Plane Tales

Hawaii became the most recent state to join the union in 1959 and is now the third wealthiest.  Following it’s annexation, Hawaii became an important naval base for the US Navy so it is hardly surprising that they should be the first to attempt a flight from the US mainland to the island.  Aviation had already arrived at the islands in 1910 courtesy of Bud Mars, the Curtiss Daredevil.   The Hawaiian Archipelago   The annexation of Hawaii   J C Mars   Commander John Rodgers   Rodgers in the Wright Flyer   The PN9 flying boat   Rodgers and his crew survive to be welcomed into Hawaii   The Atlantic-Fokker C-2 Tri-motor   Atlantic-Fokker C-2 "Bird of Paradise" arrival in Hawaii   The start of the Dole Air Race   In all, six aircraft were lost or damaged beyond repair and ten lives lost.   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Google Map Images, Bain News Service, Harris and Ewing, the Library of Congress, Hawaii Aviation, the USAF and the SDASM.           Images under C

It was the 13th of May 1912, a Monday, when a Flanders F3 Monoplane took off from Brooklands in Surrey, a county of England.  The pilot was the aviation pioneer Edward Victor Beauchamp Fisher and his passenger the American millionaire Victor Mason.  Fisher had an Aviator’s Certificate, the 77th to be issued, had learned to fly at Brooklands and was a flying instructor there.  He had also worked with both A V Roe (the founder of Avro) and Howard Flanders, whose monoplane he was flying at the time.  The two men had made two or three circuits of the airfield at about 100ft, the 60 hp Green engine operating well when, in a left turn, the aircraft fell to the ground killing both the aviator and his passenger before catching alight and burning.  In the early days of aviation such accidents were fairly common but what sets this one apart is that it was the first in history to become the subject of an accident investigation by an official civilian body… the Public Safety and Accidents Investigation Committee of the R

  The 12 days of Christmas are generally thought to run from the 26th of December to the 6th of January and is an important period of religious celebration or for those of us who observe Christmas in a more secular manner, it’s more likely to be a traditional time of recovery following our holiday excesses and to welcome in the New Year. Of course, those of us in the Aviation industry often remember dates by events that occurred on a particular day and the most memorable are often the most tragic.  With that in mind I present the 12 crashes of Christmas.   The TU144   Earthrise from Apollo 8   The Lockheed A-12 Oxcart   The C-130   The Avro Ten   The Vickers Wellington   The Handley Page O   The captured bomber   Gustav Hamel and Eleanor Trehawke Davies   Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man   The Flying Machine   The Convair 440 Metropolitan airliner   Amelia Mary Earhart   Earhart's Electra   Amy Johnson     A Finnish Fokker   Images under Creative Commons licence with thank

Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier was one of two men who left the earth's surface and flew in Montgolfier's balloon for the very first time. He also designed a type of balloon that was given his name that flew using a combination of a lifting gas and hot air. More than 200 years later, his design would be used in the balloon that made the first non stop round the world flight. A Rozièr balloon   Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier in a Montgolfier balloon   De Rozièr perishes in a baloon crash over Wimereux   Don Cameron led the way in record breaking and unusual balloon design     Double Eagle II   Virgin Flyer   The successful balloon circumnavigation by Piccard and Jones     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those Public Domain images available, NASA, the Smithsonian,The Virgin Group, Cameron balloons and Breitling.

Each year upwards of 2 million of the faithful make the journey to follow the path of the profit Muhammad to a number of holy sites before their pilgrimage rites are considered complete. Muslims from around the world make this journey which, in modern times, is often completed using air travel, as it was in 1991 when Nigeria Airways wet leased a Douglas DC8 operated by Nationair Canada to help them cope with the season’s increase in passenger traffic due to the Hajj. Under the hot sun of the Arabian desert, the scene was set for a disaster.   A Nationair DC8   King Abdulaziz International airport in Jeddah   The Maintenance Record analysis   The DC8 gear   A typical brake fire   Excerpt from the accident report   Excerpt from the accident report   Conditions in the cabin became unsurvivable     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Pedro Aragão, Yousefmadari, ICAO and the USAF.

They were the pioneers who trod the territory beyond the sound barrier… a place no man had ever been before and which had killed many who attempted the journey. The rocket powered, winged bullet first flew only 42 years after man’s first powered flight, an achievement that still astounds me. To think that a toddler around at Kitty Hawk who saw one of the Wright Brothers first flights, could have heard the world’s first man made sonic boom before they reached the ripe old age of 50 is a true testament to the ability of America’s finest minds and the bravery of their greatest pilots.   The Bell X1 in flight   The Miles M52   The X Planes   US Military astronaut wings   The X2 drop   The X2 crash   The X15   An X15 launch   Armstrong with the X15   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to NASA, the RAF, the USAF, NPRC,

It's time for another of my flying logbook tales and it’s May 1987 and I’m on the Australian FA18 No 2 Operational Conversion Unit at RAAF Williamtown starting the final phase on course 1 of 87 before moving onto No 77 Squadron which was to be my home for the next few years.   An FA/18B with a pair of BDU33 practice bomb carriers   The Salt Ash bombing range   A practice bomb strikes the centre of the target   The CCIP aiming symbology   Mk 82 500lb General Purpose bombs   RAAF Townsville   Mk82s hitting the target on Cordelia Island   Course graduation   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Welcome Collection and the USAF.

A tribute to Sherman Smoot, friend of the APG Show, who died doing what he loved best... flying.     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Capt Nick Anderson.        

The First World War battle of the Somme continues, to this day, to fascinate and appal in equal measures. Much has been written about the ground war the first day of which saw the greatest number of British casualties than had occurred before in the entire history of the British Army… 19,240 were dead and 38,230 injured. The fighting over a 16 mile front lasted almost 5 months, after which the Allied troops had advanced about 6 miles. The butchers bill of casualties was horrendous. The combined Commonwealth countries number reached nearly 60,000 but was dwarfed by the United Kingdom’s casualty number of over 350,000. The battle opened on the 1st of July 1916 with a massed explosion that ranks amongst the largest non nuclear explosions in history and was then considered the loudest human made sound to date, audible beyond London 160 miles away.  It was witnessed by an 18 year old RFC pilot.     The mine under Hawthorn Ridge   Then the dust cleared and we saw the two white eyes of the craters   Going ove

Robin Olds was a hard drinking, hard working man who led from the front in a way that inspired his men to become a great fighting force. He only became frustrated when he saw mistakes being made by those above him who should have known better and he went out of his way to make his feelings known. He defined what it meant to be a fighter pilot, not only in the air but on the ground with the stunningly beautiful Hollywood actress, Ella Raines, the first of his 4 wives. The court-martial of General William "Billy" Mitchell 1925     West Point students   A P-38 Lightning A digital representation of SCAT II   A Bf109   Olds and his P51 Mustang SCAT VI   A P80 Shooting Star   The Gloster Meteor   An F86 Sabre of the 71st, Hat in the Ring Sqn   The F4 Phantom   Robin Olds completes his 100th combat mission   Robin Olds in Vietnam after his 4th Mig kill   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those images in the Public Domain, the Bundesarchive, the USAF, Digital Combat Simulat

A recent news programme caught my eye when I realised it involved our great friends at the Farnborough Aviation Sciences Trust museum. It reminded me of the group of sadistic so-called doctors who populated the Institute of Aviation Medicine and tortured generations of unsuspecting and innocent RAF aircrew in machines such as the one the article featured, a centrifuge! This aforementioned device which resembles a vast witch’s ducking stool crossed with an iron maiden, first operated in 1955 but was decommissioned as recently as 2019 and has now received Grade 2 protection.   The Institute of Aviation Medicine   The Farnborough Centrifuge   The Cecil Hotel with it's red and white ornate frontage   The august medical journal, the Lancet   Early versions of oxygen masks   An early mobile decompression chamber   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, FAST museum, The Library of Congress, those images within the Public Domain and the National Museum of Health & Medicine.  

The story of my military flying career continues with the new challenge of flying the FA/18 Hornet round the beautiful skies of Australia.   The official crest of No 77 Sqn RAAF with its Grumpy Monkey   The 77 Sqn Mirages   The helmet fitting   An FA/18A cockpit     Sunset   The Head Up Display   The location of RAAF Williamtown   Firing the gun   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Nick Anderson and Google Earth.

Featured in a Scientific magazine which offered a first look inside the USAF's new jet fighter, the F-89 Scorpion was to have an interesting history which involved the Battle of Palmdale and a top secret Canadian UFO! A Scientific Magazine cutaway drawing   The Fly-off competitors   The Northrop F89 Scorpion     The 437th Fighter Interceptor Squadron   An F6F Hellcat red drone   Mighty Mouse rockets   1st Lt Moncla   The Canadian UFO   The official USAF report   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Scientific magazine, the USAF, USN, NASA, SDASM, RKO Pictures and those available through Fair Use and Public Domain.

Arguably one of the most talented and innovative aircraft developers of his time, John Knudsen Northrop had long sought an aircraft design that could start a revolution… a craft with minimum drag and a level of lift unachievable in any other form. Jack, as John Northrop was usually known, pursued his dream of building a pure flying wing strategic bomber that would exceed the capabilities of anything else his less imaginative competitors were designing. The gliders of Otto Lilienthal   The Armstrong Whitworth AW-52   The Avion/Northrop Experimental No1 pusher    The remains of a Horton flying wing   The Northrop N1M   Nortons XB35   The XP-79 fighter   The XB-49   The YB-35s being broken up at the cancelation of the project   The final successful B-2 Spirit     Images shown under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, the Library of Congress, Northrop, National Museum of the Air Force, Michael.katzmann, the IWM, Sanjay Acharya, the National Archive and NASA.

It was an unpopular aircraft because, well… a lot of aircrew were superstitious. They were renown for carrying lucky charms, doing things a certain way and never daring to change the habit because it worked for them last time. Their machine was a B17 nicknamed Old 666 taken from the last 3 digits of its tail number 41-2666 and they were the Eager Beavers!   Old 666   The Martin B-26 Marauder   The B-17 bombing Japanese shipping North of Australia   The B-17's waist guns   The route for their recce sortie over Bougainville   The Japanese Zero   A Zero passes close aboard   The damage to Old 666   The brave crew fight the Zeros off   Jay Zeamer receives his Medal of Honor     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAAF, Mark Wagner, USAF, USAAC, Gary Fortington, US National Archives and Records Administration, SDASM, Steve Jurvetson and those in the Public Domain or orphaned.

The conclusion of one of the hardest flying courses in the Royal Air Force, the QWI course.  What faced us was the culmination of all our efforts over the past months of flying in the form of a week of intense work, drawing together everything we had learned. We had to fly a series of missions against all comers, demonstrating our level of leadership, control, tactics, formation management, aggression and skill. These sorties were complex and demanding, involving tactics we devised to allow us to fly without the use of the radio from start to finish. The RAF's F4 Phantom   The East German border   The Nicholson Trophy for best student on the course   Off to a specialist burns unit in an RAF Search and Rescue Sea King   Packing up our married quarter for Australia   The delights of Hong Kong   My tropical uniform   The last leg to to Australia   Our little married Quarter at RAAF Williamtown   Meeting our neighbours at street BBQ   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the R

The 1920’s and 30’s were times of radical societal changes, particularly in the freedoms that women then demanded. The suffragette movement, the contributions made by women in the first world war and other dramatic events had clearly shown that forward looking women were no longer going to be content with the roles that men decided they were suited for. Aviation played its part in allowing women the freedom to tackle challenges that were previously denied to them, a fight for equality continues to this day.  It is right that we celebrate those early pioneers who took to the air and led the way. The Suffragette movement which paved the way for woman's emancipation   Will Hay, one of Amy's flying instructors   Amy's planned route to Australia   Amy's Gypsy Moth, "Jason"   Amy in India   Amy arrives in Australia   An Airspeed Oxford and notice of Amy's "MISSING BELIEVED KILLED," telegram   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to those in the Public Domain, the National Library of Aust

An air hostess calmly walked through the crashing airliner telling the passengers, “Please fasten your safety-belts. Keep your seats.” Then she returned to the galley near the tail, sat herself down… and waited. One of the passengers had seen oil spurting from an engine and on the flight deck, Captain Anderson was nursing his aircraft in. The engine had failed not long after takeoff following that massive oil leak and this aircraft didn’t have a good reputation for single engined flying. An Airwork Viking   The Nene powered Viking   The BEA Viking that survived a bomb explosion intended to bring the aircraft down   Airwork employed a number of Vikings that flew as far afield as South Africa   The aftermath of the crash   Air Hostess Beryl Rothwell   Capt Anderson's youngest son, Nicholas James     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Norsk Luftfartsmuseum, BAe, the Daily Sketch, the AAIB, UK Gov, Vickers and Ruth AS.

Whilst we are discussing quaint idioms, many of us trust that old American adage, “If it looks good, it’ll fly good” attributed to both Neil Armstrong and Bill Lear and is something that all pilots understand. There is something about a fine looking aircraft that makes it appear trustworthy and gives one confidence that it will perform well. Sadly, I know of one company, however, who seem to have looked at their aircraft through bottle bottom glasses… or perhaps they never got the memo. The Dunne D5   The Type 184 The Cardington Gasbag   The Shorts S38   The Singapore   The Shorts Empire flying boat   The Sunderland   The COW gun   The Sunderland's internal bomb racks   The Sunderland's rest facilities   The Bombay   The long legged Stirling   The unlikely looking Seamew   Hurel-Dubois Miles 106 Caravan   The Shorts SC 7 Skyvan   The Shorts SD360   The coolest Skyvan ever... Pink!     Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Marinha do Brasil, Short Bros of Car

The aircraft was named ‘Flagship District of Columbia’ and was only the 12th Boeing 707 ever made. It was delivered to American Airlines in February 1959 so at the time America was taking its first steps into the void of outer space it was a mere 3 years old. It hadn’t long been out of it’s periodic inspection and with less than 8,000 hours on the airframe N7506A was expected to have a long and productive life ahead… a wish that would be dashed in a few short minutes. The New York skyline   An American Airlines Boeing 707 at LAX   Changes in apparent span and the effects of sideslip on a swept wing when yawed   The 707 rudder control system   Wreckage from American Airlines flight 514   The Calverton crash still smoking   A New York ticker tape parade   The flight recorder trace from the American One's final moments   A reconstruction of the track of Flight One   Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Jon Proctor, San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives, the Civil Aeronautics Bo