General Aviation News

Of Wings & Things

That’s all, Brother: A veteran for the ages

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From a distance, it looks like a new airplane. Closer, it wears a mantle of age gracefully. It is the Douglas C-47 called “That’s All, Brother,” and it is testament that everything old is new again.

Any C-47 flying today deserves the respect reserved for such a long-lived classic. “That’s All, Brother” rises far above that level with a story of heroism that turned the course of history.

This C-47 — yes, this very aircraft, not just one like it — led a stream of 800 C-47s on the initial airdrop missions opening the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. That’s the day the Allies had waited years to see. The western European continent was being reclaimed and liberated from German occupation from that date on.

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When Nancy flew the Atlantic first

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A century ago in May 1919, three huge seaplanes set out to be the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic, albeit with stops en route in Canada and the Azores. One of the three, designated NC-4, completed the journey, reaching the final destination of Plymouth, England, on May 31.

The aircraft that proved capable of crossing the Atlantic in 1919 was born in desperate times during World War I. The German navy had perfected its U-boats in that war, and Allied shipping paid a terrible price. The U.S. Navy sought a far-ranging flying boat to combat the enemy submarines at sea.

Designed by Glenn Curtiss in collaboration with Navy engineers and pilots in the fall of 1917, the resulting seaplane was too late for wartime service. But its great range made this aircraft a natural for long overwater flights.

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Golden Knights Gusto

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The men hollered raucously and joyously over the noise of the two Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engines and the slipstream ripping past the open doors in the converted F27 airliner.

The flight was taking us from a ground-level temperature in the 80s to a much colder zone near freezing at 12,500′. One of the men yelled a chant the rest of his team recognized even over the roar, and then he ran up the aisle of the aircraft, slapping palms with the others in bench seats facing toward the aisle. 

As good as an Army Golden Knights parachute team jump is to watch at an air show, that distant performance only hints at the dedication, teamwork, and camaraderie these military professionals practice daily.

It was my good fortune to hitch a ride in the team’s venerable C-31A (F27) propjet airliner jump plane for a night show over SUN ‘n FUN 2019 at Lakeland, Florida, in April.

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Designers scrambled into the Jet Age after World War II

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General Aviation News reader Jack Handy recently sent in a batch of U.S. Air Force photos that were gathered by Wilber Clouser, an Air Force Systems Command technical editor of handbooks after World War II.

One interesting subset of these photos shows aircraft from several manufacturers that were efforts to meet the needs of the oncoming jet age. Some designs shunned jets, using more economical piston engines as stopgap powerplants until jet developments rendered those aircraft obsolete in the early 1950s.

The problems facing the Air Force, and designers, revolved around jet engine developments and the need for range and speed unheard of during the recently concluded World War II.

In an era when cutting and bending aluminum was the mainstay of airframe builders, it was relatively easy for contractors to build a few prototypes. Designs proliferated in the last half of the 1940s, but not all bore the fruit of long-term production.

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The Waco Model 9 and 10

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If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve heard of Waco aircraft. The name derives from the last initial of its one of founders, George Weaver, and an abbreviated form of Aircraft Company, hence Waco.

Weaver and his partners set up business in Ohio in 1920 under the Waco name. The company became Advance Aircraft for awhile, but the biplanes are called Wacos, pronounced Wah-co, not Way-co. [Read more…]

JATO pushed performance

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Ever since the Wright brothers used a falling weight from a tower to accelerate some of their early aircraft on takeoff when winds alone were not enough, the need to apply external energy to achieve flying speed has been recognized and pursued in different ways. The Wright’s device was an early form of a catapult, a system much-modified and used by aircraft carriers still.

But another takeoff booster found favor because it could be attached to many types of aircraft and did not require a modified runway or takeoff surface. Commonly known as JATO, for jet-assisted takeoff, it is also called RATO for rocket-assisted takeoff. You get the idea from either acronym — a special thruster helps accelerate the aircraft to give it flying speed more quickly. [Read more…]

The last of its kind

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The first generation of jet aircraft during World War II involved a nearly universal rush to produce a viable fast fighter aircraft. Germany’s Me 262, America’s P-59 — and more operationally suitable P-80 — and England’s Gloster Meteor all had the fighter mission as primary when they were designed.

After the war, purpose-built jet bombers were a logical step in the accelerating turbojet revolution.

But the world’s first jet bomber design was a 1944 German product from the Arado company, the Ar 234B. Some writers delight in using gutturally-pronounced German military names in articles describing wartime technological advances made in that country, and one of the Ar 234B bomber’s monikers sounds like something out of a movie script: Schnellbomber.

It means Fast Bomber, a promise the Ar 234B delivered. Otherwise, the Ar 234 was known as the Blitz or Lightning. [Read more…]

Video: Favorite video clips of 2018

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Frederick A. Johnsen, General Aviation News’ Of Wings & Things columnist and the man behind Airailimages, just posted his favorite video clips from 2018 on YouTube.

“In addition to military action in places like Star Wars Canyon, we have favorite air shows like Warbird Roundup in Nampa, Idaho; the incomparable EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin; SUN ‘n FUN in Lakeland, Florida; Planes of Fame at Chino, California; and Gunfighter Skies over Mountain Home AFB, Idaho,” he says.

“And now we’re gearing up for the adventures that 2019 brings,” he adds. [Read more…]

December 17 started it all

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An eternally flowing spring of aviation development, technique, and romance stems from one date: December 17, 1903.

That’s when Orville and Wilbur Wright, aided by the staff of a local U.S. Life-Saving Service outpost, made their first powered flights in a piloted aircraft near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

The selection of that date may have been part chance and, ironically, part of the original case of pilots experiencing “get-home-itis.” [Read more…]

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