Jim Ray

“ As we look over the record of the astounding progress of American aviation in forty-two years, let us salute our military leaders who have visualized the need for air power; the men who have designed and built our great engines and airplanes, and the leaders of commercial aviation who have made air travel fast, safe, and economical. ”

“ INTRODUCTION It is difficult to believe that, just a little over thirty years ago, I was a high-school student watching the pilots at the Wright Brothers’ exhibition of the world’s first flying machine. That machine weighed about eight hundred pounds. Its engine developed thirty horsepower. It flew at the then astounding speed of forty-two miles an hour, which is equal to the landing speed of our slowest light plane today. High-school students now are accustomed to the sight of giant airplanes whose weight is measured in tons and whose horsepower mounts to the thousands. ”

“ We have witnessed the miracle of the creation of our great Army and Navy aërial task forces. And we have seen our air forces lead the way to victory over the enemies of our civilization. Just as the airplane brought us peace, it must also be retained as a military weapon that will always be a threatening force to restrain any fanatics who may again seek to destroy democracy and peace.
As a commercial transport, the airplane will also serve to keep the peace. Commercial airliners will make the world much smaller, and no nation will be a great distance from another. ”

“ Aviation today is such an accepted fact that we sometimes forget how men from different parts of the world had to work, suffer hardships, face ridicule, and even give their lives that flying might become possible. ”

“ THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN AVIATION
THE DREAMERS
The idea of human flight has excited man’s imagination for thousands of years. From stories and legends handed down through the years, we know that even from earliest times people dreamed of flying. There are visions of conquering the air in the colorful legends of winged men and beasts found in ancient folklore. The winged statuary of the Egyptians was no doubt inspired by the desire to imitate the flight of birds. ”

“ Then, after testing more than 200 wing designs and plane surfaces in their wind tunnel, the Wright Brothers found out how to figure correctly the amount of curve, or camber, that was essential to weight-carrying wings. They discovered, too, that before man could be flown through the air, he must have his wings attached firmly to a body or platform which was firm and controllable. The Wrights in their earliest experiments had realized that to be practical their machine must be built not only to fly in a straight line, but also in order that it could be steered to the right or to the left. ”

“ Without the engine to whirl it the propeller is useless, for without thrust we would have no lift. That makes the engine the governing factor in flight. Weight also is a serious force in flight, and the Wrights and Curtiss found from the beginning that the four-cycle gasoline engine would give greater power for its weight than would a steam or electric engine.
The principle of the airplane engine is the same as the one used in the automobile engine. However, weight always has been a problem to aircraft designers. The automobile engine always has been too heavy for use in a plane. ”

“ Although Donald Douglas had achieved a great deal of international fame as the result of the round-the-world flight and was highly respected in military circles, few other people knew him. A quiet, industrious young man, he had put all his earnings back into his business and had continued to work on his dream of big, roomy, smooth-flying airliners. ”

“ Orville and Wilbur Wright had solved all the fundamental problems of flight before they built their first powered, man-carrying airplane. They discovered the basic forces that control all heavier-than-air flight: lift, thrust, drag, and weight. Today, little more than forty years after the first flight at Kitty Hawk, those four forces discovered by the Wright Brothers still control the design of every airplane built. ”

“ The first carrier, the Langley, with a complement of six airplanes, became the training ground for the young naval aviators who were to lay the foundation for the world’s greatest seagoing aërial task force. While the Langley was primitive by today’s standards, experiments with it pointed the way for the development of improved types of carrier-based fighting planes. However, the enthusiasm of the young naval aviators was not shared entirely by other Navy men based on surface craft. To them airplanes were just something to be fished out of the sea when an engine failed. ”

“ In plane-to-plane combat our military pilots showed a courage and initiative unequaled by ally or foe.
With our entry into the war, our infant aviation industry also picked up speed. With typical American energy it built up an enviable production record before the end of the war. As America had no combat airplane designs at the start of the war, our industry turned out planes and engines of foreign design. Aircraft factories built English DH-4 observation planes, Handley-Page bombers, and SE-5 fighter planes. ”

“ In time, the use of the two-engine bomber led to the development of attack aviation. This was built around very fast, two-engined planes which could carry both bombs and guns. These medium bombers were to be used to attack targets of medium range with both bombs and guns. They were to be used to destroy enemy troops, transports, and gun emplacements. In the few years of World War II, attack bombers were developed from comparatively slow planes to ships with the speed of fighters. They are capable of carrying more than a ton of bombs, and of mounting cannon and as many as fifteen machine guns. ”

“ It was not until the outbreak of World War II that most Americans came to realize the value of the airplane in modern conflict. As the fighting grew to global proportions, Americans began in particular to appreciate the farsightedness of our Air Corps leaders in developing the long-range bomber.
By 1940 the original Boeing 299 or B-17 had grown from a sixteen-ton ship to a giant twenty-two-ton bomber. The new version, the B-17D, was powered with two 1,200-horsepower radial engines, giving it a speed of more than 300 miles per hour. ”

“ With the introduction of the air-cooled, radial engine twenty years later, a pound and a half of engine had been made to produce one horsepower. Thus the new 350-pound radial engine of 200 horsepower put all but a fraction of weight into load-carrying power.
While we are discussing horsepower, it might be well to find out just what we mean by the term. In connection with steam and gasoline engines it is used for the reason that the horse had for years been man’s most common power plant. One horsepower represents the power ascribed to a heavy dray horse in the days of horse-drawn vehicles. ”

“ The helicopter gets its lift and its forward, backward, and sidewise movement from the big rotating blades above the fuselage. These blades have the same effect as those of a propeller. The big blades bite into the air as they turn. The shape of the blade is like the airfoil or wing of a plane. As it bites into the air it creates a lift just as a wing does. By the use of his controls the pilot can change the angle of the blades to increase or diminish their lift. For example, when the lift is reduced on a blade on one side of the plane it banks off in the direction of the reduced lift. ”

“ Not only did men of long ago dream of flying—some of them firmly believed it could be done. Archimedes, a great Greek mathematician born in 287 B.C., was one. In the year 1250 an Englishman, Roger Bacon, had the idea that a large hollow globe of thin metal could be made which, when filled with an ethereal air or liquid fire, would float on the air like a ship on water. ”

“ Our big patrol bombers and transports fly the Pacific unarmed.
Jack Towers, who in 1911 was one of the Navy’s first three aviators, is now Vice Admiral Towers, Air Chief of the Pacific. John Pride, one of the first aviators to fly from the deck of the Langley, is now a rear admiral with our Pacific aërial task forces. Pioneers of naval aviation such as Admirals Ballentine, Sherman, Clark, Radford, and others are all in the Pacific. These men, none of them much over fifty years old, are practical flying officers. ”

“ Aircraft manufacturers with expanded production facilities were proceeding at full speed. Within a very short time the aviation strength of the Army was reduced to 1,000 officers and 10,000 enlisted men. Aircraft contracts were canceled and soon after the close of the war many aircraft firms were forced out of business. As a result, the Army was left to carry on with reconditioned wartime airplanes and engines.
Men like General “Billy” Mitchell fought to keep the Army from forgetting aviation. This was a peace-loving country and most people felt that the United States had fought its last war. ”

“ More than 200,000 warplanes have been built in this country since Pearl Harbor, and the Air Forces can boast of thousands of planes instead of hundreds of them. Army Air Forces’ bases are in operation over the entire globe.
Complete airfields have been carved out of jungle and Arctic wastes. These airfields are equipped to keep our warplanes in perfect repair without the loss of time from combat duty. To build and equip these fields, millions of tons of materials have been transported thousands of miles. More than two million men have been trained to fly our planes and to keep them flying. ”

“ Curtiss’ method of control led the way to the modern type of wing aileron and the general system of control was basically the same as that in use today.
POWER FOR THE AIRPLANE
Going back to the four forces that govern the flight of a plane, we find thrust pulling the plane forward. Thrust is the force that keeps the plane in the air; without it the airplane could not leave the ground for sustained flight. Thrust is created by the propeller. The propeller blades function in the same manner as the wings. ”

“ The new airliners will be so fast that there will be no need for sleeper planes on coast-to-coast trips. Sleeper planes will be used only on long overseas trips. The planes will all carry more passengers during the day and that means that air travel will be almost as economical as surface travel.
The big planes for world travel will be ships like the seventy-ton Martin Mars flying boat and the giant Pan American Consolidated 204-passenger Model 37. Donald Douglas is building two new luxury airliners, the fifty-passenger DC-6 and the 108-passenger DC-7. ”

“ While the DC-2 was coming into prominence in the air transport field, Boeing engineers had gone on with their idea of a two-engined plane and had built an all-metal bomber for the Army.
In building the two-engined, all-metal B-9, Boeing engineers learned how to build another plane with a more peaceful purpose. This ship was the famous Boeing 247-D commercial transport plane. The 247-D was an all-metal, low-wing monoplane, powered with two 550-horsepower Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engines. It had a top speed of 200 miles per hour and a cruising speed of 180 miles per hour. ”

“ In the near future perishable foods and other merchandise, which heretofore have taken several days to cross the country, will make the trip overnight.
With the coming of peace, air transport and commercial aviation will grow by leaps and bounds. All the leading airlines and many new ones are planning expanded schedules and looking forward to a great boom in air travel. New transport planes are going into production in the plants of all America’s well-known aircraft manufacturers. ”

“ Many a pilot who got his first flying training in a Jenny or a Curtiss flying boat is now an airline executive or a world-famous flying general or admiral. It was the steadfast efforts of such veteran airmen as Mitchell, Arnold, Spaatz, Eaker, Rickenbacker, Harold L. George, Artemus Gates, Bob Lovett, Louis Brereton, Jimmy Doolittle, Frank Lahm, Gill Robb Wilson, Jack Jouett, John H. Towers, and others, who have built American air supremacy. ”

“ The pilot of a helicopter of today is a very busy fellow. New developments, however, will probably simplify the operation of the machine.
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The year 1945 marks the beginning of the forty-third year of powered flight in America. Before we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk air travel will be the world’s primary means of transportation. No spot on the globe will be more than fifty hours distant from wherever you may live. Truly the shortest distance between any two points on earth will be an airline! ”

“ All the major airlines contributed planes and crews to the vital needs of war. DC-3’s, which a few weeks before had been flying between our big cities, began to fly over oceans and mountain ranges in every quarter of the globe. At the start most of the planes used for Air Transport Command cargo were Douglas DC-3’s and DC-2’s and a few Boeing Stratoliners. The new Douglas DC-4’s being built for the airlines when war began went right off the production lines into service for the Army or Navy. ”

“ It grew out of the need for high-speed, high-altitude fighters to serve as escorts for our heavy bombers. As our bomber attacks against Germany grew in strength, the Nazis in desperation threw in hundreds of their fighters to hinder us. ”

“ Bad weather would often ground a flight and passengers were almost as uncertain as the weather. Many of those pioneer operators had to depend on the dollar-a-ride hops of Sunday sightseers to “keep the wolf from the door.” One service operated 14-passenger converted Navy seaplanes on a route between New York and Havana, and another route between Cleveland and Detroit. Most of these pioneer air transport Operations lasted for only a short time, due to the heavy cost of maintaining the planes and the lack of properly marked air routes. ”

“ A number of short lines operating routes from the Great Lakes and down through the south were soon to be merged to create American Airlines.
In 1928, an air traveler making an extensive trip would be likely to fly in seven or eight different types of planes. He might step into a Fokker tri-motor, change to a single-engined Boeing, ride for some distance in a Ford tri-motor or a Whirlwind-powered Travel Air, and finish his trip in a Curtiss Carrier Pigeon. The planes usually flew low, at between one and two thousand feet. ”