Steeljaw Scribe

16 August 1960 -- Captain Joseph Kittinger, USAF stepped from the gondola of his high altitude helium balloon and began a record-breaking plunge to the ground, over 120, 000 ft below.  With a drogue chute deployed to stabilize his freefall (a lesson-learned form the first jump) he reached a maximum velocity of 614 mph before opening his chute at 18,000 ft. 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyGmTV0q2kY Don't know about you, but it makes my palms sweat.... By the way, Capt. Kittinger went on to serve not one, but three combat tours in Vietnam, with a total of 483 missions - the first two years flying the COIN version of the A-26 Invader, and on the third, flying the F-4D Phantom II as CO of the 555th Fighter Squadron.  During the third tour he was credited with shooting down a MiG-21, and just before his tour was up, was shot down and taken prisoner on 11 May 1972. ... Continue Reading

"Racing," as the saying goes, "improves the breed."  And during the Roaring 20's, the rage of the nation (and the world at large) was airplane racing.  While the sport would reach its ultimate form in the 1930's with the likes of the Thompson Trophy races, one of the earliest trophy races was the Schneider Trophy, first put up in 1911 and competed for in 1913.  The Schneider Trophy was  a prize competition for seaplanes and sponsored by Jacques Schneider, a financier, balloonist and aircraft enthusiast, who offered a prize of roughly £1,000. The race was held eleven times between 1913 and 1931 and was meant to encourage technical advances in civil aviation.  However, as raceers are wont to do, it became a contest for pure speed with laps over a triangular course (initially 280 km, later 350 km). Through the race in 1924, seaplanes participating in the race were pretty staid -- certainly advancing, incrementally, for their time, but a bit stodgy.  Typical was the winning British entry at the 1922 event hosted at Naples, Ital (the Italians had won the previous race and as such, were hosts).  A waterborne hull, high mounted engine (to keep out of sea spray) and of course, biplane configuration made up the Supermarine Sea Lion II - which was not altogether indistinguishable from the 1921 winning Italian entry, the Macchi M.7: The Americans entered the fray in 1923 with the Curtis CR-3 racer -- and blew the competition into the weeds with a blazing ... Continue Reading

23 October: The U.S. ended all tactical air sorties into NVN above the 20th parallel and brought to a close Linebacker I operations. This gesture of good will in terminating the bombing in NVN above the 20th parallel was designed to help promote the peace negotiations being held in Paris. During May through October the Navy flew a total of 23,652 tactical air attack sorties into NVN. U.S. tactical air sorties during Linebacker I operations helped to stem the flow of supplies into NVN, thereby, limiting the operating capabilities of North Vietnam's invading army. The carriers involved in Linebacker I operations were Enterprise, Constellation, Coral Sea, Hancock, Kitty Hawk, Midway, Saratoga, Oriskany and America. It began over six months ago, on a late-April morning with Operation Pocket Money - launching from the flightdeck of USS Coral Sea (CVA-43), three A-6A Intruders of VMA-224 and six A-7Es (VA-22 and VA-94) headed for Haiphong harbor with a load of Mk 52-2 mines.  In response to what the west was calling the "Easter Offensive" by the North Vietnamese army, a concentrated air offensive against the north - the first since 1968, began with the seeding of mines in the critical ports and harbors of North Vietnam.  Overland, the USAF Seventh Air Force and the Navy's Task Force 77 would send thousands of sorties feet dry in the quest of achieving the four objectives of LINEBACKER: Isolate North Vietnam from its outside sources of supply by destroying railroad bridges and rolling stock in and ... Continue Reading

Checking in from the SJS-family's TAD site this weekend (and yes, we still are in the pre-internet age back at the homeport, still awaiting the service visit by the provider...), where the lead Scriblet is tying the matrimonial knot (and once again, the weather-guessers appear to be winning as we contemplate low ceilings and fits of precipitation for the beach-side event). Today's contribution is from LCDR George J. Walsh, USN-Ret., an SB2C Helldiver pilot with significant time and experience in the Pacific campaign post-Midway.  George has been on a campaign to place the proper emphasis on the part of the sentence that runs "the dive bombers at Midway were successful, but only because..." and we are in full agreement.  The whole concept of dive-bombing and the attendant success the US Navy enjoyed at Midway and elsewhere in the Pacific has tended to be glossed over or assumed away as the fortunate happenstance of other external factors.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  To underscore this view, the following perspective is provided by LCDR Walsh. - SJS Many reasons have been offered to explain the success of the dive bomber squadrons in destroying all four of the Japanese aircraft carriers at the Battle of Midway on June 4th, 1942. Some mythic reasons date from the Navy’s Communiqué #97 of July 14, 1942, the 1948 Bate’s Report issued by the Naval War College, the official history of Samuel Morison, and every historian since that time. Here are some of the reasons suggested: 1. The ... Continue Reading

As Hurricane Bill sits off the coast today, dumping copious amounts of rain on the SJS homestead (such as it is at the moment), we pause to consider a community of aviators and scientists whose mission brings them face to face with The Beast, under conditions normally sane aviators strive to avoid.  Today we take much for granted, not least of which is the timeliness and quantity of data and warning we enjoy as these fearsome storms wend their way across the broad ocean areas and threaten landfall.  It wasn't always so - and that brings us to today's Flightdeck Friday, the Hurricane Hunter edition. - SJS Long before satellites carpeted the globe with their all-seeing, all tracking weather eyes, hurricanes and other major tropical storms were identified, located and reported on by ships at sea and observations from remote locations.  As often as not, the location of the center, storm size estimate and track was as much chance and good luck as it was application of scientific principles.  To be sure, the timeliness of any subsequent reporting was severely handicapped, even with the addition of radio reports. The addition of aircraft with the ability to cover long distances in relatively short order began to improve the reporting.  Immediately after the war, the PBM Mariner and PB4Y Privateer were drafted into service for hurricane recce, the long legs of the Privateer in particular (range of 2800 nm) having served the Navy well in WWII for convoy protection ... Continue Reading

20 July 1969 102:42:08 Duke: Roger. Copy. (Pause) Eagle, Houston. You're Go for landing. Over. 102:42:13 Armstrong (on-board): Okay. 3000 at 70. 102:42:17 Aldrin: Roger. Understand. Go for landing. 3000 feet. 102:42:19 Duke: Copy. 102:42:19 Aldrin: Program Alarm. (Pause) 1201 102:42:24 Armstrong: 1201. (Pause) (On-board) Okay, 2000 at 50. 102:42:25 Duke: Roger. 1201 alarm. (Pause) We're Go. Same type. We're Go. 102:42:31 Aldrin: 2000 feet. 2000 feet. 102:42:33 Armstrong: (On-board) (With some urgency in his voice, possibly as he sees West Crater) Give me an LPD (angle). 102:42:34 Aldrin: Into the AGS, 47 degrees. 102:42:35 Duke: Roger. 102:42:37 Armstrong (on-board): (Confirming Buzz's LPD readout) 47. That's not a bad looking area. (Garbled) Okay. (Pause) 1000 at 30 is good. What's LPD? 102:42:41 Duke: Eagle, looking great. You're Go. (Long Pause) Roger. 1202. We copy it. 102:43:01 Aldrin: 35 degrees. 35 degrees. 750. Coming down at 23 (feet per second). 102:43:07 Armstrong (on-board): Okay. 102:43:07 Aldrin: 700 feet, 21 (feet per second) down, 33 degrees. 102:43:10 Armstrong (on-board): Pretty rocky area. 102:43:11 Aldrin: 600 feet, down at 19. 102:43:15 Armstrong (on-board): I'm going to... 102:43:16 Aldrin: 540 feet, down at...(LPD angle is) 30. Down at 15. (Pause) 102:43:26 Aldrin: Okay, 400 feet, down at 9 (feet per second). 58 (feet per second) forward. 102:43:32 Armstrong (on-board): No problem. 102:43:33 Aldrin: 350 feet, down at 4. 102:43:35 Aldrin: 330, three and a half down. (Pause) 102:43:42 Aldrin: Okay, you're pegged on horizontal velocity. 102:43:46 Aldrin: 300 feet (altitude), down 3 1/2 (feet per second), 47 (feet per second) forward. Slow it up. 102:43:52 Aldrin: 1 1/2 down. Ease her down. 270. 102:43:58 Armstrong: Okay, how's the fuel? 102:44:00 Aldrin: Eight ... Continue Reading

Tomorrow we will have our Independence Day post up and in the busy comings goings of a three-day weekend, we encourage one and all to pause and ponder those words -- mere words in some folks' opinion; that our forefathers penned in Philadelphia that hot summer of 1776.  Men had already died in the cause of Liberty - many more were to come.  In the decades and centuries hence, more still in the cause of preserving that radical ( for its time) belief that a government exists for the benefit of man, not vice versa, and its sole province lay in the securing of one's birthright to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the skies over Occupied Europe in 1943, life for the bomber crews of the 8th Air Force was always teetering on the edge - if the sub-zero temperatures and lack of oxygen at flight altitude didn't numb and then silently kill you, then the murderous flak or ever present fighters with their 20mm cannon would  rip flesh and aluminum to shreds, blotting life out in a burst of obscene red, yellow and black.  Happiness was surviving 25 missions and being rotated out of theater, like the crew of the Memphis Bell.  Many were not so fortunate.  The slaughter, for what else could it be called when 30, 40, 60-plus aircraft and crew per mission were being lost, almost brought the daytime campaign to a stop .  Similar loss rates had plagued the British effort earlier ... Continue Reading

(which might also serve as a cautionary tale to those who decry 'future warists' - SJS) ...Investments in blood and treasure: Jan. 1927: 8 officers and 81 enlisted men of VO-1M, led by Maj. Ross Rowell, arrived at Corinto, Nicaragua with six DH's. Amidst the anarchy of the civil and banditry, the U.S. Marines held the railroad. In July the Sandinista rebels (the original ones) besieged 37 Marines at the Ocotal garrison, 125 miles from Manaagua. Patrolling Marine pilots, Lt. Hayne Boyden and Gunner Micahel Wodarczyk, discovered the defenders' plight. After they reported this to Maj. Rowell, he led five DH's to bomb the rebels. From 1,500 feet, they conducted one of the first dive bombing missions, killing dozens of Sandinistas. Rowell and his fliers flew 50 missions against the Nicaraguan guerrillas. 27 June 1927: Dive bombing came under official study as the Chief of Naval Operations ordered the Commander in Chief, Battle Fleet, to conduct tests to evaluate its effectiveness against moving targets. Carried out by VF Squadron 5S in late summer and early fall, the results of these tests generated wide discussion of the need for special aircraft and units, which led directly to the development of equipment and adoption of the tactic as a standard method of attack. 21 March 1930: 21--The Martin XT5M-1, first dive bomber designed to deliver a l,000-pound bomb, met strength and performance requirements in diving tests. 9 April 1931: A contract was issued to the Glenn L. Martin Company for 12 BM-1 dive bombers. This aircraft, which ... Continue Reading

Lots going on right now - between events in North Asia, a one family attempt to stimulate the local construction economy and completing the first round of writing/editing for the BMD chapter for the book project there hasn't been a lot of time to post.  Still, there are a couple of irons in the fire, one of which we'll hint at here: ... Continue Reading