The WW1 French Fighter That Got More Fame Than It Deserved: The Nieuport 28

Aviation author Peter Bowers once said of the Nieuport 28 biplane fighter of the First World War "The French Nieuport 28....is unique in aviation history for having achieved a considerable degree of fame that it didn't really deserve." The penultimate Nieuport biplane fighter design was rejected by the French for front line service and that might well have been the end of the story for not just the aircraft but the Nieuport company as well had it not been for the American Expeditionary Force's need for a fighter aircraft as the better SPAD biplane's production was devoted to filling the needs of the French Air Service. Since it was available, it would be the Nieuport 28's claim to fame to be the first combat aircraft to wear American colors into the First World War. 

This N.28 wears the "kicking mule" emblem of the 95th Aero Squadron. The kicking mule is still used by the 95th Reconnaissance Squadron that flies the Rivet Joint.
(USAF Museum)

The story of the Nieuport 28 (N.28C-1 was its company designation, but for brevity reasons I'll just refer to it here on out as the N.28) begins with the formation of an aircraft company by Edouard and Charles Nieuport in 1909, at first devoted to producing aircraft components like engine ignition systems. Both brothers were pilots and began working on their own monoplane designs which were contemporaries of the more famous Blériot XI design that made the first air crossing of the English Channel on 25 July 1909. After a series of prototype designs, the Nieuport brothers reorganized the company in 1911 to focus more on their own aircraft designs as Nieuport et Deplante. Edouard was killed while flying that year and with the help of aviation-minded investors, the company was renamed Société Anonyme des Établissements Nieuport with the remaining brother, Charles, heading the company before his untimely demise also while flying later that year. Swiss engineer Franz Schneider, who would become more famous for his German designs in the First World War, briefly held the post of chief designer at Nieuport until he left for Germany in 1913. French engineer Gustave Delage took over in January 1914 and began work on a sesquiplane racer- not a true biplane as the lower wing was much narrower than the top wing. For lightness, Delage used only a single spar in each wing and used a "V" brace for the wing struts, the apex of the "V" being on the lower "half" wing. By the time the First World War had broken out, Delage's racing aircraft design became the Nieuport 10 fighter which in turn was developed into the faster Nieuport 12 fighter. The V-strut and sesquiplane layout would be the pattern of a series of further developments of the Nieuport fighter over the course of the war. By 1917, the current design was the Nieuport 17- though light and maneuverable, it couldn't deal with the latest crop of German fighters as it was underarmed (it only had a single machine gun when twin guns were pretty much the air combat standard by that point) and the single spar sesquiplane structure wasn't strong enough for extended air combat with the latest German designs. It was painfully obvious that Gustave Delage's design layout had reached its limits. 

With the French Air Service considering the SPAD S.VII fighter, Delage set about to create a better Nieuport fighter and broke with his long-standing design tradition by adopting a true biplane layout with conventional two spar wings and a twin machine gun armament with the Nieuport 28. With a longer fuselage but keeping the same cross section, the N.28 looked sleeker than previous Nieuport designs. Both the upper and lower wings now had two spars for strength and the chord of the lower wing was slightly less than that of the upper wing with Delage abandoning his favored sesquiplane layout. In contrast to the angular wing tips of his previous designs, the N.28 had rounded elliptical wingtips with conventional two strut wing braces attached to the spars, again, breaking with the V-strut configuration of his past designs (which were sometimes referred to as "V-Strutters"). Because of the narrowness of the fuselage, the twin Vickers 0.303 machine guns were offset- one left of center ahead of the pilot and the other nearly on left fuselage side. This was the result of the original N.28 prototype having only a single gun offset to the left ahead of the pilot. The need for a second gun meant that the fuselage was too narrow for two guns side by side ahead of the pilot, the second gun was offset to the left and below of first gun. 

Eddie Rickenbacker and his N.28. Note the offset guns and the Hat-in-the-Ring emblem
still used to this day by the 94th Fighter Squadron which flies F-22s from Langley AFB.
(Wikipedia)

In keeping with past Nieuport designs, a rotary engine was used from either the Gnome or Le Rhone engine manufacturer. To keep the engines lightweight, they lacked carburetors and could not be throttled down- as a result, the N.28 had what was called a "blip switch" on the control stick that would briefly turn off the engine when power needed to be reduced, such as landing. The Le Rhone rotary engines were a bit more flexible and could be throttled between 900 to 1250 rpm, but even at the lowest setting it was still too much power for the N.28, so the "blip switch" was still necessary regardless of the engine type installed. Later engines would feature additional switches that could cut out certain cylinders on the engines to reduce power, but these systems would prove to be continual maintenance headaches. The late model Gnome engines boasted 100 hp which for the N.28 was a lot of power, but to keep engine weight down, the engine cylinders had only a single valve instead of the traditional two valves and as such, were referred to as "Monosoupape" engines which worked not unlike a two stroke engine. Unfortunately this was very wasteful when it come to fuel consumption and incompletely burned fuel posted a constant engine fire hazard for N.28 pilots. 

While the engine issues alone might have been enough cause for the French Air Service to reject the N.28, the performance gains offered were eclipsed by the SPAD S.XIII which became the standard French fighter of the period. That might have been the end of the Nieuport story at that point had it not been for the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force in France. Lacking a suitable fighter aircraft of their own, the Americans turned to the French for the SPAD S.XIII, but all of SPAD's production was committed to French needs and none were available for the AEF. The French offered the N.28 which wasn't ideal but it was better than nothing and Nieuport would build 297 N.28s for the AEF. 

The introduction into service was lackluster at best. The First Pursuit Group assigned the N.28 to four of its squadrons- the 27th, 94th, 95th, and 147th Aero Squadrons. The 95th AS arrived first to the front in February 1918, but the N.28s were delivered without guns! To boost morale and show that that the Americans were ready for action, Major Raoul Lufbery, a veteran of the Lafayette Escadrille of American volunteers, led unarmed patrols over the front lines the following month. It was an inauspicious start to American air combat operations that the first fighters in action lacked armament. On 14 April 1918, the 94th's sister squadron, the 95th Aero Squadron, made its first armed patrol with three N.28s- with the flight lead aborting due to weather, the other two pilots, Lt. Reed Chambers and Lt. Eddie Rickenbacker, decided to press on with their patrol. Returning to the airfield, two German fighters were overhead, apparently lost above the fog. The second patrol launched with Lt. Alan Winslow and Lt. Douglas Campbell and they downed the two Germans, Winslow scoring the first victory for the AEF and Campbell (soon to become the first American ace) getting credit for the second German by forcing it to crash land.

In the weeks of air combat that followed, the Americans found the N.28 had other short comings besides its troublesome rotary engine. During extended dives, the upper wings tended to shed their fabric covering, often taking the wing ribs forward of the forward wing spar with it. Several American pilots were lost due to the wing failures. Even Eddie Rickenbacker nursed home a crippled N.28 when he lost most of his upper wing's fabric. By the time Nieuport had a fix for the problem, adequate SPAD S.XIIIs became available and the Americans quickly converted to the superior SPAD fighter in July 1918. After the last N.28s were built for the AEF squadrons, Nieuport switched over to license production of SPAD fighters in an ironic twist. By August 1918, the last N.28s were phased out from the AEF in favor of the SPAD. 

Despite the shortcomings of the N.28, the Americans maintained a favorable win-to-loss ratio, the most appreciated quality of the N.28 being its maneuverability. The kill ratio was about 3:1, respectable given the shortcomings of the N.28 and the relative inexperience of the American pilots early on. By the time the four squadrons had converted to the SPAD, the kill ratio had slipped to 1:1 on account of there being more veteran German pilots in combat than earlier in the N.28's combat career. 

An N.28 flies off the turret platform of either the USS Oklahoma or USS Pennsylvania
(US Navy)

Following the First World War, about 50 N.28s that did not see combat service over France were shipped to the United States and used by the US Navy as gunnery observation aircraft. Small fly-off platforms were built atop some battleship turrets and the light weight and rapid acceleration of the N.28 allowed them to be operated off these platforms. Flotation gear and hydrovanes were fitted that allowed the N.28s to be recovered from water landings. 

Further reading: 

The Flanders Air Campaign of 1917: The First Modern Air War

Aircraft Operated from Submarines in the First World War

The First Torpedo Bomber: The Shorts 184 of the First World War

Sources: Profile Publications No. 79: The Nieuport N.28C-1 by Peter Bowers. Profile Publications, 1966. National Museum of the US Air Force, Wikipedia. 

Mike Grimm, Father of the Night Stalkers

Michael Grimm, Father of the Night Stalkers

Conventional wisdom in aviation history points to the tragic debacle at Desert One in Iran during the hostage rescue mission as the watershed moment that culminated in the formation of the US Special Forces Command (SOCOM). While I do think that the story of the failed 1980 Iranian hostage rescue mission should be held near and dear to every military leader of this nation, there was actually someone else who sounded the warning bells three years before that fateful day in 1980. His name is legendary amongst US special forces personnel to this day, but I'd bet hardly any of us enthusiasts had ever heard of his name- Mike Grimm.

Long before he would make his mark on the history of US special forces, Mike Grimm was already a decorated hero of the Vietnam War when as a second lieutenant in 1968, assumed command of his platoon and managed to fight off through the night two entire companies of Vietcong before they could be extracted by helicopter from the battle zone. He stayed on with the US Army after the end of US participation in the war in 1973, eventually becoming a helicopter pilot and stationed in Hawaii in 1975. But serving in Hawaii was boring for Grimm, when the most serious decision they ever had to make was whether he would fly clockwise or counter-clockwise around Oahu. In 1976, the world was electrified with the stunning Israeli raid at Entebbe, Uganda, to rescue the passengers of a hijacked Air France flight. In less than one hour, Israeli commandos stormed the Entebbe Airport, killed nearly all the terrorists, rescued nearly all the hostages and only losing one commando. And they also manged to destroy most of the MiGs of the Ugandan Air Force in the process.

Mike Grimm realized that the United States lacked the capability to do what the Israelis managed to do- project power over 2,000 miles into hostile territory and effect a hostage rescue with minimal losses. Austerity was the key word in the post-Vietnam defense budget and even training exercises were canceled to save money. Once he had become the Divisional operations officer in 1977, he decided to use the Division's entire budget for training on a single exercise. He called it an Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise (EDRE) and in the training scenario, his men and pilots would have to fly 200 miles to the island of Hawaii where a select group of soldiers playing terrorists were holding hostages. Grimm's men would have rescue those hostages with minimal losses. The tactics he developed for the exercise would be the blueprint for all future missions to come, even to this day.

Men from the First and Fifth Infantry Battalions at Schoefield Barracks on Oahu were selected to be the "raiders." Their helicopter element consisted of 10 Bell UH-1H Hueys and two Bell AH-1G Cobra gunships from A Company of the 25th Aviation Battalion. After an alert and planning period, the men and their helicopters flew from Schoefield Barracks to Hickam AFB to be loaded aboard USAF Lockheed C-141A Starlifters to simulate strategic deployment. The men were flown to Hilo Airport which would function as the "intermediate staging base" for the exercise. On 14 November they arrived in Hilo where the helicopters were readied for flight and they flew onward to Bradshaw AAF in the Pohaku Trainng Area in the center of Hawaii. This would be their "forward operating base" for the mission exercise.

The "hostages" were being held in the fire station of Waimea-Kohala Airport just 30 miles north of their forward operating base. The raid would be carried out at dawn as no night vision equipment was available. At ten miles from the target, the "terrorists" heard the team coming and "executed" the hostages. When Grimm's raiding force landed, they were wiped out to the last man.

The next day at Bradshaw AAF the After Action Review took place and everyone but Mike Grimm thought their Army careers were over when the Division commander, Lieutenant General Willard Scott arrived. He began the debriefing with the statement "This exercise was a really bad idea." As he continued for several minutes on the inappropriateness of using helicopter-borne infantry on anti-terror operations. "Our Army will never enter into this area. This is NOT our role."

At that moment, Mike Grimm stood up and interrupted his commander.

"Respectfully, sir, that is NOT correct." Here he was, a newly minted major, holding a two-star general to task. "Not only do we need to create this capability, sir, but if we don't, we are going to find ourselves at some point in our history embarrassed as a nation!"

Emblem of the 160th SOAR

Three years later, on the morning of 25 April 1980, in the Iranian desert, that embarrassment took place. The wrecks of five Marine RH-53D Sea Stallions and one USAF C-130 Hercules lay smoldering in the desert with the bodies of eight American servicemen. That year Mike Grimm was the commander of A Company of the 229th Aviation Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division where he was working with a handpicked group of men to transform the Hughes OH-6 "Loach" into what would become the MH-6/AH-6 "Little Bird" for night time special forces missions. On the night of 7 October 1981, Mike Grimm was flying one of the unit's MH-6s at low level over the Cumberland River when he hit the side of a power line tower and was killed instantly. One week later, in memorial to Mike Grimm, the new 160th Aviation Battalion uncased its colors. It was the birth of the Army Special Force's aviation element (Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or SOAR), the "Night Stalkers".

Source: The Night Stalkers: Top Secret Missions of the US Army's Special Operations Aviation Regiment by Michael J. Durant and Steven Hartov. GP Putnam and Sons, 2006, p33-64. Photos: US Army, Wikipedia

The Unconventional Genius of Carl Norden

Carl L. Norden

After the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, the next biggest top secret defense program in the United States at the time was the development and production of the Norden bombsight. The Norden sights were used in all of the United States Army Air Forces heavy bombers (the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, and the Boeing B-29 Superfortress) primarily and it was a Norden sight that bombardiers used to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought the Second World War to a close. Despite its crucial role in strategic bombing campaigns in both the European and Pacific Theatres, the Norden bombsight was a Navy program and every Norden sight used by the US Army Air Force had passed through the hands of Navy inspectors. How this state of affairs came to be is the story of how an unconventional but brilliant Dutchman, Carl Norden, came to be employed by the Navy prior to the start of the Second World War. 

Carl Norden was born on 23 April 1880 in Semarang, Java, in what was the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia), the middle child of five siblings in a household with absent father. From a young age, his mother considered him the most reliable and responsible of his siblings- in a sense, he became the "man of the family". He had wanted to become an artist, but when his older brother decided to pursue an artistic career, Carl decided to pursue a lucrative career in order provide for his mother and his siblings, enrolling in the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland and graduating in 1904 as a mechanical engineer. Although Dutch by birth, Norden's father was a naturalized Dutch citizen from German and Norden's own wife was from Austria. Norden's German ties dovetailed into his natural engineering and mathematical prowess- it was said that Carl Norden viewed everything in life in mechanical terms governed by mathematical formulas, the universe being nothing more than a great mechanical timepiece. After his graduation in 1904, he emigrated to the United States where he had a wealthy uncle who had made his fortune in the cotton business. Norden worked for a series of companies as a mechanical design engineer, but it was painfully obvious that he was difficult to employ as he was very much a prima donna. But there was no question of Norden's brilliant mind and after a series of employers over six years, he finally came to work for Elmer Sperry Sr. and his sons, Elmer and Lawrence at the Sperry Gyroscope Company. Norden's mechanical aptitude fit well into the work the Sperrys were doing for the Navy in developing gyroscopes to improve the accuracy of naval gunnery from moving ships. Norden's work with Sperry was invaluable for the company and Norden made many contacts within the Navy as a result. Norden tolerated Sperry as the work was interesting, but the relationship soured when, after solving the problem of gyroscopic oscillation, Norden got what he thought was an insulting $25/week raise as a reward. Norden quit and became a consulting engineer to the Navy, but it was the start of a feud between Norden and Sperry for years. Norden often dismissively told people Sperry "would patent gravity if he could" and Sperry for years tried to legally dispute many of Norden's later patents. 

In 1913, Norden set up shop near the Brooklyn Navy Yard and continued to work on the ship stabilization project for the Navy much to Sperry's chagrin. The Navy was enamored with Norden's genius and that relationship in large part protected Norden from Sperry's multiple legal challenges. With the progress on the ship stabilization project slow in coming, the Navy astutely put Norden's mind to work on other projects, starting the aerial gyroscopes for the aerial torpedo project as well as designing catapults and arresting gear for aircraft carriers. The arresting gear of the USS Lexington and USS Saratoga were designed by Norden himself on his dining room table!

At the time, the Navy was pursing a bombsight program as it felt that the best way to sink ships from the air was via high altitude level bombing. General Billy Mitchell's ship-bombing tests in the summer of 1921 against captured German warships convinced the Navy that it had to find a way to sink ships at sea. The Navy's Bureau of Ordinance (BuOrd) was responsible for the bombsight program and many different types, including some from Sperry, were tested. Officers with the Aviation Section of BuOrd came to know Carl Norden from his work on the aerial torpedo project as he had been consulted as an outside expert to evaluate Sperry's work (something which truly irritated Sperry to no end). They were impressed with the comments made in the reports and not knowing who Carl Norden was, found a report signed "Norden". A quick check of the Brooklyn telephone book and a few calls got the officers from BuOrd in touch with Norden who agreed to review the Navy's bombsight program. The gyroscopic stabilization work he had done for the ship and aerial torpedo project dovetailed neatly into the bombsight problem as Norden recommended that the bombsights be not only gyroscopically stabilized, but also connected to either an autopilot or pilot director so that during the bomb run, the bombardier was the one "flying" the aircraft. Eventually modifying existing bombsights turned out to be a failure and the BuOrd and Norden decided to start from scratch and create a whole new bombsight that would launch the Norden bombsight into aviation history. 

That's not to say that Norden's genius resulted in success. For most of the 1920s, many of the literally handcrafted Norden sights had dismal performance. But Norden wasn't one to give up and the Navy was an incredibly accommodating employer. Well aware of Norden's personality- they nicknamed him "Old Man Dynamite", they gave him tremendous latitude as long as he kept delivering results in the form of progressive improvements to his bombsight designs. Unlike most engineers, Norden did his own drafting. He didn't have an extensive engineering library, he preferred to work with his slide rule, a set of engineering tables and a few select references. He often stayed at his mother's home in Zurich, Switzerland, to ponder mechanical problems and develop solutions. His drawings and correspondence were then delivered to the US Navy by diplomatic pouch from US embassy in Switzerland. The State Department wasn't keen on this but high level pressure from the US Navy encouraged diplomatic officials to be as accommodating to "Old Man Dynamite" as possible. Sometimes it was his family he sent to Switzerland so he could be alone to solve some problems back in New York. Also unique to the Navy's relationship with Norden was that any patents were held by the Navy and classified as top secret. In this way, not only was Norden shielded from Sperry's legal challenges, but it also meant that the Navy didn't have to follow the prescribed competitive bidding rules to pay Norden for his work. Many of Norden's patents sponsored by the Navy from the 1920s and 1930s weren't even declassified until 1947! In contrast to the US Army Air Corps (forerunner of the US Army Air Forces) who held open competitive bidding in its own bombsight program and trialled bombsights from several different manufacturers, the Navy only did business with Norden and Norden alone. In fact, the Navy was Norden's only client! 

Theodore Barth at a circus held for Norden employees

As work on the Norden sights continued in the 1920s, BuOrd recommended that Norden partner up with an engineer to start moving the bombsight project towards mass production. Knowing Norden well, the Navy partnered him up with a former Army colonel and engineer by the name of Theodore Barth and it was the start of a very close relationship between the two men for many years. Norden's own children regarded Barth as a secondary father figure in their lives, so close was Barth to Norden. It was Barth who was tasked by the Navy to take Norden's designs and put them into production. Compared to Norden, Barth was very personable and possessed quite a bit of business acumen as well- Norden may have been the brains of the operation but it was Barth who made everything work and kept everyone happy. During the Second World War, Barth took it as his job to take care of all of the employees that were building bombsights. He often gave away baseball tickets and even rented out Madison Square Garden for a circus just for Norden's employees. 

From the time Norden was contacted by the Aviation Section of the Bureau of Ordinance to the delivery of the first production bombsight to the fleet, the Norden Mark XI, nine years had elapsed. During those nine years Norden progressively refined the design of what was essentially a clocklike analog computer that was gyroscopically stabilized and linked to the autopilot. The Navy, though, did hedge its bets just a bit- during that time it had contracted with General Electric for a back up bombsight design called "Scheme B" or the Mark XIII. After three years, the Navy found the GE bombsight was woefully inferior to Norden's designs and canceled "Scheme B". 

Norden M-1 bombsight

By the early 1930s, the US Army Air Corps became aware of the Norden program and was keen to get its hands on the bombsights for its own testing. The head of the Army Air Corps, General Henry "Hap" Arnold (who would head the USAAF during the Second World War), was shocked to hear of the working arrangement between the Navy's BuOrd and Carl Norden, from Norden not even being a US citizen to the fact that Norden did a lot of his work abroad in Switzerland and then sent drawings back via diplomatic couriers to New York City for Theodore Barth and Navy officials to review. The Navy wasn't about to change the way it did business with Carl Norden to assuage General Arnold's concerns, though. It basically came down to something along the lines "If you want Norden bombsights for Army bombers, this is the arrangement you have to live with!". As a modest concession, though, the Navy had the FBI provide a security detail for Norden and agents were planted in Norden's production facilities in New York City to root out any foreign spies. At all times, at least two armed agents were with Norden at all times. There is an apocryphal story that when Norden wasn't getting his way with the Navy, he'd insinuate he'd leave the United States and go to work for the British. He would later remark it was empty threat "As no self-respecting Dutchman would ever work for the British!"

By 1928, Norden was at work at a massive improvement to the Mark XI sight called the Mark XV. He delivered the Mark XV prototype to BuOrd in 1930 and it was this sight that pretty much ended the GE alternate bombsight program. The bombsights that came from the Mark XV design were known as the Norden M-series sights and those would become standard on American heavy bombers.  By this point, however, the Navy was drifting away from relying on high altitude level bombing at sea as dive bombing was explored by units in the fleet. But the arrangements between the Navy and Carl Norden remained with his New York City factory essentially being a Navy factory! By 1934, Norden's bombsights became the standard for the Army Air Corps, first being installed on Martin B-10s. It's estimated that approximately $1.5 billion was spent on the development and production of Norden bombsights. 

Carl Norden was passed away in 1965 in his beloved Switzerland. His company lived on as Norden Systems to be acquired by Westinghouse which was in turn acquired by Northrop Grumman. Norden and Barth also set up a second company called Barden to manufacture bombsight components- Barden is still  around today, fabricating ball bearings for a variety of industries including aerospace. Carl Norden was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1994. 

Source: America's Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 1910-1945 by Stephen L. McFarland. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, pp 45-76. Photos: Norden Systems Division via Stephen L. McFarland's book, Wikipedia

Flying High This Past Week 16 March-22 March

First a bit of housekeeping. This week I switched this blog over to have its own domain name at www.tailsthroughtime.com. The previous address of aviationtrivia.blogspot.com still works and you'll get a redirect notice if you use the old link that will take you to the new URL. Now, without further ado, here's what's been getting a lot of page views this past week here at TAILS THROUGH TIME:

• Two's Company and Three's a Crowd: The Boeing 737-200 Flight Crew Controversy: Quite naturally the latest post to the blog would be the most popular in the past week! The question of whether the 737-200 required two flight crew or three created quite a bit of acrimony in the late 1960s when the aircraft was introduced. Nowhere else was the dispute more pronounced than at United Air Lines, one of Boeing's key customers for the new jet.
• The Crazy Cats: The Lockheed Neptunes of the US Army: Yes, you read that right. The *Army*. In Vietnam, the Army found that it needed a bigger and longer ranged aircraft for the SIGINT/COMINT role that today's Guardrail aircraft perform. Intraservice rivalries being what they were then, the Navy stepped up to help the Army and offered some P-2 Neptunes from stateside Reserve squadrons for modification so the Army wouldn't have to deal with what was then a very prickly USAF. The AP-2Es (a spurious designation to avoid antagonizing the USAF) were the heaviest and most complex Neptune variant to take to the skies. Many of the SIGINT/COMINT equipment used on the Army Neptunes would influence the development of the Guardrail system used today by the Army. 
• The N-20 Program: Switzerland's First Indigenous Jet Aircraft: The Federal Aircraft Factory (FAF) N-20 Aiguillon was an attractive flying wing fighter design that only got as far as taxi tests and some very short hops short of a true first flight before being canceled. The Aiguillon had two flying forebears, though, that contributed to the flight test program and development of this aborted fighter design.
• Tupolev's Own Tristar Design: It's not unusual for the Russian design bureaus (called OKBs) to reuse designations. The Tu-204 that flies today is actually the third use of that designation. The first use was for an enlarged T-tailed jet development of the Tu-134/Tu-154 and the second use of the designation was for a widebody trijet that looked very much like the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar. 
• The Rocket-Boosted P-51 Mustang: In 1945 the USAAF's Mustangs were besting the Messerschmitt Me 262 jets over their German bases where the jets were most vulnerable. As a result of augmented airfield defenses, work turned to a rocket-boosted P-51 that would have the speed to catch the Me 262 at altitude and not have to run the gauntlet of airfield defenses.
• The Legend of Half-Moon Bay: In this day and age when most of us are jaded to air travel and complaints about airlines are the norm, from the 1962 Christmas season is a unparalleled story of ingenuity and a can-do spirit by airline employees to go the extra mile. I won't spoil it here, but let's just say we'd all be hard pressed to come up with anything that equals what a small California airline pulled off that year, creating the "Legend of Half Moon Bay"!

The next TAILS THROUGH TIME article goes up tomorrow night, 23 March. Stay tuned! 

The Crazy Cats: The Lockheed Neptunes of the US Army

The Army Lockheed AP-2E Neptune on display at Fort Rucker

During the Vietnam War, the Army had a whole host of aircraft for signals intelligence (SIGINT) and electronic warfare based on general aviation aircraft. These aircraft were loaded with electronic equipment and studded with external antennae and fairings to house the sensors. Operated by the Army Security Agency, missions flown by these unusual aircraft were to detect, identify, and localize enemy radio transmitters and then use electronic warfare to disrupt the networks. The most common types in use for this role were based on the U-8 Seminole (itself based on the Beech Twin Bonanza), the U-21 Ute (based on the Beech King Air 90) and the Grumman OV-1 Mohawk. These three airframes formed the backbone of Army Security Agency SIGINT/EW aircraft in Southeast Asia. However, as early as 1965, the Army realized that bigger aircraft would be needed, particularly as operations expanded in scope to include Laos and Cambodia. A bigger aircraft offered a greater payload capacity as well as more range to cover an expanding theater of operations. At first, thought was given to modifying the De Havilland CV-2 Caribou for the signals intelligence role, but given that these transports were soon to be handed over the USAF, it made little sense to fund the modification of an aircraft that would given to the USAF as the Army shifted focus on heavy-lift helicopters like the CH-47 Chinook from fixed wing transports. 

The US armed forces during Vietnam was a different organization in many ways from what it is now with a stress on joint operations with the different branches contributing to common goals. Inter-service rivalries were much more pronounced in those days and went back to the Second World War. With the Army losing fixed wing aviation to the newly independent United States Air Force in 1947, the USAF wasn't exactly who the Army wished to turn to in a need for a larger aircraft that could be modified for signals intelligence, particularly since the USAF had been lobbying hard to take over the Army's Caribou transport fleet. Throughout the postwar period up to Vietnam, the Army's various attempts at developing its own aviation resources had an unlikely ally in the US Navy. So when the Army needed a larger aircraft for the SIGINT mission that wasn't going to provoke the USAF, the Navy was ready to help with the offer of Lockheed P-2 Neptunes. The Neptune had been in service with the Navy since 1946 and over a thousand had been built by the time the Army was looking for a new platform. The aircraft had already flown intelligence and electronic warfare missions for the Navy and even the USAF in limited numbers. With several Navy patrol squadrons in Southeast Asia still using the Neptune for maritime patrol, the logistical and maintenance infrastructure was already in place. Given that Neptune was a lot larger and more complex than any other fixed wing type the Army operated, Navy assistance was vital. As several stateside Naval Reserve squadrons were already operating the Neptune, several could be "loaned" from those units without adversely affecting frontline readiness in Southeast Asia. 

Twelve P-2E Neptunes were passed to the Army by the Navy for use in Vietnam with the first aircraft delivered to the Army Security Agency in 1966. The aircraft were extensively modified in the interior to house the necessary electronic equipment with the only external clues to their role being extended wingtip tanks to house sensors, some extra antennas, and a solid nose in place of the usual transparent observer's compartment. The white over gray colors was kept with only "ARMY" titles aft of the national insignia. The aircraft were designated AP-2E, but if the Army were following the designation rules correctly that had been established in 1962, the Army Neptunes should have been RP-2E given their intelligence tasking, but the Army designated them AP-2E to avoid attracting the ire of the USAF. With a crew of 15 and jammed with electronic equipment, the Army AP-2Es were the heaviest and most complex of the Neptune variants to fly. 

1st ASA Company's "Crazy Cat" emblem

The Neptunes were based at Cam Ranh Bay where the air base there already had a sizable Navy presence, so the Army Neptunes wouldn't have attracted much attention. From July 1967 to April 1972, they were operated by the 1st Army Security Agency Company which had the cover designation 1st Radio Research Company. Many sources refer to the unit by the cover designation, but they were officially the 1st ASA Company and were nicknamed the "Crazy Cats". The unit also operated RU-8 Seminoles and RU-21 Utes, which led to the the AP-2Es to be fitted with some of the same equipment as well as early versions of later SIGINT/EW suites. For what I can determine, some of the equipment included what was called "Left Foot"- this was a 360-degree SIGINT system that started out in 1970 under the code name Left Bank which then was improved to be come Left Jab on the RU-21s. Left Jab was the first airborne SIGINT system to use a digital computer and combined both intelligence and navigation in the same system to enhance its accuracy. Left Foot came next and combined the digital computer from Left Jab with the direction finding system from what the RU-21s used which had the code name Laffing Eagle. 

Another system installed on the Neptunes was called CEFLY Lancer. CEFLY stood for Communications and Electronics Forward Looking Flying. CEFLY Lancer was also used on the RU-21s, but it's believed that the increased room on the Neptunes, development work on CEFLY Lancer took place during the missions. This sensor suite was designed to intercept communications. It's also believed that the early versions of another system called CEFIRM Leader also flew on the Neptunes. This system was designated AN/ULQ-11 and was a direction finding and communications jamming system. Officially CEFIRM Leader didn't become operational until 1973 as the Army's first multi-mission intelligence and electronic warfare suite, but early versions were likely test flown in Vietnam. 

At the end of 1972, the last of the AP-2Es were returned to the Navy with a single example going on display at the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker. By that point, developments in signals and communications intelligence as well as electronic warfare as well as the end of US involvement in Vietnam made the AP-2Es redundant. Many of the systems used on the Army Neptunes laid the groundwork for the later multirole Guardrail system that's still in use today by the Army. 

Source: US Army Aircraft Since 1947 by Stephen Harding. Specialty Press, 1990, pp 171-173. Photos: Wikipedia. 

The Bell 207 Sioux Scout- Grand Daddy of the Gunship

The Bell D-245 Warrior set the pattern for gunship designs

With the turbine-powered Bell UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" utility helicopter offering a quantum leap in capability for the US Army over previous, cumbersome, piston-driven rotorcraft, it was a natural progression that the UH-1s would be armed for aerial fires support for the growing conflict in Vietnam. But Bell's engineers in Fort Worth were steps ahead of the military with studies as early as 1958 for a tandem-seat purpose-built helicopter gunship that used the transmission and engine systems of what would become the UH-1. Bell's first offering had the in-house designation D-245 and was named "Warrior" which laid down the standard layout of gunships that followed- a slim fuselage with tandem seating for a pilot and gunner, stub wings for weapons, and nose-mounted gun turret. But despite its potential, the Army had yet to determine operational doctrines for the use of attack helicopters and the D-245 Warrior was quietly shelved. 

Despite official disinterest from the US Army, Bell decided to embark on internally-funded development to further refine the D-245 Warrior design. In June 1962 Bell unveiled the D-255 Iroquois Warrior to the Army at its Fort Worth facility. The D-255 was a bit larger than the earlier D-245 but retained the tandem seating for pilot and gunner in stepped layout with the pilot sitting behind and higher than the gunner in the forward seat. Again, the tail boom, rotor transmission and engines were adapted from the UH-1. While the mixed reaction from the US Army was an improvement over the official disinterest that the earlier D-245 design elicited, it still wasn't enough to get a production contract from the Army. Again the D-255 was quietly shelved, but this still wasn't going to discourage the Bell team from staying ahead of the game. In December 1962 a brainstorming session of the engineering team resulted in a decision to build a flying demonstrator to prove the US Army what Bell's gunship concept could accomplish. 

The Sioux Scout was quite small for a two-seat gunship

Designated the Model 207 and named the Sioux Scout, the demonstrator combined the engine, rotor, and drive systems of the proven Bell OH-13 Sioux (the bubble-cockpit helicopter made famous in the introduction to the TV series M*A*S*H) with its civilian counterpart, the Bell 47. The six-cylinder Lycoming 435 engine of the OH-13/Bell 47 was supercharged to deliver 220 horsepower driving the main rotor system from the OH-13 and the tail rotor/tail boom of the Bell 47. An all-new slim fuselage was created that used box beams to create a rigid structure to which were attached the stub wings that could carry external stores on six hardpoints on each side as well as house an additional 43 gallons of fuel which gave the Sioux Scout a range of 200 miles. At high speeds, the stub wings helped offload the main rotor as well. An Emerson Electric TAT-101 gun turret was installed under the nose (the rigid fuselage structure dampened recoil) housing twin 7.62mm machine guns that were adaptations of the M60 gun. With 1,100 rounds of ammunition, the gunner in the forward seat used a pioneering hand controller to operate the gun turret 100 degrees side to side, 15 degress upward, and 45 degrees downward. Under each stub wing were six round, 2.75 inch rocket launchers on each hardpoint. 

The gunner had an outstanding field of view from the front seat

The Sioux Scout made its first flight from Bell's Fort Worth facility in Hurst on 27 June 1963, in the process becoming the first pure gunship in the world to take flight. Since the demonstrator program was somewhat secret, the helicopter was painted red and white to not so blatantly give away its military purpose. After several weeks of testing with Bell that added up to 65 flight hours, the Sioux Scout was repainted in more Army-like olive drab and began a series of weapons tests at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, northwest of Fort Worth. In November of that year, the Sioux Scout was taken on the road, touring Army bases and being flown by both Army and even NASA test pilots with over 300 flight hours that included firing over 83,000 rounds of ammunition from the chin turret. Finally, in 1964, B Troop, 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry of the 11th Air Assault Division spent a month flying the Sioux Scout in operational conditions and in field exercises. At the time, the 11th Air Assault Division was tasked by the Army commanders with experimenting and creating operational doctrines in helicopter assault at Fort Benning, Georgia. 

The Model 209 prototype had retractable landing skids

Other than the Sioux Scout being underpowered and the reliability of the experimental gun turret being less than ideal, Army evaluators were overwhelmingly pleased with the outcome of the 11th Air Assault Division's operational evaluation of the demonstrator. The recommendation was issued that a turbine-powered, more capable version be developed as quickly as possible for operational use. In late 1964 the Secretary of the Army created the Advanced Aerial Fire Support System (AAFSS) with invitations to industry to submit designs. With the quick realization that the AAFSS design would take time to field, the Army decided that an interim design was needed that would field the gap until the AAFSS became operational. Bell dusted off its D-255 Iroquois Warrior design and with further refinements based on the Sioux Scout evaluation, designated it the D-262. However, in 1965 the Army rejected the D-262 design. But, as Bell had done before, they quietly went about refining the design further on company funds- within several months of the rejection of the D-262, the situation in Vietnam worsened and the US commander in Vietnam, General William Westmoreland, advised the Pentagon that either the AAFSS needed to fielded quickly or some interim design was needed as soon as possible. In March 1965 Bell just happened to finish the full-scale mockup of its refined gunship designated the Model 209 and "leaked" to Army commanders what it was up to. Before long, the Army issued a formal requirement for an interim design. Beating out submissions from Sikorsky, Kaman, Piasecki and Boeing Vertol, the Model 209 was selected on 11 March 1966 for production as the AH-1 Cobra.

And the AAFSS? That became the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne and was a classic case of wanting too much out of a design. It ended up getting cancelled in August 1972. That same month, the Army created the Advanced Attack Helicopter program (AAH) which became the AH-64 Apache. And what become of the Sioux Scout? The grand daddy of gunships can be seen today in the Army Aviation Museum in Fort Rucker, Alabama. And of course, Bell's interim design is still in production today for the US Marine Corps as the AH-1Z Viper.

Source: Helicopter Gunships: Deadly Combat Weapon Systems by Wayne Mutza. Specialty Press, 2010, p56-60. Images from aviatstar.org

One Powerful Helicopter Gunship- the ACH-47A "Guns A-Go-Go"

The weapons loadout of the ACH-47A Chinook gunship

After years of experimentation with armed helicopters, the US Army finally sent armed Bell UH-1B Huey gunships into combat in October 1962 with the rocket/gun armed Hueys acting as escort for Piasecki CH-21 Shawnee transports out of Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon. Despite the growing success of the armed Hueys in the growing conflict in Vietnam, the Army sought a helicopter that offered even more firepower to replace the Huey gunships. Initial evaluations began in 1964 and even despite the selection of the Bell AH-1 Cobra (the world's first dedicated helicopter gunship design) in 1966, the general staff wanted something with even more firepower than the Cobra gunship as it was felt to only be an interim design pending what the Army felt was the ultimate gunship, the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne. While the Army pushed for a large gunship based on experiences in Vietnam, it found itself running into opposition from the USAF which felt its traditional domain of fixed wing close-air support being infringed upon by more capable helicopter gunships. Regardless, combat experience proved to be a powerful argument and the existing Hueys were felt in certain situations lacking in firepower. With the Army due to deploy the Boeing Vertol CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter to Southeast Asia in November 1965, Boeing Vertol submitted a formal proposal to the Army to modify eleven Chinooks into heavy gunships and on 2 July 1965 the first test Chinook was diverted from the production line in Philadelphia for conversion into the prototype ACH-47A. 

The heavy lift capability offered by the twin turbine-powered Chinook allowed for many choices of possible armament systems, weapons loads, and self-protection. No concept was considered too outlandish as even manned turrets and stub wings for mounting weapons were considered. The eventual weapons fit of the ACH-47A became the XM5 40mm grenade launcher in a turret in the nose fed by a flexible belt that ran through the cockpit to the forward cabin where a container holding 500 rounds was located; a 30-inch stub wing on each side of the forward sponsons that at the end mounted an M24A1 20mm cannon, each fed by an 800-round container in the middle cabin; under each stub wing was a pylon that could mount either a 19-round 2.75-inch rocket launcher or a pod-mounted 7.62mm rotary Minigun. In addition to these permanently mounted systems, there were five crew-operated 50-caliber gun stations- forward right side, forward left side, right and left waist, and cargo ramp. The waist and forward stations had enlarged openings to allow a wider field of fire and the top half of the cargo ramp was removed to expand the rearward field of fire. Each 50-caliber gun had its own 1,000 round supply. With the five gunner stations, the ACH-47A would be the only helicopter gunship to fly into combat with a full 360-degree field of fire. 

Two ACH-47As during the flight test program. Note the gloss paint scheme.

Despite the removal of items not needed for the gunship mission (items like the troop seats, cargo handling gear, even soundproofing), over 2,500 lbs went back into the ACH-47A for armor plating for the crew, rotor pylons, and vital systems. The standard Lycoming T55 turboshaft engines were uprated to 2,850 hp each compared to 2,200 hp for the standard CH-47A transport. This meant that a fully-loaded ACH-47A had the same performance as a operationally-loaded CH-47A. The first ACH-47A made its maiden flight at the Boeing Vertol plant in Philadelphia on 6 November 1965, only four months after the work began! After flight testing, the first ACH-47A was delivered to the Army for weapons trials at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and then to Fort Benning, Georgia for operational training in March 1966. At Fort Benning, the 53rd Aviation Detachment, Field Evaluation (Provisional) was formed for the training and operation of the ACH-47A and in April 1966 three more ACH-47As arrived, but due to budgetary constraints, only four ACH-47As could be built and delivered. The first one, 64-13145, was initially named "Crazy 8" but was renamed "Cost of Living". 64-12149 became "Easy Money", 64-13151 was named "Stump Jumper" and the last one, 64-13154, was named "Birth Control". The last three shipped out to Vietnam in May 1966 while "Cost of Living" remained at Edwards AFB for more testing. 

"Easy Money" resting between missions at An Khe

The six-month period of operational testing would be split between Vung Tau in the southern coast one hour downriver from Saigon and at An Khe in the centeral highlands of South Vietnam. At Vung Tau the ACH-47As would operate not just with American units fighting the Viet Cong but also the Royal Australian Task Force. At An Khe, the ACH-47As operated with the 1st Cavalry Division. At both locations the 53rd Aviation Detachment remained the operator and acquired the nickname "Guns A-Go-Go" as a result of the heavy firepower of the Chinook gunships. Troops in contact with enemy forces favored the ACH-47As for their firepower and 360-degree field of fire. On 5 August 1966, "Stump Jumper" was destroyed in a freak accident at Vung Tau when it collided while taxiing with a transport CH-47A. The ACH-47A that was still at Edwards AFB "Cost of Living" conducting advanced testing was then prepared for deployment to replace the destroyed "Stump Jumper". One of the missions assigned exclusively to the ACH-47As was to go into an area that had just been carpet bombed by a B-52 Arc Light strike and finish off any enemy positions that survived the bombing. It was considered heavily armed enough and heavily protected enough to be able to finish off the job left by an Arc Light strike!

At the end of the test period in December 1966, "Cost of Living" arrived in Vietnam and the 53rd was redesignated the 1st Aviation Detachment (Provisional) attached to the 1st Cavalry Division at An Khe. Enemy forces became reluctant to fire upon any Chinook after a while because at a distance, the ACH-47A was hard to distinguish from a standard CH-47A transport Chinook. On 5 May 1967 while on an attack run, a retention pin on the stub wing of "Cost of Living" came loose and allowed the gun to elevate and fire into the forward rotors, causing the gunship to crash with the loss of all onboard. The two remaining ACH-47As, "Easy Money" and "Birth Control", however, kept flying as the need for their firepower was highly desired by troops in contact. The end of the Chinook gunship program came during the 1968 Tet Offensive at the Battle of Hue. On 22 February 1968, "Birth Control" was forced down due to multiple hits after an attack run in low ceiling conditions. Autorotating into a rice paddy near the walls of the Citadel in the ancient city of Hue, the crew started taking heavy fire from the Citadel area. "Easy Money" made several attempts to land and rescue the crew of "Birth Control", but the ground fire was too intense. "Easy Money" finally landed, but overshot and found itself between the Citadel and "Birth Control". Two UH-1 Huey gunships unleashed 76 2.75-inch rockets into the source of the enemy fire, allowing "Easy Money" to struggle airborne with the crew from "Birth Control". Before the downed ACH-47A could be recovered, it was destroyed by enemy mortars. Since the tactics called for the ACH-47As to operate in pairs, "Easy Money" never flew into combat again as no Chinooks were available for conversion as every one was needed for transport duties in Vietnam. With the number of Bell AH-1 Cobra gunships increasing in Vietnam, "Easy Money" sat out the rest of the war as a maintenance trainer at Vung Tau.

The logo of "Guns A-Go-Go

"Easy Money" ended up in the boneyard at Savannah Army Depot. Boeing had evaluated the airframe for possible conversion to the prototype CH-47D, but it was found to be too corroded to be of any use. It was moved to Fort Eustis where it was used as a sheet metal trainer before it was moved to the base scrapyard. It's historical identity was discovered in 1997 when the "Easy Money" name was uncovered under layers of paint. The aircraft was duly restored and is now on display at Redstone Arsenal, in Alabama. In 2006, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment "Nightstalkers" at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, set up a new battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington, to serve special operations units based on the West Coast for operations in the Pacific. Equipped with the advanced MH-47G Chinook, the unit approached the veterans of the 53rd "Guns A-Go-Go" for permission to resurrect the unit designation, patch, and "Guns A-Go-Go" call sign- which of course was agreed to with enthusiasm!

I highly recommend you visit a tribute website to the ACH-47A and "Guns A-Go-Go"!

Source: Helicopter Gunships: Deadly Combat Weapon Systems by Wayne Mutza. Specialty Press, 2010, p41-55.

Martin Bets on Orlando and Wins the Pershing Missile Contract

I had posted several weeks ago how George M. Bunker, the president of Martin Aircraft that succeeded Glenn L. Martin in 1952, diversified the company by getting into the missiles and rockets business. The year 1956 was a tremendous year for Martin, having won the Air Force's Titan ICBM contract as well as the Navy's Vanguard satellite launcher contract as well. With a major missile contract with the USAF, a major rocket launcher contract with the Navy, no one would have thought that Martin would get an upcoming Army contract for a medium-range ballistic missile. But then again, no one thought Bunker to be a betting man, either. At the time, the Army hadn't even issued a formal Request for Proposals to the industry for such a program. But early in 1956, Bunker paid a visit to Major General John Medaris, the commanding officer of the newly-formed Army Ballistic Missile Agency at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. It was General Medaris who was the boss of German rocket scientist Werner Von Braun and his team of German engineers. The ironic aspect of the visit was that Bunker didn't stop by to solicit the Army's business. As General Medaris would recount the visit years later, Bunker simply asked "how might the Martin Company could best be of service to the Army's missile objectives." The general didn't offer any specifics on what the Army had in mind, but did point out to Bunker that it would be "extremely advantageous" to the Army if an aerospace company saw fit to have a production facility somewhere between Huntsville and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the primary test launch site for all US long-range missile programs. Bunker would thank the general for his time and departed. 

Bunker decided that the best location would be Orlando, Florida, which in 1956 was a quiet banking town surrounded by orange groves and ranches. Most in the aerospace industry only knew of it as it was the nearest airport to Cape Canaveral one hour away. Many reporters, scientists, and engineers transited through Orlando on their way to and from the Cape. In August 1956 Bunker and one of his VPs called on the chairman of Orlando's largest bank, First National Bank, inquiring on the purchase of 500 acres for a manufacturing plant. Before the day was over, Bunker would be introduced to the mayor of Orlando, the head of the Orlando Industrial Board, and one of the city's prominent real estate brokers. A few days later, Orlando city leaders traveled to Baltimore to brief the Martin board of directors on candidate sites. Bunker directed the purchase of 6,400 acres at $200/acre. The site chosen was completely undeveloped and the Martin board asked about the need for roads, sewers, and utilities and that very same day not only did they secure the guarantee from the city leaders to provide all of what was needed, they also secured the support of the governor of Florida. Ground was broken five months later and in December 1957 Martin formally opened its Orlando facility to great fanfare. 

Mind you, Martin had yet to win any contract that would allow them to use that sprawling new facility! To bring their new missiles facility up to speed, several Martin missile programs like the Lacrosse and Bullpup missile programs were moved to Orlando. It would be Martin's third manufacturing facility- the first one being the aircraft plant in Baltimore, the second one being the Titan missile facility outside of Denver. On 7 Janaury 1958, General Medaris formally issued the RfP to industry for a new solid-propellant Army ballistic missile to replace the Redstone rocket. An amazing 121 companies submitted proposals and this was quickly winnowed down to seven with two absolute requirements- ballistic missile experience and a manufacturing plant near Cape Canaveral to facilitate testing. The new missile had a nuclear warhead, had to be road mobile and easily air-transported. The missile had to be easy and quick to deploy and fire by combat units in any weather condition. The seven companies were Chrysler (which was responsible for building the Redstone missile), Lockheed (which was already working on the Navy's Polaris missile), Douglas (which was building the Thor IRBM for the USAF), Convair (who was building the Atlas) as well as Goodyear and Sperry-Rand which had extensive missile systems experience even though the two companies hadn't built a missile. The seventh company was Martin. The seven companies were required to give a four hour presentation to General Medaris and his team on their submission in thirty days. The new missile would be named Pershing in honor of General John J. Pershing from the First World War. 

The Secretary of the Army, Wilber Brucker, was a former governor of Michigan and was under tremendous political pressure to have Chrysler's submission selected for the Pershing contract. General Medaris wasn't going to have any of this on his watch as Martin was the favored submission based on their technical merit and having a manufacturing facility already in place near the Cape in Orlando. In fact, Martin even offered to demonstrate the mobility of their Pershing design by driving it out from Orland to the Cape for test firing. Brucker did attempt to stall the program to prevent Martin's selection but on 22 March 1958 the Army Ballistic Missile Agency awarded the Pershing contract to Martin. 

The first version of the missile, the Pershing I, was mounted on tracked vehicles and was first delivered to Fort Sill, Oklahoma in 1962 where the Army formed its first Pershing battalion. The missiles went on nuclear alert in Europe in 1964, with some of the battalions under joint control with the US Army and West Germany (Geilenkirchen AB, the home of the NATO E-3 Sentry AWACS force, was a former German Pershing base). When the Army wanted to improve the mobility of the Pershing battalions with wheeled vehicles and an even faster reaction time should the order to launch come, Martin quickly developed the Pershing Ia system and in an amazing three-month span in 1969, Martin managed an unique swap system to upgrade the units in Europe. New equipment rolled out of the Martin factory in Orlando and was driven to Port Canaveral. One battalion's worth of equipment were loaded onto a Navy ship and transported to Bremerhaven in Germany, where a Pershing I battalion had driven, met the Pershing Ia equipment being unloaded, and drive it back to their bases. Martin would win a follow on contract for an improved version of the Pershing Ia, the Pershing II, in 1975. A deadly accurate missile, the Pershing II had triple the range of the Pershing I/Ia and could even reach Moscow. From 1958, the Pershing program would run for 34 years and generate $4 billion in revenue for Martin. The program consistently ran under budget and ahead of schedule for its entire life. A total of 754 Pershing I and Pershing Ia missiles were built, as well as 276 of the highly accurate Pershing II missiles as well as all the associated support equipment and land vehicles. 

The role of the Pershing missile in Cold War deterrence cannot be underestimated. The threat and accuracy of the Pershing missile was once described by a former Soviet defense official as a "scapel held to our throats". It was common knowledge that the Pershing missiles targeted Soviet command and control facilities and in a sense, it didn't threaten Soviet forces, it threatened Soviet leadership. On 8 September 1988, then Vice-President George H.W. Bush spoke at the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant on the occasion of the disposal of the Pershing missile under the terms of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty: "The Pershing missile system strengthened deterrence and was concrete evidence of United States resolve. If we had not deployed the Pershing, there would not be an INF Treaty today."

Not a bad payoff for a gamble by George M. Bunker back in 1956. Oh, you might be wondering what the "M" stands for in his name- "Maverick".

Source: Raise Heaven and Earth: The Story of Martin Marietta People and Their Pioneering Achievements by William B. Harwood. Simon and Schuster, 1993, p327-348.

First flying on 27 May 1970, the Boeing Vertol 347 testbed was a modified CH-47A Chinook (aircraft 65-07992) used for Boeing's HLH (Heavy Lift Helicopter) program. The helicopter featured just over 9 foot extension of the forward fuselage cabin, a raised aft rotor pylon, four bladed rotors that were two feet longer than a standard Chinook blade, fly-by-wire controls and retractable landing gear.

But the most unique feature of the Model 347 was a variable-incidence wing that created extra lift to offload the main rotors. There was also a retractable gondola in the forward fuselage that had a full set of flying controls during flying crane operations. As the twin rotors no longer overlapped, some degree of noise reduction was also achieved. The Model 347's performance was greater than that of the standard Chinook, but flight testing ended in 1975 with the cancellation of the HLH program.

The BV-347 is currently on outdoor static display at the US Army Aviation Museum with sixty other aircraft at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
Source: Air International, October 2009. "Fort Rucker- Home of Army Aviation" by Kees van der Mark and Arnaud Boxman, p80.

The most numerous aircraft in the US Army's fixed-wing aircraft fleet is the Hawker Beechcraft King Air which is used in over 165 aircraft over 13 different version from utility transport (such as the C-12 Huron) to special mission aircraft (like the RC-12 Guardrail). By mid-2009 the utilization of this diverse fleet of King Air variants had already reached approximately 173,000 flight hours.

Approximately 113 C-12s are in use operationally and fly an average of 48.2 hours monthly with an operational readiness rate of 91.1%. The more complex RC-12s fly 38.6 hours monthly and have an average readiness rate of 89.9%. Both fleets of aircraft have an average age just over 20 years old.

The Army's first King Air was delivered on 16 May 1967 in the form of the U-21A Ute that was an unpressurized hybrid of the Beech Queen Air fuselage with the wings and tail of the newer King Air 90 series. The newer C-12A based on the Super King Air 200 was first deployed by the Army in July 1975. The newest Army King Airs are modified C-12C/D/V aircraft for Task Force ODIN (TF ODIN- Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize) created at Fort Hood, Texas in August 2006 to conduct airborne intelligence and surveillance in support of anti-IED efforts in Iraq. The TF ODIN aircraft have an underfuselage Lynx hi-resolution SAR, EO/IR sensor turrets and other communications/sensor equipment to assist in the counter-insurgency efforts.

Source: Air Forces Monthly, November 2009. "US Army King Airs" by Tom Kaminski, p84-89.

In 1955 the US Air Force evaluated ground-launched version of the Navy's RIM-8 Talos shipboard air defense missile to provide Strategic Air Command bases and Atomic Energy Commission sites with a capable point-defense system from Soviet air strikes. The evaluation stemmed from a USAF concern with relying on the Army's Nike-Ajax system for protection of its installations. The following year, the USAF had requested Defense Department funding for site surveys for Talos installations and had survey teams ready to go once funding was secured; instead the DoD had the evaluation program transferred to the Army's Air Defense Command (ARADCOM) and after a period of testing, it was decided to proceed with the Nike-Hercules missile instead.

The Talos, however, served successfully with the Navy until 1979.

Source: Rings of Supersonic Steel- Air Defenses of the United States Army 1950-1979 by Mark L. Morgan and Mark A. Berhow. Fort MacArthur Press, 2002 (Second Edition), p28.

Three Gulfstream V jets based at Andrews AFB flying for the US Army's Priority Air Transport (and designated C-37A for the G500 and C-37B for the G550) have unique serial numbers denoting dates of historical significance in the history of the Army.

The first aircraft, a C-37A, has the serial number 05-1944 to commemorate the D-Day landings on the Normandy coast during the Second World War.

The second aircraft is also a C-37A and has the serial number 02-1863 to commemorate the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War.

The last aircraft is a C-37B and has the serial number 04-1778 to commemorate the passage of an act of Congress that created the Army.

Source: Air Forces Monthly, May 2008. "Distinguished Airlift" by Dave Willis, p80.