were delegated to the destruction of targets closer to the battlefronts.
In time, the use of the two-engine bomber led to the development of attack aviation. This was built around very fast, two-engined planes which could carry both bombs and guns. These medium bombers were to be used to attack targets of medium range with both bombs and guns. They were to be used to destroy enemy troops, transports, and gun emplacements. In the few years of World War II, attack bombers were developed from comparatively slow planes to ships with the speed of fighters. They are capable of carrying more than a ton of bombs, and of mounting cannon and as many as fifteen machine guns.
With the establishment of a definite policy of air strategy, plans were worked out for the training of personnel to man and service our fighting planes. The training plans set up in the early twenties are essentially the same as those in effect at the present. The system consisted of two training schools, Primary and Advanced. In the Primary School cadets received their preliminary flight training and studied construction of planes, radio, weather observation, and other technical problems concerning flight. The qualities shown by the cadets in the primary training helped to determine the branch of combat aviation for which they were best fitted.
At the Advanced School, cadets were trained in larger and more powerful airplanes and received instruction in gunnery, formation flying, cross-country flying, and night flying. Graduates of the Advanced School received their wings and, by joining tactical units, completed their training as members of regular service squadrons. In 1928 all Army air training activities were consolidated at one great training center at San Antonio, Texas. This great headquarters for the training of United States Army airmen was dedicated in June, 1930, as Randolph Field, in memory of Captain William M. Randolph. Captain Randolph, a native of Texas, had lost his life in an airplane crash a few years before. It was fitting that the first great Army aviation training program was under the direction of Brigadier General Frank P. Lahm, the Army’s pioneer aviator.
In the Pacific American fighters dropped down from 25,000 feet, screamed across an enemy airfield, guns blasting, and indicators showing a speed of over eight miles a minute. If the Japanese had not been “dug in,” they probably would have been sucked into the planes’ airscoops. Later one of the pilots expressed the sentiments of the entire raiding group when he said, “It’s a wonderful feeling to watch that air speed indicator climb. It makes you feel that nothing on this earth can catch you.”
That pilot was talking about the North American P-51Mustang. He was not exaggerating when he made his remark, for there has been no fighter in action that could equal its speed. In theMustangwe see streamlining at its best. Its in-line, liquid-cooled engine offers only a very small frontal area and allows theMustangto have the narrow fuselage of the fastest racing plane. This narrow fuselage and the high-speed wing practically eliminate all drag that reduces speed. The landing gear retracts completely into the fuselage and also eliminates drag. Even the airscoop is placed far back under the fuselage where it offers practically no resistance. The reduction of drag to a minimum eliminates vibration to such an extent that the pilot of aMustangflies at terrific speeds with no ill effects.
TheMustangwas designed and built as the result of a careful study of modern fighter tactics. It grew out of the need for high-speed, high-altitude fighters to serve as escorts for our heavy bombers. As our bomber attacks against Germany grew in strength, the Nazis in desperation threw in hundreds of their fighters to hinder us. TheMustang, with its tremendous speed and ability to fight at high altitudes, proved a sensation as an escort fighter. TwoMustanggroups alone have accounted for the destruction of almost two thousand Nazi fighters. With a speed of over 425 miles per hour and capable of great range,Mustangsspelled doom to Nazi air power.
The Republic P-4-7Thunderboltwas planned in 1940 as the result of the Air Corps’ desire to strengthen our fighter squadrons. A study of the Nazis’ use of crushing air power in their attacks on Western Europe hastened our plans to build heavier and more powerful fighters.
At one of the Air Corps meetings with aircraft manufacturers at Wright Field in 1940, Alexander Kartveli sketched on the back of an envelope an idea for a super-fighter. Eight months later his idea had grown into the fastest and most powerful fighter ever built in this country.
Alexander Kartveli was chief engineer for Republic Aviation Corporation. His sketches were developed by his firm to produce the six-and-one-half-ton, 400-mile-an-hour P-47 fighter. The P-47 was the answer to the Army’s demands for a big, powerfully armed fighter which could out-fly and out-fight any warplane put into the skies by an enemy. More than 10,000Thunderboltshave been built since 1940 and they have taken a terrific toll of Axis planes, both in Europe and in the Pacific. Pilots of one group ofThunderboltsthat operated in the Pacific shot down Jap planes at the rate of 52 to 1.
The Republic P-47Thunderboltproved to be one of the most versatile airplanes developed in this war. It performs equally well at high or low altitudes. Armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, it is a hard-hitting escort fighter which can out-fight any plane sent up to hinder our big bombers. When used for ground strafing it has no superior. With two 1000-pound bombs tucked under its wings it becomes a deadly dive-bomber. Armed with rocket tubes and its eight big machine guns blazing, it can blast enemy tanks, transport, and gun emplacements effectively.
The first giantFlying Fortresshad hardly taken off from the Boeing factory at Seattle, in 1935, before its engineers began to think about bigger and faster super-bombers. As the newFortressesshattered records for speed, pay load, distance, and altitude, farsighted Air Corps leaders also began to think about more powerful super-bombers.
By 1937 the brains and labor of Boeing engineers and production men created the first of the super-bombers. It was the giant Boeing XB-15 and it actually dwarfed theFlying Fortress. With a gross weight of 35 tons, 13 tons more than theFortress, the XB-15 was 20 feet longer, 3 feet higher, and had a wingspan 45 feet greater. Its general appearance, however, was patterned after theFortress. Only one XB-15 was built. It was used for experimental purposes by the Air Corps, and the Boeing Company went ahead to build the high-altitudeStratolinerand the bigClipperplanes for civilian use.
Thus it was that even before the Nazis swept into Poland in 1939 the Air Corps had been thinking of an airplane that would dwarf theFlying Fortress. Size alone was not enough. General Arnold and his associates wanted an airplane which would carry a heavier bomb load farther, faster, and higher than ever before.
Few people aside from the Army knew of the XB-15, and the development of the super-bomber was one of the best kept secrets in history. One of the greatest surprises of the war was the War Department’s announcement on June 15, 1944: “B-29Superfortressesof the United States Army Air Forces’ 20th Bomber Command bombed Japan.”
Just one year after the announcement of the firstSuperfortressattack on Japan, five hundred of these giant ships took part in a single raid against targets on the Japanese mainland. In groups of four and five hundred they blasted Japan almost daily.Superfortressesbombed Japan to her knees in the spring and summer of 1945. Then in August of that year a loneSuperfortressdropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima for the knockout blow that brought us victory.
Half again as large as theFlying Fortress, theSuperfortresscarries twice the load of theFortress. It has a wingspan of 141 feet and its highly streamlined fuselage is 98 feet long. Powered with the largest engines yet in service, it has a speed far in excess of 300 miles per hour. The pressurized cabin of the B-29 permits its crew to fly without the use of heated suits or oxygen masks at substratosphere altitudes. In military terms this means better physical condition, more skilful gunnery, more accurate bombing, and more comfort for the crews. In theSuperfortresswe see great ideas, born years ago in the minds of our airmen, come into being with overwhelming and disastrous effects on our enemies throughout the Pacific.
Just as the United States was approaching the brink of war, the Navy air arm owned only about a thousand airplanes of all types. The young Navy airmen who had perfected dive-bombing had seen their invention adopted by the Nazis and used with deadly effect in their march across Western Europe. In the year before Pearl Harbor the Navy had acquired only a few hundred new airplanes. We did have, however, a group of young men who had been living and breathing aviation for the past fifteen years. They knew what was needed in the way of new fighting planes and they knew how to train thousands of new naval aviators when the time came. But it took the tremendous sweeps of the Nazis in Europe and the shadow of Japan across the Pacific to unloose the flood of fighting planes which was to give the United States Navy the greatest aërial fighting force ever launched.
At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor we had seven carriers, including our first big ones, theLexingtonand theSaratoga. The Grumman F4FWildcatwas our standard carrier-based fighter. We had a small number of TBDDevastatortorpedo planes and SDBDauntlessdive-bombers. Our battleships and cruisers were equipped with Vought OS2UKingfisherand Curtis SO3CSeagullobservation scout planes launched from the ships’ catapults. The Navy was fairly well equipped with PBYCatalinalong-range patrol bombers. But in the engineering offices of aircraft manufacturers, new and more powerful fighters, bombers, and patrol planes were being planned.
When Japan struck we had eleven aircraft carriers under construction, and two thousand new planes went into service for the Navy. Greattraining stations were being put into service to increase the Navy’s flying personnel to over 15,000 men.
A new patrol bomber, the long-range Martin PBM-1Mariner, went into service for the Navy in 1941. It had a wingspan of 118 feet and a length of 77 feet 2 inches. It was powerfully armed and carried a heavy load of bombs. It was capable of long range and was able to carry out extensive over-ocean patrols without returning to its base. Ample living accommodations were provided for its eleven-man crew. In addition to its duties as an anti-submarine patrol and long-range bomber, theMarinerwas used as a Navy transport.
The Vought F4U-1Corsairfighters began to go into service in the Pacific soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. TheCorsairwas a single-place fighter of unusual design. Its wing had the shape of an inverted gull wing. This design allowed clearance for theCorsair’s13-foot, 4-inch propeller. A straight wing would have needed a dangerously high landing gear to provide clearance for such a large propeller. Originally designed for carrier use, the 2,000-horsepower, 400-mile-an-hourCorsairwas adopted for land-based operations by the United States Marine Corps. Marine Corps aviators used theCorsairwith deadly effect against the Japs from Guadalcanal on. Navy pilots flew theCorsairas a night-fighter to put a stop to the Jap’s habit of bombing our Pacific airfields at night.
The Navy’s newest torpedo plane, the Grumman TBFAvenger, first appeared in the battle off Midway. The bigAvengerhad a speed of 270 miles per hour, a range of 1,400 miles, and carried a 2,000-pound bomb load or a full-sized torpedo concealed in its fuselage. The famous Torpedo Squadron 8, in fourteen weeks sank as many Jap warships including two aircraft carriers and one battleship; bombed one heavy cruiser, one light cruiser, and a number of smaller ships.
Avengershelped to pave the way for the establishment of bases in the Pacific.Corsairs, used as the Navy’s first night-fighters, broke up Japanese night bombings of the newly won island bases and allowed our hard-worked men to rest at night.
In the months following Pearl Harbor the tough little Grumman F4FWildcatwas ever in the thick of the fight in the Pacific. Based on the few carriers available for use against the Japs, theWildcatsoutfought overwhelming numbers of enemy warplanes. Over the Marshall Islands in February, 1942,Wildcatfighters bagged ten Jap fighters and three bombers without any American losses. At Wake Island, a loneWildcat, manned by a Marine, bombed a Jap cruiser to the bottom. Lieutenant Commander Edward (“Butch”) O’Hare was flying aWildcatwhen he brought down six Jap bombers singlehanded in a few minutes. Such incidents were typical ofWildcataction in the first year of the war.
When President Roosevelt presented the Congressional Medal of Honor to “Butch” O’Hare, he asked him what kind of fighter was needed to beat the Japs. O’Hare replied, “Something that will go upstairs faster.” Commander John Thatch, master Navy combat technician, had told Grumman officials the same thing, and had added a request for more speed in general. Not many months later, the roar of a 2,000-horsepower echoed over Long Island, New York, and a new Grumman fighter began to “go upstairs faster.”
The new fighter that answered the Navy pilots’ demand for more speed and more power was the Grumman F6FHellcat. Much larger than its baby brother theWildcat, theHellcatwas powered with an eighteen-cylinder Pratt & Whitney radial engine. The big radial developed over 2,000 horsepower and put theHellcatin the 400-mile-an-hour class. It proved to be one of the most maneuverable fighters in the world and could climb like a skyrocket. The cockpit housed atop the big fuselage at its highest point gave pilots excellent visibility to train theHellcat’ssix .50-caliber guns on the enemy.
TheHellcathas plenty of protective armor for its pilot. It has rubber gasoline tanks encased in canvas hammocks giving them great flexibility in resisting the penetration of bullets and shell fragments. TheHellcathandles beautifully at all altitudes. At high altitudes it could more than outfight any plane that the Japs sent up. It is also a deadly weapon when used in low-altitude strafing attacks against airfields and shipping. TheHellcathas now replaced theWildcatas the standard fighter based on our aircraft carriers. Much of our success in driving the Japs out of the air over the Pacific is due to theHellcat. These powerful fighters, based on the carriers of Admiral Halsey’s famous Task Force 58, carried their devastating attacks to the Japs’ homeland.
Although dive-bombing was originated by Navy airmen it was a number of years before an airplane was built that was rugged enough to stand up under the shock of repeated dives. The first airplane built specifically for dive-bombing was a Curtiss F8CHelldiver, built in 1929. This original dive-bomber was a biplane. The series continued until 1935 when Curtiss introduced the SBC type of dive-bomber. This was also a biplane with wire bracing. The streamlining in the SBC was much improved and it was equipped with a retractable landing gear. The SBC was also called theHelldiver. While the SBC series marked advance in dive-bomber performance, the biplane wings and wire bracing created a drag which held down its diving speed. In 1939 the Curtiss Company began to work on a new dive-bomber design.
In the meantime Douglas had brought out the all-metal, low-wing SBDDauntlessdive-bomber. This was a fast, clean airplane equipped with flaps for diving. The flaps, attached to the trailing edge of the wing, could be dropped down to act as brakes. The flaps created a resistance which cut the speed of the plane at the will of the pilot. Powered with a 1,000-horsepower radial engine, the SBD had a speed of about 200 miles per hour. It carried a 1,000-pound bomb under its fuselage which, when released by the pilot, was swung clear of the plane by a yokelike gear. The SBD usually started its dive at an altitude of 10,000 feet. From that height the plane could pick up a speed of from 450 to 500 miles per hour. The best speed for dive-bombing is about 275 miles per hour, and the flaps on the SBD enabled the pilot to control his speed as he dived on his target.
At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the SBD was the standard dive-bomber based on our carriers. From the very start it was a star performer in our war in the Pacific. In the first years of the struggle SBD’s destroyed more enemy planes, ships, and property than did all our other air and surface weapons combined. SBD’s were in the forefront in our war in the Pacific. But a giant new dive-bomber suddenly appeared over Rabaul, New Guinea, in the fall of 1944, the deadliest bomber which had yet dived on the Japs. AnotherHelldiverwas in action.
This big dive-bomber was the one begun by Curtiss in 1939. Few planes in history had been so long in the development stage, but when the SB2CHelldiverdid appear it was the biggest and fastest dive-bomber to go into service with the United States Navy. Powered with a 1,700-horsepower, 14-cylinder, Wright Cyclone radial engine, its top speed is in excess of 300 miles per hour. Carrying more than a ton of bombs, it has a range of over 1,200 miles. It is armed with either .50-caliber machine guns or 20-millimeter cannon. It is also equipped to carry rockets under its wings.
From Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, and Midway to Tokyo Bay Our Gallant Navy Men, Carriers, and Planes Led the Way to Victory and Have Added Many Heroic Chapters to the Glorious History of the United States Navy.
From Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, and Midway to Tokyo Bay Our Gallant Navy Men, Carriers, and Planes Led the Way to Victory and Have Added Many Heroic Chapters to the Glorious History of the United States Navy.
When the Japs struck at Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning December 7, 1941, United States naval aviation had just passed its thirtieth birthday. At no time in its history had the U. S. Navy been confronted with a greater task. Many of our great warships lay in the mud at Pearl Harbor. Many of our Navy planes had been destroyed, and Japan controlled the greater part of the western Pacific.
Though the future looked black, our Navy possessed one great asset, invisible to most of us. It was that small group of Navy airmen who had lived and breathed flying since our first carriers were launched. So thorough had been the schooling and the thinking of our pioneer flat-top men that, when war did come, they were ready. These naval aviators who had created and tested every form of air tactics were ready to put them into action. They also were able to pass on their lessons to the large group of young men who were to man the thousands of warplanes being built for the Navy.
As the new planes were rolling off the production lines and the new naval aviators were in training, the old-timers went to work on the Japs in the Pacific. That they did their job well is testified by the fact that the Japs did not get back to Pearl Harbor or attack our west coast. With only a few carriers to cover the vast Pacific area, and a pitifully small number of airplanes, our naval aviators carried the fight all the way down to the Solomons. They helped take and hold Guadalcanal. They stopped the great Japanese fleet at Midway and drove them out of the Aleutians. Navy flat-tops took “Jimmy” Doolittle and his Tokyo raiders almost to Japan’s front door. Wherever our naval aviators met the enemy they knocked him out of the air at the rate of five to one.
In spite of our favorable ratio of victories over the Japs in the air, they still outnumbered us ten to one in the Pacific. During 1942 many new Navy airplanes were delivered. Thousands of young naval aviators were trained at our naval air stations. A great naval air transport service was created to fly men and materials to distant Pacific islands. With only one carrier, theEnterprise, left in the Pacific, a great new carrier fleet was rushed into service.
By the Fall of 1943 a tremendous change was wrought in the Pacific. In September the first three new carriers, theEssex, theYorktown, and theIndependence, were battle-tested in the raid on Marcus Island.AvengersandHellcatsbegan to appear in great numbers to take the place ofWildcatson the decks of our big carriers. Raid followed raid. The Gilbert Island chain, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Truk, Palau, Saipan, and other islands fell before the blows of our new carrier-based air power.
More big new carriers continued to appear in the Pacific and a new type of sea power came into being, the carrier task force. Here we saw air power based on a great fleet of large and small carriers forming the spearhead of a naval offensive. The flat-top had truly become the “Queen of the Fleet.”
Now we see come into being the ideas born in the minds of a group of pioneer naval aviators twenty years ago. The airplane has not only gone to sea with the fleet but, as the striking power of the Navy, it is leading the fleet to victory.
It was the work of the fighting planes based on Admiral Marc A. Mitscher’s carrier Task Force 58 that hammered a path to the very front door of Japan.
Since Pearl Harbor, naval aviators have shot down over ten thousand Japanese aircraft with the loss of less than two thousand of our own planes. This gives our Navy pilots a score of better than five to one. These figures include the dark days of the first year of war when our Navy boys were outnumbered ten to one.
From a force of a few carriers and a handful of moderately fast warplanes, naval aviation grew, in three years, to the world’s greatest sea-borne air force. The speed of our fighters increased by more than a hundred miles an hour. Our dive-bombers and torpedo planes, the world’s finest, tripled their bomb and torpedo loads. Our big patrol bombers and transports fly the Pacific unarmed.
Jack Towers, who in 1911 was one of the Navy’s first three aviators, is now Vice Admiral Towers, Air Chief of the Pacific. John Pride, one of the first aviators to fly from the deck of theLangley, is now a rear admiral with our Pacific aërial task forces. Pioneers of naval aviation such as Admirals Ballentine, Sherman, Clark, Radford, and others are all in the Pacific. These men, none of them much over fifty years old, are practical flying officers. Many of the other men, who for the past twenty years or more have devoted themselves to the development of naval aviation, are also rear admirals. That is fitting, for it was they who kept naval aviation alive in the days of peace.
From a Mere Handful of Men and Machines in 1940 the U. S. Army Air Forces Grew Into the Greatest Aërial Task Force That the World Has Ever Known. That Air Force Shortened the War by Years and Helped to Bring Us Total Victory in 1945.
From a Mere Handful of Men and Machines in 1940 the U. S. Army Air Forces Grew Into the Greatest Aërial Task Force That the World Has Ever Known. That Air Force Shortened the War by Years and Helped to Bring Us Total Victory in 1945.
As in World War I, we have seen Army aviation reach the brink of war without being fully prepared. Again we have seen our military leaders and aircraft builders roll up their sleeves and go to work. However, we have never seen anything to equal the development of our Army Air Forces.
From a force which numbered hardly more than 100,000 men and a handful of airplanes at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Army Air Forces have grown to be the world’s greatest aërial striking power. On December 7, 1941, Army aviation had 3,000 combat planes, only 1,157 of which were actually fit for first-line duty. In all United States territory we had only 159 four-engined bombers. The Curtiss P-40 was our only fighter in production in any quantity.
Less than three years after Pearl Harbor the Army Air Forces could send out 1,000 four-engined bombers on a single raid. Eight or nine hundred fighters could accompany them as escorts. More than 200,000 warplanes have been built in this country since Pearl Harbor, and the Air Forces can boast of thousands of planes instead of hundreds of them. Army Air Forces’ bases are in operation over the entire globe.
Complete airfields have been carved out of jungle and Arctic wastes. These airfields are equipped to keep our warplanes in perfect repair without the loss of time from combat duty. To build and equip these fields, millions of tons of materials have been transported thousands of miles. More than two million men have been trained to fly our planes and to keep them flying. Our great training system took thousands of green young men from civilian life and trained them in the several hundred skills necessary to keep our planes in safe fighting trim. Air Forces men work in every sort of climate, from the frozen north to the steaming jungles of the South Pacific. The Air Forces experts at Wright Field developed clothing, materials, and equipment to keep our planes in flying and fighting condition regardless of climate or weather. The training, equipping, and development of personnel and matériel for the giant United States Army Air Forces is truly a modern miracle.
Between the years 1943-1945 we saw our air strategy, planned years ago, put into deadly effect under the leadership of the men who originated it. Only General “Billy” Mitchell failed to live to see his ideas at work in defeating the Nazis and the Japs. The United States Army Air Forces today represents American air power, just as he prophesied many years ago.
The very best proof of the splendid development of Army aviation is the box score built up by World War II aviators against our enemies. From December 7, 1941, to January 1, 1945, they destroyed 29,316 enemy aircraft and dropped 1,220,000 tons of bombs on enemy territory. Ourlosses in this period were but 13,491 planes. This, it should be remembered, was against enemies who had been preparing for years with the purpose of defeating us.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the commercial airlines of the United States were operating 341 transport planes. Almost at once the Army and Navy began to take over transport planes from the airlines for war service. The Army organized the Air Transport Command. This new branch of the Air Forces, under the command of Major General Harold L. George, a former Air Plans officer, started in the Spring of 1942 in a one-room office with a personnel of three men. Since that time the Air Transport Command has grown to be the world’s largest airline. In addition to operating Army transport planes, the Air Transport Command contracted with the country’s major airlines to fly Army men and materials. Thus many of the transport planes which in peacetime flew over our countryside went into war service and began to fly over distant lands. All the major airlines contributed planes and crews to the vital needs of war. DC-3’s, which a few weeks before had been flying between our big cities, began to fly over oceans and mountain ranges in every quarter of the globe. At the start most of the planes used for Air Transport Command cargo were Douglas DC-3’s and DC-2’s and a few BoeingStratoliners. The new Douglas DC-4’s being built for the airlines when war began went right off the production lines into service for the Army or Navy. The Navy also developed their own air transport service and operated in a manner similar to the ATC. This group was known as the Naval Air Transport Service or NATS. The Army Air Transport Command operated its own weather stations, radio ranges, and airfields in the same manner as the commercial lines did in peacetime. Planes flew vital war cargo and personnel on systematic airline procedure. Millions of miles were flown daily by planes rushing tons of men and materials to the far-flung battlefronts of the world. Practically every bit of matériel taken into China during the first three years of war was flown in over some of the worst flying terrain in the world. The work of the Air Transport Command, the Naval Air Transport Service, and the major airlines has been one of the truly magnificent jobs of the war. Pan American’s first transatlantic competitor, American Export Airlines, started its first service in 1942 flying wartime cargo.
The research and safety devices developed in peacetime by our commercial airlines played a tremendous part in the success of our world-wide wartime transport service. Not only did the airlines furnish planes and crews for the war effort, but they also set up schools and trained hundreds of transport pilots, crews, ground service men, and operations men for the military transport service.
The experience gained in operating such a great global air transport system has not only helped materially to win the war, but will be invaluable in expanding peacetime air transport and cargo service. New methods of handling cargo of all weights during the war will speed the development of postwar air cargo service. The world-wide experience of the transport crews will be valuable in developing postwar air travel to distant lands. Hundreds of new air crews trained for war service will be available for the great expansion of commercial aviation in early postwar days.
Forty-two years after the birth of the airplane, we see aviation on the threshold of a great new era of progress. Fighting planes with a speed of nine miles a minute are an actuality. A giant transport plane, capable of carrying 100 passengers, has flown across the continent in six hours. This means that a passenger may eat lunch in New York and dinner in California. It means that postwar air travelers will become accustomed to flying at the speed of our 1939 fighting planes. Air travelers soon will be crossing the country at a speed of eight miles a minute. Boys and girls reading this book will, a few years from now, marvel that we even got excited over the eight-mile-a-minute airplane.
The year 1944 saw a twelve-and-one-half ton fighter go into action on the war fronts. This plane, the Northrop P-61Black Widownight-fighter, is one of the most powerful airplanes yet to go into action. Powered with two 2,000-horsepower engines, the P-61 flies at 400 miles per hour. Equipped with radar and powerful guns, it can search out an enemy plane at night and destroy it.
The new Bell P-59Airacometis America’s first jet-propelled fighter. Its performance has amazed expert test pilots. It has no propeller (note diagram below), and the pilot hears no engine roar or propeller scream. He feels no vibration. Yet he whizzes along at a tremendous speed which is still a military secret. This lack of vibration reduces pilot fatigue, adding hours to his safe flying time.
In the high-flying, high-speedStratocruiserand the fastLiberator Linerwe see a type of transport that will become familiar in early postwar days. The development of airplanes with great load-carrying ability will have a great effect on the cost of air travel. Transports like the 100-passengerStratocruiserwill soon bring the cost of air travel within the reach of anyone who now can afford regular train fares.
Postwar days will also see a great increase in the use of air cargo planes. Typical of the cargo plane of the future is the Fairchild C-82Packet, now in use as a military transport. The big, roomy cabin of thePacketis only slightly smaller than a standard railroad boxcar. As an Army transport, thePacketcan carry forty-two fully equipped paratroopers or seventy regular troops. As a hospital plane, it has space for thirty-four litter cases and four attendants or seventy-five walking casualties. When used for cargo movement thePacket’sstern door opens to take a load of jeeps, trucks, artillery, munitions, and other military cargo equal in weight to nine tons. It is readily seen how valuable thePacketwill be in postwar days. With its range of 3,500 miles, it will speed commercial cargo across the country at reasonable costs. In fact, all the big transports, such as theStratocruiseror theLiberator Liner, are designed sothat they may be converted to all-cargo planes. In the near future perishable foods and other merchandise, which heretofore have taken several days to cross the country, will make the trip overnight.
With the coming of peace, air transport and commercial aviation will grow by leaps and bounds. All the leading airlines and many new ones are planning expanded schedules and looking forward to a great boom in air travel. New transport planes are going into production in the plants of all America’s well-known aircraft manufacturers. The new airliners will not only be much faster, but they will also be equipped with every device that will make the air traveler more comfortable. The new airliners will be so fast that there will be no need for sleeper planes on coast-to-coast trips. Sleeper planes will be used only on long overseas trips. The planes will all carry more passengers during the day and that means that air travel will be almost as economical as surface travel.
The big planes for world travel will be ships like the seventy-tonMartin Marsflying boat and the giant Pan American Consolidated 204-passenger Model 37. Donald Douglas is building two new luxury airliners, the fifty-passenger DC-6 and the 108-passenger DC-7. The 100-passenger LockheedConstellationwill also be in service soon. Smaller planes operating on feeder lines will soon whisk passengers from small towns to the main lines of the transcontinental and world airways.
There has been considerable talk about the widespread use of the helicopter in postwar days. In spite of the great advances made in its development, it will probably be some time before its use becomes widespread. The helicopter itself can fly up, down, backward, frontward, and sidewise, but it is still difficult to fly unless its pilot has had considerable practice.
The helicopter gets its lift and its forward, backward, and sidewise movement from the big rotating blades above the fuselage. These blades have the same effect as those of a propeller. The big blades bite into the air as they turn. The shape of the blade is like the airfoil or wing of a plane. As it bites into the air it creates a lift just as a wing does. By the use of his controls the pilot can change the angle of the blades to increase or diminish their lift. For example, when the lift is reduced on a blade on one side of the plane it banks off in the direction of the reduced lift. The same holds true for any movement of the helicopter. A small rotor in a vertical position at the tail has controllable blades, and the machine is steered by changing the angle of these blades. The pilot of a helicopter of today is a very busy fellow. New developments, however, will probably simplify the operation of the machine.
The year 1945 marks the beginning of the forty-third year of powered flight in America. Before we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk air travel will be the world’s primary means of transportation. No spot on the globe will be more than fifty hours distant from wherever you may live. Truly the shortest distance between any two points on earth will be an airline!
During the last few years we have seen the airplane being developed into the mightiest weapon of war that the world has ever seen. We have witnessed the miracle of the creation of our great Army and Navy aërial task forces. And we have seen our air forces lead the way to victory over the enemies of our civilization. Just as the airplane brought us peace, it must also be retained as a military weapon that will always be a threatening force to restrain any fanatics who may again seek to destroy democracy and peace.
As a commercial transport, the airplane will also serve to keep the peace. Commercial airliners will make the world much smaller, and no nation will be a great distance from another. We shall all be able to travel by air to the most far-distant country in a matter of hours. All nations will be closer neighbors, and we shall all have a better understanding of our neighboring nations. The more we visit and mingle with the people of the entire world the more we can help to spread the doctrine of democracy of America. The airplane will play a great part in eliminating the greed and jealousy that breeds war. The young people of today will govern America tomorrow. The airplane will be the vehicle through which they will learn to know the peoples of the world. Through this better understanding America may always be the symbol of peace and prosperity.
However and wherever you fly, here’s wishing you all “Happy Landings!”
A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,O,P,R,S,T,V,W.
Allen, Brigadier General James,22Allison, James A.,77Arnold, General Henry H.,29,37,70Bacon, Roger,6Baldwin, F. W.,19,24Baldwin, Captain Tom,18Ballentine, Admiral John J .,95Beachey, Lincoln,28Bell, Dr. Alexander Graham,18Bell, Lawrence,37,77Bennett, Floyd,49Besnier,7Blakely, Lieutenant Charles A.,26Bleriot, Louis,20,25Boeing Aircraft,53,54,57,58,63,66,70,71Brereton, General Louis,37Brookins, Walter,26Bruno, Harry,50Byrd, Rear Admiral Richard E.,49Cayley, George,7Chambers, Captain Washington Irving,26,28,29,72,73Chanute, Octave,9,10,12Chavalier, Lieutenant Commander G. DeC.,41Clark, Rear Admiral Joseph J .,95Curtiss Airplane Company,40,44Curtiss, Glenn H.,18,19,20,21,24,25,27,28,37Dædalus,6Da Vinci, Leonardo,6,7Doolittle, Lieutenant General James,37,76,94Douglas, Donald,24,37,42,54,55,58Eaker, Lieutenant General Ira,37,76Earhart, Amelia,52Edgerton, Lieutenant J. C.,38Ellyson, Lieutenant Theodore G.,28,29Ely, Eugene,27,28,41Fleet, Major Reuben H.,38,74Fokker, Tony,49,50,52Ford, Henry,46Franklin, Benjamin,7Frye, Jack,55Gates, Artemus,37George, Major General Harold L.,37Gilman, Norman H.,77Graham-White, Claude,25Griffin, Commander V. C.,41Hall, E. J.,37Harris, Harold R.,60Hegenberger, Lieutenant A. F.,52Icarus,6Johnstone, Ralph,26Jouett, Colonel John,37Kartveli, Alexander,84Kelly, Lieutenant Oakley,50Lahm, Brigadier General Frank P.,23,37,81Langley, Professor Samuel Pierpont,10,44Lawrance, Charles L.,44Lilienthal, Otto,7,8Lindbergh, Charles A.,49Lovett, Honorable Robert A.,37Macready, Lieutenant John,50Maitland, Lieutenant Lester D.,52Manley, Charles,10,44Martin, Glenn L.,25,30,31,37,40,42,61McCurdy, J. A. D.,19McIntee, William,24Misick, Captain Edwin,60Mitchell, General William (“Billy”),37,40,80Mitscher, Admiral Marc A.,72,95Montgolfier Brothers,7Montgomery, John J.,8Moss, Dr. Sanford,65O’Hare, Lieutenant Commander Edward (“Butch”),90Pegasus,6Penaud, Alphonse,8Pond, George,50Post, Wiley,57Pride, Rear Admiral John,95Radford, Rear Admiral Arthur W.,95Randolph, Captain W. M.,81Read, Lieutenant Commander A. C.,35Rickenbacker, Captain E. V.,37,60Rogers, Commander John,29,74Roosevelt, Franklin D.,90Roosevelt, Theodore,22Saunders, John Monk,53Selfridge, Lieutenant Tom,19,22Sherman, Rear Admiral Forrest P.,95Spaatz, Lieutenant General Carl,37,76Sperry, Lawrence,56Stevens, Captain Albert W.,76Stout, William Bushnell,46Stringfellow, John,8Stultz, Wilmer,52Thatch, Commander John,90Tomlinson, Tommy,65Towers, Vice Admiral John H.,29,34,35,37,72,95Trippe, Juan,50,60,62,63Vincent, J. G.,37Wenham, F. H.,7Willard, Charles,26,28Wilson, Captain Gill Robb,37Wright, Orville and Wilbur,9,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,20,21,22,23,24,25,32,37