The First Steps to a Turboprop Transport, Part Two

A week and a half ago I had blogged about how the USAF was getting turboprop transport experience by setting up a test squadron at Kelly AFB to operated transport aircraft that had been converted to turbine power: 

52-2693 and 52-2672 in flight together.

On 15 June 1954, the headquarters of the Military Air Transport Service (MATS) activated the 1700th Test Squadron (Turboprop) at Kelly AFB, Texas, with the task of developing maintenance procedures and techniques for the employment of turboprop transport aircraft pending the arrival of the C-130 and C-133 into the USAF service. The squadron had three flights with each flight dedicated to a single type for the testing of standard transport aircraft that had been converted to turboprop power. The first of the three flights to be activated would operate the Convair YC-131C. Two aircraft were converted from standard C-131 Samaritan transports (the USAF version of the CV-340 airliner) to use early test versions of the venerable Allison T56 turboprop.

Back in January 2010 I had written a short posting about the second of the demonstrator aircraft that were operated by the 1700th Test Squadron and operated in the second flight of the unit- the Boeing YC-97J, a Pratt & Whitney T34-powered version of the C-97 Stratofreighter. I had recently picked up Cal Taylor's voluminous tome on the Douglas C-133 Cargomaster and he devotes considerable space to the YC-97J and its operational use by the 1700th TS. The YC-97J made its first flight at Edwards AFB on 19 April 1955 and given that it used the same T34 engines as the upcoming C-133, the USAF was keenly interested in flight testing the engine in an operational environment with the YC-97J. From my previous posting about the YC-97J: 

Boeing converted two aircraft (52-2693 and 52-2672, both KC-97Gs) to turboprop power. Pratt & Whitney YT34 turoprop engines (which would later be used on the Douglas C-133 Cargomaster) delivering 5,700 horsepower were substituted for the four R-4360 radial engines. For a brief time the USAF considered redesignating these two Stratofreighters as C-137, but ended up assigning them the designation YC-97J (ironically the C-137 got used for the Boeing 707s used by the military, itself a development of the Model 367-80 prototype).

The conversion to turboprop power shaved nearly 5,0000 lbs off the aircraft's weight as the YT34s were much lighter but more powerful. The first flight was made on 19 April 1955 and the YC-97J demonstrated significant improvements in overall performance. The top speed was 417 mph compared to 375 mph for a regular Stratofreighter and the YC-97J took only 14 minutes to reach 20,000 feet whereas the regular Stratofreighter took 50 minutes!

Inflight study of the YC-97J during its Edwards flight test program.

In addition to using the same T34 engines as the C-133, the YC-97Js also used an early version of the same Curtiss turboelectric three-bladed propellers planned for the C-133. The first YC-97J completed its flight testing at Edwards and was delivered to Kelly AFB on 14 September 1955, nine months after the YC-131Cs had arrived. The second YC-97J arrived at the end of the month. After a short series of flights operating within the continental United States, the USAF authorized the aircraft to begin overwater missions with the first overwater flight being to Kindley Field in Bermuda- the aircraft covered the 1,700 mile route from San Antonio to Bermuda in 4 hours 42 minutes, the fastest time at that point by a prop-driven aircraft. On 26 January 1956, the YC-97J departed for Rhein-Main AB in West Germany staging through Dover AFB in Delaware, then Newfoundland and Scotland. Despite record breaking cold weather on the trip, the YC-97J performed flawlessly without any of the usual maintenance headaches that were commonplace for the piston-driven C-97s. On the leg between Newfoundland and Scotland, four hours were shaved off the usual flight time when using C-124s or C-118s, the run being made in only 6 hours 30 minutes. It was clear that the time savings was tremendous on long distance missions. The international aviation press covered the flight with interest. On an outbound stop in London, the YC-97J was climbing out of Heathrow at 2,500 feet per minute and London ATC asked the pilots to slow the rate of climb as the radar dish was too slow to keep up! The return flight from Frankfurt stopped in Paris, London, the Scotland (Prestwick), Newfoundland (Goose Bay) then Selfridge AFB in Michigan before returning to Kelly AFB. It was the first round-trip trans-Atlantic crossing by an American turboprop aircraft. During the mission to West Germany and back, no engine or prop maintenance was needed and the aircraft's four engines used a mere four quarts of oil for the entire trip. Needless to say, the USAF was very enthusiastic about the aircraft!

In March 1956 the two YC-97Js were put on a scheduled cargo run between Kelly AFB to Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico via Charleston AFB in South Carolina and the return routing stopped over at Brookley AFB in Alabama (now Mobile Downtown Airport). Average flying time between San Antonio and Puerto Rico was 16 hours and despite the stopovers, it was still nine hours faster than what piston-driven USAF transports took to cover the distance. But it didn't stop there- that same month the first YC-97J made the first trans-Pacific crossing by a turboprop aircraft, averaging 360 mph over the 18,000 mile round trip. The longest leg of the route to Tokyo was between Midway Island and Yokota AB outside of Tokyo- on this leg the YC-97J flew at 30,000 feet and averaged 400 mph. 

In preparation for the arrival of the Douglas C-133 Cargomaster, the first group of air crew and mechanics arrived at Kelly AFB from Dover AFB for familiarization training with the T34 engine and its Curtiss propellers. The three-week course had pilots flying an average of 38 hours on the YC-97Js to build turbine experience while the Dover mechanics worked side by side with the Kelly AFB maintenance team to keep the YC-97Js flying. The reliability of the turboprop over the piston engine was now unquestionable and in the summer of 1956, both YC-97Js would fly a total of 46 hours 35 minutes together in a single calendar day as proof of the reliability of the turboprop. The engine overhaul time (TBO) over the course of the test program with the 1700th started out at 150 hours and ended up at 1,000 hours. 

The YC-97J departs San Diego Lindbergh Field.

In addition to its scheduled cargo flights, the YC-97Js were also flown on demonstration flights for interested groups ranging form the US Navy to other defense contractors like Pratt & Whitney and North American Aviation. On a three day demonstration in Connecticut for Pratt & Whitney, the YC-97J made 78 engine starts, 19 takeoffs and landings, 7 air starts and 15 flights without any malfunctions of the engine or propellers. By October, one of the T34 engines became the first American turboprop engine to reach 1,000 flight hours since its last overhaul. It was removed from the YC-97J with 1,001 hours and 20 minutes flight time and in that time, it only needed 44 hours of unscheduled maintenance and used a miserly 392 quarts of oil in that time frame, a fraction of what the regular C-97's piston engines would have used in 1,000 flight hours. The propellers also proved to be extremely reliable and when the first C-133 Cargomasters were delivered to Dover AFB, the engines and propellers were already rated at 1,000 hours TBO, a significant feat in that day. 

The 1700th TS's flight test program with the YC-97Js concluded on 15 November 1956, six weeks ahead of schedule. However, the aircraft were kept operational until 17 January 1957 as they were used in Operation Safe Haven to fly refugees from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution from Europe to new homes in the United States. The first YC-97J, would go on to create more aviation history, though- it was modified to become a Super Guppy transport. Aero Spacelines president Jack Conroy had already flown a piston driven Super Guppy, and aware of the pending retirement of the YC-97Js, acquired one as the turboprop engines made his conversion not only faster, but more efficient. The new turbine Super Guppy used a swing nose instead of a tail break as was the case with the original design and it was put into service with NASA in 1966, its first job transporting the second stage of the Saturn IB rocket from Huntsville, Alabama, where it was built to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was subsequently retired to the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. 

Stay tuned for the final installment in this series which will look at the turboprop-powered YC-121F Super Constellation!

Source: Remembering an Unsung Giant: The Douglas C-133 Cargomaster and Its People by Cal Taylor. Firstfleet Publishers, 2005, p29-43. Photos: Smithsonian Institution, SDASM.

How a Tax Issue Launched the Boeing 707

Boeing chairman Bill Allen

In a past blog post I had mentioned that while most of aviation history is a study in technological progress, it as much shaped by the individuals and their personality traits as it is any development in aeronautics. That past posting back in March 2010 dealt with C. Edward Acker's personality and how it shaped Air Florida and impacted the newly-deregulated market in the United States in the 1980s. While someone like Acker brimmed with swagger and bravado, there as many individuals in the history of aviation who, by nature of their quiet reserve, are often overlooked as movers and shakers. I recently have been reading Sam Howe Verhovek's book Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World and he places Boeing's chairman at the time of the launch of the 707, Bill Allen, as one of the true visionaries and business leaders in the industry. I have to admit my own understanding of Bill Allen up to this point was that while he shaped Boeing tremendously into what it is today in the commercial airliner market, he hardly filled the role of visionary, looking very much like many of the management types that you could have pulled from central casting for a 1950s-era movie. But what was it about Bill Allen that makes him a central figure in Verhovek's book? When he assumed the leadership role in Boeing in 1950, Boeing held less than 1% of the commercial airliner business that was dominated by Douglas and Lockheed. Though stunningly successful in the Second World War with its bomber designs, Bill Allen rightly saw that the growing air travel market represented a bigger prize than any military contract. But with a fraction of the commercial market, Boeing was already seen as a three-time loser in the race- the Boeing 247 was too small compared to the Douglas DC-3, the Boeing 314s were only built in small numbers primarily for Pan Am, and the landmark Boeing 307 Stratoliner was a flop that hardly made a dent in the marketplace. 

Bill Allen wasn't a pilot and he wasn't even an engineer. He would have readily admitted to not knowing much about either when it came to aviation. But he had his start as the company lawyer who handled the legal paperwork for Bill Boeing's timber business and then his aircraft company. Before long, Allen was one of those quiet in-the-background individuals that everyone saw Boeing himself often sought out for advice. When Boeing quit the company in 1934, Philip Johnson took his place and led the company through a dramatic expansion during the Second World War- and again, Johnson came to rely on Allen for advice and counsel on company decisions. When Johnson died of a stroke in his fifties, there was only one person the rank and file at Boeing would trust- and that was Bill Allen. But he found himself a single parent to two young girls after losing his wife to cancer when the offer from the board came to him. 

Maybe it was loyalty and maybe it was that he was part of Boeing since its early days as a timber company, but he took the job- but at the time, the airline industry was content with its Douglas and Lockheed piston propliners and Allen had a tough time selling the airlines on the idea of a jet. For many airlines, the jet was an unknown. Well, it was- until the De Havilland Comet took flight and electrified the world with its speed and grace. By 1952 the British aeronautical industry was the talk of the world with Eastern's Eddie Rickenbacker and Pan Am's Juan Trippe openly discussing orders of the Comet. It was an about face by the world's airlines and the US airline industry in particular that just a year earlier thought jet technology too immature for the traveling public.

Bill Allen on the right shows the Dash 80 to Bill Boeing.

Many companies wanted government subsidy to develop a jet airliner- Boeing's own engineers had been applying their experience in developing the B-47 Stratojet and the B-52 Stratofortress towards the company's own project which was designated Model 367-80 (the Model 367 was the C-97 Stratofreighter- the Dash 80 was designated such for secrecy, leading competitors to think it was just an improved version of the C-97). The costs of developing the Dash 80 amounted to a quarter of the company's value and to go it alone without government development aid represented a tremendous financial risk. There was many pros as there were cons in Allen's mind when it came to launching a jetliner.

But, Allen's own legal background was in tax law. During the Korean War, the Congress put what was called an "excess profits" tax in place to prevent companies from profiteering from the war effort. A company's baseline was set at its profilts made during the peacetime period of 1946 to 1949. Anything above that level in profits was subject to the tax. That period was a hard time on Boeing with the cancellation of numerous wartime contracts and profits during those years were slim at best. But with the ramp up in defense spending during the Korean War, Boeing's fortunes improved dramatically and that meant that the company was fully exposed to the excess profits tax while Douglas and Lockheed's profits during that time were higher thanks to their own commercial airliner production. That meant that Boeing would owe 82 cents on every dollar of profit while Douglas only would owe 68 cents and Lockheed only 48 cents on each dollar of profit.

Having a flying prototype gave Boeing an advantage.

Under most circumstances, Bill Allen might have gone to the state of Washington Congressional delegation for a political fix. But being the tax lawyer, he saw an opportunity- Take Boeing's profits and invest them heavily into the Boeing 707 project- that amount would be deducted from the profits and written off as a business expense. Boeing wouldn't need government aid to develop a new jetliner and it reduced the company's tax exposure. Allen pitched the idea to the Boeing board as an investment in the company's future that would put it at the forefront of jetliner development. In addition, company funding of a demonstrator aircraft would not only give the airlines something to see and ride as a flying design, it would also put Boeing in the lead for the USAF's plans for a new jet tanker to support its growing B-52 Stratofortress fleet. In a stroke of what some might call genius, Bill Allen could kill three birds with one stone- reduce Boeing's tax exposure, get a flying jetliner demonstrator, and use that demonstrator to get the jet tanker contract. That was the engineering genius of the Dash 80- it appealed to both airlines and the USAF for disparate roles. Boeing's competition for the jet tanker hadn't optimized their designs as transports as fully as Boeing had with the Dash 80.

It only took a month to get the go-ahead from the board of directors. In the summer of 1952, Bill Allen issued short statement to the press:

"The Boeing Company has for some time been engaged in a company-financed project which will enable it to demonstrate a prototype jet airplane of a new design to the armed services and the commercial airlines in the summer of 1954."

The rest, as they say, is history!

Source: Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World by Sam Howe Verhovek. Penguin Group, 2010, p84-110. Photos: Smithsonian, Boeing.

The First Steps to a Turboprop Transport, Part One

The YC-131C in flight. Note the 3-bladed propellers.

By the time of the Korean Armistice in 1953, the US Air Force was busy absorbing the lessons of airlift accrued over a less-than-ten-year span from the logistics flights to support World War II to the Berlin Airlift to the strategic airlift partnership forged with the commercial airlines in the Korean War. In pace with advances in aerodynamics and propulsion, the USAF began a four-step process in exploring the possibilities of turboprop propulsion given that pure jet engines of the day were still incredibly fuel-thirsty. The first steps were taken in 1945 with the test program of the Convair XP-81 turboprop fighter that also had an Allison J33 jet engine for additional power. The next steps were the testing of turboprop engines on existing high-speed jet designs that would result in the XF-84H "Thunderscreech and test versions of the Boeing B-47 Stratojet and the McDonnell XF-88 that flew with turboprop engines. The third step was the installation of turboprops on existing transport designs to evaluate their performance on large transports. And the final step was the introduction of production-standard turboprop transports which would result in the Lockheed C-130 Hercules and the Douglas C-133 Cargomaster. 

On 15 June 1954, the headquarters of the Military Air Transport Service (MATS) activated the 1700th Test Squadron (Turboprop) at Kelly AFB, Texas, with the task of developing maintenance procedures and techniques for the employment of turboprop transport aircraft pending the arrival of the C-130 and C-133 into the USAF service. The squadron had three flights with each flight dedicated to a single type for the testing of standard transport aircraft that had been converted to turboprop power. The first of the three flights to be activated would operate the Convair YC-131C. Two aircraft were converted from standard C-131 Samaritan transports (the USAF version of the CV-340 airliner) to use early test versions of the venerable Allison T56 turboprop. The YT56 turboprops replaced the piston engines of the C-131 and drove three-bladed Aeroproducts propellers. As this was the combination planned for the Lockheed C-130A, Allison was, needless to say, keen on being involved in getting flight time for the new engine. Tail numbers 53-7886 and 53-7887 were pulled from USAF service and modified by Convair at their Fort Worth facility at Carswell AFB. After initial flight testing at Edwards AFB, the first YC-131C was flown to Kelly AFB on 20 January 1955 with the second aircraft arriving three days later. 

Ground run of the YT56 engines at Convair Fort Worth.

As the goal of the test program set up by the 1700th TS was to fly the turboprop aircraft assigned to it as much as possible, the YC-131Cs were assigned to a scheduled military passenger service that operated between Kelly AFB in San Antonio and Andrews AFB outside of Washington, DC. The first services began on 14 March 1955 as the first scheduled turboprop passenger services in the United States. Covering a distance of just over 1,200 miles, the YC-131Cs took 4 hours 20 minutes on the first flight, approximately 20 minutes faster than a piston C-131 on the same route. By May of that year a regular flying schedule was established that would have the 1700th TS flying the two YC-131Cs 3,000 flight hours in nine months. As maintenance at destination stations was not expected to be adequate, each scheduled route flown by the YC-131C always returned back to Kelly AFB where the squadron had proper maintenance facilities. By July the Civil Aeronautics Administration (the CAA, the predecessor agency to the FAA) assigned four pilots to the 1700th TS to gain knowledge and experience in scheduled turboprop transport operations. That particular month, the second YC-131C became the first American-built turboprop aircraft to exceed 1,000 flight hours. 

The second YC-131C being handed over the USAF.

In the first six months the YC-131Cs were flown intensively, sometimes over 30 hours per day between the two aircraft. The initial time between overhaul (TBO) on the Allison YT56 engines was set at 100 flight hours at the start of the program but the engine proved to be highly reliable and as the program progressed, the TBO was increased progressively up to 200 flight hours. Though the engines could have safely flown with a longer TBO than 200 hours, Allison engineers were anxious to teardown and study the engines to improve the planned production T56 that would be used on not just the Lockheed C-130 but also on the same company's L-188 Electra airliner. During the nine month test program, 55 engines were changed out and sent back to Allison for analysis. The three-bladed Aeroproducts propellers also had TBO limits, starting at 300 hours and then extended out to 1,000 hours by the end of the test program. With a reliability well in excess of what was possible with piston engines, the two YC-131Cs also became the first USAF turboprops to exceed 1,000 flight hours with one day a record being set with an astounding 46 hours and 20 minutes flown in a 24-hour period, evenly split between the two aircraft. 

On 15 December 1955 the test program with the YC-131C ended, 45 days early thanks to the reliability of the YT56 engine. The USAF gained important data on fuel planning for turboprops, ATC procedures, holding patterns and ground operations that was also shared with the airline industry. In addition, the first squadrons that would be receiving the first C-130A Hercules aircraft at Sewart AFB, Tennessee, Ardmore AFB in Oklahoma, and Eglin AFB in Florida, sent their initial cadre of maintenance personnel to the 1700th TS in San Antonio for familiarization with the T56 engine. Both aircraft were eventually declared surplus and passed on to civilian owners before being scrapped. 

The next blog post will look at the second of the three turboprop conversions operated by the 1700th TS. Stay tuned!

Source: Remembering an Unsung Giant: The Douglas C-133 Cargomaster and Its People by Cal Taylor. Firstfleet Publishers, 2005, p29-43. Photos: Smithsonian Institution, SDASM.

The Fighter That Shot Itself Down

The F11F-1, the first production Tiger version

In the mid-1950s the US Navy was hard at work with Grumman in getting the new F11F Tiger into service. Originally developed as a supersonic development of the F9F-6/7 Cougar, the program eventually resulted in an all-new aircraft for the day fighter role powered by the Wright J65 turbojet, a license-built version of the British Sapphire engine that also powered the Hawker Hunter and Gloster Javelin. Part of the flight test program to get the Tiger operational involved clearing the performance envelope for the firing of its four 20-millimeter Colt cannons which were mounted under and aft of the air intakes. As the Tiger was designed to be as light as possible so to attain the highest performance with its J65 engine, the expended cases and links from the Colt cannons were ejected overboard rather than be retained onboard the aircraft. During the cannon firing portion of the flight test program, it was immediately found that the airflow patterns around the aircraft allowed the spent cases and links to hug the fuselage, causing multiple dents and scratches. At one point in the program the Tiger test aircraft had to be fitted with an armored leading edge to the horizontal stabilizer as the damage from the links in particular could be significant. 

The solution was to change the ejection mechnism and associated chutes so that the shells were forcibly ejected out longer chutes that projected out into the airstream and away from the turbulent air along the sides of the Tiger. A complex internal mechanism recycled the links to a special compartment just ahead of the cannon ammunition boxes as the links tended to cause more surface damage than the spent casings.

On 21 September 1956, Grumman test pilot Tom Attridge sortied out of the company airfield at Calverton, Long Island in aircraft BuNo 138620 to conduct high speed firing tests of the cannons. It was the 41st flight for this particular F11F-1 Tiger and it was Attridge's second test flight of the day. His flight profile for this test was to start out at 22,000 feet and accelerate in afterburner at a 20 degree angle past Mach 1. Passing through 13,000 feet he would fire a four second burst of the cannon, wait three seconds to allow the guns to cool, and then fire a second burst, ending the profile at 7,000 feet when the ammunition load would be expended. 

How to shoot yourself down....

Attridge flew the prescribed profile and upon expending the ammunition, was suddenly confronted by the shattering of the forward armored windscreen caused by some sort of object. He immediately throttle back and pulled up to reduce speed to prevent the windscreen from caving in and at 13,000 and 200 KIAS he turned back towards Calverton. The only damage he could ascertain was a gash to the right intake lip and that everytime he took the engine up above 78% power, it began to run rough. Two miles from the end of the Calverton runway and at 1,200 feet with his wheels down and flaps lowered, Attridge found that 78% engine power was insufficient to maintain his glide path as the sink rate began to increase. He advanced to full throttle only to be greeted by what he described as "the engine sounded as if it was tearing up" and he immediately lost power. Three-quarters of a mile short of the runway, the Tiger settled into the trees and the aircraft traveled for 300 feet before coming to a stop. Though the aircraft was on fire, Attridge managed to escape quickly without injury and the Grumman crash crew and rescue helicopter were on scene in less than three minutes. Eleven minutes after landing, the company helicopter landed a local hospital to have Attridge evaluated. 

Examination of the aircraft showed it had been hit by at least three 20-millimeter rounds- one in the windshield, one in the right intake lip and one in the nose cone. In addition, projectile fragments were found in the first compressor stage of the engine along with fan blade damage- engineers suspected that perhaps the round that hit the right intake ricocheted into the engine. It was determined that Attridge had inadvertently shot himself down. At the first cannon burst, he was in 0.5G supersonic descent and had actually flown underneath the trajectory of the cannon projectiles from the first cannon burst. Eleven second later, as he began to pull out of the descent, he flew into the stream of projectiles from the first burst. 

Subsequent examination of the aircraft showed that Attridge had flown the same test profile earlier that day and what was thought to be large ding from an ejected casing on the vertical fin actually turned out to be a projectile hit- apparently Attridge had grazed himself on the first test flight of the day and gotten away with not shooting himself down!

Source: Aero Album, Spring 1968, Volume One. "The Tiger That Clawed Itself" by Robert Munro, p12-14.

Oliver Rasmussen Evades the Japanese for Ten Weeks- *in* Japan

Oliver Rasmussen in the back seat of the Helldiver

The run up for the Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands began on 1 July 1945 when Task Force 38, a powerful US Navy fast carrier armada, weighed anchor and headed out from its forward anchorage in the Philippines. Under the command of Vice Admiral John McCain aboard the Essex-class carrier USS Shangri-La, TF38 was tasked with Phase One of Operation Olympic, the preparatory phase of the invasion of Kyushu planned for November 1945. The aircraft of the task force would establish air superiority by mid-August over Kyushu which would in turn set the stage for Operation Coronet, the invasion of Honshu in 1946. The first strikes would begin on northern Japan on 13 July before moving south to Kyushu. In poor weather than grounded most of the Japanese fighter forces, the aircraft of TF38 struck coastal targets and shipping on Hokkaido, the northernmost of the home islands. Despite the weather, the Japanese managed to put up a spirited defense in the two-day strikes, with the Navy losing 44 aircraft and 26 pilots in crew. 

On the first day over Hokkaido, the Shangri-La's air wing would lose eight Curtiss SB2C Helldivers. One of the Helldivers lost was flown by Lt.(jg) Howard Eagleston, who descended too low under the overcast and struck a mountain in rural Hokkaido. He was killed on impact, but his gunner, 23-year old radioman Oliver Rasmussen, survived. With only the clothes he wore and an empty backpack, Rasmussen knew all too well what the Japanese did to their prisoners and decided he'd chance it in the Hokkaido wilderness. Being part Chippewa Indian from Minnesota, Rasmussen had come from an impoverished family (he referred to them as "the second generation right out of the teepee") but had spent his youth in the great outdoors. Having only a vague idea of his general location, Rasmussen spent seventeen days trekking to the coast, living off the land and avoiding any Japanese residents he came across. On 31 July upon reaching the coast, Rasmussen found his first source of significant food- a farmer's cow near his hideout would provide the sailor fresh milk for nine straight nights- each night he'd creep out to the cow and help himself to the milk and return to his hideout. The farmer never figured out what was going on, eventually turning to cow lose figuring she was longer able to produce any milk. 

Rasmussen then built a small boat and tried to head out to sea, but the breakers on that particular stretch of coastline proved hazardous. He retreated back up into the mountains of Hokkaido and set up quarters in an abandoned railroad shack where he kept himself fed with raw onions, birds' eggs, uncooked rice and frog legs. On 16 August, the day after the Japanese surrender, he was spotting by a Japanese civilian, but not aware the Japan had surrendered, Rasmussen abandoned his hideout and sought new refuge. After several days of exploring, he found a site well-hidden that was within easy reach of five farms. He scavenged some scrap lumber to build a small shelter and helped himself to the produce and milk from the five farms each night. As he hadn't bathed in weeks, one of the farms' dogs got his scent on 5 September and the owners went to investigate. He managed to knock over some of the farmers as he made a narrow escape back into the wilderness. Each day he noted more and more American aircraft flying overhead, but he was unable to get their attention. He did find it odd, though, that they attracted no defensive fire and it didn't appear that they were conducting any offensive strikes.

Frustrated that he wasn't able to attract any passing aircraft and growing weary of being in the wilderness, he opted for the direct approach on 19 September and walked into the port city of Tomakomai and presented himself to the local police station to surrender. To Rasmussen's surprise, the police chief treated him as a guest with his first real meal in ten weeks and a bath. It was then that he found out about Japan's unconditional surrender on 15 August. Rather amusingly, the police chief asked Rasmussen if he knew anything about the rash of milk and produce thefts from local farms over the past several weeks- to which Rasmussen denied any knowledge. After an astonishing sixty-eight days in the Japanese wilderness, he was returned to the USS Shangri-La to a hero's welcome. While the end of the war dominated news headlines in the United States, upon his return stateside some news articles did cover his story and regrettably most were condescending about Rasmussen's experience given his native American heritage. As a result, he told no one else about his story despite remaining with the Navy. 

Donald Norton's book on Oliver Rasmussen's experiences

Postwar, he made a career in the Navy working the Berlin Airlift and flying combat missions over Korea. He retired a chief petty officer in 1962 and settled in California where he got a technical job at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. He passed away in his sleep in 1980 after a year-long battle with cancer with only a few people aware of his story. In the 1960s, though, a family friend made numerous recordings of Rasmussen's ten-week experience in Japan for a planned book. That family friend, however, died a year after interviewing Rasmussen and Rasmussen's wife put the tapes into storage. There they remained until nearly 20 years later, when one of Rasmussen's subordinates in the Navy from the 1950s, Donald Norton, set out to document Rasmussen's story for his own book project. Finding out that Rasmussen had died in 1980, his widow passed on the recordings to Norton, which became the basis for the book Chippewa Chief in World War II: The Survival Story of Oliver Rasmussen in Japan which was published in 2001.

Source: Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan, 1942-1945 by Barrett Tilman. Simon and Schuster, 2011, p199-204.

RNZAF Squadron Leader Leonard H. Trent and his Victoria Cross Mission

Sqn Ldr Leonard H. Trent

With the drums of war building in Europe in 1939, the Royal Air Force asked Lockheed for a twin-engine bomber to be used for anti-submarine and coastal patrols. Based on the RAF's own experience with the Hudson which was based on the Lockheed 14 Electra airliner, Lockheed offered a bomber version of the Model 18 Lodestar transport as the Ventura. First flying on 31 July 1941, the British were suitably impressed with the Ventura's performance to order 650 of the Ventura I and 487 of the upgraded Ventura II aircraft. Though the bulk of the Venturas were diverted to US forces following Pearl Harbor, a significant number did reach the RAF who needed the Ventura as a replacement for the Bristol Blenheim as a fast, low-level, bomber. Though there were more suitable aircraft for the role, at the time, only the Ventura was available in the numbers needed. In Norfolk, the RAF equipped No. 21 Squadron with the Venturas and co-located were two Commonwealth squadrons also assigned the Ventura- Australian-manned No. 464 Squadron and New Zealander-manned No. 487 Squadron. The three units were tasked with coastal targets in occupied Europe. Despite a high number of accidents and technical issues, the three units pressed ahead in committing the Ventura to combat, being assigned industrial targets primarily in Holland. As the war progressed, the RAF would team up the Ventura units with squadrons flying the faster Mosquito and Douglas Boston (RAF version of the A-20 Havoc) bombers. 

The pilots of No. 487 Sqn and one of their Venturas

On 3 May 1943 the Kiwis of No. 487 Squadron were assigned a diversionary raid against a power station in Amsterdam while an RAF squadron flying Bostons would attack the Royal Dutch Steel Works at low level. Opposition was expected to be heavy but the Venturas despite their poor reliability could absorb a considerable amount of damage and still fly home. The pilots of No. 487 Squadron were encouraged to do what they could to hit the target and complete the mission as a means of boosting the morale of the Dutch population and resistance. Leading the twelve Venturas would be Sqn Ldr Leonard H. Trent. 

As poor luck would have it, that same day the German military governor of Holland would be visiting the area and the Luftwaffe had placed a large number of its fighters on alert. To make matters worse, a squadron of RAF Spitfires assigned to escort No. 487 Squadron arrived at the rendezvous point off the coast half an hour too soon. Not only did this trigger the Luftwaffe alert, but when the Venturas arrived at the rendezvous point, the Spitfires were low on fuel and had to return to base, leaving the Kiwis to hit the power station unescorted in broad daylight. Crossing the Dutch coast at 12,000 feet, the twelve Venturas were in two formations of six and were bounced by seventy Luftwaffe fighters. Trent's second-in-command took hits and had to turn back to return to England- his aircraft would be the only one of the twelve to make it home. As the Venturas fought off the Germans, the fighters savaged the formation, leaving only three aircraft led by Sqn Ldr Trent to complete the mission. Six Venturas were shot down in less than four minutes. As they neared the target, another two Venturas were shot down, leaving Trent and his crew as the only remaining aircraft. Approaching the target and his gunner managing to shoot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109, Trent pressed home his attack and just as his bombs hit the power station, accurate flak destroyed his aircraft with Trent and his navigator being thrown clear of the shattered aircraft. The rest of his crew failed to escape and Trent and his navigator parachuted down and were captured. 

RAF Ventura over its target

After his capture, Trent was sent to the Stalag Luft III POW camp where he participated in the "Great Escape" in March 1944. He avoided getting shot by surrendering right outside of the camp gates. The Gestapo executed fifty escaped prisoners, but Trent only got solitary confinement because of his early capture. On his repatriation did the circumstances of the disastrous Amsterdam raid become known and on 1 March 1946 he was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military honor, for his leadership on the raid that claimed 11 of the 12 Venturas sent to hit the power plant. The squadron was virtually wiped out after that raid and the RAF questioned the continued use of the Ventura as a daylight attack bomber. King George VI himself and his daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth II, visited No. 487 Squadron at their base only days later to offer their condolences. 

After the war, Trent remained with the Royal Air Force and in January 1956 he became the first commanding officer of No. 214 Squadron at RAF Marham which was the first to become operational with the Vickers Valiant, the first of the RAF V-bombers that formed Britain's nuclear deterrent until the arrival of the Polaris SLBM with the Royal Navy. He retired in 1965 when the Valiant fleet was retired due to wing spar structural failures and returned to New Zealand where he passed away in 1986. His biography, Venturer Courageous, was published in 1984 and authored by James Sanders and Laddie Lucas.

Source: PV Ventura/Harpoon Units of World War 2 (Osprey Combat Aircraft No. 34) by Alan C. Carey. Osprey Publishing, 2002, p17-19. Photos: Royal Air Force, United States Navy.

Master Sgt Red Erwin, One of Many Heroes

In coming up with a suitable blog post for Memorial Day, I had scoured my aviation library for a historical event- given that I've long been interested in military aviation history, there's no shortage of material in that department, believe me. However, I'm currently reading Barrett Tillman's outstanding book Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan 1942-1945 and came across the story of a red-headed Alabaman, Master Sgt. Henry "Red" Erwin. In April 1945, the massive arsenal of democracy that was American industry had already started the systematic destruction of the Japanese war machine the previous month as Boeing B-29 Superfortresses of the XXI Bomber Command based in the Marianas Islands under the command of General Curtis LeMay began to deliver destruction to the cities of Japan. The first fire-bombing raids had already visited untold disaster on Tokyo and other urban areas of the Home Islands. Superfortress attacks on the kamikaze bases on Kyushu had helped ensure victory on Okinawa. And by this month, the XXI Bomber Command finally had enough Superfortresses to wage a round-the-clock strategic bombing campaign on the Japanese homeland. On 12 April 1945 news reached the bases in the Marianas about the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt- for many of the fighting men in the Pacific, Roosevelt was the only leader they had known. But there was war to fight, and every bomb dropped meant getting home sooner. 

Erwin is 2nd from the right, front row, with his B-29 crewmates

On that day, 250 Superfortresses set out in three airborne task forces to attack industrial centers near Tokyo. Half of the force belonged to the 29th Bomb Group and were tasked to hit the Koriyama chemical complex north of Tokyo. Off the coast of Japan, the lead pilot of the Koriyama-bound force was Captain George Simeral flying The City of Los Angeles. His crew excelled at their jobs and earned The City of Los Angeles the lead position of the task force. His crew had been together since June 1944 and had already flown ten missions over Japan. As Simeral neared the coast. he ordered his radioman, Master Sgt. Red Erwin, to drop a phosphorous flare to mark the assembly point for his own squadron. Erwin left his station in the forward compartment, picked up the large flare canister and pulled the arming pin before dropping it as was the standard procedure- only this time the flare prematurely fired and a 1,300-degree Fahrenheit blast hit him in the face, blinding him and instantly burning off his nose and one ear. The forward compartment of the B-29 filled with white smoke and Simeral and his co-pilot quickly lost view of their instruments and the outside world. 

Erwin realized that the hot burning flare could burn through the compartment like a big blowtorch into the bomb bay and set off the bomb load. Griping around the compartment, he somehow managed to find the flare and pick it up. He stumbled his way forward, planning to throw it out the co-pilot's window but found his way obstructed by the navigator's table- the navigator at the time was in the astrodome taking a sighting when the flare fired. As the table could be unlocked and hinged downward, Erwin tucked the hot flare between one arm and his side and managed to fold the table so he could continue his way forward through the compartment. Though blinded, he somehow managed to get to the co-pilot's window, open it, and throw the burning flare overboard. He immediately collapsed on the bomber's throttle console. 

In the short time it took for Red Erwin to throw the flare overboard, the crew had lost control of the B-29 and Simeral managed to regain control with the bomber only 300 feet above the sea as the crew opened every hatch and window possible to vent the forward compartment. Everyone else did what they could to easy Erwin's suffering and Captain Simeral set course for Iwo Jima. The doctors there could do little for him and he was flown to Guam where a fleet hospital was located. General LeMay had been informed of the situation and when doctors advised him that Erwin would likely die from his burns, LeMay was determined to get him the Medal of Honor irrespective of the regulations. 

To understand what happened next, you have to realize that LeMay was already well-known in the USAAF as being very results-oriented. When he was tapped by the head of the USAAF, General Henry "Hap" Arnold, to head the XXI Bomber Command, the B-29 was not performing well as a combat machine, being constantly plagued by rushed training and poor maintenance practices. Arnold wanted results as he was one of the most staunch defenders of the B-29 program and the massive funding it required- not to mention a successful air campaign over Japan strengthened his case for an independent United States Air Force. LeMay was given his orders- and unusually for a combat command, the XXI Bomber Command was run right out of Arnold's office at the Pentagon so theater commanders couldn't appropriate the prized Superfortress for tactical missions. It was LeMay who had to deliver and the way Arnold entrusted LeMay, so did LeMay entrust his subordinates- "Get me the results I want and I won't ask questions." As a result, his subordinates became well-known in the Pacific Theater for circumventing rules and red tape to get their boss results. 

It usually took several months to get a Medal of Honor awarded as it passed via several levels of review. That didn't suit LeMay. His first act was to order an aircraft and its crew to Hawaii to get a Medal of Honor that could be presented to Erwin before he died. The crew took this task to heart and having found one in a display case, were unable to locate who had the keys to open the case. So they broke into the case and returned to Guam with the medal in hand. With the medal secured, LeMay then cabled General Arnold at the Pentagon and insisted that Erwin's award be approved immediately as he was on his deathbed. Luckily for LeMay, Arnold agreed with him and quickly got the orders and citation approved and the papers were on President Harry S Truman's desk in just days. In fact, one of Truman's first acts as President after FDR died was to sign the papers for the awarding of the Medal of Honor to Red Erwin!

Red Erwin's widow with the painting of him at Maxwell AFB

At a hastily arranged ceremony at Erwin's bedside at the fleet hospital in Guam, LeMay presented him with the Medal of Honor six days after the mission took place. The general order that announced the award took three months to be processed and formally announced! But the tough Alabaman surprised everyone by surviving his wounds. Over the next two and a half years he underwent over 40 reconstructive surgeries and managed to regain his vision. Discharged from the now-independent United States Air Force in 1947, he went to work for the Veterans' Administration hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, working closely with burn patients for the next forty years. Master Sgt. Henry "Red" Erwin passed away in 2002 at the age of eighty. 

After his death, the U.S. Air Force established the Red Erwin award for the outstanding enlisted airman of the year in the Air National Guard and Reserves. More recently, the library at the Air University at Maxwell AFB in Alabama was named the Red Erwin Library in his honor with a specially-commissioned painting of him and the B-29 Superfortress. Always the modest man, Erwin told everyone that he didn't wear the Medal of Honor for what he did on that fateful mission in 1945- he wore the medal for everyone who served.

Source: Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan, 1942-1945 by Barrett Tillman. Simon and Schuster, 2010, p164-167. Photos: United States Air Force.

The Fairchild XNQ-1/T-31 Trainer

In USAF markings as the T-31

As the Second World War began to wind down with victory in Europe established and the end of the Pacific War on the horizon, the US Navy set out to issue specifications for a replacement for the basic and primary aircraft trainers that were used during the war (like the PT-19 or the BT-13, PT standing for "Primary Trainer" and BT standing for "Basic Trainer in the Navy lexicon) as well as the North American SNJ/T-6 Texan. These specifications were released to the industry on 26 April 1945 by the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer). Three companies entered designs- Temco entered the T-35 Buckaroo which was adapted from the Globe Swift general aviation aircraft, Beechcraft entered the T-34 Mentor which was a tandem seat adaptation of the Bonanza and Fairchild entered a custom-designed aircraft that had the Navy designation XNQ and the later USAF designation T-31. History, of course, shows that the Beech Mentor won the competition and one of it's strong points was its tricycle undercarriage layout compared to the taildragger layout of both the Buckaroo and the XNQ. For the forward thinking armed services, taildragging aircraft were obsolete. 

Fairchild's chief engineer, Armand Thiebolt, had already established a name for himself having designed a number of training aircraft during the war, from the PT-19 Cornell to the AT-21 Gunner. His work on the XNQ was based on his own experiences and what he felt was a balance between state of the art and simplicity. Registered with a civilian tail number N5726, the first XNQ, built at Fairchild's Hagerstown, Maryland, plant, made its first flight there on 10 February 1947 with Fairchild's chief test pilot, Richard Hansen, at the controls. The 20-minute maiden flight was uneventful and showed only some simple rework of the aileron tabs were necessary. After a series of company test flights, the XNQ was delivered to the US Navy at Anacostia, Washington for formal evaluation. After an initial series of flights in the Washington DC area, the flight test program continued at NAS Patuxent River after which the aircraft returned to Fairchild to prepare it for evaluation by the USAF as the T-31. 

By this point the second aircraft had been completed and both XNQs as T-31s were flown to Randolph AFB outside of San Antonio, Texas, for their formal USAF evaluation in a fly-off with both the Beech and Temco candidates. At the time the USAF also considered the De Havilland Canada DHC-1 Chipmunk as well as the British Boulton Paul Balliol, but both were quickly eliminated from consideration, leaving Fairchild, Beech, and Temco remaining in the USAF evaluation. Like the US Navy, the USAF selected the Beech T-34 Mentor, again, its tricycle landing gear layout being one of its strong points. It was the second rejection of the Fairchild design. The aircraft was passed on to the US Navy where it was flown by student test pilots at the US Navy's Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River and after a gear up landing that resulted in only minor damage in 1953, the Navy declared the unique aircraft surplus to its needs after it had only amassed just over 1,000 flight hours. 

The wing commander for the National Capital Wing of the Civil Air Patrol arranged to take ownership of the XNQ and in October 1953 the aircraft was repaired at NAS Patuxent River before being flown to a small airfield south of Alexandria, Virginia where it was stationed for the next 2 years, only clocking 12 flight hours in that time period. Part of the problem with the XNQ wasn't its performance or handling, but that its wingspan was just over a foot too wide for the standard 40-foot hangar at the airfield and it ended up spending most of its time outdoors which adversely affected its condition. In 1955 the aircraft was ferried to Rockville, Maryland, but again, was stored outdoors which resulted in further deterioration. When that small airfield was closed, the Fairchild was abandoned in situ. 

In her original US Navy markings

John St. Clair, the operations officer of the Congressional Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, trucked aircraft to his home 8 miles away to try and save it given its unique history. He later assumed formal ownership of the aircraft to keep it from going to the junkyard. Fast forward to 1978, the aircraft is still on the St. Clair farm in rural Maryland and Armand Thiebolt's son visited John St. Clair and asked about purchasing the aircraft, the deal of which fell through. Later, Robert Taylor, the founder of the Antique Airplane Association, asked St. Clair if he would done the XNQ to a museum, which he agreed to and a crew from the association trucked what was left of the aircraft to Waco, Texas with plans of restoring her to flight status. The history of the XNQ took a new turn after its arrival in Waco when general aviation pilot Don Pellegrino and his wife were weathered in at the airport and he found the XNQ in storage in a hangar and approached Taylor about purchasing the aircraft. 

While negotiations proceeded, the aircraft was moved to Oklahoma City in 1982 but still no restoration work had started. At a fly-in in Iowa, Taylor approached Pellegrino and told him "Make me an offer I can't refuse" and with that, Pellegrino become the XNQ's new owner for $800. In September that year Pellegrino trucked the aircraft to his farm in Iowa and began restoration work in earnest. After ten years of working on it in his free time, the XNQ made its second maiden flight on 1 June 1992, the first time the aircraft had flown since 1955! Pellegrino flew the 25 FAA-required hours of flight testing himself and since then he has since moved to Rhome, Texas, just outside of the Dallas-Fort Worth area and has flown the XNQ to airshows around the country. And yes, she still has her same tail number of N5726 after all these years!

Bill Spidle has three pages of detailed photographs of a walk around of the XNQ.

Source: Air Enthusiast, No. 117, May/June 2005. "Their Loss, My Gain: Fairchild's XNQ-1- Twice Rejected for Service" by Gilles Auliard, p78-79. Photos: US Naval Test Pilot School Alumni.

Sukhoi's First Jet Bomber

The Sukhoi Su-10 in its final configuration

Following the end of the Second World War, both the Soviet Union and the West aggressively pursued jet bomber designs after the Luftwaffe had successfully introduced the Arado Ar 234 to combat in the waning months of the war. In the West, many early designs were based on layouts of high-mounted wings with wing-mounted nacelles to allow for a reasonably-sized bomb bay. Similar approaches were taken in the Soviet Union with the design bureaus (called OKBs) of Illyushin, Tupolev, and Sukhoi tapped to develop jet bomber designs to succeed the Soviet Air Force's standard bomber, the piston-powered Tupolev Tu-2. Last summer I had posted about an early Tupolev design that actually did fly, the Tu-12, that was based on the Tu-2 as a matter of expediency pending the arrival of the Tu-14 bomber. While Illyushin and Tupolev both had large aircraft design experience from their own work on twin-engine bombers during the war, Pavel Sukhoi's experience was limited to his prewar tenure at OKB Tupolev. But, given the pace of technological progress and the urgency of rearmament in competition with the West, Sukhoi was ordered on 26 February 1946 to develop a jet bomber powered by four Junkers Jumo 004B turbojets, the same jet engines that powered the Arado Ar 234. Work on Sukhoi's first bomber design began in earnest in April of that year and the aircraft received the official designation of Su-10. 

Several powerplant arrangements were considered along with the use of six engines instead of the four as originally specified. In the Soviet Union, the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute in Moscow, or TsAGI by its Russian name, did a lot of wind tunnel and theoretical research work to support design efforts at each of the OKBs. At the time that OKB Sukhoi was working on the Su-10, TsAGI had lagged behind Germany and the West in high speed research and as a result, they lacked a significant amount of information on evaluating jet aircraft designs. As a result, much of what laid the basis of TsAGI's high speed aircraft research came about during their work in support of the development of the Su-10 in addition to what had been obtained of German design work following the end of the war. Two leading design variants were evaluated in TsAGI's wind tunnels- one design had four of the jet engines clustered in the mid fuselage and exhausting out the rear with two jet engines under the nose- this was felt to be advantageous design as it left the wings clean. The other leading variant had wing mounted nacelles with a high unswept wing with three engines mounted in clusters on each wing. 

To meet the specified target speed of 528 mph at 26,000 feet, Pavel Sukhoi decided that four engines were insufficient and that six were necessary. Since the Junkers Jumo 004 engine was the only jet engine available to the Soviet Union at the time that had reached production status, the Soviet Politburo placed high priority in reverse-engineering the engine for production- Vladimir Klimov and his OKB were already known for their piston engine designs during the war and he was put in charge of getting the German engine into production as the Klimov RD-10. Klimov's closest aide, Nikolay Kuznetsov, headed the actual reverse-engineering effort- Kuznetsov would go on to form his own engine OKB several years later. 

Inboard layout of the Su-10

With approval from the state authorities to use six engines, design work had settled on a cluster of three engines on each wing as the most efficient layout- the nacelle had two engines side by side with the third RD-10 engine below and slightly ahead of the pair. On 6 May of that year, a full scale mockup was built that was tested in TsAGI's largest wind tunnel with real RD-10 jet engines. Within two months, refinements to the design based on TsAGI's evaluation were in place as full-scale engineering began on the prototype. While two months sounds rapid, development of the Su-10 hit repeated technical hurdles, the biggest of which was that TsAGI lacked a significant portfolio of well-studied high speed airfoils. As a result, while supporting development work on the Su-10, assimilating German design work, TsAGI was also hurriedly developing its on portfolio of high speed airfoils. As a result, Sukhoi's team was constantly having to revise the Su-10 design based on developments from TsAGI. 

By October the full scale mockup had been approved by Soviet Air Force authorities and metal was finally cut for the prototype on 14 October 1946. In the first week of December, the Soviet government commission in charge of aircraft production decreed that the Su-10 would no longer use the Klimov RD-10 engine but instead use the TR-1 engine from the Lyulka OKB, the first indigenous Soviet jet engine design. Since the TR-1 was more powerful than the RD-10, the Su-10 could revert back to a four-engined design and once again Sukhoi and his team had to revise the bomber's design to accommodate the new Lyulka engines. Working at a frantic pace to meet state-decreed deadlines, Sukhoi managed to have a full set of production drawings ready by 23 December 1946 and three days later the OKB's own workshops had completed a static test airframe and production jigs and tooling for the prototype. If things weren't frantic enough as it was, the Minister of Aircraft Industry wanted the Su-10 flying for participation in the air show at Moscow on 18 August 1947! Common sense prevailed and that was one deadline Sukhoi was allowed to ignore. 

Three-view showing the layout of the Su-10 medium bomber

By 15 December 1947 the hydraulic system had been fully tested on a special ground rig (similar to today's "iron bird"), but construction of the prototype was hampered by slow progress from the various subcontractors that were responsible for some of the Su-10's systems. For example, the defensive armament system (which consisted of a manned tail turret, a remotely-operated dorsal turret and forward-firing cannon), the autopilot, the navigation suite and even the Lyulka TR-1 engines were to have all been delivered to Sukhoi's workshops for the prototype but by the end of 1947 none of those items were ready yet. During the delay, studies looked at alternative powerplant options and it was decided that the initial flight tests of the Su-10 would use the TR-1 engine but as soon as the more powerful TR-2 engine developed from the TR-1 became available, the Su-10 prototype would have its engines swapped out and then continue with the flight test program. 

 

These persistent delays led to the Su-10 prototype to sit in the OKB workshops missing various components- by 4 June 1948 the Soviet Council of Ministers ordered that spending had to be reduced on aircraft development programs that year and one of the unlucky programs to get canceled was the Su-10. By that summer OKB Ilyushin had already made the first flight of its Il-28 medium bomber and its performance outstripped what was projected for the Su-10. Not even rolled out, the Su-10 prototype was donated to the Moscow Aviation Institute where it was slowly reduced to parts over time as an instructional airframe. Sukhoi in the years to come devoted its efforts at interceptor, fighter, and ground attack aircraft and it wasn't until the arrival of the Su-24 Fencer in the late 1970s that Sukhoi finally had a production jet bomber. 

Source/Images: OKB Sukhoi: A History of the Design Bureau and Its Aircraft by Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov. Midland Publishing, 2010, p93-101.

The Last Operational B-17 Flying Fortresses

The Israeli B-17s originally flew without any defensive armament

On the day prior to the expiration of the British Mandate over Plestine on 15 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the new State of Israel and within hours, Arab forces from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon invaded, starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, or the War of Independence in Israel. At the time of the declaration, the hastily-organized aviation assets of the fledgling state became the nascent Israeli Air Force, which in turn became part of the IDF, Israeli Defense Forces, on 26 May 1948. Initially outclassed by the Arab air forces with only a modest light plane fleet, the air war began to swing in favor of the Israelis on 20 May with the arrival of the first Avia S-199s from Czechoslovakia- the Junkers Jumo-powered version of the Messerschmitt Bf109 leveled the playing field against the Egyptian Spitfires. Despite a UN arms embargo on the participant parties on the 1948 war, resourceful Israelis and supporters worldwide (who were called "machal") insured a supply of arms through rather creative means, often involving subterfuge. Al Schwimmer was a long time flight engineer for Trans World Airlines who organized the transfer of arms to Israeli in 1948. At first Schwimmer got surplus C-47 transports transferred via Panama to form the nucleus of the IDF's air transport arm, but he soon recruited a former government purchasing agent, Charlie Winters, who at the time was based in Miami and was using three civilianized Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses to transport produce between Puerto Rico and Florida. Winters sold the B-17s to the Israelis for $15,000 a piece and organized a team of former USAAF mechanics and engineers to make the aircraft combat ready.

Aircraft 1602 had a Mickey Mouse cartoon on its tail

The three B-17s (44-83811, 44-83753, and 44-83851) were covertly flown from the United States to an airfield in Czechoslovakia that was acting as the European terminus for the aerial supply line to Israel. Bogus flight plans to Brazil were filed to cover their tracks. Winters himself flew one of the B-17s across the Atlantic. He had arranged for a fourth B-17 as well, but this aircraft after eluding authorities in Canada managed to reach the Azores only to be impounded by the Portuguese government. At the Czech airfield of Zatek, the B-17s were further upgraded with improved instrumentation. They were loaded with bombs for the flight to Israel on 15 July 1948, but with the military situation becoming tenuous for the Israelis that summer, during their delivery flight they were diverted to hit Egyptian targets since they were carrying bombs anyway. One B-17 was to hit Gaza City, the second B-17 was assigned the Egyptian air base at El-Arish, and the third B-17 was assigned King Farouk's Royal Palace in Cairo. The first two B-17s had problems finding their assigned targets but the third B-17 did manage to bomb Cairo, which, like the Doolittle Raid's psychological effect on the Japanese in 1942, caused significant anxiety in Egypt as Cairo was felt to be immune from attacks by Israel's rag-tag air force of what was thought to be just light aircraft. The first two aircraft ended up bombing an Egyptian target in Rafiah instead but the overall effect of the raids not only damaged Egyptian morale, it served to boost Israeli morale as well. Since all three aircraft had been hurriedly made combat ready, numerous technical problems beset them on their delivery flight/first combat mission- one of the more notable issues was that the oxygen system kept quitting, which on several occasions during the flight from Czechoslovakia to Israel by way of Egypt had caused some of the crew members to pass out. 

The three Israeli B-17s at various points in their careers

All three B-17s landed safely at Ekron airfield in Israel following their highly eventful delivery flight- the leader of the flight, a former USAAF pilot named Bill Katz, was named commander of a new squadron based at the former RAF base of Ramat David that would operate the B-17s- 69 Squadron "Patishim" or "The Hammers". The three aircraft were camouflaged and serialed 1601, 1602, and 1603. At the time the IDF had been relying on converted transports as bombers, so the arrival of the B-17s represented a significant leap in offensive capability for the Israelis. The following day on 16 July the three bombers flew three combat missions together, the first one to bomb the El-Arish air base that was missed the previous day, the second mission later in the day to bomb advancing Egyptian forces in the south and that night the third mission was against advancing Syrian forces in the north. Over the next several days multiple bombing missions were flown each day against Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian forces. Several attacks were mounted against Arab air bases in the belligerent countries and even several missions were flown against targets in the Syrian capital of Damascus. At first the missions were flown with fighter escort by Israeli Spitfires and Avia S-199s, but as the Arab air forces' losses mounted, soon the B-17s were able to operate without fighter escort. By the time of the armistice in February and March of 1949, over 200 combat missions had been flown by 69 Squadron. With the end of the war, the squadron eventually moved to the new air base at Hazor.

One of the B-17s, aircraft 1602, was modified to carry a search radar under the nose where the chin turret was located. This aircraft through the first half of the 1950s was stripped of its desert camouflage and operated as a maritime patrol aircraft in bare metal colors in the Mediterranean. By this time, enough spares had been acquired to allow all three B-17s to be retrofitted with gun turrets and at least two of the B-17s were kept operational at any given time. By July 1956 the long serving bombers were placed in storage. 

During the 1956 War, Israeli B-17s wore yellow/black identification bands

The Suez Crisis of 1956 brought the three B-17s back out of storage that October. Israeli involvement in the 1956 war began on 29 October with Operation Kadesh, the Israeli invasion of the Sinai Peninsula. On 31 October 1956 the three B-17s attacked Egyptian positions in the Gaza Strip, but a series of mounting technical problems over the course of the war spelled the end of B-17 operations for the IDF. The bombers were finally retired in November 1958 as the last operational B-17 Flying Fortresses in action. 69 Squadron was disbanded as well, but would be reformed in 1969 as the second Israeli Air Force squadron to operated the F-4E Phantom II. Today 69 Squadron operates the F-15I Ra'am, the Israeli variant of the F-15E Strike Eagle. Al Schwimmer, the TWA flight engineer who was instrumental in organizing Israel's air force, would go on after the 1948 War to establish Israeli Aircraft Industries. His activities were called by David Ben-Gurion as the "single biggest contribution by the Diaspora towards the survival of the State of Israel". Charlie Winters was an Irish Protestant who helped the Israelis as a favor to his Jewish friends in Miami. As a result, he was charged by the US District Attorney in Miami for violating US laws and was fined $5,000 and sent to prison for 18 months. Two other Americans were also charged who aided Israel- one was Al Schwimmer, who never served prison time as he was convicted in absentia and was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2000. The other American in the operation was Hank Greenspun, who also never served an prison time and was pardoned in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. 

Charlie Winters passed away in 1984 having never told his children of his role in the creation of the State of Israel. It was only after the Israeli government sent an arrangement of blue and white flowers did his family learn of his activities in 1948. His ashes were interred in the ancient Templars' Cemetery in Jerusalem. In 2008, Winters was pardoned by President George W. Bush as only the second posthumous pardon in history. 

Sources/Images: Aviation Classics, Issue 8. "The Israeli Air Force and the B-17" by Tim Callaway, p118-119. B-17G Flying Fortress in Israeli Air Force Service 1948-1957 by Alex Yofe. White Crow Publications, 2010.