplanes, to 1940. Production versions, in addition to equip the newly created Inshore Patrol being armed—with one fixed .30-caliber Squadrons on both coasts of the continental machine gun synchronized to fire through U.S. Even so, the -2 landplanes were accomthe propeller, a flexible .30-caliber mounted panied by 70 extra sets of Edo floats, in case in the rear cockpit and provision to carry two they were needed for shipboard duties. 116-pound bombs—also came with R-985-48 In October 1940, as part of the Two-Ocean engines and a radio DF loop. Naval Expansion Act, Vought received a conIn December 1939, before the first OS2U-ls tract to produce 1,006 more Kingfishers as had been delivered, BuAer awarded Vought a the OS2U-3. The new version included better second contract to manufacture 158 more armor protection, increased fuel capacity and aircraft as the OS2U-2, which differed fiom R-985-AN2 or -AN8 engines, depending on the -1 in having armor protection, self-sealing the production batch. Delivery of production fuel tanks, an R-985-50 and fittings to carry OS2U-3S began in July 1941, with the final two 325-pound depth charges. New combat example coming off the assembly line in requirements for virtually all American- September 1942. All Navy battleships were made military aircraft, especially in terms reequipped with OS2Us during 1941, and by

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the end of the year some 446 OS2U-ls, -2s and -3s were active in Navy ship and shore squadrons, v^ath another 90 awaiting assignment to the fleet. Even before the U.S. entered World War II, BuAer had been facing a dilemma: Vought's capacity to produce additional OS2U-3s for the future needs of the fleet would largely be negated by plans to place the new E4U-1 in large-scale production (585 Corsairs were initially ordered). Thus in January 1941 BuAer gave the Naval Aircraft Factory a contract to produce the OS2U-3 under license as the OS2N-1. Three hundred of these were buut between April and October 1942. An improved variant of the Kingfisher, the OS2U-4, with higher-aspect-ratio wings and an R-1340 engine, was tested in 1942 but never placed in production. During 1942 100 of the OS2U-3s built under the Navy contract were lend-leased to Great Britain and several other foreign nations. In all, 1,519 OS2U/OS2N variants had been delivered by the time production ceased in late 1942.

OS2U-3/OS2N-1 KINGFISHER (with floats) Crew: One pilot and one radioman/observer/gunner Engine: 450-hp Pratt & Whitney R-985-AN2 or -AN8 Wasp Junior 9-cylinder air-cooied radial driving a Hamilton Standard two-bladed, variable-pitch metai propeller Armament: One fixed .30-caliber machine gun in the nose and one flexible .30-caliber machine gun in the rear cockpit, plus up to 650 pounds of ordnance carried on wing racks Performance: Maximum speed 164 mph at 5,500 ft.; cruise speed 119 mph at 5,000 ft.; initial climb rate 760 ft./min.; service ceiling 13,000 ft.; maximum range 1,155 miles Weights: 4,123 pounds empty, 5,600 pounds normal gross, 6,000 pounds maximum takeoft Dimensions: Span 35 ft. 11 in., length 33 ft. 10 in., height 15 ft. 2 in., wing area 262 sq. ft.

As a consequence of the Imperial lapanese Navy's devastating air attack on Pearl Harbor, the battle line, centerpiece of the U.S. Navy's tactical doctrine in the Pacific, ceased to exist as an effective fighting force. With it disappeared the OS2U's primary role as a gun spotter. Once the Navy had regrouped to the extent of launching offensive operations against lapan, major sea engagements between ships, such as the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, were fought principally by aircraft carriers that were out of sight of one another. In a strategic reversal, battleships functioned mainly in a support role. Ironically, when the only true action between American and Japanese battleships did take place, in the Battle of Surigao Strait in October 1944, radar-controlled gun directors largely supplanted aerial gun spotting. Despite the demise of the battle line, the Kingfisher saw wide use in a variety of operational roles throughout WWII. During 1942 and much of 1943, Naval Aviation was chronically short of new aircraft. While 0S2Us

and OS2Ns were comparatively slow, they possessed excellent range and could carry up to 650 pounds of bombs or depth charges— and most important, they were available. Inshore Patrol Squadron Kingfishers flew hundreds of hours of anti-submarine patrol sorties off American coasts. With a fuü load of fuel and one depth charge, OS2Us and OS2Ns could typically cover an offshore patrol radius of about 350 mues. On July 15,

1942, near Cape Hatteras, N.C.—supported by gunfire from USS Unicoi—two OS2Us attached to scouting squadron VS-9D4 depth-charged and sank the German submarine (7-576. Within the same time frame, 18 OS2N-1S equipped Marine squadron VMS-3 to fly armed anti-submarine patrols close to the U.S. Virgin Islands. In the western Aleutian Islands, bomb-armed Navy Kingfishers attacked Japanese-occupied shore installations. An OS2U-3 even scored an airto-air kill in February 1945, when its pilot shot down a Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero near Iwo Jima. In addition to serving on battleships, float-equipped OS2Us were used in scout and utüity roles aboard the carriers Saratoga, Wasp and Hornet during 1942, and were attached throughout the war to all eight of the Navy's heavy seaplane tenders and several Barnegat-c\ass small seaplane tenders. Due to a trainer shortage, many OS2Us and OS2Ns went directly to NAS Pensacola and NAS Jacksonville, where they served as a Four Navy Kingfishers fiy in echelon formation in 1942. step-up from primary to intermedi-

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Rescued airmen perch on the wings of Lieutenant John Burns' 0S2U-3 off Truk in 1944.

ate flight training in spite of not being equipped with dual controls—^testimony to the plane's docüe handling. From beginning to end. Kingfishers remained the main type of float-equipped aircraft used to transition new Navy püots in catapiüt launch and recovery operations. In mid-1942, when service trials unexpectedly revealed that the new Gurtiss SO3G-1 cruiser floatplane was too underpowered for normal catapult operations, OS2Us and OS2Ns were assigned to heavy and light cruisers to make up the shortfall. And to in-

crease the scouting radius of convoys operating without the benefit of cruiser protection, five F/efc/ier-class Navy destroyers commissioned in 1942 and 1943 were equipped with catapults so they could carry Kingfishers. Two of those ships, with their floatplanes aboard, subsequendy deployed to the Pacific for escort duties and served until late 1943, when the scheme was deemed impractical and au five destroyers were converted back to a standard configuration. In combat operations, the presence of a large unprotected aviation fuel tank above the main deck

proved to be too great a hazard. Between 1942 and 1944, the Navy transferred 53 float-equipped OS2U-2s and -3s to the U.S. Goast Guard. During the war's first year, Goast Guard Kingfishers augmented the Inshore Patrol Squadrons by flying armed anti-submarine patrols along the coasts, but from 1943 onward they were dedicated primarily to maritime search and rescue. Fiftytwo of the lend-leased OS2U-3s joined the Royal Navy as the Kingfisher I and saw extensive wartime service as floatplane scouts, attached to catapult-equipped merchant cruisers and light cruisers. Another 18 went to the Royal Australian Air Force, where they were used for offshore patrol, plus 15 to Ghile, six each to Mexico and Uruguay, and three to the Dominican Republic. In addition to their new wartime duties. Kingfishers retained their status as the Navy's standard battleship floatplane. The four new South Dakota-dass battleships commissioned during 1942 and the four fowfl-class battleships that joined the fleet in 1943 and 1944 were equipped with Kingfishers, and they also formed the initial floatplane complement aboard the two battlecruisers commissioned in mid-1944, Alaska and Guam. The OS2U's gun-spotting prowess achieved

An 0S2U-1 of VO-5 pulis up aiongside a battieship circa 1940. Kingfishers typically landed in a ship's waiie before being hoisted aboard.

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renewed significance when Kingfishers were called upon to direct gunfire during the shore bombardments that preceded the amphibious assaults of the Pacific island-hopping campaign. In the midst of these operations, float-equipped Kingfishers launched from battleships also flew countless sorties to rescue downed aircrews. On Apru 30, 1944, while piloting an OS2U-3 from the battleship North Carolina near Truk Lagoon, Navy Lieutenant lohn A. Burns saved 10 airmen in one day by loading them onto the wings and tiixiing over to the submarine Tang. Late in 1944 battleships and cruisers began replacitig their Kingfishers with single-seat Curtiss SC-1 Seahawks, the fleet's new floatplane scout. But some ships carried their old OS2Us or OS2Ns right up to the war's end. Once released ftom fi-ontline duties, many Kingfishers were used as utüity hacks and target tugs, and to retrieve practice torpedoes. All had been removed ftom active service by the end of 1946. No examples of the OS2U or OS2N are known to be flight-worthy today, although at least eight survive on static exhibit. The OS2U-3 on display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola was restored after being acquired from the Uruguayan navy in 1971. An OS2U-3 salvaged from the Canadian wilderness in 1963, after being rebuilt by volunteers ftom Vought Aeronautics, now resides on a catapult aboard the battleship North Carolina in Wilmington. In Mobile's Battle Memorial Park, an exMexican navy Kingfisher can be seen in the aircraft pavilion near Alabama. The National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center currently displays an OS2U-3 obtained from Navy storage in 1960. Another OS2U is reportedly undergoing restoration at the Yanks Air Museum in Chino, Calif. Three facüities outside the U.S. are said to have a Kingfisher on exhibit: Whale World in Albany, West Australia; the Museo Nacional Aeronáutico y del Espacio in Santiago, Chue; and the Museo de la Revolución in Havana, Cuba. "Í" U.S. Navy veteran E.R. Johnson is a pilot, aviation author and major in the Arkansas Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. His latest book is United States Naval Aviation, 1919-1941: Aircraft, Airships and Ships Between the Wars, which lie recommends for further reading, along with William T. Larkins' Battleship and Cruiser Aircraft of the United States Navy 1910-1949.

Build Your Own Arizona Kingfisher

U

ntü this past summer, about the only place to find a Vought OS2U Kingfisher model was at model club swap meets. Then Revell USA reissued its Monogram Models l/48th-scale kit of the floatplane (#6907), which is simple and inexpensive, with few parts. By closely following the instructions, you can create your own realistic model. Note, however, that this kit was engineered nearly a ° half-century ago. The fit of several parts is not precise, and many seams will require filling and sanding. Construction begins with painting the cockpit and gunner/radio operator's compartment interior green, FS-34151. Since these areas are visible under the large greenhc^use canopy, it's important to pay attention to the detaüs. The radio set should be painted aircraft interior black, FS-37031, with a süver directional loop. The pilot's seat shoiücl be olive drab, FS-34087, and the instrument side consoles flat black. The belts for both crew members, molded on the seats, are off-white, with süver buckles. You'll find the püot's instrument panel on the decal sheet. Clip it off, mount it on a backing of thin plastic sheet and glue it into place. Note this model's interior is very basic. If you're looking for more detaü, consider a resin replacement cockpit set, produced by Lone Star Models. Whue the interior is drying, glue the wing sections together. The cockpit and second crew member's compartment should be glued into the starboard fuselage, making sure they line up. Carefully slip the assembled wings through the cutouts in the fijselage. Close the fuselage sides, checking to ensure the interior parts and wdngs line up perfectly. Identify the left and right horizontal stabüizers and cement them into place. These parts, which are tabbed, should interlock when correctly positioned. Then glue the fuselage main float sections together, making sure the joints are soUd and there are no gaps. Next assemble the outboard wing sponsons, but don't glue them into place under the wings until after painting is complete. Kingfishers were primarüy used as observation and search-and-rescue aircraft, catapiiltlaunched ftom the aft decks of battleships and heavy cruisers. While researching the paint colors used in the floatplane shown here, I found a U.S. Navy photo of an OS2U about to be recovered by USS Arizona off the Hawaüan Islands in September 1941. The aircraft is shown with light gull gray, FS-36440, on the underside, with the topside painted intermediate blue, FS-35164. The prop should be painted silver, with red, yellow and blue stripes on the tips. To prepare for decaling, spray an overall coat of gloss to provide a smooth surface for the markings. The aircraft in the photo carried prewar dark blue discs, with white stars and red center as national insignias on the top port and underside starboard wing and on either side of the rear fuselage. These can be found on Experts Choice decal sheet #48-44. The Kingfisher's black side codes, 1-0-3, camefi-omYellow Wings decal #48-119. I took the small white lettering for Arizona, displayed under the gunner's compartment, ftom Super Scale decaí #48-994. Assemble the kit's beaching gearfirameand paint it "wood," with black wheels. Once you've finished painting the main aircraft, attach the outboard sponsons. I discarded liie kit's sway braces and fabricated new ones from thin pieces of Evergreen plastic strips, sanded to an airfoü shape. The final step in construction is painting the five-part greenhouse canopy. Though painting the many frames is tedious, you can simplify it by first masking and spraying all the vertical braces. When those are dry, mask and paint the horizontal parts. Dusting a mixture of 50-50 glosscoat and dtJlcoat over your model wiU give your Kingfisher a semi-matt finish and protect the decals. Dick Smith

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COLORFUL OHARAGTERS Beginning a century ago, aviation-minded youngsters found inspiration in aerial By Scott M. Fisher

T

oday's kids can play interactive games online or fire up their Xboxes to experience the thrill offlight.But before the advent of electronic gadgets, youngsters got their aviation thrills from the likes of Rex Lee, Ted Scott and Dave Dawson, just a few of the heroic fictional pilots who peopled the genre now remembered as boys' adventure stories. The best-known early series featured Tom Swift, boy inventor, and was attributed to Victor Appleton (a pseudonym for several writers employed by the Edward Stratemeyer publishing syndicate). Swift, with his father and several regular "chums," engaged in all kinds of adventures, many of them involving flying machines, such as Tom Swift and His Airship, published in 1910. Every Swift series dust jacket offered an inspiring pledge: "It is the purpose of these spirited tales to interest the boy of the present in the hope that he may be a factor in aiding the marvelous develop-

TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP

ment that is coming in the future." While each title was intended to stand on its own, a summary was typically included explaining the characters' background. In this fashion readers were introduced to the series "family" and enticed to seek out previously released adventures. The "Boy Inventors" series, by Richard Bonner, was similar in style to the Tom Swift stories, but used a larger group of heroes and settings. Titles typically highlighted technical innovations—for example. The Boy Inventors' Electric Hydro Aeroplane. These early novels

tended to be less about flying and airplanes and more about lost cities, buried treasure, explorers or espionage. There was no shortage of exclusively aviation-oriented series. Ashton Lamar (who also wrote as H.L. Saylor) published "The Aeroplane Boys" series from the early 1910s. The "Young Aeroplane Scouts" books by Horace Porter featured complex, highly po-

liticized plots. Our Young Aeroplane Scouts in Germany saw Billy Barry (an American) and Henri Trouville (a Franco-Belgian) sharing adventures in Europe, pitted against a German-influenced gang of villains in exciting air combat that involved rifles and pistols as well as Zeppelins. Older readers no doubt detected the symbolism of the American and French/Belgian alliance against a group of militaristic German antagonists. The early series foüowed a common formula. They featured colorful illustrations, both on the dust jacket and the frontispiece, by artists such as Gharles L. Wrenn, S.H. Reisenbergand and J. Glemens Gretter. The narrative usually began with an action scene, introducing the main characters. After summarizing previous exploits, they introduced the story's "straight man," often a nitpicking superior. The good guys inevitably faced conflicts that could only be resolved through expert flying, clever repairs and daring rescues.

T4oRACE "PORTER

VICTOR APPLETON

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ALI IMAGES COURTESY OF SCOTT M. FISHER

N THE COCKPIT

adventure stories

In today's PC era, the dialects the writers Incorporated into their adventures may seem laughable or even offensive—as, for example, when an African American responds to a novel's hero, "Yas suh. Massa." And dialogue often served to further a publisher's cultural or political views, such as when a character asks, "Do you reckon everybody is a goin' to have one o' them things [airplanes] after a while, jes' like automobiles?" After all, the u nderlying point of many of these early novels was that aircraft were not only a path to adventure but would someday be commonplace. Some knowledgeable authors also tried to interest readers in aerodynamics and mechanics, including details about how internal combustion engines worked or how lift could be altered by different wing designs. While most of the fictional characters, as well as the readers, were male, there were a few notable attempts to interest young women in flying. Margaret Burnham wrote a

AIR SERVIΠBOYS

"Girl Aviator" series, and Ruthe S. Wheeler created Jane, Stewardess of the Air, which followed a nursing school graduate as she completed stewardess training, handled in-flight emergencies and crashes, helped capture mail thieves and kidnappers, and eventually became a pilot. World War I brought a spate of war stories. Charles Amory Beach was one of the first to produce a series exclusively about aerial combat, "Air Service Boys." In Air Service Boys in the Big Battle, Tom Raymond and Jack Parmly begin flying for the Lafayette Escadrille, then transfer to an American squadron when the LInited States enters the war. Beach described tactics like spotting for artulery as weU as the early use of wireless communications in aircraft. As the conflict continued, the genre evolved. Now there were more "true accounts" of aerial combat, with two main types of writers: nonpilots who interviewed

returning veterans, and former military fliers, sometimes aided by ghost writers. The 1918 armi.stice ushered in aviation's Golden Age. Despite increasing competition from radio serials and films like Dawn Patrol and Hell's Angels, youngsters during that period purchased record numbers of books or checked them out of libraries. Even in the Great Depression, aviation adventure aooks were avidly traded and reread many times. Van Powell's "Air Mystery-Haunted Hangar" stories and Ambrose Newcomb's "Sky Detective" series enjoyed a wide readership, as did the "Ted Scott Flying Stories," written by Franklin W. Dixon (a pseudonym for Grosset and Dunlap's stable of writers, which also produced the Hardy Boys mysteries). Thomson Burtis' "Rex Lee, (jypsy Flyer" series and Noel Sainsbury Jr.'s "I'lying

THTAEROPIANE BOYS SERIES

IN THE

BIG BATTLE CHARLES AMORY BEACH

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AVIATION HISTORY

51

A"NL>

i'H

HHAßNOLD Ace" or "Büly Smith" adventures were also popiüar. Both authors also contributed to military series, with Burtis drawing on his WWI aviation exploits. Combat stories were now mostly vorritten by men who had seen actual action. WWI vet Eustace L. Adams wrote the "Air Combat Stories for Boys," featuring Jimmy Deal, a U.S. Navy flier. Ivy League graduate and football player. Adams drew from his experience in describing the bitter cold of high altitude and the pain of combat wounds. He described the view from the cockpit in lurid detaü: "The earth below was vomiting flame and the sky au around him was flickering redly with the bursting shrapnel." Thomson Burtis, who penned the "Four Aces" and "Flying Blackbirds" novels, invented characters who conformed to the rugged American individualism ideal. Jerry Lacey, for example, was an insolent warrior nicknamed the "Manhattan Madman," whose Texas-born cohort Rud Riley was proud to be descended from mountain people. They represented the mix of cultures and backgrounds blended together in real-

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life müitary units. And whue these books were written after WWI, they included hints that perhaps the job wasn't quite done in "BILL ^^ BORDER PATROL

V

Europe. Writers of this era weren't shy about referring to Teutonic bad guys as "square heads," "sausage guzzlers" and "krauts." Interestingly, the most factual and wideranging aviation stories of this period were part of the six-volume "Bill Bruce" series, written by U.S. Army Major Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, who was stationed in Kansas during the late 1920s. At the time, he was more or less in exüe, due to his close association with BiUy Mitcheü (court-martialed in 1925 for criticizing the Army over its lack of air-mindedness). Arnold's title character was named after his second son, Wüliam. Bul Bruce witnessed au the great American aviation müestones of the early 20th century, even meeting the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss (in Bill Bruce and the Pioneer Aviators). The series continued with training and combat {Bill Bruce Becomes an Ace). His postwar experiences were reflected in Bill Bruce and the Transcontinental Race and Bill Bruce on Forest Patrol. Arnold himself had arrived at the Western Front too late to see combat, but he managed to convey the excitement of

RED RANDALLS PEARL HARBOR

W BOW A LUCKY TERRELL FLVING STORV being an Air Gorps püot whüe showcasing the effectiveness of military air power and the advantages of air travel. With the outbreak of World War II, new aviation heroes joined the fictional stalwarts of the previous decade. Grosset and Dunlap continued to market the older books, but fresh characters were introduced in the "Thrül-Packed Air Gombat Stories" series. WWI vet Al Avery (aka Rutherford G. Montgomery) wrote the multi-volume "Yankee Flier" series in which "Wild Irishman" BÜ1 O'MaUey fought in every theater of the war— flying everything from Stearman trainers to the latest fighter prototypes. Ganfield Gook's "Lucky Terrell Flying Story" series delved into new technologies such as experimental jets and flying wings. R. Sidney Bowen, büled as the youngest member of WWI's RFG/RAF, developed the 15-volume "Dave Dawson War Adventure" series, seemingly in competition with Avery's Yankee Flier books, which saw Dawson and pal Freddy Farmer engaging enemy püots in similar aircraft and many of the same locations. Bowen also wrote the "Red Randall" series.

with heroes Red Randall and Jimmy Joyce. Books luce these were now marketed as being "As exciting and up-to-the-minute as today's headlines." They were also used to sell war bonds. On the back cover of the Dave Dawson books was a letter from Dave himself: "Fellows! We need your help! We in the Army, Navy, and Marine Gorps wül smash the Japs and Nazis, in the air, on the ground, on the high seas and under the sea if you send us the planes, the guns, and the ships. The government needs money to buy and make this stuff for us and you and your friends can do your part in winning the war by buying war savings bonds and stamps. Buy them yourselves and get other people to buy them and buy them regularly." Zack Mosley's popular "Smüin' Jack" comic strip was expanded into several hardcover novel-length editions during this same period. In Smilin' Jack and the Daredevil Girl Pilot, for example, Mosley's hero—a U.S. Goast Guard reserve flying officer—went undercover to nab a gang of Nazi collaborators in South America. After WWII the popularity of aviation

adventure novels began to wane, as youngsters gravitated toward motion pictures and then TV. The rise of comic books also contributed to the death of the genre. But a full century after aviation adventures first tiegan capturing the Imagination of airplane-crazed kids, it's stül possible to find these novels in used bookstores, flea markets and antique malls. Most cost under $10, and some are highly collectible, especially if the dust jacket is complete and the spine and pages are in good condition. In fact, some collectors now value a book's artwork over the volume's general condition. Not surprisingly, aerial adventure novels reflect the language, culture, technology and politics of their times—in ways that may seem old-fashioned or outlandish today. But they have also intrigued generations of young readers, inspiring many to look to the skies, "t" Scott M. Fisher, who has taught airframe and power plant mechanics, writes from Iowa. He recommends that readers visit their local library toftnd books from the series he cites. Many are also available via amazon.com and eBay.

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An F/A-18C in retro paint scheme flies formation with the only airworthy Curtiss SB2C Helldiver.

Photography by Guy Aceto aving a great time. This place is awesome! You've never seen so many amazing airplanes in one place—more than 10,000, we heard. We arrived to see Fifi, the onlyflyingB-29, parked front and center in the main plaza. Nearby was row after row of Rutan homebuilts and some of his most famous designs, including the Boomerang, Catbird and Starship. This year's AirVenture celebrated the centennial of naval aviation, so there were tons of U.S. Navy planes on hand. They put on a great show on Wednesday, despite a bit of rainy weather (hey, it wouldn't be Oshkosh without some rain!). On Friday morning we arrived on the grounds just as Boeing's new 787 made a low pass over the main runway. Wow! By the time we parked and walked in, it was already on display in the main plaza. Would have liked to see the interior, but the line was insane. That's one

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slick-looking airliner. Friday night we got to hear Chuck Yeager hold court in the Theater in the Woods, then rocked out with Gary Sinise's Lt. Dan Band. We spent Saturday morning in the warbirds area. Must have been more than 20 shiny Mustangs there, plus all the Navy planes—Corsairs, a Bearcat, a TBM Avenger and the only flying Helldiver. While we were there the arrival of a Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bomber caused a ruckus as everyone scattered to make room for it. What a sweet sound that Bristol radial made! The afternoon airshow was great, though it was cut a bit short by the arrival of a squall line. As the wind kicked up, Sean Tucker performed maneuvers in his Oracle Pitts that had us fearing for his life. The spectacular nighttime airshow and fireworks display were the perfect capper to our week. What a great place for aviation fans. Can't wait till next year! "Í"

Ciocitwise from top ieft: Crowds swarm around airplanes in EAA's ConocoPhiiilps Plaza; Ed Sweeney's 1960 Tayior Aerocar makes a rare flight; Brady Cali of Biaine, Minn., hangs onto the prop of Jim Tobul's award-winning Korean War veteran Chance Vought F4U-4 Corsair; a i-lawker Sea Fury Mi«. 11 out of Colorado Springs sports Austraiian markings.

Top: A Northrop Grumnnan E-2C i-lawkeye airborne eariy warning aircraft based in Norfolk, Va., shows off its big iHamilton Sundstrand NP2000 props at night. Left: A Biériot Xi repiica's Rotee radial engine. Above: Boeing's new 787 Dreamiiner makes its public debut. The first major airliner built primariiy from composite materiais, it uses 20 percent iess fuei than a comparabie commercial aircraft.

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From top: Vintage Wings of Canada's Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber, one of oniy two currentiy fiying, created a stir on its arrivai; the Boomerang was among severai Burt Rutan-designed airpianes on dispiay; Jacit Roush's P-51D Mustang Old Crow taxis for taiteoff; the Zeppeiin NT semi-rigid airship fioats on its mooring mast; a pair of Douglas C-47s inciudes a D-Day veteran (foreground) piioted by Eric Zipi
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Clockwise from top: A iineup of Stearman Modei 75 trainers, popularly known as Kaydets; EAA's 1929 Ford 4-AT-E TriMotor offered rides aii week long; the business end of the Commemorative Air Force's Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero; camping with a 1946 Beechcraft Staggerwing from San Antonio, Texas; a gaggie of North American T-28 Trojans on the flight iine.

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REVIEWS BOOKS BOEING: The Complete Story by Alain Pelletier, Quayside Publishing, Minneapolis, Minn., 2010, $44.95. Boeing is the largest aerospace company in the United States and one of the key players in the aerospace industry throughout the world. Renovined worldwide for its highly successful line of commercial airliners, as weU as for its müitary transports and strategic bombers, Boeing is also engaged in many other aspects of aerospace development, including rotary-wing aircraft, fighters, guided missües, unmanned aerial vehicles and spacecraft. In addition, Boeing founded and operated its own airline, the descendant of which still exists today as United Airlines. Originally in the lumber business, Boeing entered the airplane industry in 1916 and has been responsible for numerous aviation landmarks throughout of the 20th century. In 1933 it introduced the first truly modern airliner, the Model 247. Two years later Boeing unveued the B-17 Flying Fortress, the four-engine bomber that became a mainstay of the U.S. Army Air Forces throughout World War II. In 1938 it created the Model 307 Stratoliner, the first airliner to have a pressurized passenger compartment. Its B-29 Superfortress was the first bomber to drop a nuclear weapon, and after the war Boeing developed a successful airliner ftom the B-29's airftame: the Model 377 Stratocruiser. During the 1950s the introduction of Boeing's B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress bombers, as well as the KC-135 aerial refueling tanker, provided a quantum leap in the capabüities of the U.S. Air Force's new Strategic Air Command. On the civü side, its 707 jet airliner, which was flown for the first time in 1954, became the symbol of the so-called jet set, marking the end of the propeller-driven airliner era. In the 1960s the 707 was succeeded by Boeing's equally

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successftü 727, 737 and giant 747 "jumbo jet" airliners. French aviation historian Alain Pelletier and the Quayside Publishing Group have done justice to the company's legacy in Boeing: The Complete Story. Magnificently produced, it describes in great detaü how an obscure company ftom the Pacific Northwest came to globally dominate the aerospace industry. Included is a history of its foray into the airline business, as well as its associations with Pratt & Whitney, Hamüton Standard Propellers, Stearman, Vought, Sikorsky, Vertol, North American RockweU and McDonnell Douglas. Boeing's famous aircraft are covered, as well as many of its lesser-known and stülborn projects. Complete specifications are given for all of Boeing's aircraft, as well as for those developed by subsidiary companies and aircraft designs acquired through corporate mergers. The hefty volume includes hundreds of spectacular photographs, many rarely seen before. It will undoubtedly become a standard reference for those with an interest in Boeing and the history of the American aerospace industry. Robert Guttman THE FLIGHT OF THE CENTURY: Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of American Aviation

by Thomas Kessner, Oxford University Press, 2010, $27.95. It's difficult to imagine how anything new could be written about Charles Lindbergh. But Thomas Kessner has examined his subject more deeply than any other biographer, crafting a portrait of a very complex human being, a loner who became a famüy man, a celebrity who was unable to cope with his fame in the aftermath of completing an aviation "mission impossible." Kessner weaves a fascinating tale, chronicling Lindy's many accomplishments but also revealing someone who clearly never appreciated the full extent of his notoriety. Lindbergh was apparently uninterested in wealth and constantly strained to keep the world at arm's length. Here is an aviator vnth

uncommon potential who deservedly became a national hero, yet he remained aloof from the public, committed to following his own course, no matter what the consequences were for his famüy and his associates. In fact, Kessner shows us a character who seemed to lack compassion for those around him, who always dominated his wife, Anne, and their children. Kessner also reveals that Lindbergh had serious relationships viith several German women, which "produced at least three Lindbergh famüies and seven chüdren." Hero worship aside, Charles Lindbergh remains an iconic figure, an enigmatic individual whose influence on America's aviation industry is undeniable. Ressner's exhaustive analysis gives us a more penetrating view of Lindy the man than we have ever seen before. CV.Glines MY NEW GUINEA DIARY by Staff Sergeant Pilot Ernest C. Ford, White Stag Press, Roseville, CaUf., 2010, $19.95. This book is remarkable for a number of reasons. It is filled with detail—almost daily diary entries relating the wartime experiences of "Ernie" Ford. These are of particular interest because of the dearth of material on noncommissioned officer pilots. It also fills a gap in that it chronicles the adventures of transport puots in combat. Ford, who flew 385 combat missions in two wars, was awarded no fewer than six Distinguished Flying Crosses. In a larger sense. My New Guinea Diary is significant because it highlights the value and quality provided by self-publishing presses such as White Stag, which target niche markets. I believe that such companies now constitute a worthwhüe countermeasure to the trend toward fewer publishers and electronic publications. Ford begins with the story of one of his early missions with the 6th Troop Carrier Squadron—at a time when a P-39 fighter püot's life expectancy was greater than that of a C-47 transport puot. On October 13,

1942, he and 12 other G-47 pilotsflewa 41/2hour mission from Brisbane to TownsvUle, Australia. Once there, they were told to take on a full fuel load for an over-water flight at low level. They were to carry 29 mechanics with their tools, and no crew member was to wear either a parachute or a Mae West vest, as there were none for the passengers. After landing on a pierced-steel plank strip. Ford found himself in an unfamiliar place. Port Moresby, New Guinea. From then on, he faced danger on a daily basis, from the enemy as well as the miserable climate and squalid living conditions. Stationed close to the front lines. Ford and his squadron mates flew resupply missions with no maps, no fighter cover and no means of self-defense. His sterling service was recognized with a battlefield commission in August 1943. Ernie Ford's book gives you a good idea of what it was like to be in the left seat of a G-47 during combat. It's well worth reading. Walter J. Boyne THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN, An Illustrated History: 1939-1949

by Joseph Caver, Jerome Ennels and Daniel Haubnan, New South Books, Montgomery, Ala., 2011, $27.95. When I initially leafed through this picture book, a reproduction of a 1942 letter to the War Department by a graduate of the Civilian Puot Training Program caught my eye. The writer had been directed to report to Maxwell Field, near Montgomery, Ala., to begin training in the Army Air Corps, but was denied entry because "Negroes were not trained there." His letter ended with an impassioned plea "to correct this injustice." A quarter of a century later, the man who wrote that letter provided my flight instruction through my first solo. How fitting that someone who struggled to unlock access to the sky went on to devote much of his life to helping others achieve the dream of flight. The Tuskegee Airmen broke the color barrier during World War II by becoming the U.S. military's first black pilots. Their

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story is powerfiilly told in this illustrated history, which incorporates fascinating archival images and historical documents. Beginning with coverage of prewar aviation pioneers, it concludes with the battle-tested black service members who effectively integrated the Air Force in July 1949. Some of the approximately 270 images reproduced in the book reflect the graininess of the original photos. On the whole, however, the breadth of coverage, as well as the rarity of some ofthe images, make for an excellent visual record of the fliers and their ground support crews. An added bonus is a 50-page textual chronology that highlights important events in the history of these remarkable patriots. Philip Handleman MIRAGE III VS MIG-21: Six Day War 1967 by

Shlomo Aloni, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, England, 2010, $17.95. Developed more or less in parallel, the Sovietbuilt Mikoyan-Curevich MÍG-21F and the French-produced Dassault Mirage IIICJ (called Shahak, or "Sky Blazer," by its Israeli pilots) were arguably as closely comparable in performance as Mach 2 interceptors ever got when they clashed during the Six Day War of June 1967. The deciding factor lay in the intensity and consistency of their pilots' training, something at which Israel excelled. Nevertheless, as Israeli historian Shlomo Aloni reveals in his new addition to Osprey's "Duel" series, the vaunted Israeli pilots had to learn to deal with challenges such as faulty guided missiles, gunsight issues and delayed-detonation cannon shells designed for bomber interception that punched right through the MiGs to explode beyond. Readjusted to detonate on impact, the 30mm rounds accounted for all but one of the 23 MÍG-21S claimed by the Shahak pilots between July 14,1966, and June 10,1967. Besides drawing extensively from the memories of Israeli jet jockeys, Aloni makes the most of Egyptian accounts to represent the Arab side (Syrian and Iraqi sources remain less accessible). His personal profiles focus on the careers of Yoram Agmom, whose Syrian victim on July 14, 1966, was

the first MiG-21 credited to a Mirage, and Egyptian Nabil Shoukry, who after surviving Israel's devastating preemptive airstrike scored the first MiG-21 victory over a S/ia/iflA: on June 5,1967. Aside from some statistical analysis where the clarity suffers from excessive hair-splitting. Mirage HI vs MiG-21 is an effective evaluation of two classically matched adversaries. For anyone interested in supersonic jet warfare, it makes an interesting companion volume to earlier "Duels," such as Peter Davies' 2008 F-4 Phantom ¡I vs MiG-21: USAF & VPAF in the Vietnam War.

Jon Guttman Mustang Aces of the 357th Fighter Group

MUSTANG ACES OF THE 357TH FIGHTER GROUP by Chris

Bucholtz, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, England, 2010, $22.95. Word has it that Osprey is ceasing its "Elite Aviation Units" series, but there may be a way around that—if the unit produced enough outstanding fighter puots to rate inclusion in the original "Aircraft of the Aces" series. Chris Bucholtz has done just that in Osprey's Mustang Aces of the 357th Fighter Group. The first group in the Eighth Air Force to be fully equipped with the North American P-51B, the 357th went on to produce the most aces in the Eighth—42—and was credited with the most aerial victories in a single mission, 56. With that sort of history, even though many of its planes were profiled in the inaugural book in the series. Mustang Aces of the Eighth Air Force, the 357th had plenty of new color schemes to spare for the 36 profiles in this more specific treatment. Also available in abundance are firsthand accounts from the distinguished outfit's pilots, including familiar names such as Leonard "Kit" Garson, John B. England, Glarence E. "Bud" Anderson, Richard Peterson, Robert W. Foy, Donald H. Bochkay, John A. Kirla and Ghuck Yeager. A greater number of contributors to the 357th's record get their due here, as do a colorful array of Mustangs decked out in the group's red-and-yellow checked noses. Jon Guttman

By Bernard Dy

AIRWARE

CLASSICS THE RED KNIGHT OF GERMANY: The Story of Baron von Richthofen by Floyd Gibbons Two dollars doesn't seem like much today, but it was a whole lot of dough in 1947, when I plunked it down at Amatin's bookshop in St. Louis for a well-worn copy of The Red Knight of Germany. It was the first book I'd ever purchased, the start of what became a 7,000-volume library. And it was worth every penny. In those days there were no giants in the field such as Peter Kilduff or Norman Franks, scholars who pore over the daily returns of the squadrons, cross-check archives and present almost every conceivable fact about Manfred von Richthofen's life. The Red Knight was a flamboyant adventure story written by Floyd P. Gibbons, a foreign correspondent who lost an eye on the Western Front while trying to rescue an American soldier. Far better than most period accounts. Gibbons' book established the image of von Richthofen as revealed through the baron's hastily written autobiography, interviews, correspondence and selected reports. Gibbons worked in an evenhanded style, not so much glorifying von Richthofen, as German accounts did, but presenting him as a dedicated warrior burdened with foibles that made him seem all the more human. Later writers and filmmakers have drawn heavily on Gibbons' colorful portrait of the Red Baron. As a result of Gibbons' portrayal, the Fokker triplane and von Richthofen himself have become part of popular culture. You can be sure Charles Schultz read The Red Knight of Germany as a background to Snoopy's tour as a Sopwith Camel pilot. Gibbons subscribed to the then-sacred truth of Roy Brown's victory over the Red Baron, of course, and often embellished his narrative with some imaginary color. But for the most part his words ring true, and it is evident he tried to be scrupulously fair. No matter how well informed you are about the Red Baron, I urge you to read Gibbons' work to get the flavor of the times, and a sympathetic—almost aftectionate— story of a fallen enemy. Walter J. Boyne

Black Ops and Medal of Honor A pair of hit games jump into the modern era Two popular action series in computer gaming. Medal of Honor fi-om Electronic Arts and Call of Duty from Activision, debuted in WWII settings, treading a line between historical and fictional events. They've long been popular with gamers, but when Call 0/Duty jumped into the present with the Modern Warfare brand, it proved to be a huge success. Electronic Arts recently followed suit, advancing Medal of Honor to follow Special Forces teams in present-day Afghanistan. Both games included aviation elements in their WWII versions, and both chronicle aviation's evolving role in warfare.

Medal of Honor

($30, requires Microsoft Windows XPA'ista /7, Intel Pentium D 3Ghz processor or faster, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB 3-D video card, ea.com/medal-of-honor) getting a new developer and new game engine. Like Black Ops, the game fabricates some interesting circumstances and amazing timing for the sake of drama, but all the aviation assets are used in reasonable fashion. The storyline features teams of U.S. Navy SEALs and Army Rangers as advance forces for an operation. Oddly enough, despite verbal references to the 160th Special Operations Black Ops ($60, requires Microsoft Win- Aviation Regiment, players don't work with dows XP/Vista/7, Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 the popular Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks, processor or comparable, 2 GB RAM, 12 GB but there are several Boeing-Vertol MH-47 hard drive space, 256 MB 3-D video card, Chinooks in play for transportation and callofduty.com/blackops) is the latest itera- some harrowing crash scenes. tion of Modern Warfare. The game's singleSeveral incidents show the modern relaplayer campaign follows an operative in- tionship between aircraft and infantry. The volved In secret missions through several player as a foot soldier uses laser designators historical hot spots, such as the Bay of Pigs to mark targets for strike aircraft, such as the and Vietnam. Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II Aviation is a major factor in the game. and the McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle, to One early mission has players ride aboard a great effect. This isn't innovative; gamers did Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Sorties in Viet- the same thing in Modern Warfare. Still, nam feature both Bell UH-1 Iroquois gun- Medal of Honoré developers get a little credit ships and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom for not quite copying Modern Warfare's II jets in dose air support. Players can even C-130 gunship missions. The mighty Hercommandeer a Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter. cules is there, but instead of manning its Although these action scenarios tend to weapons from above, players get to sec its seem far-fetched, the aircraft and their roles power fiom the infantryman's eyes. are generally historically appropriate. The Both of these games are visually impresHind, for example, is an early "A" model, sive excursions for aviation lovers, although with angled cockpit windows instead of the historians with a sense of humor will probbubble canopies so often seen as the trade- ably find Black Ops' trip through time a little mark of the feared gunship. more interesting to play. And both are short The Electronic Arts entry into this arena games that gain some extra life through the is a reboot of sorts, with Medal of Honor multiplayer modes, "t"

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