During the Second World War, Germany supplied large numbers of Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers to Italy, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovakia. But as the war progressed, there were instances of the Stukas being turned around and used against German units.

Slovakia was one of the smallest users of the Stuka after having allied itself with Germany in 1940. In return for sending units to fight with the Wehrmacht in Russia, the Slovak Air Force received Ju 87 Stukas that were assigned to the 11th Letka (Squadron) in 1943. By the summer of 1944 anti-German sentiment was at an all-time high in the country as the Soviet Red Army was advancing through the Balkans. To maintain control over Slovakia, the Wehrmacht occupied the nation, triggering a nationwide uprising. As the fighting increased, the 11th Letka used its Stukas against the Germans before having to seek sanctuary with the advancing Red Army.

The Romanians got their first Ju 87 Stukas in 1943 with the arrival of the Ju 87D "Dora" variant. Forty-five aircraft were assigned to Grupul 3 Bombardement Picaj (No. 3 Bomber Group) which was composed of three "escadrillas" (squadrons). Grupul 3's Stukas were first committed to the Eastern Front, supporting the German units against the Soviet Red Army. In May 1944 a second Romanian Stuka group was established, Grupul 6, again composed of three squadrons. The two Stuka groups were involved in heavy fighting against the advance of the Red Army and heavy losses were sustained in the face of Soviet air superiority. In August 1944, a coup d'etat overthrew the Fascist regime of Romania and the nation switched sides to join the Soviet forces against Germany. The Luftwaffe tried to seize some of the Romanian Stuka's but enough remained in Romanian hands to combine Grupul 3 and Grupul 6 into a single unit to support the Soviet Red Army in its advance through Moldavia and Slovakia. The Romanians continued to use the Stuka against the retreating Germans until the spring of 1945 when they re-equipped with Soviet ground attack aircraft.

By far Italy was the largest export user of the Ju 87 Stuka with the first examples arriving in the summer of 1940 for use in North Africa. Most of the Italian Stukas saw action in North Africa but beginning with the British victory at El Alamein and the American landings in Morocco, the Italy's Stuka force began to decline. In July 1943 Mussolini was overthrown and killed and the provisional government switched sides to join the Allies. At the time of the 1943 switch, only the 121st Gruppo (Group) based on Sardinia was operational with the Stuka and unit switched sides to join the Allies as some Italian units remained with the puppet Fascist regime installed in northern Italy by the Germans. However, the effectiveness of the Stukas in the hands of the new Italian C0-Belligerent Air Force was mixed as spare parts shortages rendered most of the 121st Gruppo's dive bombers useless.

Source: Military Aircraft Monthly, Volume 9 Issue 1. "Airfile 21: Stuka! The Junkers Ju 87 Stuka" by David James, p46-48.

As the Cold War entered its most heightened period in the 1960s, the United States shifted its nuclear deterrent strategy from massive retaliation to that of what was called "flexible response"- instead of one all-out retaliatory launch, flexible response meant that the President and the National Command Authority (NCA) would have the ability to conduct a more limited nuclear exchange against specific targets. Implicit in the shift to flexible response was the need to have a secure and survivable link to all of the elements of the nuclear forces even after an initial nuclear strike on the United States.

Even though a 15-minute ground alert for the bombers of the Strategic Air Command and alternate underground command centers (in addition to SAC Headquarters at Offutt AFB in Nebraska, there were alternate command posts at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, March AFB, California, and Westover AFB in Massachusetts) improved the survivability of SAC's nuclear assets, improvements in the Soviet ICBM force meant that only an airborne platform would be the most survivable command post and in 1960, that meant basing such a command post on the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker.

In July 1960 not only had SAC managed to put one-third of its bomber forces on a 15-minute ground alert, but it began a six-month experiment on using KC-135s converted into airborne command posts in the event that the ground command posts were knocked out by a Soviet missile strike. Five KC-135s were put on ground alert at Offutt AFB and tested on their ability to not only takeoff within 15 minutes, but also their ability to perform as an alternate command post and assume control of the nation's bomber and missile deterrent in the event of the loss of the primary command posts. On board each KC-135 was an AEAO- Airborne Emergency Action Office- at first a SAC colonel, but later a general, who would assume command in the event communications were lost with the SAC HQ and the National Command Authority. After six months of testing, the program was a success and the head of SAC, General Thomas Power, ordered more KC-135s converted into emergency command posts.

By July 1961 50% of SAC's bomber forces were now on 15-minute ground alert in addition to Chrome Dome, having a portion of SAC's B-52 Stratofortresses on airborne alert as well. The Titan II and Minuteman ICBMs were quickly replacing the more cumbersome Atlas ICBM as well.

To control these growing forces, SAC relied on what was called PACCS- Post-Attack Command and Control System that used the airborne command post KC-135s along with specially-equipped EB-47 Stratojets that orbited near ICBM missile fields to act as radio relays between the airbone command posts and the ICBM silos. In 1965 the Stratojet relays were phased out and replaced with specially-equipped EC-135s as the airborne command post KC-135s had been redesignated.

The first operational Looking Glass airborne command post mission flew on 3 February 1961. The name Looking Glass indicated that the entire PACCS network "mirrored" the functions of SAC's underground command posts. The primary Looking Glass EC-135 maintained the airborne alert with other EC-135s that functioned as auxiliary command posts and relay aircraft sitting on 15-minute ground alert. On 17 April 1967 the battle staff aboard a Looking Glass aircraft demonstrated the ability to launch a Minuteman ICBM from Vandenberg AFB in California. In addition, a command post dedicated to the President sat alert at Andrews AFB under the code name Night Watch. In 1974, the Night Watch aircraft were upgraded to the larger and more capable E-4A Advanced Airborne National Command Posts (AABNCP).

In the event of a national emergency, the Looking Glass EC-135 would orbit over the central USA along with two auxiliary EC-135 command posts (called AUXCAPS). Three more EC-135s would scramble and these were designated ALCCs (Airborne Launch Control Centers) and they would orbit over the ICBM missile fields in Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas. Two more EC-135s would act as radio relay platforms to connect the President aboard the E-4 command post to the Looking Glass aircraft and the AUXCAPS aircraft.

Should contact be lost with the National Command Authority or SAC HQ in Omaha, after satisfying a strict set of guidelines, the battle staff aboard the Looking Glass would assume control of the US nuclear forces and "assess battle damage, communications, radioactive fallout and the location and strength of surviving forces". Once responsible for executing the SIOP (Single Integrated Operations Plan, the nation's nuclear battle plan), four officers on the Looking Glass all had to validate the intent to launch and simultaneously turn their launch keys. The four officers were the AEAO, the communications officer, the operations officer, and the aircraft commander.

The final Looking Glass mission landed at 2:28PM EDT on 24 July 1990, ending what had been a continuous airborne alert by Looking Glass command posts since the first flight in February 1961. Only twice did the airborne alert get interrupted, both times to drop off an critically ill crew member and relaunching within 20 minutes. Today the role of Looking Glass has been assumed by the Navy's E-6B Mercury TACAMO force which for the first time allows airborne control of all three elements of the nuclear triad- bombers, ICBMs and the SLBMs aboard the Navy's Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.

Source: Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker- More Than Just A Tanker by Robert S. Hopkins III. Aerofax, 1997, p113-118.

Long before the Cirrus SR22 series of composite aircraft flew, and even long before the composite Beech Starship flew, there was a general aviation aircraft that was made of all glassfiber plastics in an effort to make an affordable two-seat training aircraft that was easy to build. In mid-1958, Piper Aircraft started development of the PA-29 Papoose with the intent of putting an aircraft to market that would cost substantially less to build than other comparable types that used standard construction techniques and materials.

The Papoose was to be made entirely of a honeycomb sandwich material with the top and bottom layers made of 0.79mm glassfiber cloth surrounding a 9.5mm core of paper honeycomb and the sandwich was formed in high-temperature epoxy plastic moulds. As parts and airframe components could be pre-moulded, the entire Papoose airframe had just over 100 parts. The engine used was a 108-horsepower four-cylinder Lycoming engine. Flight trials started in 1963 but details are limited and the difficulty in reliably reproducing the composite components led to Piper abandoning the Papoose project and the sole prototype is now on display in the Piper Aviation Museum in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.

Now be honest. You were entertained by saying to yourself "Piper Papoose Plastic Plane now in Pennsylvania." I know I did.

Source: Air Enthusiast, Volume 5, Number 3 (September 1973), "Plane Facts" by William Green, managing editor, Gordon Swanborough, editor. Pilot Press Ltd, 1973, p147.

One year before Boeing announced the go-ahead of the Boeing 727 program on 5 December 1960, there were serious reservations within the manufacturer about whether or not to proceed with the 727. At the time Boeing's commercial division was still quite a bit smaller than the military aircraft division and the company's desire to have wide customer base resulted in numerous variations in the Boeing 707/720 family that stretched the company's resources to the point that for every 707 delivered, Boeing was taking a $1 million loss. At this point, the De Havilland in Britain was about a year ahead of Boeing on work on its own trijet, the DH.121 Trident which was designed to broadly meet a similar set of specifications as that of the 727.

De Havilland saved itself a lot of time as it was specified from the start to have three engines while Boeing's design studies alternated between four and two-engined designs before settling on three engines. Before a T-tail design was settled upon for the 727, a group of Boeing engineers visited De Havilland's Hatfield factory to review the progress on the Trident and the visit was reciprocated shortly afterwards when a group of engineers from De Havilland visited Boeing's Seattle facilities to review the progress on the 727. At this point, the British firm suggested an Anglo-American alliance with Boeing building the Trident under license and worldwide sales markets divided between the American Trident team and the British Trident team. De Havilland would have a bigger customer base and lower unit price for its Trident design and Boeing wouldn't have to commit what was estimated to be $100 million to get the 727 program to completion of the prototypes and first flight.

As surprising as it may sound today, Boeing was very unsure of itself in the commercial market and the De Havilland proposal offered a low-risk way of getting into the short-haul market and there was a considerable amount of convergence in the two designs. However, Boeing wanted the capability to operate from a 5,000 foot runway, a specification that didn't factor into the Trident design (as a matter of fact, the Trident's early versions had a reputation amongst pilots as "ground grippers"). The two teams then looked at the possibility of putting the 727's high lift wing on the Trident, but the costs of the engineering required were identical to that of proceeding with the 727 program. The proposal for the alliance quietly died and to many at De Havilland came as no surprise.

When the 727 was rolled out, there were accusations in the British press that it was copied from the Trident, but De Havilland's engineers were adamant in interviews in dismissing the furor and reminded a skeptical public that Boeing did have first-class wind tunnel facilities and some of the finest aerodynamicists and engineers in the world would would have arrived naturally at some of the conclusions that resulted in the layout of both aircraft!

Source: Boeing 727 (Modern Civil Aircraft:13) by Peter Gilchrist. Ian Allan Press, 1996, p7-16.

Several weeks after the disastrous Munich Pact was signed in 1938, the British Air Ministry initiated a massive expansion of the Royal Air Force in anticipation of the coming war. As the planned expansion was beyond the capacity of British aircraft factories at the time, the Air Ministry also looked abroad at foreign sources of aircraft to meet the needs of an expanding RAF. In January 1939, Air Ministry representatives visited the Caproni factory in Milan, Italy to examine the Caproni Ca 310 light twin which had potential as a crew trainer. Surprisingly, in light of the European tensions at the time, the visit by the British was officially sanctioned by the Italian government.

Though no contracts were signed, the interest was significant as high-ranking officials with the Air Ministry visited Caproni again in December of that year (and I should note that the Second World War had already started in September 1939 but Italy had yet to declare war on the Allies) and informed Count Caproni himself that the RAF wished to acquire 200 Ca 310s and a further 300 examples of a more powerful derivative under development, the Ca 313. The French had already placed orders for 200 Ca 313s in September 1939.

In January 1940, an Italian delegation from Caproni arrived at the Air Ministry's headquarters in England to finalize the purchase of the Caproni twins. The RAF submitted a series of changes they wanted on their aircraft and in exchange, RAF representatives were dispatched to the Caproni factory to oversee the RAF-specific modifications. The purchase was confirmed by the end of that month and the aircraft were to be partially-completed in Milan and then shipped to France where the RAF operated out of the airfield at Istres. At Istres the Caproni aircraft would be completed, flight tested, and flown to the UK.

If things weren't surreal already with this deal, the Italian government notified the Nazis that Caproni had a sizeable order on the books with the French and British and if there were any objections in light of the close relationship between Mussolini and Hitler. Surprisingly, the Germans in March 1940 indicated that they had no objections to the deal! However, a month later the Germans indicated that the contracts should be canceled. Count Caproni himself met with the heads of the Air Ministry and arranged for the aircraft ordered to be "completed" by Caproni's subsidiary in Portugal and the UK would then "buy" the aircraft from Portugal instead of the Italians.

However, on 10 June 1940, with France near defeat, Italy declared war on Great Britain which effectively canceled what at the time was the largest aircraft contract ever received by the Italian aircraft industry. It proved to be fortuitous for the Royal Air Force, though. Sweden did take delivery of a substantial number of the Caproni Ca 310/313s and found them to have unreliable engines and poor build quality. The fuel lines to the engines ran right next to the exhaust stacks for the engines which resulted in the Caproni twin having a reputation for being highly flammable. After local modifications to hold the aircraft over until replaced by Saab designs, the Caproni twin was quite robust, but nearly fifty Flygvapen personnel lost their lives in accidents due to the technical deficiencies of the Ca 310/313.

Source: Air Enthusiast, Volume One, William Green, managing editor, Gordon Swanborough, editor. Pilot Press Ltd, 1971, p95-99.

Tabasco/Purple Flash: Sensor Pods Delivered by U-2 Spyplanes

Last month I had posted about Steel Eagle, a modern-day counterpart to the Igloo White acoustic/seismic sensors dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War. The use of such remote-sensing pods that embedded themselves in the ground after being dropped by an aircraft weren't just limited to tactical use- a similar program was under taken in the 1960s called Tabasco (the unclassfied project name was Purple Flash) to drop sensor pods from Lockheed U-2 spyplanes flying some of the longest range flights in the aircraft's history over the Chinese nuclear tests sites at Lop Nor, deep in the desert basins of northwest China.

Corona satellite imagery detailed the Lop Nor installation ever since the first Chinese nuclear detonation in 1964 caught Western scientists off guard. The Department of Energy's Sandia Labs in Albuquerque had been working on adapting US seismic equipment used to analyze nuclear tests in Nevada to fit into the air-dropped pods that weighed 285 lbs. The pods were carried under the U-2 wing and a parachute deployed after the drop to slow the pod just enough to not damage the sensors but allow the spike-shaped pod to embed itself in the ground. Once on the ground, a 10-foot telescopic antenna deployed to transmit data to listening posts on the periphery of the People's Republic of China.

On 29 April 1966 the first prototype pod was dropped over the White Sands Missile Range from a U-2 and landed only 800 feet from the target but the sensors were damaged. While the design was being reworked by Sandia, Lockheed and the CIA embarked on a series of long-range flights to see just how much range they could get out of the U-2 to demonstrate the Lop Nor site could be reached from Takhili AB in Thailand.

By 1967 Taiwanese pilots with the RoCAF were training in the United States for the Tabasco flights. On 7 May 1967 the first operational Tabasco mission successfully dropped two sensor pods at Lop Nor, but for whatever reason, no signal was received from them. Another Chinese nuclear test took place that June while the CIA was still trying to interrogate the sensor pods in the desert. Needless to say, it was frustrating for intelligence officials. It was concluded the only way to know for sure was to send another U-2 flight to Lop Nor carrying interrogation equipment to try and activate the pods. On 31 August 1967 another RoCAF pilot took a U-2 to Lop Nor and was nearly ambushed by a salvo of SAMs but no signal was received from the pods.

After two high-risk flights, a second set of Tabasco pods were dropped at Lop Nor, this time by a Lockheed C-130 flown by Taiwanese pilots flying at low level. The outcome of that mission remains classified. After the second Lop Nor mission, the six year program of overflights of the People's Republic of China by the Taiwanese pilots of the "Black Cat" squadron came to an end as improved defenses made further flights too risky.

Source: 50 Years of the U-2: The Complete Illustrated History of the "Dragon Lady" by Chris Pocock. Schiffer Publishing, 2005, p246-252.

While most nations that had used assault gliders operationally in the Second World War had already abandoned the concept with the end of the war, development continued in the Soviet Union on gliders not only for combat assault, but also for use internally for the delivery of cargo to inaccessible areas of the country. In 1947, the Soviet Air Force issued a specification for an assault glider for use by the Aviation of the Airborne Troops that could transport over 3.5 tons of cargo. Both OKB Yakovlev and OKB Ilyushin were selected to build prototypes- Ilyushin instructed to develop an all-metal design (the Il-32 and was generally unsatisfactory) and Yakovlev's design was to be all-wood and became the second use of the designation Yak-14 (the first Yak-14 was the original designation of the Yak-10 light liason aircraft and was one of the reasons the NATO code name system was created to avoid confusion).

The Yak-14 had a wooden structure with fabric skinning with a hinged nose section as well as a hinged tail section, both of which could be swung to one side to allow straight-through loading and unloading to a square-section cabin with a floor strong enough to carry tracked vehicles. The cockpit was curiously offset to one side and was above the cabin and the high-mounted wing. Up to 35 fully-equipped troops could be carried.

Flight testing of the Yak-14 began in 1948 with the planned tow aircraft either a Tupolev Tu-2 light bomber or a Ilyushin Il-14 transport. In March 1954 four Yak-14s were used to deliver heavy equipment to a research station on an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean, becoming the first glider to overfly the North Pole in the process.

With the arrival of twin- and four-turboprop transports from Antonov in the late 1950s, the Yak-14s were phased out as the last assault gliders in operational use. Approximately 413 were constructed and assigned the NATO code name "Mare".

Source: Air Enthusiast, Volume Two, Gordon Swanborough, editor. Pilot Press Ltd, p134, 163, and 252-253.

Scandanavian Airlines System Pioneers Polar Commercial Routes

Only seven weeks after being established on 1 August 1946, Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) inaugurated its first long-haul services across the Atlantic with Douglas DC-4s from Stockholm to New York La Guardia via Copenhagen, Prestwick, and Gander for a flying time of 25 hours. The New York services quickly become profitable for SAS and despite an expansion of its international network to South America and Asia in the years that followed, the US market remained SAS's most profitable overseas destination. Wishing to expand its network to the US West Coast (San Francisco and Los Angeles), SAS didn't want to put its DC-4s on a long transcontinental run across the United States after a trans-Atlantic crossing.

Route planners decided the best "short cut" was a polar flight on the Great Circle Route from Scandinavia to California. But it was 1947 and the most advanced aircraft in the SAS fleet, the Douglas DC-4, didn't have the range. Even more problematic, no airline had ever operated in the polar regions, so in that year SAS set out on a series of trial flights to gain polar operating experience as well as refine polar navigational techniques. Since magnetic compasses didn't work in the regions around the North Magnetic Pole, SAS worked with US avionics manufacturer Bendix to create a precision gyro compass to replace the traditional magnetic compass. During the summer months, the sun would prevent use of a sextant for stellar navigation, so the airline worked with another US avionics company to develop a solar compass that used polarized light to determine the direction of the sun. The airline also developed its own polar charts that laid down a grid over the polar region with the Greenwich meridian as the starting point.

Having created the navigational aids, SAS then set about establishing radio stations across Norway, Greenland and Northern Canada since the only existing radio stations in the region were for military use only. In 1952 sixty trial flights were conducted using the new Douglas DC-6 between Copenhagen and Sondre Stromfjord in Greenland. In December of that year SAS took delivery of its first long-range DC-6B in Long Beach, christened "Arild Viking" and flew it from Long Beach to Copenhagen via Edmonton and Thule. The trip took 28 hours and was the first commercial flight over the Arctic.

With all the pieces in place, all that awaited were route authorities from the United States. The first rights granted were only to Seattle, but persistence on the part of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce gained SAS its prized rights to that city. Specially provisioned with Arctic survival equipment, the SAS DC-6B "Helge Viking" departed Copenhagen for Los Angeles on 15 November 1954 via Sondre Stromfjord and Winnipeg. Taking off from Los Angeles and headed in the opposite direction was the DC-6B "Leif Viking".

On 24 February 1957 SAS made its first flight over the North Pole with services between Copenhagen and Tokyo via Anchorage, saving 18 hours and 2,400 miles over previous routings that passed via the Mediterranean and South Asia. That same year, SAS introduced the Douglas DC-7C on its polar routes and the flying time between Copenhagen and Tokyo was cut from 50 hours to 32 hours. By this time, however, SAS's monopoly on the polar routes was over as Canadian Pacific, TWA, Pan American, and BOAC introduced services using the "short cut" over the Arctic region.

Pure jets were introduced by SAS on the polar routes with the Douglas DC-8-33 in 1960, then the DC-8-62 in 1967 and the DC-8-63 in 1968. In 1974, widebody service arrived on SAS polar services with the introduction of the Douglas DC-10. With the liberalization of travel markets, deregulation in the United States, the end of the Cold War (which opened up Russian airspace) and open skies agreements, the polar routes have diminished in importance for SAS but there is still nonstop service between Copenhagen and Tokyo taking only 11 hours.

Source: Aircraft, January 2010, Vol. 43, No. 1. "Polar Pioneers- How SAS pioneered airline services over the inhospitable polar regions" by Roy Allen, p62-66.

At the time of Project Mercury, the Atlas as a launch system had a reliability rating of 90%, while acceptable for a weapons system, was unsuitable for a manned rocket launch vehicle. As a result, a whole series of initiatives under the umbrella of what was called the Pilot Safety Program was put into place to improve not just the reliability of the Atlas rocket for Project Mercury, but also to improve its safety. The most visible of the resulting efforts as the escape tower on the Mercury spacecraft that could pull it away from the Atlas in case of a malfunction.

But from the production floor at Convair-San Diego to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida, steps were taken with the Atlas rocket wherever possible to provide what would later be called a "man-rating" for the vehicle. As every possible malfunction couldn't be prevented or accounted for without unreasonable cost, Convair created the ASIS system- Abort Sensing and Implementation System. In short, ASIS was a collection of sensors placed at key points and components of the Atlas rocket. A malfunction detected by any of the ASIS sensors could trigger the escape tower that would pull the Mercury spacecraft clear of the Atlas. It was estimated that 1/3 of the cost of the Mercury-Atlas vehicle was invested in ASIS. In addition, redundancy had to built into ASIS to prevent any malfunctions of the safety system itself.

Part of ASIS was a key ability for the astronaut to trigger the abort should there be a failure of any sort that didn't trigger the system. There was a switch on the instrument panel of the Mercury spacecraft that if flipped by the astronaut, would trigger the rockets of the escape tower and pull the spacecraft away from the booster. The engineers nicknamed it the "Chicken Switch" and Convair management was adamant that it not be referred to as such and in particular with the Mercury astronauts as they feared what it would do to their morale. On their first visit to the Atlas plant in San Diego, the first question from the astronauts was "So what's this Chicken Switch we've been hearing about?"

Source: Atlas- The Ultimate Weapon by Those Who Built It by Chuck Walker with Joel Powell. Apogee Books, 2005, p232-234.

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

Captain Murray F. Sueter, Director of the Air Department of the Admiralty of the Royal Navy, was one of the most enthusiastic proponents of British naval aviation during the First World War. One of his most passionate causes was championing naval torpedo bombers, though in those days a "proper" torpedo bomber was felt to be a seaplane. Working with the Short Brothers, a large two-seat biplane called the Short Type 184 was produced in significant numbers (650 in all) during the First World War. With a pilot and observer and floats, the 225-horsepower Short 184 was the first reliable torpedo bomber to not only go into production, but to prove itself in combat.

Despite successful tests showing that it was possible to air drop a torpedo against a surface vessel, Captain Sueter's ideas got little support within the Admiralty. However, he was given a chance to prove his theories with the Short 184 during the disastrous Dardenelles Campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula against Turkey in 1915. Four Short 184s were embarked aboard a converted steam packet to serve as a seaplane tender, arriving on station in the northern Aegean Sea in June 1915.

On 12 August 1915, Flight Commander C.H.K. Edmonds and his observer flew a Short 184 carrying a single torpedo toward the Straits of the Dardanelles. Sighting a Turkish freighter in the Sea of Marmara that was carrying 3,000 Turkish troops to reinforce the Gallipoli Peninsula, Edmonds slowly descended from 800 feet to only 15 feet and closed within 300 feet of the vessel before releasing his torpedo, which struck the troop transport amidships, making the world's first successful combat aerial torpedo attack.

Five days later Edmonds and his observer again sortied in their torpedo-armed Short 184 along with a second Short 184 piloted by Flight Lieutenant G.B. Dacre. Approaching the Turkish coast at low altitude, both aircraft came under ground fire from Turkish gun batteries on the coast. Weaving at low altitude, Edmonds sighted three Turkish merchant ships and homed in on the largest of the three vessels, again descending to near-wavetop height for torpedo release, scoring a direct hit that set the vessel ablaze.

Edmonds' wingman found himself forced down due to an engine failure. While on the water getting his engine re-started, Dacre noticed a Turkish steam tug cross his nose and he fired his torpedo while still sitting in the water. The torpedo hit the tug squarely and sank it immediately. Having finally gotten his engine restarted, Dacre nursed his Short 184 into the air under heavy fire.

Despite this success, the Admiralty remained lukewarm to Sueter's ideas. He had requested a force of 200 torpedo bombers to act in conjunction with the Grand Fleet in the North Sea in action against the German High Seas Fleet, but his ideas were considered too radical and risky for the Royal Navy. Sueter then proposed using the Short 184 to attack the High Seas Fleet at anchor at Wilhelmshaven, but again was rejected. He then proposed an attack on the Austro-Hungarian fleet at its naval bases on the Adriatic- he managed to win over the First Sea Lord, Earl Jellicoe, who approved the deployment of Short 184s to a seaplane base in Italy to attack the Austro-Hungarian fleet at anchor at its main harbor base in Pola.

The attack was to take place on 2 September 1917 but on the eve of the operation a storm arose and the aircraft were unable to depart. The attack was postponed indefinitely and not resurrected before the war ended in 1918 as many in the Royal Navy felt that the seaplanes were better used for scouting and reconnaissance than for attacks on surface vessels.

Source: Ship Strike: The History of Air-to-Sea Weapons Systems by Peter C. Smith. Airlife Publishing, 1998, p9-12.