In 1935, the major airlines in the U.S. had a problem. They had contributed $100,000 each for Douglas Aircraft to develop a four-engine successor to the two-engine DC-3. But it was clear that the new DC-4 had problems and would be delayed. So they dropped out of the program and TWA (Transcontinental & Western Air) approached Boeing Corp. to see if it could adapt its promising new B-17 bomber into a passenger plane.

Keeping the B-17’s wings, tail, engines, and landing gear, Boeing designed a new cigar-shaped pressurized fuselage, and the result was the Boeing 307 Stratoliner. I’m here at Chicago Midway Airport (KMDW) in June 1940, where one of the five brand-new Stratoliners just delivered to TWA is preparing for the next leg of its regular service from New York to Los Angeles.

For anyone acquainted with the silhouette of the famous B-17, the Stratoliner should look strikingly familiar.

Because of its wider fuselage, the Boeing 307 has a slightly larger wingspan (107 feet, 3 inches versus. 103 feet, 9 inches), with exactly the same length (74 feet, 4 inches). The wings are metal and contain three fuel tanks each, carrying a total of 1,700 gallons. The flaps are also metal and powered electrically. The ailerons, however, are fabric over a steel skeleton to reduce the physical force the pilot has to exert to move them. The elevators and rudder are the same. They are all entirely mechanical controls that rely on the pilot’s physical strength to manipulate—no hydraulics.

The prototype of the Stratoliner actually stalled and went into a spin in March 1939, crashing and killing 10 aboard. The problem turned out to be the tail, which was redesigned and incorporated into all subsequent B-17s from that point on.

The landing gear—the same as on the B-17—are raised and lowered by the hydraulics system, which also powers the brakes. When raised the wheels still protrude enough from the bottom side of the wing to cushion a belly landing.

Just like the B-17, the Stratoliner is powered by four Wright GR-1820 Cyclone air-cooled 9-cylinder radial engines with a supercharger to perform at higher altitudes and variable-pitch propellers. They produced slightly less horsepower (1,100) than the variant used on the B-17.

The Stratoliner’s five-person crew consists of a pilot, copilot, and flight engineer, along with two flight attendants. There is also a fourth seat for a navigator in the cockpit. Directly in front of the pilot and the copilot is a typical “six-pack” of instruments, though the arrangement is not yet standardized. To the left is a radio altimeter to gauge agl—helpful when flying over mountainous terrain.

On the overhead panel are radio navigation instruments and the switches for starting the engines and turning on lights. At bottom left, an anachronistically modern autopilot had been installed. We won’t be using the modern autopilot, but instead the Sperry Gyropilot appropriate to the period, located in the center of the center panel. Above it are the engine gauges showing manifold pressure and rpm, and below are the engine temperature gauges.

The power controls—in fours, one for each engine—are on the central pedestal, where both pilots can reach them. Black is throttle, red fuel mixture, and blue propeller rpm. The large white knob locks the tailwheel in place, and the small white one turns on the Sperry Gyropilot.

The Stratoliner was one of the first civilian planes to have a dedicated flight engineer. His panel allowed him to monitor the engines, regulate the flow of fuel from different tanks (to prevent the aircraft from becoming unbalanced), and control the climate in the pressurized cabin.

The cabin could maintain a pressure of 8,000 feet—similar to a modern airliner—up to 16,000 feet. It gradually increased, however, to the equivalent of 12,000 feet when cruising at 20,000 feet—not as comfortable as today’s airliners but enough to avoid the need for supplemental oxygen.

The Stratoliner’s pressurized fuselage required extensive testing. Designers would gradually increase the pressure, covering the outside of its metal skin with soapy water and looking for bubbles indicating a leak.

Now that we’re all checked out, we can head to the main terminal to refuel and load our passengers.

This is TWA Flight 7, the “Super Sky Chief,” with cross-country service from New York LaGuardia (KLGA) to Union Air Terminal (KBUR) in Burbank, California, with three stops along the way. The entire cross-country journey takes about 15.5 hours westbound, 13.5 hours eastbound, depending on winds—about two hours faster than previously in a DC-3.

It was an overnight flight, but I’m doing it during the daytime to enjoy the scenery. It’s midmorning, and we’ve reached Chicago after starting out early from New York.

In theory, a fully fueled Stratoliner could fly a maximum range of 1,300 miles. In reality, a Stratoliner filled with passengers and luggage could only take on half that amount of fuel, significantly reducing its range. The fuel is 100-octane gasoline, exactly like a GA plane uses today.

Passengers boarding the Stratoliner enjoyed unprecedented luxury.

The sound- and vibration-proof cabin was furnished by Marshall Field’s and featured reading lights and call buttons. Separate men’s and women’s washrooms had hot and cold water. A galley in the back served hot food.

In 1940, a one-way ticket from New York to California cost $149.95, equivalent to $3,363.90 today. But a seat in one of these alcoves, which folds down to a sleeping berth, cost an extra $119.95, which works out to a total of $6,054.80 today.

Once everyone is on board, we’ll use an external power unit to start the engines one at a time to avoid draining our own battery. One by one, they roar to life.

The runway in this 1930s version of Midway is 4,925 feet long—but only half of its length is paved. At full throttle, I’m going to need almost all of it to reach my 100 mph liftoff speed. A fully loaded Stratoliner, weighing in at 45,000 pounds (20.5 tons), doesn’t soar into the air—it lumbers, not unlike the heavy bomber it’s based on.

Setting the four throttles back to 30 inches of manifold pressure and the prop levers back to 2,250 rpm, I settle in for a sustained climb. At lower altitudes, in denser air, I can maintain a climb rate of 1,000 feet per second.

The Sperry Gyropilot is simpler than a modern autopilot, but once in a climb (or in level flight), I can set to hold it. I can also indicate a desired heading and instruct the plane to bank toward it. This is the same autopilot used in the B-17 that could be linked to the bombardier’s Norden bomb site to guide the plane to its bombing target.

My target cruising altitude is 20,000 feet. As I climb in altitude, the air thins. Normally this would reduce the power produced by my piston engines, but the supercharger compresses the air to give them a boost. But the supercharger can’t completely compensate, and I begin to notice the manifold pressure, even under full throttle, starting to weaken above 10,000 feet.

I have to pull my climb rate back to 500 feet per minute to avoid a stall. I was unable to find any detailed instructions on how to lean the fuel mixture of a Stratoliner—or a B-17 for that matter—so I left the handles on “auto-rich.”

The Stratoliner is capable of climbing up to 24,000 feet, but at that altitude it would be unable to maintain a comfortable cabin pressure and passengers would need supplemental oxygen. So I’m leveling off at 20,000 feet and pulling the throttles back to 23 inches of mercury and rpm back to 2,000. At first I’m a little perplexed by the indicated airspeed—just 160 mph. But then I adjust for air pressure and temperature, and my true airspeed is 225 mph—right on target.

Technically, the Stratoliner didn’t reach the stratosphere, a layer of the atmosphere that begins around 33,000 feet above the continental U.S. But it flew a lot higher than previous airliners.

Without a pressurized cabin, a DC-3 carrying passengers could only cruise at 8,000-10,000 feet above sea level. At twice that altitude, the Stratoliner was able to avoid much of the turbulence encountered flying so low over the Rocky Mountains. Even so, the Super Sky Chief followed a southern route that avoided the highest mountains.

Our course is set for 240 degrees west southwest—next stop Kansas City, Missouri.

It’s midafternoon now, and after stopping at Kansas City we’re on our way to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We’re back at 20,000 feet above sea level, but the land below us has risen several thousand feet in elevation. We’re comfortably above the summer rain clouds that have formed over the plains of eastern Colorado. A DC-3, in contrast, would find itself flying right through them—a jostling experience.

The Stratoliner can’t fly over all weather—major thunderstorm clouds can rise to 30,000 or 40,000 feet. But since we can easily fly over the relatively lower mountains on this southern route, we don’t have to fear that the mountain passes a DC-3 must take will be blocked by storms.

At 7:30 p.m. local time, with the summer sun nearly setting, we reached the outskirts of Los Angeles with the Pacific Ocean visible in the distance. We’ve flown for 15.5 hours but gained three hours heading west.

I pull back the throttles to descend, while pushing the prop levers full forward, in case of an emergency go-around. My target approach speed is 140 mph. Putting in the flaps reduces my stall speed, so I can land at around 90-100 mph. But it also adds a lot of drag, as does lowering the landing gear. I find I need to add back significant throttle to maintain speed.

Over the runway, I pull the throttles back to idle and flare to a gentle three-point landing. I make sure my tailwheel is locked, so I don’t wobble all over the runway. I’m landing on the modern runway at Union Air Terminal, now Hollywood Burbank Airport (KBUR), and it’s 5,800 feet long. I need almost all of it for my brakes to bring me to a complete stop.

As I mentioned, TWA bought five Stratoliners for service. Howard Hughes, the aviation-obsessed oil and Hollywood tycoon who bought control of the airline in 1939, purchased another Stratoliner all for himself for a reported $315,000 ($6.5 million today’s). It was actually the first Stratoliner delivered to a customer in July 1939.

Originally Hughes planned to use it to beat his own record flying around the world, set the previous year in a Lockheed Super Electra. But the outbreak of war in Europe scuttled his plans.

Hughes put the plane into storage, and then after the war—on the advice of actress-girlfriend Rita Hayworth—converted it into a private luxury airliner, the first of its kind, dubbed The Flying Penthouse. He tried to sell it to another tycoon, but the deal fell through and Hughes ended up stuck with it.

The cabin of The Flying Penthouse was luxurious, the forerunner of today’s private airliners owned by Arab oil sheiks. However, as Hughes drifted into eccentricity, the plane was rarely flown, and in 1965 it was damaged in a hurricane. Someone bought it for $69 and turned the fuselage into a boat.

Eventually a Florida man ended up living in it as a houseboat, dubbing it the Cosmic Muffin. In 2016, the houseboat owner donated the fuselage to the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland. But plans to refurbish it ran into difficulties, and it is currently still looking for a home.

Besides TWA and Hughes, the Stratoliner had a third buyer. Pan Am ordered three Boeing 307s to augment its “Clipper” service across Latin America. While Pan Am in this era is famous for its “China Clipper” flying boats across the Pacific, the core of its business stretched across the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, as this colorful route map from 1940 illustrates.

The toughest parts of the network involved flying (via Lake Titicaca) to La Paz on Bolivia’s high plateau, and the link between the two southmost destinations (Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires, Argentina) over the Andes.

We’re taking off from the modern-day airport at Santiago to find out what made that latter route so challenging.

There were three Pan Am Stratoliners: the Clipper Rainbow (NC19902), the Clipper Comet (NC19910), and the one we’re flying, the Clipper Flying Cloud (NC19903). These three Pan Am Stratoliners, along with TWA’s five, Hughes’ personal plane, and the original prototype that crashed, make for a grand total of 10 Boeing 307s ever produced.

Why so few? Well, as we’ll see, first of all World War II intervened, disrupting civilian air travel and creating new, competing priorities. But even before the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, the Stratoliner was running into trouble.

For all its advantages, the Stratoliner was expensive. It cost three times as much to buy as a DC-3 but could only carry a handful more passengers. TWA actually defaulted on its initial order for six, which is why the deliveries were delayed until 1940. The financial dispute actually contributed to Hughes snapping up the airline cheap and keeping one of the six planes for himself. 

Once purchased, the Stratoliners were expensive to maintain and repair. Their advanced systems were new and complex. They guzzled fuel. It cost a fortune just to insure them. Even though TWA saw a 50 percent increase in passenger traffic in 1940, and won headlines setting speed records with its Stratoliners, it still lost money on the service.

Dutch airline KLM considered buying as many as 18 Stratoliners but ultimately declined due to cost. Then the war broke out in Europe, and sales there were off the table completely. Pan Am initially planned to buy six Stratoliners, which it dubbed “Strato-Clippers,” but the shift to military production by 1940 made that impossible. It received just three.

Pan Am had a real use for the Boeing 307. The lowest pass between central Chile and Argentina reaches 12,566 feet and is flanked by peaks reaching 22,841 feet and 21,555 feet, respectively. No unpressurized airliner could cross this range without passengers facing serious discomfort.

The superchargers on the Pan Am Strato-Clippers were only single-speed, compared to the two-speed versions on the TWA versions, making it more challenging to reach and maintain 20,000 feet. Even at that altitude, my clearance above the peaks below is only a few thousand feet.

This would be more reassuring if I wasn’t being constantly buffeted by strong updrafts and downdrafts from the powerful winds winding their way around the mountains. I have to hand-fly the whole way, because the Stratoliner’s autopilot isn’t responsive enough to make all the quick adjustments needed to prevent a stall.

Even in a pressurized cabin, I wouldn’t want to be a passenger on this flight. 

Fortunately, we’re over the mountains and descending toward Mendoza. The airport there is at 2,310 feet, which means I need to lose a lot of altitude pretty quickly. Still, I saw I was coming in high and fast, and had to circle once to slow down and descend farther before I could make a proper approach.

The trip has taken a little over an hour and just 143 miles as the crow flies. But for all the plush furnishings, I doubt any of the passengers will be eager to repeat it anytime soon.

When the U.S. entered WWII, Pan Am continued flying its Strato-Clippers on strategically important routes in Latin America but under the direction of the U.S. military. TWA, in contrast, sold all five of its financially struggling Stratoliners to the U.S. Army Air Forces, where they were redubbed the C-75. The airline then operated them under contract for the Army.

The planes’ cabin pressurization system was removed to save weight. The expensive furnishings were torn out and replaced with simpler bunk beds and work tables. Extra fuel tanks were added to almost double their range to 2,400 miles.

Early in the war, with these modifications, the C-75s were the only planes the U.S. possessed capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean carrying any significant payload, Tough to carry passengers in any comfort, they’d have to cruise at a lower altitude. 

In February 1942, the newly converted C-75 made its debut, flying to Cairo via Brazil to deliver ammunition and spare parts to British forces fighting German general Erwin Rommel in Egypt. In March, a C-75 flew top U.S. generals, including George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, across the North Atlantic to London and back to begin planning Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.

Over the following months, C-75 flights over the North and South Atlantic picked up pace, ferrying VIPs and urgent cargo where they were needed overseas.

The heavier loads that the C-75 was expected to carry in military service—up to 56,000 pounds gross weight—further reduced its climb performance and put great strain on the engines, sometimes sparking fires. By 1944, the U.S. had developed newer four-engine aircraft—the C-54 (DC-4) and C-69 (Constellation)—that could do the same things, but better.

No longer needed, the Stratoliners were sold back to TWA, which refurbished them back to their luxurious former state.

After the war, however, the airlines discovered the same thing—that there were new airliners available that could fly farther, faster, and cheaper than the Stratoliner, which had shown the way. In 1951, Pan Am sold one of its Strato-Clippers, the Comet, to a local airline in Ecuador, AREA, which renamed it the Quito, to provide service between Ecuador and Miami. It later sold it to Quaker City Airlines in the U.S. for unscheduled charter flights. Plagued by maintenance issues, it was being converted to a crop duster in 1958 when it caught fire and was destroyed.

In 1951, French airline Aigle Azur bought the Pan Am Strato-Clipper Rainbow and all five TWA Stratoliners to service routes in the Mediterranean and Indochina. We’re taking off from Nice in southern France, reregistered as F-BELU, after it was assigned to the Aigle Azur subsidiary Airnautic in 1955.

Aigle Azur removed some of the fancier fittings to increase the Stratoliner’s passenger capacity from 33 to 48. While the surroundings may have been glamorous, by the late 1950s the planes were handling mainly chartered flights.

Flying conditions in Southeast Asia, as the Vietnam War raged, were dangerous and difficult. One by one, the once-glorious Stratoliners fell prey to crashes and mishaps, and were put out of commission.

Finally, there was just one.

In 1954, Pan-Am sold the Clipper Flying Cloud, which we flew over the Andes, to Haiti, which used it as its president’s version of Air Force One. Later it hauled freight back in the U.S.

In 1972, the National Air and Space Museum bought it and Boeing helped restore it. But it nearly didn’t make it to the museum. In March 2002, it ran out of fuel during a test flight and ditched in the bay off Seattle. No one was injured, and the airplane was repaired.

Today you can see it on display at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport (KIAD)—the last intact survivor of the 10 Stratoliners built.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the “Local Legends” Boeing 307 Stratoliner add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, Red Wing Simulation’s “1935” series of airports and sceneries, airport add-ons purchased from Orbx, LVFR, and Vuelosimple, and liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post The Bomber That Created a Bridge to Modern Airliners appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Just a few days before, on October 20, General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore on the island of Leyte to the south, fulfilling his pledge to “return” to the Philippines and liberate it from Japanese occupation. That summer, the U.S. Pacific carrier fleet had met the remaining Japanese carriers off the Marianas Islands.

In the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot,” U.S. pilots had wiped out their Japanese counterparts in the air. With its carriers denuded of aircraft, Japan now looked to its surface fleet based in Singapore, including its two mega-battleships the Yamato and Musashi, to sail to the Philippines and obliterate the American landing force on the beaches.

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Off the east coast of the Philippines, Task Force 38, under the command of Admiral William Halsey, consisted of nearly a dozen full-size fleet carriers plus a score of smaller escort carriers, assigned to provide air cover for the landing. On the morning of October 24, planes aboard the Essex were fueling to take part in a strike on the advancing Japanese battleships, which had been detected by American submarines steaming toward the landing beaches through the archipelago south of Luzon.

In the starting days of WWII, the U.S. Navy’s main carrier-based fighter had been the Grumman F4F Wildcat. The creator of the Wildcat—and later the Hellcat—was Leroy Grumman, who headed a relatively modest aircraft company of the same name based on Long Island, New York.

Grumman began his aviation career as a naval pilot during World War I. Though he failed his medical exam due to flat feet, a clerical error allowed him to get through flight training.

Grumman was assigned by the Navy as a test pilot to help assess aircraft produced by Grover Leoning, a German immigrant who graduated from Columbia University with the world’s first degree in aeronautical engineering and then learned his craft working for Orville Wright. Grumman became Leoning’s protege and worked for him as a designer and floatplane test pilot after the war for the Navy.

When Leoning’s company was acquired in 1929, Grumman formed his own, retaining his focus on naval aviation. By the time the U.S. Navy adopted the Grumman F3F biplane as its main carrier-based fighter in the years immediately prior to WWII, Grumman was well established as a go-to supplier of combat aircraft to the Navy.

The F4F Wildcat (the F3F’s successor) came into service a year before Pearl Harbor. It was not as maneuverable as the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero,” and the cockpit had poorer visibility. But it could outdive the Zero and could also take a lot more punishment than its fragile Japanese rival. Overall, the Wildcat and the Zero were fairly evenly matched, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

As the early war in the Pacific unfolded, Grumman sent its designers to the field to talk with pilots flying the F4F Wildcat against the Zero in combat. They asked veteran F4F aces like Edward “Butch” O’Hare (for whom Chicago’s O’Hare Airport is named) what kind of improvements they needed to defeat the Zero.

The result was the F6F Hellcat. Superficially, the Hellcat looks a lot like the F4F Wildcat, and at first glance can be hard to tell apart. But there are a few telltale differences. First of all, when lined up next to each other, it’s clear that the Hellcat is longer, larger, and taller than its predecessor, earning it the nickname “the Wildcat’s big brother.”

The most obvious difference, once you know where to look, is the landing gear. The F4F’s gear could be retracted into the fuselage but had to be cranked by hand—not the easiest task just before or after landing on an aircraft carrier. The Hellcat’s gear, in contrast, could be raised and lowered automatically, using hydraulics. Because they retracted into wing wells, the wheels were wider apart, making them more stable to land on without tipping over.

One of the most distinctive features of both Grumman fighters was their foldable wings, which saved deck and hangar space, making it possible for a ship to carry a third more airplanes. (In contrast, Japanese Zeros did not have folding wings). When lowered for flight, the wings were locked into place with a big hydraulic metal bolt—the white circle you can see next to the red hook.

The Hellcat’s flaps have only one setting, up or down. The outer flap section is canvas-covered, the inner one is metal, so the pilot can step on it to climb into the cockpit. A major innovation on the Hellcat is spring-loaded flaps. If lowered at too high a speed, the air current would push them back up again. That meant pilots didn’t have to be distracted worrying about exceeding the maximum flap speed (170 knots), either when dogfighting or coming in to land.

Of course, the Hellcat has a tailhook for catching a wire on the carrier deck, allowing it to come to a quick stop. The rear wheel is made of solid rubber to put up with the pounding and abuse typical aboard cramped aircraft carrier decks.

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Both the Wildcat and Hellcat were built like a stubby beer barrel—there was no competing with the sleek elegance of a British Supermarine Spitfire or American P-51 Mustang. The F6F replaced the F4F’s single Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp 1,200 hp engine with a Double Wasp capable of producing 2,000 hp. For perspective, that’s more than 10 times  the horsepower of a Cessna 172. 

Though they used the same powerful engine, the Hellcat’s nose was much shorter than the U.S. rival F4U Corsair and angled slightly downward, making it much easier to see during carrier landings. This is a major reason why the F6F became the Navy’s main carrier-based fighter, while the otherwise fast and powerful F4U was relegated to the Marines, who were mostly based on land.

The main armament of the F6F Hellcat was three 50-caliber Browning machine guns on each wing (vs. two per wing on the older Wildcat). I’ll talk more about combat tactics in the Hellcat when we’re in the air.

And we’ll be in the air soon, because this morning we’re joining David McCampbell, commander of Fighter Squadron 15 (VF-15) aboard the USS Essex, as he refuels for a strike mission on the Japanese battleships. To the right of the cockpit are our lights and radio switches, as well as our engine gauges. To the left, as usual in a WWII fighter cockpit, the throttle, mixture, and prop controls, trim wheels, flaps, landing gear, etc.

While McCampbell is fueling, word comes in over the flight deck loudspeaker: A wave of land-based Japanese planes is inbound from the Philippines to attack the American carrier fleet. The planned mission is scrubbed—all fighters must get into the air to meet them. McCampbell disengages the fueling, with his tanks only half full, and immediately readies for takeoff despite the crowded deck.

At this point in the war, some carriers did have catapults, but many takeoffs took place without them. Flaps down. Brakes on. Rev to no more than 2,000 rpm—any faster and the Hellcat will tip over. Release brakes and put in full throttle.

There’s a slight lurch as we leave the flight deck, then steady climb. Gear up. Flaps up. And we’re off to meet the incoming Japanese planes. The flight control officer that just launched us from the Essex was Lieutenant John Connally Jr., the future Secretary of the Navy and governor of Texas who, not quite 20 years later, would be wounded sitting in the car in front of John F. Kennedy when the president was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.

As we level off and search for the Japanese planes, I bring the throttle back to 44 inches manifold pressure and reduce the prop to 5,500 rpm. These are the Hellcat’s cruise settings, and if I go higher in altitude (up to a service ceiling of 37,300 feet), I can engage the supercharger to keep the manifold pressure up.

While the Wildcat was roughly matched to the Zero, its strengths compensating for its weaknesses, the Hellcat completely outclasses its opponent, which was designed to its limits and has not been improved since the war began. McCampbell has already shot down 21 enemy planes, many of them during the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” that summer.

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This morning, he and his wingman Roy Rushing get separated from the rest of his squadron. They’re on their own, looking for enemy planes. Suddenly, in front of them they see a host of nearly 60 Japanese planes, a motley mix of fighters and bombers thrown at the U.S. fleet from land bases in Luzon.

Without a second thought, outnumbered 30-to-one, the two Hellcats engage. I put my throttle full to nearly 48 inches manifold pressure and put the prop to max 7,000 rpm for full combat power.

The Hellcat still can’t outturn the Zero in close combat, but it doesn’t need to. It uses its superior power to hit fast and hard from on high. Its superior armor allows it to shrug off stray enemy bullets as it plows through enemy ranks. Speed was another crucial factor. The F6F had a maximum speed of 391 mph, compared to 331 mph for both the F4F and Zero.

From the day it was introduced in 1943 to war’s end, the Hellcat racked up a kill ratio of 19-to-1 (19 Japanese planes shot down for every Hellcat lost). Against the Zero it was 13-to-1. This ratio was partly the result of the Hellcat’s innate superiority but also the result of severe losses among trained Japanese pilots and the inexperience of the pilots who replaced them.

On this morning—October 24, 1944—McCampbell shot down nine enemy planes, seven Zeros and two Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusas, or “Oscars,” setting a U.S. single-mission aerial combat record. His wingman shot down another six for a total of 15.

McCampbell soon realized, though, that having taken off on only half-filled tanks, he was quickly running out of fuel and needed to land as soon as possible. The flight deck of the Essex was full, so he was waved off and had to land on the escort carrier USS Langley (CVL-27) instead. (I only have the USS Essex, so I’ll have to make due.)

When McCampbell landed on the Langley, he discovered that he had just two bullets left in his magazines, and the engine gave out immediately for lack of fuel, even before they could push him off the landing wires. McCampbell received the Medal of Honor for his actions that day. He downed a total of 34 enemy planes by the end of the war, making him the U.S. Navy’s all-time leading ace. He survived the war and lived until 1996.

But the battle that day was far from over.

In the air above the same carrier task force, the Hellcats of VF-27, each painted with a distinctive “cat’s mouth” nose, were on the hunt. VF-27 was based on the light carrier USS Princeton (CVL-23). Hellcat No. 7 (aka Paper Doll) was normally flown by Ensign Robert Burnell, who came up with the idea to paint the unconventional  color scheme on each of the squadron’s planes. On this day, however, Paper Doll was being flown by Lieutenant Carl Brown Jr. of Texarkana, Texas. Hellcat No. 17 was flown by Lieutenant Richard Stambook, of Kansas City, Missouri, already a double ace who had earned the Silver Star during the Marianas Turkey Shoot.

That morning, the squadron engaged another large group of 80 Japanese planes heading from Luzon to attack the American carriers. Between them, the cat’s mouth Hellcats shot down 36 of them. Brown shot down five of those, making him another “ace in a day” and earning him the Navy Cross.

Meanwhile, some of the Japanese planes made it through. Shortly before 10 a.m., a single bomb hit the flight deck of the Princeton, setting it on fire. The cruiser USS Birmingham (CL-62) came alongside to fight the fire and render assistance. Then at 3:24 p.m., a huge explosion—probably the detonation of stored bombs and torpedoes—ripped through the Princeton, doing severe damage to the Birmingham alongside, killing 233 and injuring 426 on the latter.

Stambook and most of VF-27 were on the Princeton refueling when the attack came. When the secondary explosion occurred, he and others jumped overboard and were rescued. Their planes were obviously lost. At 5:49 p.m., a third even larger explosion blew apart the front section of the Princeton and it sank moments later. Surprisingly, due to daring rescue efforts, only 108 aboard were lost, while 1,361 were saved.

Elsewhere, Brown and a handful of other VF-27 pilots were able to land on the Essex, where apparently their non-regulation cat’s mouths drew some raised eyebrows. That reaction didn’t last long as the squadron’s Hellcats had to be pushed off the Essex’s overcrowded flight deck to make room for ongoing operations.

When VF-27 later received a new home and new Hellcats aboard the USS Independence (CVL-22), it was without their signature cat’s mouths. Overall, though, the squadron claimed 136 enemy aircraft shot down before the Princeton was sunk, plus one more before the war’s end.

Not all the Navy’s Hellcats played defense that day.

Recall that McCampbell was fueling up for a strike on Japan’s super-battleships when the word came that the enemy’s planes were inbound. A third carrier in the same task group, the Lexington (CV-16), launched a strike force that included F6Fs armed with 4,000 pounds of bombs. We join them now, flying across the southern isthmus of Luzon to attack their Japanese targets.

This particular Hellcat, No. 99, known as Hangar Lilly, was flown by the commander of Lexington’s VF-19 fighter squadron, Theodore “Hugh” Winters of Society Hill, South Carolina. Winters had already flown in the Allied invasion of North Africa before switching to the Pacific in 1943. He shot down several Japanese planes over the Philippines the month before in preparation for the U.S. landings on Leyte.

Time to jettison our drop tank and begin our attack run on the Japanese fleet trying to sneak its way through the Sibuyan Sea. Winters led his squadron of Hellcats, along with dive bombers and torpedo bombers from the Lexington, through a rain of enemy anti-aircraft fire to hit the Japanese fleet, including the battleship Musashi.

Two Japanese battleships and four cruisers were severely damaged in the attack, including the Musashi, which was sunk. Winters continued flying through withering anti-aircraft fire to gather critical intelligence on the damage done to the Japanese fleet, for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.

U.S. commanders wrongly assumed that the sinking of the Musashi had stopped the Japanese fleet. So Admiral Halsey sent his carriers (including the Lexington) in pursuit of a group of Japanese carriers to the northeast. That next day, October 25, Winters again helped lead the attack, contributing to the sinking of one fleet carrier and two light carriers—for which he received his second Navy Cross in two days.

But the Japanese carriers were meant as a diversion. They hardly had any planes and posed no real threat. Halsey had been fooled into leaving a critical strait unguarded. The rest of the Battle of Leyte Gulf unfolded farther to the south. The U.S. Navy emerged victorious, and the landing beaches were protected, but Halsey still experienced fierce criticism.

The U.S. was not the only Allied navy to rely on the F6F Hellcat. Britain’s Royal Navy received 1,263 F6Fs under lend-lease. Initially redubbing it the “Gannet,” the British quickly reverted to the popular Hellcat name for simplicity.

The Pacific was a carrier-based naval war. In the Atlantic, in contrast, the Hellcat had fewer opportunities to go head-to-head with the German Luftwaffe. We’re joining the HMS Emperor in the North Sea for one such episode. Operation Hoops, in May 1944, was a carrier-based operation launched from Scapa Flow to harass German coastal shipping off the coast of occupied Norway. This particular aircraft was flown by Lt. Blythe “Jock” Ritchie of No. 800 Squadron.

Just the previous month, the squadron had escorted a bombing raid that had seriously damaged the German battleship Tirpitz (sister ship of the Bismarck) as it hid in a Norwegian fjord. Now they were back, hitting oil tanks at Kjen and a fish oil factory at Fosnavaag.

Suddenly the Hellcats came under attack from a group of German fighters. Ritchie succeeded in shooting down a Focke-Wulf Fw 190—his fifth kill and his first in a Hellcat. His mates shot down two Messerschmitt Bf 109s, at a loss of one Hellcat. But the defeat of the formidable Fw 190 in a head-to-head dogfight showed that the F6F could compete with the best the Germans could throw at it.

Many British pilots preferred the F6F Hellcat to the sleeker Supermarine Seafire (a version of the Spitfire adapted for carrier operations), in large part because it was easier to land safely. The wider undercarriage and slower approach speed of the Hellcat made it much simpler to land on a carrier deck without tipping over.

A few months later, in August 1944, the HMS Emperor and No. 800 Squadron’s Hellcats had relocated to the Mediterranean coast of France to support the Allied invasion there, Operation Dragoon. This particular F6F, painted with “invasion stripes” for the operation, was flown by a Dutch pilot, Charlie Poublon. It was forced to ditch off the Spanish coast after being hit by flak.

British F6F Hellcats also flew in the Indo-Pacific Theater, like this one from No.1839 Squadron from the HMS Indomitable, patrolling over the coastal jungles of Sumatra in early 1945. Overall, British Hellcats claimed a total of 52 enemy aircraft kills during 18 aerial combat missions from May 1944 to July 1945. After the war, they were rapidly phased out in favor of British aircraft.

Meanwhile, Grumman kept churning out F6F Hellcats for the U.S. Navy by the thousands in its factory in Bethpage, New York. In May 1945, the 10,000th Hellcat was delivered to Bombing Fighting Squadron VBF-87 on the USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). It was flown by the squadron’s commander, Porter “Maxie” Maxwell of Charleston, West Virginia, a 1936 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

VBF-87 was created to conduct air support and bombing operations aimed at Japan’s home islands in preparation for an expected invasion landing—including attacks on the massive naval yards at Kure, where the super-battleships Yamato and Musashi had been built.

But this was no victory lap. On July 24, Maxwell and his squadron were flying near Kure, seeking out air bases where Japanese kamikaze aircraft might be hiding, when suddenly Maxwell’s wingman saw his tail disintegrate, most likely from ground fire. Maxwell tried to bail out at the last moment, but his parachute didn’t open and he hit the water next to his plane and perished at age 31.

Less than a month later, the war was over.

A total of 12,275 F6F Hellcats were produced in just two years during the war. They flew 66,530 combat sorties for the U.S. Navy and Marines and claimed 5,163 kills—over half of all U.S. Navy/Marines air victories in the Pacific—with only 270 Hellcats lost in air-to-air combat and 553 to ground fire. The F6F produced the most aces (305) of any aircraft in the U.S. inventory.

The top ace, McCampbell, called the Hellcat “an outstanding fighter plane. It performed well, was easy to fly, and was a stable gun platform, but what I really remember most was that it was rugged and easy to maintain.”

After the war, the Hellcat’s job was not quite over. In summer 1946, the U.S. tested two atomic bombs on an armada of surplus vessels at the Pacific atoll of Bikini in the Marshall Islands. To help evaluate the tests, the U.S. military assembled a small fleet of pilotless drones, consisting of F6F Hellcats and B-17 bombers. The Hellcat drones took off from an airfield on Roi Island off Kwajalein. Within hours of the detonations, the F6F drones were flown by remote control over the test site, collecting information on radiation, air pressure, and physical damage.

The Navy continued to fly Hellcats drones for research well into the 1950s. It also experimented with using unpiloted Hellcat drones as “suicide” bombs against hardened targets during the Korean War. That effort was largely unsuccessful.

The drone program gave rise to at least one crazy incident in 1956 where a Hellcat drone went rogue and circled over the heavily populated Los Angeles area for several hours, while jet fighters scrambled to try to shoot it down safely. The jets fired 208 missiles at the Hellcat, and all missed. Eventually it ran out of fuel and crashed, lighting a brushfire. You can read about the so-called “Battle of Palmdale” here.

A bit more inspiring postwar role for the F6F Hellcat came about in early 1946, when it was chosen as the aircraft for a new U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron. Its first aerobatics display took place at Jacksonville, Florida, to celebrate the opening of the city’s new municipal airport. Decked out in navy blue with gold letters, the team of Hellcats soon became known as the “Blue Angels.” Needless to say, the Navy Blue Angels continue to perform (now flying FA-18 jet fighters) to this day.

Most wartime F6Fs, however, were sold for scrap. A handful continued to serve in combat, such as the French Hellcat based at Tan Son Nhat outside of Saigon (in French Indochina) in 1952, fighting the Viet Minh. The last country to fly the Hellcat was the Uruguayan Navy, which used them until the 1960s. Today, worldwide, out of over 12,000 produced, there are only five F6Fs still capable of flying.

I hoped you enjoyed this brief glimpse into the story of the Grumman F6F Hellcat, the most successful carrier-based fighter plane in WWII. If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing FlyingIron Simulations’ F6F-5 Hellcat add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries, scenery, and ships downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Remembering the Most Successful Carrier-Based WWII Fighter appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I’ll start the story at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport (LFBO) in southern France. The French company Établissements Fouga & Cie had its aircraft production facilities here, which were eventually folded into larger companies and are now the main assembly plant for Airbus.

• READ MORE: Recreating the de Havilland Tiger Moth

The company was founded by Gaston Fouga in 1920 in the southern French city of Béziers, where it originally produced railway cars. In the 1930s, Fouga acquired the talents of aircraft designers Robert Castello and Pierre Mauboussin, whose initials CM served as the basis for the firm’s aircraft model numbers.

During World War II, Fouga designed several aircraft for the French military, including various assault gliders. The Fouga CM.170 Magister reflects this heritage, and its elegant design—a pencil-like, streamlined fuselage with wide, thin wings—was originally based on that of a glider.

The Magister, which means “schoolmaster” in French, is an all-metal aircraft with a wingspan (almost 40 feet) wider than its 33-foot length. One of its most distinctive and innovative features was its V-tail, which the designers found gave it better aerodynamics at faster speeds but also introduced new challenges for control and stability in flight. The V-tail was a popular innovation in the late 1940s and early 1950s, which also found prominent application in the Beechcraft Bonanza.

To improve stability, Fouga designers added a “keel” under the tail. This downward-facing vertical stabilizer also has a small tailwheel on it, which allows the pilot to pull the nose up after landing to help brake by increasing drag, without damaging the tail.

The CM.170 has two turbojet engines capable of producing 880 pounds of thrust each, which is quite modest, even for its time. (In contrast, the twin engines of an F-22 Raptor today produce 35,000 pounds of thrust each, with afterburners). The engines are both placed very close to centerline, so if one fails, there is not much asymmetric thrust.

Inside the cockpit, the devices on either side that look like desk lamps are, in fact, lamps to illuminate the instrument panel at night. On the main instrument panel, on the top left is mach-meter, top right is the fuel gauge. Next row, left to right, is tachometer (engine RPM), airspeed, heading, attitude, and acceleration. Below that is engine temp, altitude, vertical speed, turn indicator, and radio direction finder.

On the throttle, there’s a button that pops open these speed brakes on the upper and lower side of each wing to help slow the aircraft down quickly. Each wing has a teardrop-shaped tip tank as a standard feature to carry additional fuel.

The CM.170 is designed primarily as a trainer, so it has two seats. The instructor sits in the rear seat but has an obstructed view. To solve this, the rear seat has a periscope to look up and over the front pilot.

Some points about the nose: The metal hoops are not antennae but handles to help crew maneuver the airplane on the ground. The glass tip of the nose isn’t a camera; it’s the landing light.

The Fouga Magister first flew in 1952 and is considered a later first-generation jet (Second-generation generally had swept—not straight—wings). It joined the French Air Force in its assigned training role in 1956, helping French pilots transition to the new age of jet combat aircraft.

While not particularly powerful or fast, the Magister quickly gained a reputation as an elegant and well-behaved airplane, agile, and easily controlled. Its dual cockpit was pressurized and air conditioned, giving it a ceiling of 36,000 feet. Its top speed is 386 knots (well below the speed of sound) and it has a range of 750 miles (2 hours and 40 minutes of flying) with external tip tanks.

We should take a moment here to enjoy the views of Toulouse, dubbed France’s “rose city” for its red brick architecture, situated along the Garonne River. The city, which dates from Roman times, is the center of France’s air and space industry, in no small part due to founding companies like Fouga.

The CM.170 can take off from a runway as short as 3,050 feet (930 meters), and can land on unimproved grass runways. Of course, that won’t be an issue here at Toulouse. Its stall speed is 78 knots with full flaps, hence a recommended approach speed of 110 knots or so. You can lower landing gear below 215 knots. I can only imagine that after spending their careers flying tailwheel high-powered piston planes with crazy torque, landing on a tricycle gear jet must have been a dream for pilots in the 1950s.

From the very start, France treated the Fouga Magister as a major export opportunity. In the 1950s, lots of countries in Europe and elsewhere were eager to train their pilots to enter the new jet era. West Germany placed an initial order for 62 Magisters directly from Fouga.

I’m here at Landsberg-Lech Air Base (ETSA) in Bavaria, where this particular plane (AA-134) once flew. Landsberg served as a major center for retraining the Luftwaffe after West Germany joined NATO in 1955. Of course, the Germans weren’t complete newcomers to jets after producing the first jet fighters near the end of World War II. As a result, a consortium, Heinkel and Messerschmitt, was given a license to manufacture 188 Magisters in West Germany. The French produced 576 Magisters themselves, both for their air force and for export. Production in France halted in 1962, but licensed manufacture abroad continued for several years.

The Magister became the backbone for many air forces adapting to the jet age. The agility and ease of control of the Fouga Magister made it a favorite among aerobatics teams, such as the Belgian Air Force’s “Red Devils.” The team started flying Magisters in 1965 and continued until the oil crisis of the 1970s led to drastic cutbacks. France, Brazil, and several other countries similarly adopted Magisters for their national aerobatic display teams, for many years. They’ve all been replaced by newer planes now.

• READ MORE: Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron

While mainly designed and used as a trainer, the Fouga Magister could be armed for combat. The French found them useful in strafing insurgent positions during the Algerian War for Independence. And the Algerians admired them so much, they bought several after they won. In addition to hard points on the wings for attaching bombs and rockets, the Magister could be equipped with twin 7.5 mm or 7.62 mm machine guns in the nose.

This particular aircraft, used by separatist forces in Katanga (a breakaway region in southern Zaire/Congo), has an especially interesting story.

In 1960, a few weeks after the Belgian-ruled Congo became independent, the mineral-rich southern region of Katanga, backed by Belgian mining interests, launched a revolt to break away as a separate country. Feeling snubbed by the West, Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, turned to the Soviets for support. A coup led by Mobutu overthrew Lumumba and turned him over to the Katanga separatists, who executed him.

In support of the Katanga rebels, the CIA arranged to supply them with an odd assortment of planes to form an impromptu “air force.” The prize of the bunch: nine Fouga Magisters set aside from a Belgian order to serve as ground attack aircraft. Only three of the Magisters were delivered to Katanga, however, in February 1961. They were flown into combat by foreign mercenary pilots.

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Meanwhile, the United Nations intervened by sending peacekeeping troops into the Congo to suppress the separatists, including foreign mercenaries, in Katanga. Among them was a small 155-man unit of Irish soldiers posted to the mining town of Jadotville, now Likasi, which I’m flying over here. The Irish troops established along the main road south of the golf course, immediately below me. (I was able to piece this together from various maps, then and now).

In September 1961, they were surrounded and came under attack from a 3,000-man force of Katangese forces. They held out for five days while a UN relief force of Irish, Indian, and Swedish troops tried to reach them. During this time, the besieged Irish troops came under aerial attack from the Fouga Magisters, owned by the Katangese Air Force. Despite suffering no casualties, the Irish UN troops were eventually forced to surrender after they ran out of ammunition. They were held as POWs for a month.

The day after the Irish troops surrendered, a DC-6 carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, coming to deal with the crisis on the ground, crashed in the region and he was killed. Rumors abounded that his plane was in fact shot down by one of the Fouga Magisters flown by mercenary pilots for the Katangese rebels. These suspicions, however, were never confirmed.

The story of the “Siege of Jadotville” and Hammerskjold’s death is told in the Netflix film of the same name. The film was accurate enough to portray an actual Fouga Magister (instead of some other random type of plane) attacking the compound.

The story of the Katanga Magisters doesn’t end there, however. The separatists were eventually defeated, and two of the three Fougas were seized by the Irish and brought back home to Ireland. There, they were refurbished and joined four more Magisters purchased second-hand from Austria to become part of the Irish Air Corps.

All six were based at Casement Air Base (EIME) just southwest of Dublin, where they formed a light strike squadron. Four of them also participated in Ireland’s “Silver Swallow” national aerobatics display team. The Irish Air Corps started flying the Fouga Magister in 1975. The Silver Swallows flew them from 1982 to when they were finally retired in 1998.

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Israel started flying Fougas in 1957 and shortly later local license-manufacturing was started by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), with the aircraft named the Tzukit. The Israeli Air Force used the Tzukit for primary and advanced training through the 1980s. Overall, 36 were produced in Israel and another 8 were purchased from abroad.

During the 1967 Six Day War, Israel’s Magisters were assigned to a reserve squadron, which was used to provide close air support during initial attacks against Egyptian forces in the Sinai. The Magisters were used to hit Egyptian ground forces, while more advanced combat aircraft were used to target Egyptian air bases. After Israeli forces successfully seized the Sinai, the Magisters were shifted to the West Bank, where they confronted advancing Jordanian forces. The Fougas reportedly destroyed over 50 tanks and over 70 other armored vehicles, helping to hold back the Jordanian advance toward Jerusalem. Seven Magisters and six pilots were lost in combat during the Six Day War, but they played a key ground support role in Israel’s campaign in and around Jerusalem.

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The small Central American country of El Salvador acquired nine former Israeli Magisters and three from France for its air force in the 1970s. They were used both as trainers and to strafe and bomb guerillas during that country’s civil war against Communist insurgents. Morocco also used Magisters against insurgents in the Western Sahara. In Southeast Asia, the Royal Cambodian Air Force’s training Magisters were captured and used by the Khmer Rouge in their air force.

By the 1970s and 1980s, Magisters became a popular choice for African countries that were unable to afford more expensive, modern aircraft. Here I’m flying a Senegalese Magister over downtown Dakar, after taking off from their main air force base at the older Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport. Other countries that flew the Magister include Algeria, Cameroon, Gabon, and Uganda.

The Fouga Magister was attractive to these countries because it could be easily swapped between training and low-intensity combat roles. Even for these countries, though, the Magister has since been replaced by more modern aircraft.

One of the last Western countries to fly the Magister was Finland. I’m flying here over the lake district around Jyväskylä, the site of Finland’s main training airbase. Starting in 1958, Finland acquired 18 Magisters from France. The Finnish manufacturer Valmet then acquired a license to produce 62 more in Finland.

The Magister was attractive to Finland because its number of combat aircraft was limited by a treaty with the Soviet Union, but these trainers could be swapped into a combat role in an emergency. Finnish pilots nicknamed the Fouga Magister the “Kukkopilli”, because the noise of the jet turbines reminded them of the sound of this traditional variant of flute.

Finland continued flying the Magister as its main trainer until 1988, when it was superseded by the BAE Systems Hawk. Today the Fouga CM.170 Magister is retired from military service around the world, but is still flown by private owners who find its elegant appearance, agility, and ease of control has an enduring appeal.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing Azulpoly’s Fouga Magister CM.170 add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Adapting to the Jet Age in a Fouga Magister appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Born in 1882, Geoffrey de Havilland was the second son of a village pastor. At an early age, he displayed a mechanical interest and pursued a career as an automotive engineer, building cars and motorcycles. Frustrated at work, in 1909 he received a gift of 1,000 pounds from his grandfather to build his first airplane, just a few years after the Wright brothers had made their first flight.

By World War I, de Havilland was working for Airco, where he designed a number of early warplanes, which enjoyed varying success, and flew as his own test pilot. In 1920, with the support of his former boss, de Havilland set up his own independent company and embarked on a series of aircraft named after moths, inspired by his love of lepidopterology, or the study of butterflies and moths.

• READ MORE: Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII

In 1932, he introduced the DH.82 Tiger Moth, a variant of earlier aircraft designed specifically as a military trainer for the Royal Air Force (RAF), as well as other air forces. Like many aircraft at the time, the Tiger Moth’s fuselage is constructed of fabric-covered steel tubing, while its wings are made of fabric-covered wooden frames. I’ve seen a single person lift a Tiger Moth by the tail to take it out of its hangar. The Tiger Moth was powered by a de Havilland Gypsy air-cooled, 4-cylinder in-line engine which produced 120-130 hp, depending on the version.

Like most trainers, the Tiger Moth had two seats, each with its own set of controls, with the student in front and the instructor or solo pilot in back. One of the major changes introduced to the Tiger Moth, at RAF insistence, was folding door panels that made it easier to enter and exit both cockpits. The feature was absolutely essential when a student or instructor needed to quickly bail out wearing  heavy parachutes.

The silver knobs on the left control throttle, fuel mixture, and aileron trim. The knob on the right enables “auto slots,” slats on the wings that automatically deploy like flaps to provide additional lift at low speeds and high angles of attack. Notice that there is no artificial horizon. However, there is a turn indicator (in the center) as well as a red column that indicates the aircraft’s pitch. It is currently showing nose-up because the plane is resting on its tailwheel.

The compass, situated just in front of the stick, is a bit tricky. You can either keep it pointed toward north and look to where the line is pointing, or you can rotate the compass ring to show the current heading at the top and follow that by keeping it centered.

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In addition to the cockpit gauge, there’s also a mechanical airspeed indicator on the left wing. Red shows typical stall speed range (below 45 mph).

I’m at England’s Upavon Airfield, a few miles north of Stonehenge, which was home to the RAF’s Central Flying School, founded in 1912, and where the first Tiger Moths were delivered. It is now a small army base (hence the vehicles) and is also used as a glider field. With no electrical starter, the Tiger Moth is hand-propped to get it started. The turning of the propeller, by hand, engages the magnetos that send charges to the spark plugs, starting the engine.

This particular Tiger Moth, N-6635, is based on the one on display at the Imperial War Museum at RAF Duxford, near Cambridge. It’s actually a composite that was put together with parts from different Tiger Moths.

The engine is modeled realistically. If you overstress it on full throttle for more than a few minutes, it will overheat and conk out. If you let it idle for too long, the spark plugs will foul up. With a small engine like this, the left-turning tendencies are not pronounced. However, the trickiest part of takeoff for most tailwheel airplanes is still when the tail comes up. The descent of the rotating propeller causes a gyroscopic precession to the left.

The Tiger Moth gained immediate popularity as the RAF’s primary trainer—the first airplane a would-be pilot learned to fly after ground school before moving on to more advanced fighters or bombers. It gained a reputation for being “easy to fly, but difficult to master.” In normal flight, it was forgiving of mistakes. On the other hand, the Tiger Moth required great precision from a pilot to learn aerobatic combat maneuvers, without going into a spin. However, it recovers easily from spins, which meant it highlighted a student’s shortcomings without (usually) putting them at fatal risk. Though I did notice that when flying upside down (or going through a roll), the engine sputters, probably because gravity messes with the fuel flow.

During the 1930s, between world wars, students selected by the RAF took about nine to 12 months to earn their pilot wings, building up about 150 hours of flight time, about 55 with an instructor and the rest solo. Their instruction included night, formation, and instrument flying, along with gunnery and aerobatics (for combat).

The Tiger Moth was sold to 25 air forces from different countries and proved popular to private buyers as well. It was a big commercial success for the company. A total of 1,424 Tiger Moths were produced prior to the outbreak of WWII, most of which were manufactured at the de Havilland factory in Hatfield, north of London.

Slowing down while descending to land can be difficult. I found I usually needed to cut the power to idle and glide in. Power-off landings were a very typical method in that era. It’s nearly impossible to see forward in the Tiger Moth, especially when landing. It’s best to lean your head out the side, while keeping one eye on controlling the airspeed at around 60 mph (about 15-20 mph above stalling).

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There are also no wheel brakes. So once you do land, you just have to let friction slow you down. It’s easier in a grassy field like this.

The success of the Tiger Moth led to Geoffrey de Havilland being awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1934. But its story was only just beginning.

Welcome to Goderich Airport (CYGD) in Ontario, Canada, about 2.5 hours north of Detroit on the eastern shore of Lake Huron. In 1928, de Havilland set up a subsidiary in Canada to produce Tiger Moths to train Canadian airmen. This Tiger Moth, #8922 (registration C-GCWT), is based on a real plane that belongs to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Mount Hope, Ontario, and is in airworthy condition.

With the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the British government realized that Britain itself was an unsuitable location for training large numbers of new pilots. Not only is the weather often poor, the airspace over Britain was quickly becoming a battleground between the beleaguered RAF and the German Luftwaffe—the last place you’d want a student pilot to learn how to fly.

Canada, in contrast, offered vast areas far from enemy activity, where pilot training could be conducted. To take advantage of this, the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) was created to instruct thousands of airmen from Britain and across the Empire in safer locations like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, and South Africa. The yellow “training” livery was typical of the BCATP, though the real-life airplane was also equipped with a plexiglass-enclosed cockpit to permit winter training.

Many of the small airports dotted across Canada from east to west—as well as some large ones—got their start as part of BCATP, commonly referred to as “the Plan.” I selected Goderich to fly from because after it was built in Canada in 1942, this plane, #8922, was used to train pilots here at the No. 12 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS), as part of the BCATP. The same airplane later went to No. 4 EFTS at Windsor Mills, Quebec, an airfield that no longer exists.

Eventually, there were 36 elementary flight schools across Canada, in addition to dozens more devoted to training bombardiers, navigators, and gunners. At least 131,533 Allied pilots and aircrew were trained in Canada under BCATP—the largest of any country participating in the Plan—of which 72,835 were Canadian. The program cost Canada $1.6 billion but employed 104,000 Canadians in air bases across the land. De Havilland produced 1,548 Tiger Moths in Canada, by war’s end, to help stock these flight schools with aircraft.

While training pilots in Canada was safer than in Britain, lives were still lost. From 1942 to 1944, a total of 831 fatal accidents took place, an average of five per week.

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BCATP training was by no means limited to Canada. I’m here at Parafield Airport in Adelaide, Australia, which was home to that country’s No. 1 Elementary Flight Training School and received its first Tiger Moths in April 1940. This particular Tiger Moth, A17-58, was built by de Havilland in Australia in 1940 and apparently still continues to fly. Australia eventually had 12 elementary flight schools (plus a host of other schools) as part of BCATP, which was known there as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS).

Prior to BCATP, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) only trained about 50 pilots per year. By 1945, more than 37,500 Australian aircrew had been trained in Australia, though many then went to Canada to complete their more advanced training before going into combat. Most Australians in the RAAF went on to fight in the Pacific Theater, though some joined the RAF to fight over Europe. De Havilland built a total of 1,070 Tiger Moths in Australia and even exported a few batches to the U.S. Army Air Forces and the Royal Indian Air Force.

The BCATP was one of the largest aviation training programs in history, providing about half of the airmen who flew for Britain and its dependencies in WWII. The ability to train in safety, away from the combat zone, gave Allied pilots a crucial advantage over the Germans, who typically went into combat with roughly half the training hours of their  counterparts. The program was so important that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who called the U.S. “the arsenal of democracy,” dubbed Canada “the aerodrome of democracy” as a result of its contribution to training Allied airmen—many of them in the Tiger Moth.

Tiger Moths were not only used to train pilots during WWII. Some were deployed for coastal patrols. I’m here at Farnborough, Britain’s former center for experimental aircraft development (southwest of London), to investigate another interesting purpose they served.

No, it’s not a mistake—there’s a reason why there are no pilots visible in either cockpit. This aircraft, LF858, was what was known as a “Queen Bee.” British anti-aircraft gun crews needed practice firing at real targets. But flying an airplane with people shooting at you is, well, rather dangerous. So de Havilland figured out a way to put radio equipment in the rear cockpit that could receive messages for an operator on the ground and work the aircraft’s controls accordingly. In other words, it was the world’s first “drone” aircraft.

Besides being able to fly by remote control, the main difference between a regular Tiger Moth and a Queen Bee is that instead of metal tubing for the fuselage frame, the latter used wood (like for its wings) to save money. The objective wasn’t to shoot down the Tiger Moth—that would be wasteful. Gunners used an offset to hopefully miss, so the airplane could land and be used again. But if they did hit, no pilots were at risk.

About 470 Tiger Moth “Queen Bees” were built during WWII. The term “drone” for a pilotless airplane derives directly from the Queen Bee program and refers to a male bee who flies just once to mate with a queen then dies.

By the end of WWII, nearly 8,700 Tiger Moths had been built, 4,200 of them for the RAF alone. It continued to be used by the RAF for training until it was replaced by the de Havilland Chipmunk in the 1950s.

The fact that so many people across the British Empire had learned to fly in a Tiger Moth made them immensely popular after the war, among private pilots and enthusiasts. An estimated 250 Tiger Moths are still flying, including this one based out of the small airstrip near Ranfurly on the southern island of New Zealand.

A number of Tiger Moth clubs exist around the world. The late Christopher Reeve, of Superman fame, once joined one of these clubs and learned how to fly the Tiger Moth. Reeve even made a movie about it, which you can find on YouTube. He said it took some time getting used to how slow they approach and land.

Tiger Moths have appeared in several films, often disguised as other biplanes. For instance, the plane in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was a Tiger Moth, decked out to look like a German Fokker. The silver biplane in The English Patient (1993) was a Tiger Moth (the other, yellow biplane in that movie was a Stearman). It’s worth mentioning that the biplane in Out of Africa (1985) was not a Tiger Moth, but the earlier and very similar Gypsy Moth, also built by de Havilland. Apparently there was even a movie in 1974 called The Sergeant and the Tiger Moth (1974) about a guy and his girlfriend who aren’t even pilots but build and fly one anyway. I have no idea if it’s any good, so please find and watch it for me.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing Ant’s Airplanes Tiger Moth add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Recreating the de Havilland Tiger Moth appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The story of the F-117 begins in 1964, when Soviet mathematician Pyotr Ufimtsev published the paper, Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction. It demonstrated that the radar return from an object depended more on its shape than size. Given the technology at the time, Ufimtsev’s insight was dismissed as impractical in Russia. But by the 1970s, given friendly aircraft losses to SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) in Vietnam and the Middle East, engineers at Lockheed’s “Skunk Works”—famous for designing cutting edge military planes like the P-38 Lighting, U-2 spy plane, and F-104 Starfighter—began taking the idea seriously.

• READ MORE: Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII

One key to minimizing radar return was to replace conventional streamlined, rounded surfaces with flat, angled surfaces designed to scatter radar waves in different directions. The wings would be swept back at a steep angle, like an arrowhead, and the vertical stabilizer (tail fin) replaced by an angled V-tail, all to reduce its radar profile.

The two turbofan jet engines were placed above the wings to shield their heat signature from the ground. The flat, reflective surfaces of the turbofan itself were shielded by an intake grill (to the right).

The engines have special exhaust ports in the rear to shield and minimize the heat released. The F-117 has no afterburners to give it extra thrust, as this would defeat the purpose of nondetection.

Instead of slinging weapons and bombs outside the fuselage, they are stored in an interior bay, safe from radar detection. Even opening the bay doors dramatically increases the F-117’s radar profile, so it must only be done for a few seconds over a target. Additionally, the exterior surfaces of the F-117 are all covered in a special coating, designed to absorb and deflect radar waves. The fork-like prongs jutting from the front of the F-117 are sensors to detect airspeed, angle of attack, and other instrument readings. The F-117 has no radar, which would immediately give away its presence. The glass panel in front of the cockpit is an infrared “eye” that enables the pilot to see in the dark and guide bombs to their target.

The windows of the F-117’s cockpit are ingrained with gold, which allows radar waves in but not out. Examples of the F-117’s cockpit are now on display in museums, and the layout is fairly similar to other single-pilot combat airplanes.

• READ MORE: Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

Initially a “black project” funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), starting in 1975, Lockheed cobbled together two prototypes under the code name “Hopeless Diamond,” which first flew in 1977. Although both prototypes crashed, the project was a sufficient enough success to proceed with a production model, which took its first flight from Area 51 in 1981. The first airplanes were delivered to the U.S. Air Force in 1982.

The radar-minimizing design features of the F-117 make it quite unstable to fly. In fact, it can really only be flown with computer assistance, using a fly-by-wire system derived from the F-16. Because of its difficult aerodynamics, the F-117 quickly gained the nickname “Frisbee” or “Wobblin’ Goblin.”

The shielding of its jet engines, and lack of afterburners, also means that the F-117 is subsonic (it cannot break the speed of sound), making it much slower than most conventional fighters. In fact, despite its designation, the F-117 is not a fighter meant to intercept and dogfight with enemy airplanes. It has no guns, and though in theory it could carry air-to-air missiles, its lack of radar would render them fairly useless.

• READ MORE: The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5

The “Stealth Fighter” is actually an attack aircraft or light bomber, intended to be used in covert missions or evade air defenses, mainly under the cover of night. Some say that the “fighter” designation was used to attract pilots to the program who would normally have preferred flying fighters over bombers.

After testing at Homey, the F-117 was assigned to a special secret unit at Tonopah Test Range, also in Nevada. A total of 64 combat-ready airplanes were eventually built. Throughout the 1980s, however, the F-117 was kept completely secret. While rumors and sightings of it abounded, the U.S. government refused to confirm that any such aircraft existed. The first acknowledged use of the F-117 in combat was during the U.S. invasion of Panama to topple dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989.

Before I elaborate on its combat history, I need to land this airplane. The F-117 doesn’t have any flaps or air brakes to slow it down. I pull the throttle back to nearly idle just to descend. The approach speed of the F-117 is really fast—around 250 knots—and it touches down at 180 knots. So on landing I pull a handle next to the landing gear to deploy a parachute, to slow me down in time.

Now let’s talk about the known combat record of the F-117. It’s 3 a.m.  on January 17, 1991. Just over a day since the coalition deadline for Saddam Hussein to withdraw his Iranian forces from Kuwait has expired. An F-117 flies over the desert just south of Baghdad.

F-117s are leading the first strike of the coalition air campaign in the first Gulf War, aimed at taking out key command and control installations in the Iraqi capital. With a radar reflection the size of a golf ball, the F-117 glides silent and unseen over the bends of the Tigris River toward its target. Meanwhile, Iraqi anti-aircraft guns fire blindly into the night sky—a scene I remember watching unfold live on TV as I sat in my college dorm room. Combat losses for the F-117 that first night were projected at 5 percent. In fact, every single one of them came back from their missions safely.

By the end of the first Gulf War, the F-117 had flown 1,300 sorties, hitting an estimated 1,600 high-value targets, with the loss of a single aircraft. Though some of its performance may have been exaggerated—initial estimates of 80 percent target accuracy were scaled back to 40-60 percent—the F-117 became a leading symbol of the U.S. technological edge that helped establish it as the world’s sole superpower going into the 1990s.

• READ MORE: Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron

Fast-forward to the evening of March 27, 1999. At Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, an F-117 prepares for another night of bombing Yugoslavia, as part of NATO’s intervention to compel Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo. The aircraft, call sign “Vega 31,” is flown by Lieutenant Colonel Darrell Patrick “Dale” Zelko, a Desert Storm veteran. His target is a command-and-control center in downtown Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Along with several other F-117s on similar missions, he will fly east across Slovenia and Hungary before refueling midair and turning south to enter Yugoslav airspace.

I’ve heard the story two ways. The first has Zelko approaching Belgrade from the northwest and being picked up by Serbian radar as he opened his bomb bay doors—presumably before he could hit his assigned target. The second version, which the pilot himself tells, has him skirting Romanian airspace and coming toward Belgrade from the east. He dropped his bombs on target then continued west to head back home. (From what I can gather, Zelko was actually quite a bit higher than I’m portraying here, and there was a cloud layer about 2,000 feet above the ground.)

Just south of the two in Ruma in the countryside west of Belgrade, a mobile S-125 Neva SAM unit detected the F-117, despite its stealth profile, and locked on. Two SAMs were fired. The first missed the cockpit by inches, and the proximity fuse somehow failed to trigger. The second hit one wing and sent the F-117 tumbling out of control. After an initial struggle, the pilot ejected, was able to evade Serbian ground forces, and was rescued by U.S. helicopters. Years later, Zelko met the man who commanded the SAM unit that shot him down, and the two became friends.

Interestingly, the U.S. did not take any steps to destroy the wreckage of the downed F-117. The official reason was that the technology was already out of date, and there was no rationale to fear it falling into enemy hands. While the F-117 Nighthawk was used in 2001 in Afghanistan, and again in 2003 over Iraq, it became increasingly clear that it was nearing the end of its useful days, soon to be replaced by newer aircraft like the F-22 and F-35 that incorporate further advances in stealth technology. In 2006, the U.S. Air Force announced that it was retiring the F-117 and began putting the fleet into storage. A few went to museums, and others began being scrapped.

However, in recent years, there have been a number of sightings of F-117s flying near Edwards Air Base near California’s Death Valley. Some were reportedly painted grayish white, earning them the nickname “ghosts.” It is widely suspected that these F-117s are taking part in exercises designed to train pilots to detect and intercept enemy stealth aircraft. For fans of the iconic “Stealth Fighter,” it’s gratifying to know that some of them still appear to be flying.

In its entire operational life, there was only one known F-117 shot down. Its time may have passed, but that’s a remarkable record.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing Aerial Simulations’ F-117 Nighthawk add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Reenacting Bombing Missions in an F-117 Nighthawk appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Anthony Fokker was Dutch, born in the colonial East Indies. In 1910, at age 20, he moved to Germany to pursue his interest in aviation. He soon founded his own airplane company there, and during World War I it designed a number of successful and famous fighter planes for the Germans. Fokker himself was an accomplished pilot. I wrote a previous article on the Fokker Dr.I triplane, which you can check out here.

• READ MORE: Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron

After losing WWI, Germany had to surrender all its warplanes and aircraft factories, including Fokker’s factory, under the Treaty of Versailles. Fokker, however, was able to bribe railway and border officials to smuggle some of his equipment back to his native Netherlands. That equipment allowed him to reestablish his company in Holland and design the Fokker F.VII, a single-engine transport for the fledgling postwar civilian market. I’m in one of those models here, in KLM colors, at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (EHAM).

The F.VII’s fuselage was fabric stretched over a steel-tube frame. Its wings were plywood-skinned. The original, single-engine version of the F.VII was powered by a variety of different models of radial engines, which ranged from 360 to 480 hp. Inside there was room for eight passengers, as well as a bathroom (the door to my right here).

The cabin was connected to the two-man cockpit by a little door under the fuel tank and starter switches. On the instrument panel, from left to right: oil pressure and temperature, altitude, another oil temperature gauge, air speed indicator (with a turn indicator below it), clock, and rpm tachometer. Around the cockpit you can see all the wires and pulleys connecting the controls to the flight surfaces outside. Turn or push the yoke and they quite clearly move. Fly by wire, indeed. The compass is basically a bowl with a magnet floating in it.

The designer of the initial F.VII was Walter Rethel, who was later hired by Willy Messerschmitt and went on to design the famous Bf 109, the main German fighter at the start of World War II.

With a single engine, even a fairly powerful one for its time, the Fokker F.VII didn’t exactly spring off the ground. It lumbers into the air and climbs gradually. Nevertheless, in the early 1920s, the F.VII became a successful early passenger transport for early airlines such as Dutch KLM and Belgian Sabena. Here I am flying over the historic center of Amsterdam.

In 1924, the F.VII even introduced flights from Amsterdam to the East Indies. Needless to say, it wasn’t nonstop and could take many days.

In 1925, automakers Henry Ford and his son Edsel began the Ford Reliability Tour, a challenge for aircraft to successfully complete a 1,900-mile course across the American Midwest with stops in 10 cities. To compete in Ford’s challenge, and make the airplane more reliable in general, Fokker had the F.VII redesigned to have three engines, adding two mounted on the side struts. The new F.VIIb/3m, decked out here in Sabena colors and flying over Brussels, became immediately popular, with 154 built. Each of the three engines was a 200 hp Wright J-4 Whirlwind.

• READ MORE: Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

Belgian tycoon Alfred Loewenstein, calculated to be the third-richest man in the world at his peak in the 1920s, even owned his own private Fokker F.VII. Flying over the English Channel in 1928, he had one of the most unfortunate bathroom breaks in history. You see, the door to the bathroom (left) is directly across from the door to the outside (right). It seems Loewenstein opened and walked through the wrong one and fell to his death in the water below. Though to this day, some still suspect it was murder. There’s even a book about this incident, The Man Who Fell from the Sky by William Norris.

If that were the sum of the F.VII’s history, it might be pretty uninspiring. But to tell the rest of it, I’m here at Spitsbergen in Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard for Byrd’s flight to the North Pole. Richard Byrd was a U.S. naval officer who commanded air patrols out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, during WWI. He played an active but supporting role in the first attempts to cross the Atlantic by air, and in 1926 had his big shot at fame. His Fokker F.VIIa/3m, mounted on snow skis, was named the Josephine Ford, after the daughter of Edsel Ford, who helped finance the expedition.

This was a two-man expedition, with Byrd accompanied by Navy Chief Aviation Pilot Floyd Bennett. The passenger seats were torn out and replaced with extra fuel tanks and emergency supplies.

The inside of the cockpit is quite similar to the one-engine version but with three separate throttles and tachometers (showing rpm). There was no airport in Svalbard at the time, so they had to take off from a snow-covered field—hence the skis. Byrd’s flight, from Svalbard and back, took 15 hours and 57 minutes, including 13 minutes spent circling at their farthest north point, which Byrd claimed, based on his sextant readings, to be the North Pole.

Did he really reach the North Pole and become the first to fly over it? This remains hotly disputed to this day, with some researchers claiming that he faked his sextant readings and fell short of his goal. In that case, the true prize would belong to Norwegian Roald Amundsen, already the first to reach the South Pole by land, in his airship Norge.

• READ MORE: The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5

A few observations about flying the Fokker F.VII, at least in the sim. First, it’s not very stable, in the sense of wanting to correct back to straight and level flight. It’s sensitive to being loaded either nose-heavy or tail-heavy and requires a lot of control input. Second, that big wing really likes to glide. To descend without overspeeding, I basically have to put all three throttles back to idle and glide down.

Last, there are no differential brakes and no tailwheel. That makes the F.VII extremely hard to control on the ground, even just to taxi. That’s especially true on snow skis.

Whether Byrd truly did reach the North Pole or not, he became a huge national hero when he returned to the U.S. Byrd and Bennett were both presented with the Medal of Honor by then-President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

The following year in 1927, Byrd outfitted a new Fokker F.VII/3m, named America, to bid for the Orteig Prize, promising $25,000 for the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris (or vice versa). Anthony Fokker himself had recently moved to the United States and was part of the team preparing Byrd and his crew—the odds-on favorite—for the Atlantic crossing. During practices, however, America—piloted by Fokker himself—crashed, injuring both Byrd and Bennett and postponing their attempt. As a result, while America was being repaired, Charles Lindbergh—an unheard-of underdog—made the flight solo in the Spirit of St. Louis, becoming an aviation legend.

• READ MORE: Simulating a Bombing Raid in an F-16

The Fokker F.VII would still achieve fame, though, crossing a different ocean at the hands of Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith in 1928. If you’ve ever passed through Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (YSSY) and wondered who it’s named after, you’re about to find out. (If you’re an Australian, you already know).

Movie star handsome Smith, known as “Smithy,” fought as a combat engineer at Gallipoli in WWI but soon joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot. He was shot down, injured, and returned to become a flying instructor in Australia. From that day, Smith had a dream to cross the Pacific Ocean by air from the U.S. to Australia. By 1928 he was ready to try to achieve that goal. That’s why I’m here at Oakland Municipal Airport (KOAK) in California, where he took off in his Fokker F.VIIb/3m Southern Cross. Not unlike Byrd’s airplane, the inside has been altered to make space for extra fuel tanks.

At 8:54 a.m. on May 31, 1928, Smith and his four-man crew lifted off from Oakland on the first leg of their journey to Hawaii. At the time, flying to Hawaii, much less Australia, was an extremely daunting prospect. While they had a radio with limited range, there were no radio beacons to guide them. They could only estimate a course based on the latest, often inaccurate, weather reports over the Pacific and hope that unexpected winds wouldn’t blow them off course and make them miss Hawaii entirely. As they flew over the Golden Gate— the bridge hadn’t been built yet—they knew that several aviators before them had estimated wrong and simply vanished into the vastness of the Pacific.

The first stage from Oakland to Hawaii covered 2,400 miles and took 27 hours and 25 minutes (87.54 mph). It was uneventful. But one can only imagine their joy as they arrived here over the northeast shore of Oahu.

They landed at Wheeler Army Airfield in the center of Oahu. The Southern Cross was the first foreign-registered airplane to arrive in Hawaii and was greeted at Wheeler by thousands, including Governor Wallace Rider Farrington. Smith and his crew were put up at Honolulu’s pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel to rest for the next stage.

• READ MORE: A Virtual History of the Piper Cub

The runway at Wheeler was too short for the Southern Cross to take off fully loaded, so they flew to Barking Sands on the west coast of Kauai, where a special runway had been constructed. They took off from Barking Sands at 5:20 a.m. on June 3, bound for Suva in Fiji.

The journey from Hawaii to Fiji was 3,155 miles—the longest flight yet over continuous seas. It lasted 34 hours and 30 minutes at an average speed of 91.45 mph.

Halfway across near the equator, the Southern Cross encountered a tropical thunderstorm. Keep in mind, the crew did not have the benefit of an artificial horizon. The only way it could keep level, flying blind, was keeping a close eye on airspeed, altitude, and the inclinometer (or turn indicator). Somehow, the crew weathered the storm and kept going.

The crew undoubtedly felt great relief when it spotted the green landscape of Fiji ahead. There was no airport at that time, so the Southern Cross landed on a cricket field. Once again, it was far too small to use to take off again, so after a few days’ rest, the crew relocated to a beach from which to depart for the next and final leg of the journey. Leaving Fiji on June 9, the aviators embarked on their final 1,683-mile stretch home to Australia.

Once more they encountered storms, which blew them nearly 150 miles off course. Even when the weather was clear, the unrelenting and trackless ocean must have been overwhelming.

The Southern Cross reached the Australian coastline near Ballina, well south of its intended target, and turned north toward Brisbane. As the crew reached Brisbane, it was greeted by an aerial escort. The goal was Eagle Farm Airport northeast of the city—now the location of Brisbane’s main international airport.

The Southern Cross had flown 7,187 miles (11,566 kilometers) in 83 hours and 72 minutes. The Pacific Ocean had been conquered by the air for the very first time. A crowd of 26,000 greeted Smith and his crew when they touched down at Eagle Farm.

Smith died in 1935 at 35 when his airplane disappeared over the Indian Ocean while attempting to break the England-Australia speed record. His career was filled with both triumph and scandal, but he is still considered Australia’s great aviation hero. If you visit Brisbane’s airport, you can still see the real Southern Cross on display in a dedicated hangar.

The Fokker F.VII continued as a popular airliner into the 1930s. However, the vulnerability of its fabric-and-wood construction became apparent following a 1931 TWA crash that resulted in the death of famed University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. As a result, the Fokker F.VII gave way to all-metal airliners such as the Boeing 247, Lockheed L-10 Electra, and eventually the DC-3.

One of the most popular early successors to the Fokker F.VII was the Ford Trimotor, basically an all-metal version of the F.VII. For all their sponsorship, the Fords seem to have gotten something out of it in the end. Anthony Fokker, nicknamed “The Flying Dutchman,” lived most of the rest of his life in the U.S. and died at  49 in New York in 1939 from pneumococcal meningitis.  

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing the “Local Legend” Fokker F.VII add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

To kick us off, I’m at Edwards Air Force Base in California’s Mojave Desert, with a reincarnation of the same plane that Chuck Yeager crashed trying to set a new altitude record here in 1963.

The story of the F-104 begins in the skies over Korea, where U.S. pilots in F-86 Sabres battled MiG-15s, many of them secretly flown by Russian pilots. While the F-86 held its own, pilots reported that they wanted a jet fighter that could fly faster and higher than the MiG. The challenge was taken up by Kelly Johnson, the famous head of Lockheed’s Skunk Works, who designed many of the company’s most groundbreaking planes, including the L-10 Electra and P-38 Lighting, and later the U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes.

The F-104 Starfighter would be propelled by a single General Electric J79 jet engine, an absolute monster that produced over 14,000 pounds of thrust. The main wings of the F-104 were stubby, extremely thin, and tilted downward (anhedral) as a counter to the T-tail behind. The forward edges of the wings were so sharp they created a safety hazard to ground crew—accidentally bang into them, and they could cut like a knife.

When flying at high angles of attack, the wings could potentially mask the T-tail from the airflow, rendering the elevators useless and making it impossible to pitch down to recover—something I learned I really had to watch out for.

The cockpit is all analog gauges. The most important are the artificial horizon to the middle right, the altimeter to the middle left, and the airspeed indicator just above it. The engine gauges to the far right are important too, because this thing is easy to overheat.

The throttle to the left is pretty simple. Just next to it is the level for flaps. There’s only one stage of flaps, about 10 degrees, for takeoff and landing.

The first F-104 prototype took to the skies in March 1954 at Edwards AFB and quickly earned its reputation as a “missile with a man on it.” In the first few months, the F-104 set numerous altitude and speed records, becoming the first jet fighter to exceed Mach 2.

But it also soon revealed a number of flaws and limitations that would plague it throughout its career. First, while it was extremely fast, it had a very wide turning radius, which made it unsuitable for close-in dogfighting. This became evident when I made a 180-degree turn to land and kept way overshooting the runway.

Second, when you have the engine on full throttle, it’s very easy for the compressor to stall and cause the engine to flame out. This happened several times, throwing me violently forward in the cockpit. I was high enough, so I could restart.

Finally, there’s angle of attack, the angle at which the wing meets the air. The higher that angle, the more lift. But beyond a certain point the wing will stall and cease providing any lift at all. The angle of attack indicator is the dial to the far right. It’s on “3” here. When it goes to “5” or more, the stick starts shaking to warn me. And if it goes into the red, the stick will automatically push forward, causing the airplane to lurch nose down.

At first, I found it a challenge to manage the angle of attack at speeds below 200 knots. In fact, that’s why the F-104 was known for having to land at a relatively fast speed. In fact, this was the result of my first attempt to land it. Needless to say, it was a closed-casket funeral.

For all these reasons, the F-104 was one of the first jet fighters to feature an ejection seat. Pull the cord down between my legs and away we go. F-104 pilots wore spurs, which clipped into wires that, when they ejected, pulled their legs in from the rudder pedals so they wouldn’t get ripped off. The pilots loved these because when they walked around it made them look and feel like cowboys.

The problem was the first explosive charges for the F-104’s ejection seat couldn’t propel the pilot above the oncoming T-tail. So the pilot was ejected downward out the bottom of the fuselage. Ejecting downward at high altitudes wasn’t a problem, but it became deadly at low altitudes on final approach. The ejection would slam you right into the ground before the parachute could open. Eventually this was changed, and new explosive charges were rigged to blow off the canopy and eject the pilot skyward, which has remained the practice ever since.

The F-104 is probably most familiar from the scene in the 1983 film The Right Stuff, where Yeager, played by Sam Shepard, tries to fly one to the edge of space and ends up losing control and ejecting just before it crashes. This was a real event, and the airplane he flew (NF-756) was actually an experimental version of the F-104 with a rocket (not depicted) attached to the tail, providing an additional boost to reach maximum altitude.

Yeager actually began his run level at 40,000 feet to build up speed to Mach 2.2 before starting his climb. Then he nosed up 45 degrees or more and shot for the sky. At 78,000 feet he shut off the main engine and let the tail rocket propel him higher. 

In the movie, it makes it look like the problem was that his engine failed. In fact, that wasn’t the issue. The trouble was that around 107,000 feet for some reason the elevators became locked, and he couldn’t nose down as he lost speed. Unable to regain speed by nosing back down, the airplane went into a flat spin, and Yeager ultimately had to eject. The seat hit him and caused the rubber in his helmet to catch fire, burning his face and one of his fingers badly, but he survived.

I don’t have an extra tail rocket and was still learning the ropes with the finicky engine, so the highest I was able to go in the F-104 was to about 50,000 feet. The view was pretty wild, though. The fastest I could get the F-104 on my first flight was Mach 1.4. Though I think with a little practice I could probably figure out how to get past Mach 2.

Time to come back down to earth and try to land right this time. Barreling in at 200 knots is a little unnerving (a Cessna lands at about 60 knots, a Boeing 737 at about 130). Once you do touch down, the F-104 has a parachute you can deploy to help slow you down in time before you run out of runway. Later versions of the F-104 also featured a tailhook that could catch wires on certain airfields to come to a halt. Either way, even in the sim you definitely feel being slammed forward as you decelerate.

The F-104 was initially deployed as a high-speed interceptor and played a key deterrent role in the 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis, the 1961 Berlin Wall Crisis, and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. But the limitations of the F-104 in an actual combat role became evident during the Vietnam War, which is why I’m at the giant U.S. airbase at Da Nang (now a civilian airport, VVDN).

One big drawback was limited range. The F-104 guzzled fuel and would quickly run out if it didn’t carry an array of extra tanks on its wings to supplement. The jet was designed to intercept and shoot down other fighters. But there were few enemy fighters that posed a direct threat in the skies over Vietnam. As a result, the F-104 scored zero direct air-to-air kills in almost 3,000 sorties during the Vietnam War, though several were lost due to accidents and enemy fire (one was reported shot down by a Chinese fighter jet after straying into China airspace).

It can be argued that F-104 Starfighters performed their job well. By patrolling the skies, they deterred North Vietnamese fighter jets, which largely avoided them, ensuring the safety of other U.S. aircraft involved in providing close-air support to troops fighting on the ground. Nevertheless, the F-104 was soon phased out of the U.S. Air Force, replaced by other jets such as the F-4 Phantom which, while not as fast, could serve in a more versatile range of roles, from dogfighting to bombing to landing on aircraft carriers.

That was hardly the end of the F-104, however. Just as its life with the Air Force was ending, it gained popularity in export markets, including the American-recognized Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. On January 13, 1967, four Republic of China Air Force Starfighters engaged a formation of People’s Liberation Army Air Force MiG-19s  over the island of Kinmen (Quemoy) just off the coast of mainland China. One F-104 did not return to base and was presumably shot down. But two Taiwanese pilots each shot down a MiG-19.

Johnson said this aerial battle illustrated both the strengths and weaknesses of the fighter he designed for Lockheed. It had the advantage in speed and altitude but could not turn with the MiGs. This particular airplane (4344) survived and remains on display at the ROC Air Force Museum in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Several other countries also adopted the F-104 in the mid-1960s. One of the most important was Canada, which acquired a license from Lockheed to produce it domestically as the CF-104. This CF-104 being refueled belongs to the 3rd Fighter Wing once based at Zweibrücken in southwest Germany.

At the time, Canada actually had the fourth-largest air force in the world, with four bases in Western Europe, two in France, and two (including Zweibrücken) in what was then West Germany. The Canadian CF-104s at all four bases replaced F-86 Sabres and took on two special missions, with the first being aerial reconnaissance.

The second mission— a unique one—was a nuclear strike. The Canadian CF-104s carried a single, compact nuclear bomb under its fuselage, like a drop-tank, which unfortunately I’m not able to depict. In wartime, the job of the Canadian CF-104s was to take off and fly straight to targets inside the former Soviet Union and drop their nuclear load.

Even with wingtip fuel tanks, the CF-104s didn’t have the range to fly to Russia and back. The pilot would be expected to bail out somewhere near the target and hide until the war ended. That’s a pretty rough assignment. I’m glad I’m not that guy and that this guy never actually had to perform his mission. Canada operated the CF-104 for 25 years from 1962-1987, when it was replaced by the F-18 Hornet.

Like many other countries that flew the Starfighter, Canada saw a very high accident rate—110 major accidents and 37 fatalities—which gained it the nickname “The Widow Maker.” But the country that ordered the largest number of export F-104s, and had the highest accident rate, was West Germany.

The Starfighter we’re looking at is a little different. It’s a two-seat TF-104 used as a trainer. When countries deployed the F-104, they typically bought a few TF-104s as part of the package. This TF-104 belongs to JaboG 34, a fighter-bomber squadron once based at Memmingerberg in Bavaria and now a civilian airport.

Starting in 1960, the Germans bought 915 Starfighters, 35 percent of all F-104s ever produced, as part of a plan to quickly ramp up their contribution to NATO’s fighting force. Of these 915 planes, 292 (almost one-third) were destroyed in accidents and 116 pilots were killed. At one point, there was an accident happening almost every week.

This was the worst safety record of any country operating the F-104. Why was it so bad? There are several reasons that probably contributed. First, many pilots in the new Luftwaffe were inexperienced, with only a few older veterans signing on who had flown in World War II. Many of the F-104 problems persisted: engines flaming out, stalling at high speeds, T-tail elevators becoming ineffective, etc. Even at its best, the Starfighter was considered an unforgiving aircraft. In the hands of an inexperienced pilot, this could be deadly.

Second, to save money, the Germans made the F-104 their one and only type of airplane. Originally designed as a high-altitude interceptor, they had it play a wide variety of roles, including low-altitude combat support bomber. This role led to many accidents where pilots couldn’t pull up fast enough from a dive and crashed.

Third, many German pilots received their F-104 training in the American Southwest, where the weather was clear and ideal. When they came back to Europe, they found themselves operating in poor weather conditions close to the ground. Many accidents were weather related.

Finally, there’s that ejector seat. Many German pilots trained on F-104s with a downward ejecting seat. They learned to adapt at low altitude by turning the airplane upside down before ejecting, so they would be propelled away from the ground. By the time the Germans received their planes, though, many had been changed to upward ejecting seats. But by force of habit, some pilots would still turn upside down before ejecting at low altitude and…well, you know.

If this ongoing bloodbath wasn’t enough, West Germany’s F-104 purchases became the center of a major bribery scandal. In the 1970s, several German politicians, including the defense minister, were accused of taking multimillion-dollar bribes from Lockheed to choose the F-104 over its rivals. Similar charges were made against Lockheed in other countries, involving the F-104 and other aircraft.

For all its flaws, the West German Luftwaffe continued to rely on the F-104 as its primary warbird until it was replaced by the Panavia Tornado in the 1980s. British pilot Eric Brown said the F-104 was an airplane that “has to be flown every inch of the way.” The U.S. required pilots to have 1,500 flight hours before climbing into the F-104. German pilots typically had 400—and it showed.

Now if all of this makes you want to jump into a F-104 and try it out, you may be in luck. An outfit called Starfighters Inc. offers a two-day program of flight training in one out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida for $29,900. Its small fleet of former Canadian TF-104s operates out of a hangar at the space shuttle landing facility. If you have that kind of money lying around, all you need is a private pilot certificate, medical certificate, be within certain maximum height and weight limits, and be able to pass a security check to get on-site.

For what you’re paying, I certainly hope they let you go Mach 2. I don’t have that kind of coin, but at least in the sim I can fly over Kennedy Space Center and wave hello to Elon Musk. So, yeah, your dreams can come true and it can happen to you—if money is no object. In the meantime, the rest of us will have to make do with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this feature on the F-104 Starfighter and its interesting history. And maybe at least one of you will go to Florida and fly one. Good luck!

If you’d like to see a version of this article with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the Sim Skunk Works TF-104G and FRF-104G add-ons to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and sceneries produced by fellow users and shared on flightsim.to for free.

The post Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

This is also the story of the Schneider Trophy, one of the most prestigious prizes in early aviation that sparked fierce international competition to develop the fastest airplanes in the world. The trophy was the brainchild of Jacques Schneider, a French hydroplane boat racer and balloon pilot who was sidelined by a crash injury. Originally an annual contest, starting in 1912, it promised 1,000 British pounds (more than $100,000 today) to the seaplane that could complete a 280-kilometer (107-mile) course in the fastest time. Interrupted by World War I, the contest resumed in 1919 with a new provision: Any country that won three times in a row would keep the trophy permanently. The prize quickly became the focus of intense international rivalry.

Until 1922, the contest was dominated by flying boats—with their fuselages serving as the floating hull—and by the hard-charging Italians—led by the companies Savoia and Macchi, which came close to walking away with three wins and the trophy, scoring average speeds just over 100 mph. But starting in 1923, the Americans introduced floatplanes (streamlined biplanes on pontoons) and took speeds to an entirely new level. Jimmy Doolittle—the famous racer who later led the first World War II bombing raid on Tokyo—won the 1925 race at 232.57 mph, putting the U.S. one step from final victory.

The sole British victory had come in 1922 in a flying boat built by Supermarine Aviation Ltd. Founded in 1913, the Southampton, England-based company had a disappointing record designing aircraft during WWI but since then had enjoyed some limited success ferrying passengers across the English Channel. The company’s chief designer was a young man still in his 20s named Reginald Joseph “R.J.” Mitchell. Desperate not to be shut out by the Italians and Americans, the British Air Ministry backed Mitchell’s efforts to experiment with some radical new designs.

The Supermarine S.4 (the “S” being for Schneider) was a streamlined floatplane, like the American entries, but a monoplane instead of a biplane, constructed mostly of wood and powered by a 680 hp Napier Lion engine. In 1925 it set a world speed record of 226.752 mph, but it proved highly unstable and crashed during trials for the Schneider Trophy race that year. Two years later, Supermarine and Mitchell were back with a revised design: the Supermarine S.5. Three were built and entered in the Schneider competition, numbered 219, 220, and 221. I’ll be flying No. 220 today.

I’ll talk about some of the differences between the S.4 and S.5, but first let’s set the scene. The Schneider Trophy race was hosted by whichever country won the last time. The Italians were victorious in 1926, so the 1927 race was held in Venice. This time, not only was the British government providing financial support, it also sponsored a team of Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots to fly the airplanes.

One of the more curious conditions of the Schneider contest was that the aircraft first had to prove they were seaworthy by floating for six hours at anchor and traveling 550 yards over water. I found taxiing, takeoff, and landing quite bouncy. With its powerful engine and high center of gravity, the S.5 had a tendency to porpoise up and down over the smallest waves.

For all the entries, just keeping the fragile airframes together and the high-powered engines functioning was half the battle. Often, the finicky aircraft broke down or crashed (like the S.4 did in 1925) before they could even begin the race.

The crowds still came. It’s been barely a few months since American Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, creating a wave of popular enthusiasm for aviation. More than 250,000 spectators have gathered to see the 1927 Schneider race. The course itself is located outside the lagoon, along the Lido. The airplanes must fly seven 47-kilometer laps around the course for a total distance of 320 kilometers (just over 204 miles).

And here we go at full speed across the starting line across from the Hotel Excelsior.

We fly south along the shoreline of the Lido, past the lighthouse at Alberoni, and toward Chioggia.

A steep 180-degree turn at Chioggia, a miniature Venice that built its medieval wealth on its adjoining salt pans…

…then north on the seaward straightaway.

Another hard left turn around the San Nicolo lighthouse…

…then back across the starting line to begin the next lap.

Unlike the S.4, the S.5’s wings are strongly braced by wires. These may add unwanted drag, but they keep the airplane from breaking up under the stress of those high-speed turns.

The S.5 I’m flying, No. 220, is powered by an improved 900 hp Napier Lion piston engine, delivering 220 horsepower more than its predecessor. It has 12 cylinders, arranged in three lines of four cylinders each in the shape of a W, creating the three distinct humps along the nose. The propeller has a fixed pitch.

Fuel was carried inside the two floats, while the oil tank was located inside the tail. The engine was cooled by water, which circulated its heat to copper plates on the wings that served as radiators. Corrugated metal plates along the fuselage served as radiators for the engine oil.

The cockpit is mainly designed to monitor if the engine is overheating—and little else. The goal is to keep rpm close to 3,300, radiator temperature below 95 degrees, and oil temperature below 140 degrees. I’ve found that while the engine may not be air cooled, the flow of air over the radiator surfaces matters a lot. So maintaining a relatively high speed at an efficient engine setting actually helps keep things cool. There’s an airspeed indicator, but it tops out at 400 kilometers per hour, well below our racing speed. There’s no altimeter, and only a rudimentary inclinometer (bubble level) to indicate bank. It’s also nearly impossible to see straight ahead over the engine cowling.

In the cockpit to my right, I have a paper punch card. Every time I pass the finish line, I poke a new hole in it to keep track of how many laps I’ve completed.

Another little twist in the rules: Twice during the race, the aircraft had to “come in contact” with the water—typically a kind of bounce without slowing, which could be very tricky at high speed.

It so happens that  every single airplane except two—both Supermarine S.5s—failed to finish the race in 1927 for one reason or another. Our No. 220, flown by Flight Lieutenant Sidney Webster, finished first with an average speed of 281.66 mph.

The British had won the trophy, but they would have to repeat their performance two more times to keep it for good. To allow more time for aircraft development, participants agreed to hold future competitions every two years, with the next race coming in 1929.

The contest would take place in Supermarine’s home waters off Southampton. The company entered one S.5 and two S.6s. The latter, which had roughly the same design, were now all-metal planes with a new engine with more than twice the horsepower—the 1,900 hp Rolls-Royce R. To keep this monster engine cool, the S.6 needed surface radiators built into its pontoons as well as wings. Not only did one of the S.6s win the 1929 trophy with an average speed of 328.64 mph, but just before the race it set a new world speed record of 357.7 mph.

The British were now one win away from keeping the trophy for good. But with the onset of the Great Depression, the Labour Party-led British government pulled its funding and forbade RAF pilots to fly in the next race in 1931. The decision was wildly unpopular and led to public outcry. Into the fray stepped Lady Lucy Houston, a former suffragette and the second-richest woman in England. Fiercely critical of the Labour Party, she personally pledged to donate whatever funding was needed for Britain to compete in the race.

Backed by 100,000 pounds from Houston (and renewed participation by an embarrassed British government), Supermarine entered six aircraft in the race—two S.5s (including No. 220, which won at Venice), two S.6s, and two brand-new S.6Bs. The S.6B had redesigned floats, but most importantly, an improved Rolls-Royce R engine that delivered an astounding 2,350 horsepower. As it turned out, no other countries entered the competition that year. The S.6B raced alone, achieving an average speed of 340.08 mph. The next day, the S.6B set a new world speed record of 407.5 mph.

There would be no more Schneider Trophy races. With three straight, the trophy was Britain’s to keep, and it remains on display at the Science Museum in London, though few visitors may appreciate what it means. Besides a boost to national pride, the Schneider races propelled aviation forward by leaps and bounds. Today, it might be surprising to realize that the world speed record was consistently set by seaplanes from 1927 to 1935, when the Hughes H-1 Racer finally surpassed them.

The Supermarine S-planes provided Mitchell experience and confidence with incorporating all-metal construction, streamlined monoplane design, innovative wing shapes, and high-performance, liquid-cooled engines. And the S.6s introduced him to working with Rolls-Royce, which built on the lessons learned from its “R” engine to develop a new mass-production engine, starting at 1,000 horsepower, called the Merlin. In the early 1930s, Mitchell would marry these proven high-speed design ideas to the Merlin engine to create the Supermarine Spitfire, the legendary aircraft credited with winning the Battle of Britain during WWII. As for Lady Houston, who supported Supermarine’s entry in the final race, she was later lauded as the “Mother of the Spitfire” for keeping Mitchell’s development efforts alive.

In 1942, the British produced a wartime movie called The First of the Few. It tells the story of Mitchell’s development of the Spitfire, including the key role of the Schneider Trophy races. But the raceplanes themselves were mostly abandoned and ultimately scrapped. Only the Supermarine S.6B that won the 1931 race still survives—now on display at the Solent Sky Museum in Southampton. 

In 1975, Ray Hilborne built a replica of the Supermarine S.5, which was damaged a few years later. Bob Hosie rebuilt it to fly again, inspiring a folk song by Archie Fisher. Sadly, Hosie was killed in 1987 when it crashed. Today his son William Hosie is part of a project to build a new replica of the Supermarine S.5, with hopes to have it flying by 2027. You can learn more about it here.

Meanwhile, the Schneider Trophy race was revived in 1981. Instead of seaplanes, it features small general aviation airplanes as part of the annual British Air Racing Championship.

I hope you enjoyed the story of the Supermarine S.5 and its amazing legacy. If you’d like to see a version of this article with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the freeware Supermarine S.5 add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 created by sail1800 and downloaded from flightsim.to.

The post The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Originally produced by General Dynamics, which has since sold its aircraft business to Lockheed Martin, the F-16 came about in the early 1970s in response to the shortcomings of the F-4 Phantom, which saw murderous attrition rates in the skies over Vietnam, and the introduction of new, more advanced Soviet fighters such as the MiG-25.

While the primary response took the form of the twin-engine F-15 Eagle, a “fourth generation” fighter billed as the ultimate air superiority fighter, a small cadre within the U.S. Air Force argued for also developing a smaller, single-engine fighter as a complement to the top-shelf (but expensive) F-15.

Known as the “Fighter Mafia,” this group, led by Korean War fighter pilot John Boyd and mathematician Thomas Christie, developed a formula called “energy-maneuverability theory” to quantify and model a fighter’s combat performance. Their theory called for an agile, lightweight fighter that could make fast changes in direction to get inside the enemy’s decision-making loop.

The project gave rise to a competition, which ultimately came down to two contenders: the General Dynamics YF-16 and the Northrop YF-17. In part because it shared the same engine with the F-15, the Air Force chose the F-16. But the YF-17 didn’t fade into history as it went on to become the Navy’s F-18 Hornet.

The F-16 that the Fighter Mafia inspired was immediately recognizable as a fighter pilot’s fighter. The bubble canopy provided unobstructed views in every direction, while the seat angled back 30 degrees to mitigate the effect of G-forces on the pilot.

The heads-up display (HUD), press-button display screens, and automated start-up checklist all simplified tasks for the pilot. The F-16 was the first fighter that was fly-by-wire. The traditional stick, mechanically connected to aircraft’s controls, was replaced with a sidestick—almost like a gaming joystick— from which gentle nudges are enough to transmit electronic instructions to the computerized flight control system.

Computerized flight control was a necessity as well as a convenience, because the F-16 was designed to be aerodynamically unstable to maximize agility. Its single Pratt & Whitney F-100 turbofan produces a thrust-to-weight ratio greater than 1-to-1, boosting its maneuverability even further.

The wings and belly featured 11 hard points for attaching a wide array of missiles, bombs, extra fuel tanks, and electronics pods—up to 8 tons worth—for different types of missions. Unlike the F-4 Phantom, which initially lacked any guns for close-in dogfighting, the F-16 was also armed with a 20 mm M61 Vulcan six-barrel rotary cannon on the left shoulder of the cockpit, capable of firing 100 rounds per minute.

Dubbed the “Fighting Falcon” by General Dynamics, the F-16 quickly became known to its pilots and crew as the “Viper.” Perhaps its profile reminded them of a snake ready to strike, but for many, it also called to mind the Viper starfighters in the original Battlestar Galactica TV series.

Overall, the F-16, was about a quarter the size of the F-15, about a third the weight, and initially cost $12.7 million per airplane, less than half the $28 million sticker price for an F-15—a fact that made it immediately attractive to export customers looking to buy a modern multipurpose fighter.

With General Dynamics’ production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, gearing up to deliver a large initial order for the U.S. Air Force, one of the first American allies to place an order was the Shah of Iran. But when Islamic revolutionaries overthrew the shah and took U.S. diplomats hostage, that order was placed on hold, and the airplanes were offered to Israel instead.

For the Israelis, the F-16s were a godsend, because they already had a mission in mind for them. It’s the mission we’re preparing to depart on, at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon on June 7, 1981, at Etzion Airbase—now Taba International Airport (HETB) in Egypt—in the then-Israeli-occupied Sinai peninsula.

The target—nearly 1,000 miles away—was the Osirak nuclear power plant on the southeast outskirts of Baghdad. Purchased from the French, protected by sand berms and dozens of advanced antiaircraft missiles, the huge project was nearly ready to go online and start producing plutonium for an Iraqi nuclear bomb that Israel’s leaders viewed as a mortal threat.

There were eight F-16s in the strike force, and I’m flying tail number 107. Originally, it was going to be flown by strike leader Zeev Raz, but he worried that something might be wrong with its navigation system, so he turned it over to his wingman, Amos Yadlin.

To have any chance of reaching their target and returning, the F-16s are heavily laden with extra fuel tanks mounted on each wing (compatible with ones the Israelis already used for their F-4s), as well as centerline fuel tanks they were able to urgently wheedle out of an unwitting Pentagon.

To lighten the load, they tossed out all the electronic countermeasure (EC) equipment normally used to protect against surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and carried only a single heat-seeking Sidewinder air-to-air missile on each wingtip, as well as two 1,000-pound dumb bombs, one under each wing. (I can’t depict bombs here, so their place is taken by HARM missiles).

The F-16’s range was being stretched to its very limit. As they waited on the ramp for the word to take off, each F-16 was “hot refueled”—topped off with fuel while its engine was running—a highly dangerous procedure.

The airplanes were well over their maximum takeoff weight and would take the entire length of the 13,000-foot (4,000-meter) runway to lift off. At 4 p.m., the order came, and one by one the F-16s, on full afterburner, began their excruciatingly slow roll down the runway. And the F-16 is off on its very first flight in anger…

From the Sinai, the airplanes will skirt Jordanian airspace, flying across the Saudi Arabia desert to reach Iraq. To avoid radar detection—and interception by the Jordanian, Saudi, or Iraqi air forces—we’ll fly the entire route there at just 100 feet above ground level. That means we must immediately descend from Etzion Air Base (at 2,415 feet above sea level) to the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea.

By sheer coincidence, King Hussein of Jordan happened to be out on his yacht in the Gulf and watched in shock as the eight low-flying F-16s thundered right over him. While their Israeli markings had actually been removed, he immediately guessed they were an Israeli strike bound for Osirak. Hussein called to alert his country’s air defenses and pass the word to Baghdad, but apparently the message never got through.

Within minutes, the airplanes had crossed—otherwise undetected—into Saudi Arabia, where they followed the twisting route of the waddis (dry desert ravines) through the coastal mountain range.

Practicing for the mission had posed quite a challenge, because the distance was far longer than Israel’s entire length. They had to run multiple laps from the northern border with Lebanon down to the tip of the (then-occupied) Sinai and out over the Mediterranean Sea to simulate the mission. 

While the Israeli pilots were all combat veterans, they were used to brief sorties to Israel’s threatened borders and back—rarely more than an hour in the cockpit from start to finish. In training, they found the experience of flying long distances extremely fatiguing.

The concentration required to fly at just 100 feet off the ground at 360 knots for nearly 90 minutes to Baghdad was exhausting. I’m flying so low, at times, that I’m kicking up a cloud of dust behind me.

Apparently undetected, we can send back the one-word radio transmission, “Moscow,” that will inform our superior waiting anxiously back at Etzion that we have reached roughly a quarter of the way to Baghdad.

In a few more minutes, we face a moment of truth. To reduce weight and conserve remaining fuel, we must jettison the empty auxiliary tanks under our wings. However, this has never been done before at these speeds and altitudes next to live bombs. The technicians say it should work, but there’s also a chance the tanks, once released, could topple over the wings and damage the controls or bang into and set off the bombs next to them. As it turns out, though, the jettison goes smoothly, and the wing tanks fall harmlessly into the middle of the Saudi desert. Without their weight, the F-16s speed up slightly to around 380 knots.

Mile after mile of trackless desert passes just 100 feet below. Almost 45 minutes into our flight, as we hurl ourselves closer to the Iraqi border, it’s time to transmit the one-word code, “Zebra,” which indicates we are half of the way to our target—right under the noses of Saudi radar. There are no landmarks to indicate that we’ve crossed into Iraqi airspace, except for the sun gradually moving lower in the sky. Baghdad is an hour ahead of Israel, and the strike is planned to hit right around dinnertime.

Suddenly, out of the desert, a vital mission landmark: the Bahr al-Milh (“Sea of Salt”), also known as Lake Razazza, a vast artificial body of water created in the 1970s to contain the overspill from the Euphrates River about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad. An island in the lake is supposed to serve as the initial point (IP), where the pilots will arm their bombs and begin the attack sequence. But because of fluctuating water levels, the critical island is submerged and nowhere to be seen, and this has thrown trike commander Raz, off his stride. There’s little time to absorb this as the F-16s cross the Euphrates River and enter the famed Fertile Crescent. Six F-15 fighters that have escorted the F-16 strike force now streak upward to 20,000 feet to provide air cover and electronic jamming for the bombing run. That—and their own speed—are the only real defense the F-16s will have.

The attack itself plays out in a matter of seconds.  At a designated point 4 miles northwest of the target, we punch the afterburners and pop up in a climb, taking us to roughly 8,000 feet. To avoid negative Gs, we roll inverted at the top. At this moment,  Yadlin (in our plane, 107) realizes that Raz, who was supposed to be first, has overshot the target and is starting a loop to come up and over behind him. 

Not delaying a moment, Yadlin begins his bombing run, aiming at a 30-degree dive straight toward the Osirak reactor. At roughly 3,500 feet, with his HUD’s target indicator directly on the dome of the reactor, he releases his bombs…

…and, to avoid both the ground and the (delayed-fuse) blast, punches the afterburner and pulls up immediately into a steep-turning climb to the left. While the rest of the F-16s drop their bombs in turn, we fly as fast and high as possible, straining right up to the airplane’s 9G limit.

In fact, the strike had caught the Iraqi air force and air defenses sleeping. While later waves caught some antiaircraft fire, not a single Israeli F-16 was hit. At least eight of the 16 bombs they carried scored direct hits on the Osirak reactor, completely destroying it. Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French nuclear technician were killed, mostly by misdirected ground fire. The raid had lasted a total of two minutes.

Reassembling at 30,000 feet over Baghdad, the F-16s expected to be pursued by Iraqi fighters, but not one took off. Instead, the element of surprise obliterated, they climbed to 38,000 feet for the return trip home. Flying at higher altitude in thinner air would help conserve the fuel they needed for the task. Rather than fly at 40,000 feet as planned and face a headwind, they stay at 38,000 even though that creates a visible contrail in the moister air.

Tired but elated, they made a direct beeline across Jordanian airspace, hoping they would be long gone before fighters could scramble to high altitude to intercept them. Finally, as the sun set, they crossed back into Israeli airspace and initiated their landing patterns back at Etzion Air Base. All eight F-16s returned unscathed, with barely a drop of fuel left in their tanks. The daring success of the raid stunned both Israeli’s enemies and allies and earned the F-16 its combat spurs.

The markings you may have noticed on the nose of 107 show the Osirak raid plus 6.5 later air-to-air kills against Syrian MiGs and helicopters in Lebanon. The airplane is currently displayed at the Israeli Air Force Museum in Hatzerim. For details of the mission, I highly recommend the book Raid on the Sun by Rodger Claire.

The U.S. Air Force ordered more than 2,200 F-16s, which served on the front lines of the Cold War as well as both wars with Iraq and no-fly zones over Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Libya. Most F-16s are single-seat fighters, but every order usually comes with a few two-seat variants, either for flight instruction or more complex, demanding missions. The earliest round of F-16s were designated A (single seat) and B (two seat), while later, upgraded versions of the airplane were designated C/D and E/F, each with its one-seat and two-seat variants.

Most U.S. F-16s are painted various shades of gray. This particular aircraft was given a special “desert camouflage” paint job to commemorate the first air-to-air kill by an F-16 in U.S. Air Force service during Operation Southern Watch.

After the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein used his air force to strafe and bomb uprisings against him by Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south. In response, the United Nations passed a resolution authorizing coalition aircraft to enforce a no-fly zone over both parts of the country. On December 27, 1992, an Iraqi MiG-25 crossed into the southern no-fly zone, only to find itself trapped by a group of F-16s of the 33rd Fighter Squadron led by then-Lieutenant Colonel Gary North. North fired an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile that took down the MiG. It was not only the first kill for an F-16 in U.S. Air Force service but the first for the new AIM-120 missile as well.

The message was sent and received. After that, Air National Guard and active-duty squadrons rotated through the region, patrolling the skies over Iraq for more than a decade until the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The role of the F-16 in the skies over Iraq complemented the F-15. While the F-15 tended to operate above 15,000 feet, focusing on air superiority, the F-16 made optimal use of its power and agility at lower altitudes to perform a variety of missions, from lower-level interdiction to bombing and strafing enemy units on the ground.

One of the most dangerous missions the F-16 performed was pairing with older F-4s as “Wild Weasels,” whose job it was to find and destroy SAM sites. In this case, they did use the AG-88 HARM missile, referred to when fired as “Magnum.” F-16 pilot Dan Hampton related his colorful experiences as a Wild Weasel over Iraq—including with the 77th Fighter Squadron “Gamblers” depicted above—in his memoir Viper Pilot.

Meanwhile, back home, since 1983 the F-16 has been the public face of the U.S. Air Force, flown by its Thunderbirds demonstration team that performs aerobatics at sports games and other major events.

In popular culture, the F-16 was also featured in the 1984 action-adventure film Iron Eagle, starring Louis Gossett Jr.. The movie fared poorly against the far more popular Top Gun than year. Interestingly, Iron Eagle was filmed in Israel using Israeli F-16s, because (unlike the Navy) the U.S. Air Force refused to sign on to the movie.

At the real Top Gun, the Navy has recruited the F-16 to play “aggressor” against its own top pilots, at its new location at NAS Fallon in Nevada. So has the U.S. Air Force at its own exercise range at Nellis AFB in Nevada. Even the U.S. Space Force now has its own squadron of aggressor F-16s.

Top Aces, a private company founded by Canadian fighter pilots, recently purchased a batch of older F-16s from Israel. From its operating base in Mesa, Arizona, the company has contracts with Canada, Germany, and Australia to provide “aggressor” training for their air forces.

Meanwhile, starting in 2003, Israel has ordered 102 of its own specially designed F-16I model, dubbed “Sufa,meaning “Storm”. All of them are two-seaters and feature a distinctive “spine” carrying a suite of electronics and equipment uniquely suited for Israeli Air Force needs.

Besides the U.S. and Israel, 24 other countries have purchased the F-16. One of the earliest to do so was Pakistan in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. During the 1980s, Pakistani F-16s shot down several Soviet aircraft intruding over the border from Afghanistan. However, in response to Pakistan’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb to rival India, starting in 1990 the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan. New aircraft were impounded, and spare parts for existing airplanes were cut off, effectively grounding Pakistan’s F-16 fleet.

These sanctions were quickly tossed aside in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Pakistan now fields a total of 75 new and upgraded F-16s as its primary fighter. It has fought in both air-to-air battles with India’s mainly Russian-designed aircraft and in ground bombing operations against Taliban militants in places like the Swat Valley.

The world’s third largest user of F-16s, after the U.S. and Israel, is Turkey, which boasts a total of 245. Only the first eight of these, in fact, were made in the U.S. Along with Belgium, the Netherlands, and South Korea, Pakistan manufactures its own F-16s under license from Lockheed Martin, though they are regulated under U.S. arms export laws. Turkish F-16s have been used extensively in bombing campaigns against Kurdish rebels, as well as aerial skirmishes during the Syrian civil war. Most notably, one shot down a Russian Air Force Su-24 along the Turkish-Syrian border in 2015.

Like many countries fielding F-16s, Turkey hoped to replace it with the new F-35, placing an initial order for 30. However, the U.S. Congress, angered at Turkey’s purchase of the Russian-made S-400 air defense system, barred F-35 sales to Turkey. While the U.S. has offered to use Turkey’s $1.4 billion payment (already made) to upgrade its F-16s, the Turkish government has announced that it is working on its own homegrown, fifth-generation jet fighter, called the TF Kaan, to replace its F-16s as well as for export.

Greece also maintains a sizable fleet of F-16s, 135 total. Although they are both NATO allies, tensions between Greece and Turkey have led to a striking occurrence: “mock” dogfights between the two countries’ F-16s that are intense enough to lead to tragedy. In May 2006, two Greek F-16s intercepted a Turkish reconnaissance airplane along with its two F-16 escorts off the Aegean Sea island of Karpathos. A dogfight ensued in which a Greek F-16 and Turkish F-16 collided. The Turkish pilot ejected safely, but the Greek pilot was killed.

Speaking of international tensions, some of the most hotly contested sales of F-16s over the years have been to Taiwan. During a visit there, I was able to spot several of them taxiing to and from their protective concrete bunkers while arriving at Hualien Airport (RCYU) on the island’s east coast.

The Republic of China on Taiwan, which the Chinese government sees as a rebel province and many view as a vital U.S. ally, has accumulated a fleet of roughly 150 F-16s, starting in the early 1990s. Each time the U.S. sells more F-16s to Taiwan, upgrades existing ones, or sells the advanced missiles they use, it must weigh the boost to Taiwan’s defenses (to aid in a long-awaited Chinese invasion) versus the risk of upsetting relations with Beijing. In recent years, however, with U.S.-China tensions on the rise, the instinct in Washington, D.C., has been to give Taiwan more of the weapons it wants, including (in 2019) 66 new aircraft plus upgrading older A/B models to the improved F-16V.

If the F-16 I’m flying out of Hualien looks like it’s wearing shoulder pads, those are conformal fuel tanks (CFTs), which make up part of the new upgrades and add to the F-16s range without an appreciable negative effect on aerodynamic performance. Several countries have adopted the CFTs for their F-16s, but somewhat curiously, the U.S. Air Force has not. Perhaps that’s because the F-16 plays a more specialized role as part of a much larger air force, especially as it is gradually phased out in favor of the F-35.

These days, Taiwan’s F-16s are regularly scrambled to intercept Chinese incursions into the ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) surrounding its airspace, an average of more than four per day in 2022. In fact, nearly 9 percent of Taiwan’s entire defense budget now goes to responding to these incursions. If any actual invasion ever happened, Taiwan’s F-16s would be at the pointy end of the spear, operating from secret and improvised airfields to contest air superiority and, ideally, strafe and bomb the Chinese landing forces until, the Taiwanese hope, U.S. forces could arrive and join them.

That day may or may not come, but with more and more U.S. allies in Europe looking to transition to F-35s, they are laying the groundwork for sending their F-16s to join the fight in Ukraine. The Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway have all pledged to send their surplus F-16s to Ukraine, and Ukrainian pilots have been training in Romania to fly them. So while this Ukrainian F-16 I’m flying over Kyiv might be fiction today, very soon it may be writing the latest epic chapter in the 40-plus year history of the Viper.

More than 4,600 F-16s have been produced, making it the world’s most numerous fixed-wing aircraft in military service. I hope you enjoyed learning more about its ongoing story.

If you’d like to see a version of this article with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here.

• READ MORE: Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron

Note: This story was told utilizing the F-16 add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 by SC Designs, along with liveries and sceneries produced by fellow users and shared on flightsim.to for free.

The post Simulating a Bombing Raid in an F-16 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Claude Dornier, born in 1884, was the son of a French wine merchant and his German wife. Dornier grew up in Bavaria and graduated from engineering school in Munich. He went to work for Ferdinand von Zeppelin at his base in Friedrichshafen and soon rose to become the count’s top technical adviser, helping design dirigibles and airplanes. In 1914, Dornier formed his own airplane company, also based in Friedrichshafen. A museum is located on the site today.

After Germany’s defeat in World War I, all aircraft production in the country was prohibited. Dornier continued to design aircraft but had to produce them in Italy. The Dornier Do J flying boat represented his first major success.

The Do J was powered by two piston engines placed in tandem (front and back) over the wing. A variety of different types of engines were used, depending on availability and needs. These are British-made Napier Lion 12 cylinders, putting out 450 hp each. The engines were accessible via a ladder on the platform behind the cockpit.

The floats on either side of the fuselage, supporting the wing struts, are Dornier’s patented “sponsons,” which made it more stable in the water than the more common side pontoons.

The cockpit itself was completely open and exposed to the elements. Keep that in mind during the long journey ahead. What’s more, sitting in the cockpit, that big propeller is turning right above your head.

Inside the cockpit, the main pilot’s seat is on the right, not the usual left. The throttle and fuel mixture levers for both engines are on the pilot’s right side. Note the mechanical wires and pulleys connecting the controls to the control surfaces. The position of the instruments, directly behind the “wheel,” makes them a bit difficult to see.

The Dornier Do J made its maiden flight in 1922. The nickname “Wal” means “whale” in German.

The specific airplane we’re looking at right now was called the “Plus Ultra.” And we’re joining it just as it prepares to take off from the Rio Tinto in front of Palos de la Frontera in southern Spain for a historic flight on January 22, 1926.

The pilot was Captain Ramon Franco, brother of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Both were officers in the Spanish army, though in 1920, Ramon had joined the country’s new air force. The co-pilot was Captain Julio Ruiz de Alda, who later helped found Spain’s fascist Falangist movement and was executed by anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. There were also two more crewmembers, a lieutenant and a mechanic, who I presume were located inside the hull.

Their goal was to fly from Spain across the south Atlantic to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a series of stages. Their point of departure, Palos de la Frontera, was symbolic because it is where Christopher Columbus sailed from on his first voyage to the Americas.

Rio Tinto is also the name of a large British mining company that operated the famous copper mines here, just outside of Huelva, starting in the late 1800s. These were its loading piers below me. At the very tip of the peninsula, where the rivers converge, is a monument to Columbus’ voyages.

“Plus Ultra” means “further beyond” in Latin and is the national motto of Spain. The first leg of this journey was 1,300 kilometers to the Canary Islands, all by sea. Weight is everything on a journey like this. Before departing Spain, they actually discovered a stowaway on board—a newspaper reporter—who could have ruined their plans.

The journey to the Canary Islands took eight hours. Consider that’s an awfully long time to be in an open cockpit, completely exposed to the elements, over the ocean.

We’ve arrived at the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The Plus Ultra landed a bit farther south along the shore, at the Bay of Gando, where Gran Canaria’s modern international airport is located.

On the 26th, they took off from Gran Canaria on the second leg: 1,745 kilometers to Cabo Verde, off the western tip of Africa. This time, the journey lasted nine hours and 50 minutes over the ocean before reaching land. I’m arriving at Praia, at Cabo Verde, just as the sun is setting.

From Cabo Verde, the Plus Ultra took off for the third and longest stage across the Atlantic to Brazil. On this leg, the airplane ran into serious headwinds that slowed its progress considerably and pushed it off course.

Almost out of fuel, they fortunately came across the tiny islands of Fernando de Noronha, 350 kilometers off the northeast tip of Brazil. It must have been an extremely welcome sight. Today the islands are still very remote and mainly popular for ecotourism. They had traveled 2,305 kilometers in 12 hours and 40 minutes.

I have no idea how they refueled here, but somehow they did, and by January 31 were ready to depart on their next stage. You’d think that the next leg, 540 kilometers to Recife on the mainland coast of Brazil, would be easy by comparison. In fact, the rear propeller broke and had to be fixed in mid-flight. Unless they landed in the ocean, I assume they had the mechanic climb up there while still in the air. I tried it, and the plane can still fly on one engine—barely. After three hours and 38 minutes, though, they made it safely to Recife.

From here it was a matter of following the coast for 2,100 kilometers to Rio de Janeiro, which took 12 hours and 15 minutes. They arrived in Rio to a rapturous welcome on February 4. The crew of the Plus Ultra were not, in fact, the first pilots to fly across the south Atlantic to Rio. Two Portuguese aviators had done so, from Lisbon, in 1922. But they had used three different airplanes. This was the first crossing in a single plane.

From there, another 2,060 kilometers to Montevideo, Uruguay, greeted by another huge crowd on February 9. And, finally, across the River Plate to their destination: Buenos Aires, Argentina. It had been a journey of 10,270 kilometers in 59 hours and 30 minutes in the air, at an average speed of 172 km/h.

Their arrival in Buenos Aires on February 10, 1926, was a major news event in Spain and throughout Latin America, which was now linked to Europe by air. The Argentinian songwriter Carlos Gardel composed a popular tango to celebrate the flight of the Plus Ultra, “La Gloria del Águila” (Glory of the Eagle). The Plus Ultra itself is preserved in a museum just outside of Buenos Aires. The crew returned to Spain as national heroes.

• READ MORE: A Fanciful Flight in the ‘Spruce Goose’

Ramon Franco’s subsequent story is a curious one. Far from sharing his brother’s right-wing politics, he entered that realm as a left-wing republican anarchist, involved in conspiracies to overthrow the monarchy. But blood proved thicker, and he sided with his brother Francisco in the Spanish Civil War. Ramon was killed in 1938, when his seaplane crashed during a bombing mission against Valencia.

The journey of the Plus Ultra was not the only famous voyage undertaken by the Dornier Do J. Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen attempted to fly two of them to the North Pole in 1925. Amundsen took off and landed them directly on the polar ice sheet but unfortunately landed somewhat short of his goal. Their plan was to fly two (N24 and N25) to the North Pole, transfer the fuel, and fly only one of them (N25) back, which they did. Their failure to reach the North Pole opened the door for the American Richard Byrd’s attempt the following year, which I covered in another post on the Fokker F.VII.

Like the Fokker F.VIII, the Dornier Do J also served as an airliner. The passenger versions had a cabin in the front of the hull, pushing the cockpit back a bit behind the front propeller. Here’s a look at the interior of the Dornier Do J’s passenger cabin.

Passengers and mail would arrive on other airplanes down from Europe, transfer at Bathurst to the Dornier Do J for the ocean crossing, then once in South America, catch yet another airplane to their final destinations.

Lufthansa competed with the predecessor of Air France on what became known as the “Southern Mail” (from Europe to Latin America), though the French did not fly Dorniers. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, famous for writing The Little Prince, flew this route for the French rival to Lufthansa. His books imbued the Southern Mail with an aura of romance and daring.

Initially, the Dornier Do J couldn’t make the crossing in one go. It has to land in the ocean midway to meet up with a prepositioned ship to refuel. However, landing and taking off in the deep ocean swells proved hazardous and also consumed a lot of fuel. So by 1934 they were making the flight directly, though the airline maintained support ships if needed.

Claude Dornier went on to build even larger seaplanes, including the 12-engine Dornier Do X in 1929. Dornier also built bombers and other aircraft for the new German Luftwaffe, including the Do 17 “Flying Pencil” that took part in the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of Britain. In contrast to Hugo Junkers, who opposed the Nazis and lost his company to them, Dornier joined the Nazi Party in 1940 to secure his aircraft contracts. 

Dornier escaped prosecution as a war criminal but was classified as a Nazi “follower”—an ignominious end to his career. He died in 1969, but his company still exists in various forms, as subsidiaries of larger firms, including EADS Group.

I hope you enjoyed the story of the Dornier Do J Wal, an airplane whose bulky, boat-like shape belies its pioneering role in the history of early aviation.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with many more screenshots and historical images, you can check out my original post here.

This story was told utilizing the Dornier Do J Wal add-on to MSFS 2020, along with sceneries produced by Romantic Wings, as well as by fellow users and shared on flghtsim.to for free.

The post Simulating the Voyage of the Plus Ultra appeared first on FLYING Magazine.