The History Of Flight We Saw It Happen 1953

LegalDramaDaily

Transcript

00:00:08The End

00:00:36The End

00:00:56At the turn of the 20th century in Dayton, Ohio, Hawthorne Street looked much as it does today.

00:01:03Men and women are still living who remember how in the years 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, the quiet, slow-spoken

00:01:13Wright brothers came walking down Hawthorne, back again from their journeys to Kitty Hawk.

00:01:47The Wright brothers studied aloud, discussed exhaustively, argued in detail, and at last conceived the principles that were to open

00:01:57the skies to the navigation of men.

00:02:01Around the corner from Hawthorne on 4th Street, Orville and Wilbur Wright tested not only their ideas, but they examined

00:02:08the theories of other men who had explored the possibilities of flight.

00:02:12Cayley, Lilienthal, Chanute, Langley.

00:02:17The Wrights devised methods of measuring the accuracy of aeronautical theories, including their own.

00:02:22The home was their discussion hall, the shop, their laboratory.

00:02:28Both today are gone from Dayton, moved as monuments to the Wright memory to the museum at Greenfield Village in

00:02:35Dearborn.

00:02:36Discussion hall, laboratory and testing devices such as their first wind tunnel had their plates.

00:02:42But the Wrights at once had recognized an axiom of aviation that still endures.

00:02:47Proof must come in the air.

00:02:50On this windswept beach in 1900, 1901, and 1902, they tested gliders they had built.

00:02:57They taught themselves to be pilots of a high order.

00:03:00They were critical men.

00:03:02But at last, their 1902 model pleased them.

00:03:05They flew it farther and with better control than any other glider that man had ever devised.

00:03:12They came back from Kitty Hawk in 1902 with the knowledge that they had solved flight's paramount secret, control.

00:03:19And in the spring of 1903, they designed a four-cylinder engine and fashioned two propellers.

00:03:25When they next went to Kitty Hawk, they flew.

00:03:30On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made man's first four control flights in a powered airplane.

00:03:39That day, they lifted the world into a new dimension.

00:04:00What the Wrights had achieved at Kitty Hawk barely evoked passing attention in a nation whose people were absorbed with

00:04:06the problems of a dynamic new age.

00:04:08There were other, less celestial wonders closer at hand.

00:04:12The automobile.

00:04:14The telephone.

00:04:18The motion picture.

00:04:24But at number seven, Hawthorne Street, December 17, 1903, was a momentous day.

00:04:30The young girl who was then the Wrights' housekeeper, Carrie Grumbach, remembers...

00:04:34I remember the telegram when it come, that they had flown, that they had done what they said they would

00:04:40do.

00:04:40They always did as they had planned.

00:04:43The telegram from Kitty Hawk had a special significance for the mechanic who worked in the Wrights bicycle shop, Charlie

00:04:48Taylor.

00:04:50Of course, I was greatly pleased to know what had been accomplished, but at that time, it didn't seem to

00:04:56be anything wonderful at that.

00:05:00I started on repairing bicycles back in the 80s.

00:05:09And then I later went to Dayton and built bicycles for the Stoddard Manufacturing Company.

00:05:17And they were just starting up in the bicycle business.

00:05:20Then I got acquainted with the Wrights, and I built bicycles for them.

00:05:26I did all the repair work while they went down to Kitty Hawk to try out their gliders.

00:05:33All they needed was power to keep on flying.

00:05:37Why, then, when they designed the motor...

00:05:39I made all the different parts in the motor.

00:05:43I even made the crank shaft.

00:05:45I made it out of a solid block of steel, about 32 inches long, six inches wide, and inch and

00:05:54five-eighths thick.

00:05:56Cut it right out of the solid block by drilling holes and knocking out large pieces out of it,

00:06:02and then turning it up in the lathe.

00:06:05The motor itself, from the time I started, well, I had it ready for test, was six weeks.

00:06:11Fifty years ago, I can remember as though it was yesterday, almost.

00:06:17There was not a complete indifference to the Wrights' discovery.

00:06:21A small group of Americans were laboring to further the art.

00:06:25And in Europe, where the airplane's military potential was quickly realized,

00:06:29a fresh wave of enthusiasm for aviation followed the Wrights' success.

00:06:33In France, Blériot, Farman, and Briquet were flying airplanes of their own design.

00:06:39The Englishman, Currie, and the Brazilian, Santos Dumont, most of whose experiments took place in France,

00:06:45also captured the imagination of Europe with successful flights.

00:06:49The Wrights had offered to demonstrate their airplane to the United States Army shortly after their first successful flights.

00:06:56The Army declined, preferring to develop its small fleet of balloons as an air arm.

00:07:02Oddly, it was a young balloonist lieutenant of the Army who finally was instrumental in obtaining a chance

00:07:08for the Wrights and their airplane, Frank P. Love.

00:07:11After four long years of failing to recognize the Wrights,

00:07:16finally, in December of 1907, the Board of Ordents and Fortifications granted the interview to Wilbur.

00:07:24At once, he inspired their confidence.

00:07:27This led to a contract in February of 1908 between the Wright brothers and the Signal Corps,

00:07:36in which they agreed to furnish an airplane that would fly 40 miles an hour,

00:07:41carry two persons, remain in the air for one hour,

00:07:45and, strangelyly, was to have some kind of a device by which, in case the motor stopped,

00:07:50it could be landed without crashing.

00:07:52In the summer of 1908, Orville Wright bought to Fort Myer, Virginia,

00:07:58the airplane that was to fill their specifications of the contract.

00:08:01Day after day, we watched him fly around and around the field in his tuning up flights.

00:08:07And finally, on the 9th of September, he broke the world's record by staying in the air for over one

00:08:12hour.

00:08:13On landing, he came to me and said,

00:08:15Would you like to go up?

00:08:17You can guess my answer.

00:08:20And I made my first flight in the airplane that day with Orville Wright, 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

00:08:27Lieutenant Law became the first military officer ever to fly in an airplane.

00:08:31Eight days later, tragedy struck.

00:08:34On a flight at Fort Myer, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge was killed, Orville Wright injured.

00:08:41Shocked but not deterred, both the Army and the Wrights moved to improve the airplane.

00:08:47In the summer of 1909, both Wilbur and Orville Wright came to Fort Myer, this time with a new airplane.

00:08:55It fulfilled the specifications, including an hour's flight,

00:09:00which is my good fortune to ride with Orville for an hour and 12 minutes.

00:09:05Another young Army Lieutenant, Benjamin Falloy, had a chance to fly in the Wright plane at Fort Myer.

00:09:10On the day following the endurance test with Orville Wright and Lieutenant Lomb,

00:09:18Orville, with a quiet little grin on his face,

00:09:21invited me to be his guest on the crucial and final cross-country and speed test.

00:09:29The grin on Orville's face was for my benefit, particularly as I'd been responsible for laying out the course

00:09:36between Fort Myer and Alexandria, Virginia,

00:09:40and there was not a landing field on the entire out or homebound course except Fort Myer drill ground.

00:09:49On July 30th, we took off on the final cross-country and speed test.

00:09:57Shortly after we straightened out on the course for Alexandria,

00:10:02Orville, with this same little grin on his face,

00:10:05told me that if he had to land anywhere on the route,

00:10:10that he'd pick out the thickest clump of trees he could find and land on top of them.

00:10:14Fortunately, the little engine that we had at the time

00:10:18carried us all the way through without any difficulty,

00:10:22and we finally landed back at Fort Myer drill ground

00:10:26with three world records, cross-country, 10 miles,

00:10:32altitude, 600 feet, and speed, 42 and a half miles an hour.

00:10:38The United States Army had an airplane.

00:10:40The need now was for pilots.

00:10:42There in the fall of 1909, under Wilbur Wright's destruction,

00:10:47Lieutenant F.E. Humphreys of U.S. Engineers and myself

00:10:51were taught to fly and at the end of some three hours

00:10:54were soloed and told we were pilots.

00:10:57So in 1909, the military airplane was mated to the military pilot.

00:11:03Meanwhile, all over the world,

00:11:05aviation pioneers encouraged by the Wright brothers' flights

00:11:08were hard at work.

00:11:09The principles of flight were now widely known,

00:11:12and designers were applying them to many types of aircraft.

00:11:16Glenn Curtis, Glenn Martin, and the Canadian J.A.D. McCurdy

00:11:19were designing and flying airplanes in competition and for exhibition.

00:11:24In Europe, the airplanes of Leriot, Paulum, Farman, and de Havilland

00:11:28were demonstrating obvious advances in both speed and range.

00:11:32And in Russia, Igor Sikorsky was taking his first steps into the age of flight.

00:11:37And I remember very, very well the early interesting period in France in 1909 and 1910

00:11:47when the very first attempts were made to push aviation from the purely original experimental flying

00:11:56to some kind of successful practical achievement.

00:12:01Glenn Martin, I have seen Bladio coming in the same factory to purchase his motor,

00:12:06on which a few months later, he crossed the English Channel.

00:12:10At that time, I had my share of failures with the first helicopter,

00:12:16which was a fine machine, only it couldn't fly.

00:12:19Glenn Martin remembers an episode of his pioneering days.

00:12:23Glenn Martin, I've just been reading an old postcard sent by our family doctor to my mother,

00:12:30dated September 30, 1910.

00:12:35This is at a time when I just began to leave the ground in a flying machine.

00:12:41And it says,

00:12:42For heaven's sake, if you have any influence with that wild-eyed, hallucinated young man,

00:12:49call him off before he is killed.

00:12:52Have him devote his energies to substantial, feasible, and profitable pursuits,

00:12:58leaving dreaming to the professional dreamers.

00:13:01For a dreamer, Glenn Martin was attracting a remarkable group of clear-thinking young designers as workmen.

00:13:07The first to join him was Donald Douglas.

00:13:10I guess it must be getting old, because somehow it becomes fun to reminisce.

00:13:21Well, my first memory of things in aviation

00:13:26was seeing the first Wright airplane demonstrated for the Signal Corps in 1908

00:13:33at Fort Myers, outside of Washington.

00:13:35So I took the streetcar, one thing or another, and got out to Fort Myers.

00:13:40Well, there she was, as I had seen her picture, the old Wright pusher.

00:13:46And there were Wilbur and Orville.

00:13:50And there was that old launching device that kind of looked like a guillotine,

00:13:54and they had the airplane perched up at the starting part of the track,

00:13:58and the weight all ready to go.

00:14:01And I remember well, I believe it was Wilbur,

00:14:05going out and holding up a bit of dust and dropping it to see that there wasn't a bit of

00:14:09wind.

00:14:11And then, as I recall, it was Wilbur that got into the machine,

00:14:15well, I guess it was Colonel Lomb,

00:14:17and they pulled the old latch and down this little wooden track it went

00:14:21with those funny old props,

00:14:23batting around at apparently a pretty slow speed, and off she went.

00:14:27One of the first pilots was Roy Nobbinshue,

00:14:29who was a balloonist even before he became an airplane pilot.

00:14:32This gentleman I'm pointing out right back of the pilot was Walter Brookins.

00:14:41Walter was a great pilot.

00:14:44His judgment was uncanny, but he was very temperamental.

00:14:49As a matter of fact, he, Arch Hoxie, and Ralph Johnson

00:14:53was the three best pilots that the Wright Company had,

00:14:57and each one tried to outdo the other.

00:15:00My friend Dick Ferris remarked to me one time,

00:15:05he said, I have been an impresario,

00:15:09I've handled actors and prima donnas,

00:15:13but he says, these aviators start in where the other fellow leaves off,

00:15:18and he says, it's impossible to do anything with them.

00:15:20The ambitions of some designers went far beyond their skills.

00:15:25As Igor Sikorsky has said,

00:15:27In the history of aviation,

00:15:30there have been many contraptions,

00:15:32which, to the good fortune of their inventors,

00:15:36failed to fly.

00:15:41Inventors of a hot dog was made by the other one,

00:15:42for the first time to fly a new invention.

00:15:42In the history of aviation,

00:15:42there are no more than one.

00:15:47There are only the only one who is in the history of how it is in the history of香港.

00:15:50It is a painting that went to the North Carolina.

00:15:56It is very cool to try and to make a new invention.

00:15:57In the history of aviation,

00:15:57it is a miracle to be able to get a new invention.

00:15:57In the history of aviation,

00:15:58the science of college and in history of what the world is known.

00:16:00I will never forget about how much of the history of aviation.

00:16:01The last task was founded on a new invention.

00:16:01That's a new invention.

00:16:06So we've got a new invention.

00:16:06Inventors of a high skill sometimes were deadly serious in demonstrating the utility man could expect from the airplane.

00:16:13Lawrence Sperry, whose contributions to the aircraft instrument field were momentous, puts a pre-war aircraft through its paces.

00:16:28All this ferment, however often it seemed to lack direction, was contributing in one way or another to the growth

00:16:35of aviation.

00:16:35The airplane was growing cleaner in design. Its horsepower was more dependable.

00:16:41The disparaging term aeronaut was giving way to aviator, a term of respect.

00:16:48Aviation was emerging as a science.

00:16:52A pioneer aeronautical engineer and educator, Dr. Jerome Hunsaker.

00:16:57A professional education in aeronautical engineering began in this country at MIT in the winter of 1913-14.

00:17:09This course was started by President McLaurin borrowing me from the Navy Department and supplying me with one assistant as

00:17:18staff,

00:17:18who was a recent graduate in mechanical engineering, Donald Douglas, from whom more was to be heard.

00:17:27The pusher engine of early planes had been replaced by the tractor engine installations, which allowed higher speeds.

00:17:34The Wrights were foreseeing these helpful aircraft devices, and other inventors, such as Elmer Sperry, were inventing and refining them.

00:17:43Here, a Curtiss seaplane flies with the early Sperry automatic pilot.

00:17:52Almost without exception in the first decade of the airplane, the designers were pilots.

00:17:57They built, tested, and flew their own designs.

00:18:00Wrights, Lario, Santos Dumont, Curtiss, Rose, Sikorsky, de Havilland, and Martin.

00:18:06At Glen Martin's, a band of engineers and craftsmen had gathered together whose names and time would be synonymous with

00:18:13aircraft designs of world rank.

00:18:16Donald Douglas, James H. Dutch Kindleberger, Lawrence Larry Bell, Alan Lockheed, John Northrup.

00:18:25The United States was the cradle of flight.

00:18:29Inventors of a high order had appeared.

00:18:31Our pilots were unmatched.

00:18:33First-rate designers emerged.

00:18:34Brilliant men specialized in the components of the airplane.

00:18:39But as a pioneer who specialized in aircraft horsepower, Frederick B. Rentschler summarizes.

00:18:44Prior to World War I, our most important contribution to aviation is the flight of the Wright brothers.

00:18:58From December 1909 to March 1911, 13 months, the entire United States Air Force consisted of one officer, myself, one

00:19:11civilian mechanic, eight enlisted men, one airplane.

00:19:14The government at that time wasn't very keen about turning money loose for flying.

00:19:18I had the great appropriation of $150 allotted to me to take care of the airplane for the entire year

00:19:271910.

00:19:28In January 1910, the chief signal officer directed me to proceed to Fort Sam, Houston, Texas, to teach myself how

00:19:35to fly.

00:19:38On March 2nd, I made four flights, three good and one bad.

00:19:44The last one, I cracked up and put the plane in the shop for about ten days.

00:19:52After each crack up, I used to sit down and try to puzzle out what had happened.

00:19:56Then I'd write to the Wright brothers and tell them all that I thought had happened.

00:20:01They'd proceed to write back and tell me what I ought to have done.

00:20:05In other words, I expect that I'm about the only man living today who learned to fly by correspondence.

00:20:12Two air-minded young lieutenants shortly joined General Folloy, the one-man air force.

00:20:16They were Hap Arnold and T. DeWitt Milling.

00:20:20Looking back 42 years ago to March 1911, the month in which General Arnold and myself were ordered to Dayton

00:20:31to learn to fly with the Wright brothers, and to think of the plane that we used at that time

00:20:37and see the advance that has been made since, it seems incomprehensible that one man in his own lifetime

00:20:45could live through such progress.

00:20:48After our very brief period of instruction of about a week, two to three hours in order to learn to

00:20:57fly,

00:20:57fly, we were sent to College Park, Maryland.

00:21:02We immediately started in to try to find some method by which we could develop

00:21:08from the standpoint of taking photographs, using the machine gun, dropping bombs.

00:21:15The air arm of the United States Navy began under equally apathetic circumstances.

00:21:20Naval aviator number three was Admiral John H. Towers.

00:21:23In the autumn of 1911, when I was quite a young naval officer serving aboard one of our battleships,

00:21:31I got the idea that I wanted to learn to fly, that naval aviation would amount to something

00:21:38for naval purposes.

00:21:40So I put in a request to the Navy Department, and they came back and quite frankly said

00:21:46that they didn't believe aviation would ever amount to anything.

00:21:49But if it turned out to be otherwise, they would consider my request.

00:21:54During that winter, Congress appropriated money for the Navy to buy three airplanes.

00:22:03So they were in it whether or not they wanted to be.

00:22:07And then they decided to select three officers to be taught to fly as part of the contract

00:22:13with the manufacturers of the airplanes.

00:22:16I was fortunate enough to be one of those three officers.

00:22:20The other two were Ellison and Rogers.

00:22:22I also became a very close friend of Glenn Curtis and was associated with him throughout his whole life.

00:22:31The man had an enormous amount of vision.

00:22:34He had already conducted, in cooperation with the Navy, tests of landing an airplane on a platform,

00:22:41on a cruiser, and also of taking off.

00:22:45What he had in his mind then, the idea which later developed into the powerful carriers that we have today.

00:22:52The airplane now had official recognition, both from the Army and the Navy.

00:22:56But it was a cautious acceptance.

00:22:58The time-forged armament still held sway.

00:23:01When the fledgling Army fliers experimented with a primitive bombsite and a Lewis machine gun,

00:23:06installed an aircraft at College Park, Maryland,

00:23:09they landed and foresaw whole battles that someday might be fought in the air.

00:23:14The War Department promptly pierced that bubble.

00:23:17An official spokesman pointed out with finality

00:23:20that the Army had airplanes for just one purpose,

00:23:23reconnaissance.

00:23:38From a pistol shot at Sarajevo,

00:23:41the first of the great modern world wars exploded.

00:23:45And almost overnight, all of Europe was engulfed in conflict.

00:23:58Once the great armies had met head-on,

00:24:01the conflict resolved itself into a desperate struggle

00:24:04to hold this plot of ground,

00:24:06this foot averted.

00:24:10Military analysts called it positional warfare.

00:24:16But the foot soldiers knew it only as a war of trenches,

00:24:20a desperate fight for a waterlogged hole.

00:24:29Automotive power began to supplement the feeding,

00:24:32supplying, and tending of troops burrowed in the earth.

00:24:35The tank made its combat appearance.

00:24:38But for many months,

00:24:39the First World War remained an earthbound conflict.

00:24:43The airplane was put to work,

00:24:45just as the U.S. War Department spokesman had prophesied,

00:24:49as observation and scouting craft.

00:24:53The source of peril lay in the artillery,

00:24:55machine gun, and rifle fire,

00:24:57scourging the entrenched troops

00:24:59from across the wasted land.

00:25:01But in the air,

00:25:03Allied and German pilots often waved to each other

00:25:06as they passed on their observation missions.

00:25:08Then, instead of the courteous way,

00:25:11the opposing pilots began exchanging pistol fire.

00:25:15Presently, the first crudely mounted machine guns appeared.

00:25:19Now, the frantic race of inventing,

00:25:22improvising, adapting,

00:25:23and refining aircraft equipment began.

00:25:29Quickly, the Germans countered

00:25:31the hand-operated machine gun

00:25:32by installing upon their aircraft

00:25:34the invention of Tony Fokker,

00:25:36a machine gun synchronized to fire

00:25:38through the aircraft propeller.

00:25:42A paramount lesson that the Allies

00:25:44were to remember a generation later

00:25:46was being learned in air warfare

00:25:48for the first time.

00:25:50No design capable of still further development

00:25:53could be frozen.

00:25:58And countermeasures must be met

00:26:00by counter-countermeasures.

00:26:04It was becoming clear that no nation or race

00:26:07had a corner on inventive skill.

00:26:09While the single-engined airplane

00:26:11had been engrossing most designers,

00:26:13in Russia, Igor Sikorsky...

00:26:15In 1912, I decided that the time came

00:26:19to build a large machine with several motors.

00:26:22At that time, I was certain already

00:26:24that the future of aviation

00:26:26would be connected

00:26:27with fairly large aircraft,

00:26:30that the closed cabin

00:26:31with its comfort,

00:26:33protection from wind, and so forth,

00:26:34represent a must.

00:26:36In 13, I completed my first

00:26:38four-motored airplane,

00:26:41the Grand.

00:26:42The ship proved a complete success.

00:26:44It flew quite well.

00:26:46The Grand's military successor,

00:26:47the Elia Mormats,

00:26:48was the first four-engine bomber

00:26:50in world history.

00:26:52It struck time after time

00:26:53at the central powers

00:26:54on the eastern front.

00:26:57The internal combustion engine

00:26:59now became an instrument

00:27:00of intensive technical development.

00:27:03The first successful engine

00:27:04had not been developed until 1860.

00:27:07One of the world's foremost engine designers,

00:27:10Leonard S. Hobbs,

00:27:11recollects its history.

00:27:12It starts out actually

00:27:13with a little-known Frenchman

00:27:15by the name of Lenoir,

00:27:17who has never gotten

00:27:18the credit he deserved.

00:27:20He built and actually marketed

00:27:22the first internal combustion engine,

00:27:24and it was from his engine

00:27:26that the Wright brothers

00:27:27were able to build one.

00:27:29Of course,

00:27:29the early pre-war power plants

00:27:31are fairly well known,

00:27:32the Anzany's

00:27:33and the Curtiss OX's.

00:27:35The First World War

00:27:36did mark a great advance

00:27:39in power plants.

00:27:40First, there were the Rotaries,

00:27:41the Clerges,

00:27:42the Gnome Rones.

00:27:44Then there was the Renault engine,

00:27:46which was a very good French engine.

00:27:49The British RAF engines.

00:27:51Toward the end of the war

00:27:52came the very beginning

00:27:54of what I think

00:27:55is the modern engine.

00:27:57First, there was the Hispano-

00:27:59Suiza with its solid block

00:28:01and a valve arrangement,

00:28:04which is standard

00:28:06in a lot of engines to this day.

00:28:09Also, out of the First World War

00:28:11came a remarkable German effort,

00:28:14the BMW.

00:28:15Now, this engine

00:28:17is the first engine

00:28:18that I know of

00:28:19in all history

00:28:20that attempted

00:28:21to overcome

00:28:21the effects of altitude

00:28:23on power.

00:28:50into a conflict

00:28:52in which European antagonists

00:28:54had been tempered

00:28:54by three years

00:28:55of savage battle,

00:28:56whose equipment

00:28:57had been perfected

00:28:58by the necessity of survival

00:29:00without regard to cost,

00:29:01the United States

00:29:02now plunged.

00:29:03It was the world's

00:29:0514th ranking air power

00:29:06with only 28 airplanes,

00:29:0865 pilots,

00:29:10supplemented by 50

00:29:11flying students.

00:29:13Its Navy combat air arm

00:29:15was even smaller.

00:29:16Its industry

00:29:17lacked integration.

00:29:18The nation

00:29:19that had allotted

00:29:19Benny Folloy

00:29:20$150 in 1910

00:29:22for maintenance

00:29:22of that year's air force

00:29:24promptly voted

00:29:25$600 million

00:29:26to fulfill a plea

00:29:27by the Allies

00:29:28to have 5,000 airplanes

00:29:30and 4,500 pilots

00:29:33on the Western Front

00:29:34by the spring of 1918.

00:29:36When we entered the war,

00:29:38the country knew

00:29:38that the United States

00:29:40already had

00:29:40an industrial capacity

00:29:41double that

00:29:42of Great Britain,

00:29:43France,

00:29:44and Germany combined.

00:29:45We quickly realized

00:29:47that to supplement

00:29:47the meager aeronautical developments

00:29:49resulting from years

00:29:50of federal indifference

00:29:51to air power,

00:29:52we had to obtain licenses

00:29:54for the production

00:29:55of proved British

00:29:56and French airplanes

00:29:57and aircraft engines

00:29:58in our new factories.

00:30:00Our national mistake

00:30:01was the assumption

00:30:02that an instrument

00:30:03as dynamic as the airplane

00:30:04could be designed,

00:30:06tested,

00:30:07and developed overnight.

00:30:09Thousands of rookie pilots

00:30:10training in the United States

00:30:12and in England and France

00:30:13had an inspiring example

00:30:15of American air combat performance

00:30:17through the brilliant exploits

00:30:18of the Lafayette Escadrille,

00:30:20a team of American volunteers

00:30:22who had joined

00:30:22the Allied cause in 1916.

00:30:25But American performance

00:30:26had its hours of frustration.

00:30:28One of the first young pilots

00:30:30to see action in France

00:30:31with the 1st Aero Squadron

00:30:32was Oliver P. Eccles.

00:30:35We'd been equipped

00:30:36with a new type

00:30:38of French airplane

00:30:39with a new

00:30:41and very much improved engines.

00:30:44These airplanes

00:30:45were assigned to us.

00:30:47The squadron had

00:30:48the strength of 18 airplanes.

00:30:50And we were assigned

00:30:52the mission

00:30:53of supporting

00:30:53one of the American divisions

00:30:55one afternoon

00:30:56in the attack.

00:30:58Our airplanes took off

00:30:5918 strong.

00:31:01During the afternoon,

00:31:03all of the airplanes

00:31:04force-landed

00:31:06from engine failure.

00:31:08Fortunately,

00:31:08none of them

00:31:09behind the enemy line.

00:31:11But out of the 18 airplanes

00:31:13that went out,

00:31:14none of them got back.

00:31:16The pilots of World War I

00:31:17made the term dogfight

00:31:19synonymous with their work.

00:31:21America's top ace,

00:31:22Captain Eddie Rickenbacker

00:31:23of the famed

00:31:2494th Hat-in-Ring Squadron,

00:31:26reflects on the different approaches

00:31:28to combat of the pilots

00:31:29of World War I

00:31:30and the pilots of today.

00:31:32That individualism

00:31:34was possible

00:31:35because the planes

00:31:36were much slower.

00:31:38You'd stay in maneuver.

00:31:40Whereas today,

00:31:42it's impossible

00:31:43because of the tremendous speed,

00:31:45the difference

00:31:46of 100 miles an hour

00:31:47and six or 700 miles an hour.

00:31:51We had 150 horsepower.

00:31:54Today,

00:31:54if they haven't got

00:31:555,000 or 6,000 horsepower,

00:31:57it's no good.

00:31:59We had two little pop guns,

00:32:0130 caliber,

00:32:02that would shoot sometimes

00:32:03450 rounds a minute.

00:32:05Today,

00:32:06they've got

00:32:06six and eight

00:32:0850 caliber guns

00:32:09that'll shoot

00:32:101,000 rounds a minute

00:32:11with a couple of cannon

00:32:13thrown in,

00:32:1420 millimeter

00:32:15or 37 millimeter cannon,

00:32:18and then maybe

00:32:19a half a dozen

00:32:21or a dozen rockets

00:32:24that have terrific,

00:32:27destructive power,

00:32:28all of which means

00:32:29that today,

00:32:31the time element

00:32:33is so limited

00:32:34for a pilot in combat

00:32:36with an enemy

00:32:37that it's a matter

00:32:38of a fraction

00:32:39of a second.

00:32:41Today is a cockpit

00:32:42full of instruments

00:32:43and gadgets.

00:32:44It's pressurized,

00:32:45it's air-conditioned.

00:32:46We had a gasoline gauge,

00:32:49an oil gauge,

00:32:50we had a tachometer

00:32:51or a revolution counter.

00:32:53Sometimes it worked,

00:32:55sometimes it didn't,

00:32:56and the fourth instrument

00:32:57was an aldometer

00:32:58that we could never rely on.

00:33:01The Navy's pre-war requests

00:33:02for funds

00:33:03to build up its air arm

00:33:04had been denied,

00:33:05and only a skeleton

00:33:07Naval Air Force existed.

00:33:09A naval officer

00:33:10whose career

00:33:11has bridged

00:33:11two wars in aeronautics,

00:33:13Admiral DeWitt C. Ramsey.

00:33:15From the outset,

00:33:17the Navy's problem

00:33:19has been

00:33:19to bring aircraft

00:33:21into the mobile

00:33:22operating forces

00:33:24of the fleet.

00:33:26We may say

00:33:27that this had its start

00:33:30in World War I

00:33:32and post,

00:33:33the post-World War I

00:33:34period,

00:33:36when kite balloons

00:33:37were used

00:33:39from battleships

00:33:40and auxiliaries

00:33:41for gunfire spotting

00:33:44and tactical reconnaissance.

00:33:48The equipment

00:33:50was very cumbersome,

00:33:52and as hydrogen

00:33:55was used

00:33:55as the lifting gas

00:33:57for the balloons,

00:33:58we found that

00:34:00it was not

00:34:01a satisfactory measure

00:34:03of doing

00:34:04a naval job.

00:34:06so they were

00:34:07abandoned

00:34:08after a short,

00:34:10relatively short trial.

00:34:11The real beginning

00:34:12of naval aviation,

00:34:13let us say,

00:34:14took place

00:34:15in England,

00:34:16where during

00:34:18World War I,

00:34:19the latter part of it,

00:34:20the British

00:34:20converted two ships,

00:34:22the Furious

00:34:23and the Argus,

00:34:24and built into them

00:34:26the features

00:34:26which were

00:34:27desirable for

00:34:28aircraft launching

00:34:30and recovery.

00:34:31I happened

00:34:32to have been

00:34:33in England

00:34:33about that period

00:34:35and kept

00:34:36our Navy Department

00:34:37informed of the

00:34:38progress of the

00:34:39British in this field.

00:34:41As a result,

00:34:44the Navy

00:34:45embarked

00:34:46on an initial

00:34:47program

00:34:47of converting

00:34:48the old

00:34:49Collier Jupiter

00:34:51into our first

00:34:52flat top,

00:34:54the Langley.

00:34:56In 1918,

00:34:57as the war

00:34:58began to move

00:34:58toward its climax,

00:35:00American aircraft

00:35:01equipment still

00:35:02had not entered

00:35:03combat.

00:35:04An intensive effort

00:35:05was being made

00:35:06to perfect

00:35:06the Liberty engine.

00:35:07Before the Liberty

00:35:08or any other

00:35:09aerial product

00:35:10of the United States

00:35:11designing boards

00:35:12could be put in action,

00:35:13the final critical

00:35:14offensive of World War I

00:35:16had begun.

00:35:17Millions of men

00:35:18pulled out of trenches

00:35:19to attack

00:35:20or retreat.

00:35:21Above them,

00:35:22to be sure,

00:35:23planes flew in bombing

00:35:24and strafing missions.

00:35:26Individual pilots

00:35:27whose names

00:35:27became legendary

00:35:28met in dogpipes.

00:35:30Germany's

00:35:31von Richtowen,

00:35:32France's

00:35:33Aung,

00:35:34Canada's

00:35:34Bishop,

00:35:35Germany's

00:35:36Goering,

00:35:36and such

00:35:37American aces

00:35:38as Rickenbacker,

00:35:39Luke,

00:35:40Lufberry,

00:35:41Vaughan,

00:35:42Springs,

00:35:42Kindley,

00:35:43Landis,

00:35:43Swab,

00:35:44Hunter.

00:35:54Music,

00:35:56Music,

00:36:12In retrospect, it might be said that aviation itself has served a very small part in the result of the

00:36:25World War I conflict.

00:36:28However, it did prove itself.

00:36:33That is, it was easy to recognize that with proper equipment,

00:36:40at another later time, aviation might become a real instrument of military warfare.

00:36:50After the war was over, a great many of American boys had been taught to fly, but they didn't get

00:36:56to the front.

00:36:57Of course, after the war was over, they had nothing to do, and there were a great many surplus airplanes.

00:37:03And that is the period when you hear so much about the days of barnstorming.

00:37:07After the war, with all these surplus airplanes, a lot of the fellows who had been taught to fly

00:37:13then decided to go out and carry passengers and do stunts and regular exhibition flying,

00:37:19principally at county fairs and state fairs and things of that sort.

00:37:24Both the Army and Navy Air Arms shortly were reduced once again to organizations hardly larger than the membership of

00:37:31a civic club.

00:37:33Yet, in both services, the men who remained were uniquely zealous advocates of their calling.

00:37:39Almost to a man, they realized they had only begun to explore the capacities that the airplane offered in size,

00:37:46speed, range, and altitude performance.

00:37:48A decade was dawning in American history that was to be known flippantly as the era of wonderful nonsense.

00:37:57Beneath its surface corruption, its wild enthusiasms, and its extravagant posturing,

00:38:03history now has found that it was a time in which men in many fields of the arts and sciences

00:38:07were employing immense physical energy to attain goals of a sober work.

00:38:13Aviation had its share of such men.

00:38:16The accomplishments of the 20s were presaged in 1919 by man's first flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

00:38:23The NC-4, a large flying boat whose development had begun during the war, was chosen,

00:38:29as the Navy's pioneer pilot, Admiral Towers, points out, for the ambitious task.

00:38:34When the war was over, the first one was just about completed.

00:38:39So I proposed to the Navy Department that it would go ahead the following spring

00:38:43and with as many of these aircraft as could be built by that time,

00:38:49that the Navy undertake to be the first to fly the Atlantic.

00:38:53Luckily for me, I was selected to command that expedition.

00:38:58It's all history now.

00:39:00Now, two of the three airplanes landing at sea in very rough water were so damaged they couldn't make it,

00:39:10but the NC-4 made it from Newfoundland to the Azores to Lisbon.

00:39:16Army pilots already had inaugurated airmail service on May 15, 1918,

00:39:21a service that had been under discussion since 1910.

00:39:24William Boeing, who had entered aviation in 1916,

00:39:28was instrumental in starting the first international airmail service on the North American continent.

00:39:34In 1919, Eddie Hubbard and I took a flight up to Vancouver, B.C.

00:39:43On our return trip, the postmaster at Vancouver handed us a mail sack for delivery to the postmaster at Seattle.

00:39:57This was the first international mail ever carried by plane into the United States.

00:40:04What real utilities the airplane actually offered were overshadowed in the public eye

00:40:08by its use as a spectacular stunting device throughout the pastures and primitive flying fields of the country.

00:40:15The Jenny could be bought for as little as $50,

00:40:18and men who had flying in their blood preferred to scramble for the few dollars they could make

00:40:23risking their lives in exhibition flying rather than seeking out pedestrian jobs.

00:40:28As one of them, Dick DePue, cheerfully said,

00:40:31the greatest hazard in flying is the risk of starving to death.

00:40:37Abruptly, the country's attention concentrated on a single man with a single theme.

00:40:43Brigadier General William Mitchell, who had had a distinguished war record,

00:40:47argued that the Mahan Doctrine of Sea Power had been outmoded by the airplane

00:40:51and pleaded for a separate national air arm.

00:40:54He contended, in seeking a $60 million appropriation for Army Air Services,

00:40:59or about half the cost of a single battleship,

00:41:03that the United States could begin developing an air force

00:41:06which could hold mastery of both the air and the seas.

00:41:10Larry Bell was still with Glenn Martin when...

00:41:12That resulted in Congress bringing about a test,

00:41:15wherein one of the targets that we were supposed to sink,

00:41:18or try to sink, was the famous Auster-Friesland,

00:41:22the pride of the German Navy which we had captured.

00:41:24This ship was anchored about 100 miles offshore,

00:41:29and six of the Martin bombers went out,

00:41:31each carrying a 2,000-pound bomb.

00:41:35They paraded over the battleship,

00:41:37and they dropped the six bombs, and only one hit it,

00:41:39and that was by mistake.

00:41:40The rest were timed to detonate at 100 feet below the surface,

00:41:44and it practically exploded the Auster-Friesland.

00:41:47At least it ripped the bottom of the ship from bow to stern,

00:41:52and the ship sank in four minutes.

00:41:54The Navy had already begun systematically

00:41:57to broaden the scope of its Bureau of Aeronautics.

00:42:00Many of its men,

00:42:01whose views of the need for air power

00:42:03were not as vehement as Billy Mitchell's,

00:42:05nevertheless already had envisioned carriers

00:42:08as the heart of future striking forces.

00:42:10Admiral Ramsey was the navigator

00:42:12of the Navy's first flattop, the Langley.

00:42:15The Langley had at best 14 knots maximum speed,

00:42:20and that's all the wind speed she could generate

00:42:23and manufacture,

00:42:24so we had to wait for adequate wind conditions

00:42:27to perform flight operations.

00:42:29The nation's first large aircraft carriers,

00:42:32the Saratoga and the Lexington,

00:42:34were designed and were being built.

00:42:36These great ships,

00:42:39developing approximately 180,000 horsepower,

00:42:44manufactured all of the wind that was needed

00:42:47in the absence of a surface wind for flight operations.

00:42:53The nation accepted the airplane

00:42:55and tacitly agreed with its advocates,

00:42:58but there was still no federal provision

00:43:01for long-range planning and procurement.

00:43:03Nevertheless,

00:43:04a core of designers and manufacturers

00:43:06stayed with the business.

00:43:08In the ceaseless drive to attain longer range

00:43:11and more reliable performance,

00:43:12the airplane, its engine, its components

00:43:16and its instruments steadily were growing more complex.

00:43:19But the primary goal was speed.

00:43:22Roscoe Turner.

00:43:23I have maintained ever since I've been flying

00:43:26that there's only one reason for flying,

00:43:29and that is speed.

00:43:30It's 1910, Curtis, 49 miles an hour.

00:43:351910, White, 61 miles an hour.

00:43:381911, Wyman, 78 miles an hour.

00:43:421920, Mosley, 156 miles an hour.

00:43:47Maughan, in 1922, 206 miles an hour.

00:43:53In 1925, Doolittle, 232 miles an hour.

00:43:58Jimmy Doolittle, a held-for-leather pilot

00:44:00whose own cold judgment was

00:44:02that he was essentially a technician.

00:44:04These record flights have a very real meaning.

00:44:10Competition has perhaps always been

00:44:12the greatest stimulus to improvement.

00:44:16And out of this competition

00:44:18came improvements.

00:44:21Improvements that were

00:44:23improvements in the performance of aircraft

00:44:26and the safety of aircraft,

00:44:28and those improvements were immediately applicable

00:44:30to the military and indirectly applicable

00:44:33to commercial aviation.

00:44:34The ferment of the early 20s

00:44:36brought forth men who combined technical gifts

00:44:38with a skill of organization.

00:44:40A few such men, like Chance Vaught,

00:44:43had formed their own companies

00:44:45and built successful airplanes.

00:44:47Others had served their apprenticeship

00:44:49with aviation's early pioneers,

00:44:51but now they were branching out on their own.

00:44:55Dutch Kindleberger recollects a small episode

00:44:57that launched an enduring company.

00:44:59Even in the 35 years

00:45:01that I've been messing with it myself,

00:45:03there have been vast changes,

00:45:05particularly technically.

00:45:07I can remember very distinctly

00:45:09when at the Markin Company in 1920,

00:45:13Don Douglas, who was then the chief engineer,

00:45:15left to come out to California

00:45:17to start his own business.

00:45:19I helped him pack.

00:45:21We packed up from his office

00:45:23about, oh, two ordinary condensed milk cartons

00:45:26full of data.

00:45:28In those two cartons,

00:45:30we put everything that was known and printed,

00:45:33and some of it wrong,

00:45:34about the science of aviation engineering.

00:45:38Today, you couldn't pack into this room

00:45:41the index of such technical information,

00:45:44let alone the subject matter.

00:45:46The machine began to get complicated,

00:45:48and from there on came the specialists.

00:45:52A great many great men

00:45:54have contributed to aviation

00:45:56purely as specialists.

00:45:58Sperry, one of the greatest.

00:46:01Colonel Clark,

00:46:03who devised one of the first good airfoils.

00:46:06Sam Herron came along on his cylinders

00:46:09and his fuel,

00:46:10and then Frank Mock

00:46:11with his carburation devices

00:46:13and later fuel injection.

00:46:14Frank Colwell with his propeller.

00:46:16Our earliest propellers

00:46:18were all wooden propellers,

00:46:20but they had several shortcomings.

00:46:22They were subject to atmospheric troubles,

00:46:25and they twisted out of shape

00:46:27in various climates,

00:46:30and they were also quite thick,

00:46:32so that at the high speed

00:46:34at which propeller tips operated,

00:46:36they were losing efficiency.

00:46:39One of the things

00:46:41which we did to overcome this

00:46:43was to develop a metal propeller,

00:46:45which first was a drop-forged aluminum alloy blade,

00:46:50being very much thinner than the wooden ones.

00:46:53The efficiency was maintained

00:46:54in better conditions,

00:46:56and also they were quite stable

00:46:59in various atmospheric conditions.

00:47:01Sam Herron began working on aircraft engines

00:47:04as early as 1909,

00:47:05and shortly went to the Royal Aircraft Factory

00:47:08in England.

00:47:09I came to this country in 1921,

00:47:11and for the next five years

00:47:14was engaged in air-cooled cylinder development.

00:47:18It was really the air-cooled engine

00:47:20that made fuel development so necessary.

00:47:23The first move was to put tetraethyl lead

00:47:26in the existing gasoline.

00:47:28Later, the Air Force got the idea

00:47:30of adding the component

00:47:34that has the high end of the octane scale

00:47:38to the gasoline,

00:47:39and that eventually led

00:47:41to 100-octane gasoline.

00:47:43Frank Mock,

00:47:44the carburation and fuel control specialist.

00:47:46Our carburation work

00:47:48has always had to be a good bit like that

00:47:50of the Wright brothers,

00:47:52in the respect that we could get

00:47:54a little guide from the textbook.

00:47:55The automobile carburetor, of course,

00:47:57was designed to operate on the level.

00:47:59The aircraft carburetors have to climb,

00:48:02dive, even fly upside down.

00:48:05Also, they have to go up an altitude

00:48:07where the air is thin.

00:48:08Mock, Hobbs, Sperry, Clark, Caldwell, Herron.

00:48:12The singular devotion with which these men

00:48:14and scores of other specialists

00:48:16pursued their particular fields

00:48:17leads H.M. Jack Horner,

00:48:20whose own specialty of aircraft production

00:48:22combined the fruits of all their labors,

00:48:24to say,

00:48:24That heritage of research,

00:48:29development,

00:48:30background work

00:48:31that goes into aircraft

00:48:33has continued

00:48:34throughout the whole existence of aircraft

00:48:38and the great improvements

00:48:39that have come there, too.

00:48:42After that, with flight becoming a little bit more common,

00:48:47I think it's important to realize

00:48:49the fervor with which those individuals

00:48:53did carry on their work.

00:48:55It was a passion with them.

00:48:57Then, midway in the 20s,

00:48:59came two events that turned the course

00:49:01of American aviation sharply upward.

00:49:04First, the government adopted the recommendations

00:49:07of President Coolidge's Morro Board.

00:49:09These called for a sustained aircraft procurement program

00:49:12built on the foundation of a privately operated

00:49:15and technically competitive aircraft industry.

00:49:19Although both military airmen and technologists

00:49:22were convinced that the airplane long before

00:49:24had outgrown its function as a scout,

00:49:26the bulk of our aircraft still consisted of observation planes.

00:49:31Now, new, more powerful engines

00:49:34began to emerge for advanced aircraft,

00:49:36which both services had developed.

00:49:39The nation moved rapidly

00:49:41from a third-rate air power

00:49:42to international leadership.

00:49:45The second event was the successful dream

00:49:48Charles Lindbergh made come true.

00:50:01In his single-engine Ryan monoplane,

00:50:04Lindbergh had flown the Atlantic nonstop to parents.

00:50:07Two weeks later,

00:50:09carrying Charles Levine as a passenger,

00:50:11Clarence Chamberlain flew the Atlantic

00:50:13and landed in Germany.

00:50:14First of all, we were trying to beat Lindbergh away.

00:50:17And second, we had to keep our plans

00:50:18a deep, dark secret

00:50:20because we had overheard Mrs. Levine say,

00:50:22if I thought my Charlie was going in that airplane,

00:50:24I'd burn it up.

00:50:25We finally got away about 6 o'clock in the morning

00:50:28on the 4th of June, 1927.

00:50:31The first 1,000 miles to Newfoundland

00:50:34was through good weather.

00:50:36The only trouble was we had headwinds.

00:50:38And our tests on Long Island showed

00:50:40that we could fly for 40 hours

00:50:42at 100 miles an hour.

00:50:44Well, on the flight up to Newfoundland,

00:50:46we were only making 70 miles an hour.

00:50:49And 70 miles an hour for 40 hours

00:50:51is 2,800 miles.

00:50:52It was 3,200 to land on the other side,

00:50:55leaving the last 400 to swim.

00:50:57Well, fortunately,

00:50:57the wind shifted after we left Newfoundland.

00:51:00And as you see, we made it.

00:51:03Lindbergh's lonely adventure

00:51:04gripped the imagination of the world

00:51:06as one of man's most dramatic achievements.

00:51:09The nation turned from its casual cynicism

00:51:11to make the shy young pilot

00:51:14together with the airplane

00:51:15a shining symbol of the horizon

00:51:17still beckoning for conquest.

00:51:20A vital factor in the ascendancy

00:51:22of American aircraft

00:51:23had resulted from the work

00:51:24of two companies

00:51:25concentrating on the intensive development

00:51:27of the radio air-cooled engine.

00:51:29In this country,

00:51:30Charlie Lawrence was the first one

00:51:32to go into the air-cooled side

00:51:34and did some quite good work.

00:51:36His products being eventually taken over

00:51:40by the Wright Company.

00:51:42And it was really one of his engines

00:51:44after a couple of major designs,

00:51:46and they were really major designs,

00:51:48but one of his engines

00:51:49that powered the Lindbergh flight.

00:51:53Following this,

00:51:54came one of the best

00:51:55of all of the power plant engineers

00:51:57George J. Maid

00:51:58with his famous Wasp and Hornets,

00:52:01which set up a new standard.

00:52:03These engines had built-in superchargers

00:52:06and just about all the modern features.

00:52:09In fact,

00:52:09they are fairly representative

00:52:10of today's engines.

00:52:12Along with this

00:52:14came another of the major developments

00:52:17in the power plant,

00:52:19that is the turbo supercharger.

00:52:23The turbo supercharger

00:52:25was really quite a long time coming.

00:52:27The Frenchman by the name of Ratto

00:52:29had originally started

00:52:31to try and get it,

00:52:32but it took the General Electric Company

00:52:33and Dr. Moss

00:52:35to get this thing,

00:52:37which made almost all the difference

00:52:40in the world.

00:52:41The unusual engineering accomplishments

00:52:44of our American aeronautical industry

00:52:48began to bear fruit

00:52:51in the late 20s and early 30s.

00:52:55From a military point of view,

00:52:57for the first time,

00:52:59our various types of combat planes

00:53:01were unmatched abroad.

00:53:05Moreover,

00:53:06we found the solid beginning

00:53:09of commercial air transport.

00:53:13I remember very well

00:53:15in one evening

00:53:16when Lindbergh and I

00:53:17were sitting in a small restaurant

00:53:19in Cuba,

00:53:20which we reached

00:53:21as the end

00:53:23of a Caribbean flight

00:53:25and using the menu for paper,

00:53:29we made sketches

00:53:30of a transatlantic clipper

00:53:32that was back in 1931.

00:53:34A few years later,

00:53:36the transatlantic clippers

00:53:37have been produced,

00:53:38created,

00:53:39proved success,

00:53:40and as at present,

00:53:42we know

00:53:42that transoceanic flying

00:53:44is perfect routine,

00:53:46perfectly self-evident

00:53:48part of our modern life.

00:53:50Jimmy Doolittle

00:53:51pioneered transcontinental

00:53:53non-stop flights.

00:53:54In 1922,

00:53:57I flew from

00:53:58Pablo Beach, Florida,

00:54:00near Jacksonville

00:54:01to San Diego, California,

00:54:03a distance of about

00:54:042,200 miles

00:54:06in 22 hours

00:54:09and 20 minutes.

00:54:11In 1931,

00:54:13I flew from

00:54:15Los Angeles, California

00:54:17to New York

00:54:19in 11 hours

00:54:21and 15 minutes.

00:54:22That first flight

00:54:23was the first time

00:54:24that the continent

00:54:24had ever been crossed

00:54:25in less than one day.

00:54:27The second flight

00:54:28was the first time

00:54:29it had ever been crossed

00:54:30in less than half a day.

00:54:32Meantime,

00:54:33the Army

00:54:33and the Navy Air Arms

00:54:35were making fast strides

00:54:36in developing aviation.

00:54:38They were flying

00:54:39farther,

00:54:40higher,

00:54:40and faster.

00:54:41The Air Corps

00:54:42was perfecting

00:54:43its concept

00:54:44of the bomber

00:54:44as a long-range

00:54:45strategic weapon.

00:54:47In its exercises,

00:54:48the Navy

00:54:49was demonstrating

00:54:50the soundness

00:54:51of the carrier task force.

00:54:53Individual officers

00:54:54were exploring

00:54:55the use of new instruments

00:54:56and accessories

00:54:57and testing new theories

00:54:59to determine

00:55:00aircraft reliability.

00:55:02Two famous Army pilots,

00:55:04Carl Tui Spatz

00:55:05and Ira Aker,

00:55:06flew seven days

00:55:07in 1929

00:55:08without landing.

00:55:09The question mark flight

00:55:11was an endeavor

00:55:13to use refueling

00:55:15as a means

00:55:16of keeping

00:55:16the plane in the air

00:55:17for a long time.

00:55:20The driving

00:55:22inspiration behind it,

00:55:23I believe,

00:55:25was Ira Aker.

00:55:26On the course

00:55:27between San Diego

00:55:29and Burbank,

00:55:31we passed over

00:55:32the home

00:55:33of Mrs. Spatz's

00:55:34father and mother.

00:55:35Every time

00:55:35he passed over,

00:55:36she would take

00:55:37my oldest daughter

00:55:39who was then

00:55:39about six or seven

00:55:41out to see us

00:55:42go overhead.

00:55:42And on the fifth

00:55:44or sixth day,

00:55:45she pointed us out

00:55:46to Taddy

00:55:47and said,

00:55:47Taddy,

00:55:48there's your daddy

00:55:48up there.

00:55:49He's been up in the air

00:55:50for five or six days.

00:55:51For five days.

00:55:53Don't you think

00:55:53it's wonderful?

00:55:55And Taddy looked up

00:55:56and said,

00:55:57no,

00:55:58I think it's dumb.

00:55:59But the flight

00:56:00did prove

00:56:01that refueling

00:56:02was practical.

00:56:04General Aker

00:56:04remembers an incident

00:56:05that forecast

00:56:06the need for equipment

00:56:07which would permit

00:56:08blind flying.

00:56:09In 1919,

00:56:10flying in the Philippines

00:56:11from Manila

00:56:12to Stotzenberg,

00:56:13our station at that time,

00:56:15I ran into a typhoon

00:56:17and the rain was so heavy

00:56:18that I couldn't

00:56:18see the horizon.

00:56:20I fell in a spin

00:56:21and only the fact

00:56:22that the Manila Bay

00:56:23was yellow

00:56:24and the rain was darker

00:56:25was I able to recover

00:56:27from the spin

00:56:27and fly home.

00:56:29To my surprise,

00:56:30I fell in for the first time

00:56:31that when you couldn't see,

00:56:33you couldn't fly.

00:56:33I described this

00:56:35to Lieutenant Longfellow,

00:56:36later General Longfellow

00:56:37in the Second World War

00:56:38and we began

00:56:39some crude experiments

00:56:40by hanging a plumb bob

00:56:41down across the instrument board

00:56:43and by putting

00:56:44a carpenter's level

00:56:45on the longeron

00:56:46and got so

00:56:47that with these two aides

00:56:48we could fly through clouds,

00:56:49through several thousand

00:56:50feet of cloud.

00:56:51And that was one

00:56:52of the early days

00:56:54of instrument flying.

00:56:56Ten years

00:56:56after General Aker's

00:56:58Manila experience,

00:56:59Jimmy Doolittle,

00:57:00in association

00:57:01with the Sperry Company,

00:57:02tackled the problem.

00:57:03I made the first

00:57:04blind flight,

00:57:05the first completely

00:57:06blind flight,

00:57:07taking off

00:57:07under a hood,

00:57:08flying a prescribed course

00:57:10and landing

00:57:11back under the hood

00:57:12without ever having

00:57:13seen out of the airplane.

00:57:16This doesn't sound

00:57:18very important now,

00:57:19but out of that

00:57:20came two instruments,

00:57:22the artificial horizon

00:57:23and the directional gyro

00:57:25that are today's

00:57:26standard equipment

00:57:27on every commercial airplane

00:57:28and every combat

00:57:30military airplane.

00:57:31The chain of development

00:57:32led back to General Aker.

00:57:34During the first

00:57:35transcontinental blind flight,

00:57:37Bill Kepner and I

00:57:38had a very practical

00:57:39but unexpected demonstration

00:57:41of the value

00:57:41of instrument flying.

00:57:43My ship was a P-12

00:57:45with a hood over it

00:57:46and a similar ship,

00:57:47a P-12,

00:57:48Bill followed behind

00:57:49as the safety pilot

00:57:50so that he could tell me

00:57:51to turn right or left

00:57:52to avoid obstacles

00:57:53or other planes in flight.

00:57:55At one point,

00:57:56he was giving me

00:57:57rather repeated instructions

00:57:58and I could tell

00:57:59by the water seeping

00:58:00under the cover

00:58:02that we were

00:58:02in a heavy rainstorm.

00:58:03Finally, he said,

00:58:04hold your present course steadily.

00:58:06I'm going to fly

00:58:06formation on you.

00:58:08In four or five minutes,

00:58:09he called on the radio again

00:58:10and he said,

00:58:11we've come through

00:58:11the storm now

00:58:12and I can see again.

00:58:14During that period of time,

00:58:16you led us through

00:58:17because I couldn't see either.

00:58:20The Great Depression

00:58:21had come.

00:58:22The industry was hard hit,

00:58:24but nevertheless,

00:58:25new companies developed

00:58:26to meet the increasing

00:58:27complexity of the airplane

00:58:28and its growing use

00:58:30of metals,

00:58:30electronics,

00:58:31and automatic controls.

00:58:33Dutch Kindleberger

00:58:34departed from Douglas

00:58:35to take over North America.

00:58:37Companies were formed

00:58:38bearing the famous names

00:58:39Bell, Fairchild,

00:58:41Northrop,

00:58:42Beach,

00:58:42Cessna.

00:58:43A World War Navy pilot,

00:58:45Leroy Grumman,

00:58:46left civil engineering

00:58:47to enter aviation.

00:58:48We knew that

00:58:49a conventional airplane

00:58:53wouldn't get us in order.

00:58:55We finally ended up

00:58:57with the design

00:58:58of the first military fighter

00:59:00with retractable landing gear

00:59:02for which we got a contract

00:59:04and which proved

00:59:05to be highly successful,

00:59:07having the speed

00:59:08for our success

00:59:08of any current army

00:59:11or navy fighter

00:59:12of that time.

00:59:14A pioneer aviation journalist,

00:59:16Earl Findlay,

00:59:17once went to see

00:59:18the Wright Brothers' contemporary,

00:59:19Thomas Edison.

00:59:21I asked if I could have

00:59:22a short interview

00:59:23with Mr. Edison.

00:59:24You had to get up

00:59:25awful close to him.

00:59:27He put his hand up

00:59:28like this,

00:59:28saying,

00:59:29Mr. Edison,

00:59:33what do you think

00:59:33of the airplane?

00:59:36Oh, airplane?

00:59:38And this is after

00:59:38he had been talking

00:59:39to farming all morning

00:59:40on the biplane.

00:59:42Never amount to a damn

00:59:44until they get there.

00:59:46They got to do it different.

00:59:48They have to have something

00:59:49like a hummingbird.

00:59:52Go up

00:59:54and go this way

00:59:55and come back

00:59:55this way,

00:59:56that way,

00:59:56this way,

00:59:57and come down,

00:59:58he said.

00:59:59And,

01:00:01well,

01:00:01I tried it once.

01:00:05It ain't easy.

01:00:08And I got to doing

01:00:09something else.

01:00:11But somebody's

01:00:12going to do it.

01:00:13But that's

01:00:14remain it,

01:00:15the opposite side

01:00:16of speed,

01:00:17namely,

01:00:18the aircraft

01:00:19that could fly

01:00:20with no speed at all,

01:00:21that could take off

01:00:22from any spot

01:00:23and would not be

01:00:24in need of an airport

01:00:26at all.

01:00:26The 30s also

01:00:27were the years

01:00:28in which each summer

01:00:29fierce competition

01:00:30was held

01:00:31to determine

01:00:31the best

01:00:32of the airplane breed.

01:00:34Proof of the

01:00:34individual airplanes,

01:00:36engines,

01:00:36and pilots

01:00:37came in the

01:00:38national air races.

01:00:39With thousands

01:00:40looking on,

01:00:41the legendary

01:00:42pilots raced.

01:00:43Doolittle,

01:00:44Hazlip,

01:00:45Turner,

01:00:46Whitman,

01:00:46Levere,

01:00:47Gullbach,

01:00:48Newman,

01:00:49Fuller,

01:00:49Jacqueline Cochran.

01:00:51And flyers

01:00:52still flew

01:00:52against the clock

01:00:53across the continent,

01:00:55across the seas,

01:00:56and indeed

01:00:57around the world

01:00:58itself.

01:00:59Balkan,

01:01:01Post,

01:01:02Ganty,

01:01:02Bird,

01:01:03Hughes,

01:01:04Amelia Earhart,

01:01:05and

01:01:05Wrongway Corrigan.

01:01:06As the hour

01:01:07swung late

01:01:08in the 30s,

01:01:09the air races

01:01:09were curious

01:01:10ly American.

01:01:11For in Europe

01:01:12and Asia,

01:01:13aviation was not

01:01:14a case of

01:01:15relatively puny

01:01:16efforts in some

01:01:17such as America

01:01:17was providing,

01:01:18much of it

01:01:19from individual

01:01:20men and companies.

01:01:22Rather,

01:01:22the vast resources

01:01:24of powerful

01:01:24foreign nations

01:01:25now were thrown

01:01:27behind the

01:01:27construction of

01:01:28air forces

01:01:29designed to

01:01:30subdue the world

01:01:31or to defend

01:01:32against such

01:01:33aggression.

01:01:34In the United

01:01:35States,

01:01:35under the impact

01:01:36of a depression,

01:01:37Congress had

01:01:38scrapped the

01:01:38Morro Board

01:01:39Procurement Plan,

01:01:40and stopped

01:01:41providing appropriations

01:01:42for 1,800

01:01:43military airplanes

01:01:45that had been

01:01:45scheduled.

01:01:46On New Year's Day,

01:01:481936,

01:01:49the Army Air Corps

01:01:50had only 300

01:01:51planes fit for war

01:01:52duty.

01:01:53A year later,

01:01:55we had dropped

01:01:55to sixth place

01:01:56among powers

01:01:57in air combat

01:01:57strength,

01:01:58although our

01:01:59industry was

01:02:00judged to be

01:02:00technically at least

01:02:0118 months ahead

01:02:02of foreign

01:02:03competition.

01:02:03and the

01:02:33Army Air Corps

01:02:33will be

01:02:48Premier de Laudier lamented,

01:02:50If I had had 4,000 airplanes, there would have been no Munich.

01:02:54France had squandered a first-rate air power while she sat behind the Maginot line.

01:02:58The British, too, had let the Axis powers outstrip them.

01:03:01Frantically, both countries turned toward the United States,

01:03:04aware that, in the very act of running hard to meet crisis after crisis,

01:03:09an emphasis had been placed upon research, experiment, and development,

01:03:13which gave the United States technically superior aviation equipment.

01:03:17So the free world turned to the United States,

01:03:20not only for airplanes, but all of those weapons embodying the modern arsenal,

01:03:25to expand its facilities, train workers, and to adapt its job shop operations,

01:03:31to techniques of mass production took time.

01:03:34The tooling was still underway when Germany struck.

01:03:38Poland was shattered.

01:03:54Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:03:57Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:04:05France succumbed.

01:04:09Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:04:20Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:04:22Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:04:25Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:04:26Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:04:27Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:04:28Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:04:32Poland and Belgium were overrun.

01:05:01The gratitude of every home in our island, in our empire, and indeed throughout the world,

01:05:09except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen, who, undaunted by odds,

01:05:18unwearied in their constant challenge of mortal danger, are turning the tide of war by their prowess and by their

01:05:29devotion.

01:05:30Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

01:05:40Now the stubborn British stood alone.

01:05:44Over Poland, Holland, Belgium, and France, Germany's Luftwaffe had demonstrated that the airplane was a vital weapon of modern offensive

01:05:51war.

01:05:52In the skies above England, the Royal Air Force now demonstrated that the airplane was a vital instrument of modern

01:05:59defensive war.

01:06:01The struggle in Europe shook America.

01:06:04A month after Congress had received a bill providing only 61 combat airplanes for the Army Air Corps for the

01:06:11following year,

01:06:12President Roosevelt called for a long-range production program of 50,000 airplanes.

01:06:18America slowly mobilized its productive capacity.

01:06:22It began to draft its young men.

01:06:24It sought to train them with wooden guns, cardboard tanks, and mock airplanes,

01:06:29until it could gear its productive capacity to build the real thing.

01:06:33The war spread.

01:06:34Germany seized Norway, turned on its momentary ally, Russia, overran Greece, joined its partner Italy in Africa,

01:06:45and encouraged its Asiatic ally, Japan.

01:07:16Asiaticencies Robert Ruberty, persecuted Berlin,

01:07:34Nothing could have convinced the people of America more surely of the bitter nature of modern war

01:07:39than the sneak punch that Japan threw at Pearl Harbor.

01:07:42The nation fell to work to expand its token battle forces and its production

01:07:47into a great tide of men and machines.

01:07:50To train men and to equip them required long months, particularly in aviation.

01:07:55Immediately after the president's pronouncement in 1940,

01:08:01licenses were given to the automotive group largely to assist

01:08:08in the production schedules which lie ahead.

01:08:12And nevertheless, until the end of 1943, the equipment which actually saw service

01:08:22on the various fighting fronts all over the world were furnished entirely by the aeronautical industry

01:08:32because it was a fact that it required 20 months to two years for the average automotive company to begin.

01:08:42With their momentum at full flood, the Japanese swept through the Pacific.

01:08:47Jimmy Doolittle and a little band of flyers carried the war home to them in a joint Navy Air Force

01:08:52operation.

01:08:53I've frequently been asked, what was the purpose and what was the effect of the first Tokyo raid?

01:08:59Well, the purpose was to take the war to Japan to show them that their island was not inviolate.

01:09:07The effect?

01:09:08Well, the effect was to cause them to divert some of their military strength that was needed in the South

01:09:13Pacific

01:09:14to the protection of the home islands.

01:09:17The actual damaging effect was very little.

01:09:22Our airplanes were on the Hornet.

01:09:25We were intercepted just after daylight on the morning of April 18, 1942, by Japanese surface craft.

01:09:35We took off immediately, proceeded to target, and all but one of the planes carried on to the coast of

01:09:43China.

01:09:43We carried one ton of bombs in each one of 16 airplanes.

01:09:47We dropped 16 tons of bombs on four or five different targets.

01:09:51When you realize that from the Marianas in the later stages of the war,

01:09:56B-29s were carrying as much as 6,000 tons of bombs in one operation

01:10:02and dropping them on a single target, you realize how puny our effort was.

01:10:07Slowly, the nation began to regain control of the air and the sea lanes that it had lost in the

01:10:12Pacific.

01:10:13The first great victory was the Battle of the Coral Sea.

01:10:16Captain Thatch, one of the Navy's ablest flyers and tacticians,

01:10:21remembers that battle and the subsequent Battle of Midway.

01:10:24If you're going to apply the principle of concentration of force, for example,

01:10:28you've got to work with other people and have a good system of teamwork.

01:10:32I think that's one of the reasons why an attack by a carrier-based air group is so effective.

01:10:42It's almost a simultaneous thing like a one-two punch in boxing.

01:10:46In the Battle of the Coral Sea, for example, the dive bombers and torpedo planes and the fighters came in

01:10:56almost simultaneously.

01:10:59But the enemy concentrated on the dive bombers at the same time that let the torpedo planes in and they

01:11:06did most of the damage.

01:11:08On the other hand, in the Battle of Midway later, the enemy fighters concentrated on the torpedo planes

01:11:16and the dive bombers came in almost unmolested.

01:11:19I could see them coming down like a huge waterfall and there were practically no misses.

01:11:24They were the ones that did the job in the Battle of Midway.

01:11:26With its growing stream of trained soldiers, sailors and airmen equipped with improved weapons,

01:11:32the United States and her allies took the offensive.

01:11:36Rommel was driven from Africa.

01:11:38Sicily and Italy were invaded.

01:11:41From their bases in England, American bombers began to strike at the heart of Germany

01:11:46under the direction of General Spots.

01:11:48Strategic bombing was one of the ways of winning the war.

01:11:53And our fighter operations, in a large measure, developed into covering operations for the bombers.

01:12:01In order to do that, we had to have the development that had taken place.

01:12:06Good radio, so the leader of the fighter outfits could not only talk to his own men,

01:12:13but be in communication with the bombers.

01:12:16And, in turn, get some guidance from ground control stations on the ground by radio.

01:12:25This resulted in a different type of fighting and a different type of operation.

01:12:30But it proved conclusively in World War II

01:12:35that the airplane had developed to such an extent

01:12:39that air warfare became a different war altogether than land and sea warfare.

01:12:47Wellwood Beale, a member of the team of designers who created the B-17,

01:12:52saw the airplane altered from a defensive to an offensive weapon.

01:12:56The conception of strategic air bombing was not fully developed at that point.

01:13:05Originally, for instance, the B-17 was built to protect our coast from an invading fleet,

01:13:15and hence it was called the Flying Fortress.

01:13:18But when we got to England, it was obvious that to use these bombers to the greatest advantage,

01:13:28that we would have to not only get the enemy's supply lines,

01:13:34but the places where he manufactured his military equipment.

01:13:40The British thought it would be easier to do it at night.

01:13:43They'd have a much greater chance of success and would be less vulnerable to enemy fighters.

01:13:50And they called their bombing saturation bombing.

01:13:53They dropped large numbers of bombs on a large industrial area.

01:13:58The Americans, however, decided that with the B-17 and the B-24,

01:14:04that they could pinpoint a specific target.

01:14:08For instance, the ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt.

01:14:12They, in order to do the job properly, decided that it should be done at daytime,

01:14:18where their bomb site was the most effective.

01:14:26Step by step, the Allies began sweeping back across the reaches of the Pacific.

01:14:50The terrible cost we took to Rawa, Saipan, Kwajalein, Guam, Bougainville, and the Philippines,

01:14:56setting the stage for the aerial assault on Japan itself.

01:15:01At home, the United States had channeled its great energies and its vast technologies

01:15:06to produce in flood the goods of war.

01:15:10And now, with our Allies, our integrated sea, land, and air combat team attacked.

01:15:17The U.S. Department of State

01:15:18The U.S. Department of State

01:15:49THE END

01:16:24THE END

01:16:52THE END

01:17:16THE END

01:17:40THE END

01:17:58THE END

01:18:06THE END

01:18:08THE END

01:18:09THE END

01:18:11THE END

01:18:13THE END

01:18:15THE END

01:18:17THE END

01:18:19THE END

01:18:20THE END

01:18:21THE END

01:18:28THE END

01:18:30THE END

01:18:33THE END

01:18:45THE END

01:18:47THE END

01:18:51THE END

01:18:56THE END

01:18:59THE END

01:19:01THE END

01:19:13THE END

01:19:15THE END

01:19:18THE END

01:19:28THE END

01:19:29THE END

01:19:30THE END

01:19:31THE END

01:19:42THE END

01:19:52THE END

01:19:57THE END

01:19:58THE END

01:20:01THE END

01:20:08THE END

01:20:10THE END

01:20:12THE END

01:20:14THE END

01:20:16THE END

01:20:18THE END

01:20:19THE END

01:20:20THE END

01:20:21THE END

01:20:24IN THE WORDS

01:20:28CLOSING HOURS

01:20:29GERMANY HAD EMPLOYED

01:20:30GUIDED MISSILES

01:20:31BRUTALLY

01:20:31BUT WITHOUT DECISIVE EFFECT

01:20:34Simultaneously, England and Germany had put a few airplanes in the air,

01:20:39powered by a radical new type of engine, the jet turbine.

01:20:43The jet became really important in aviation.

01:20:46The accumulated engineering know-how that this country had built up with its piston engine equipment

01:20:52suddenly became very much less important.

01:20:55This event was really a great leveler in engineering background and potential for all countries.

01:21:03And we had to start over again to try to regain the supremacy which we had in World War II.

01:21:11In their march across Germany, Russia had seized Germany's military tools and designs

01:21:16and many of the engineers who were developing the jet.

01:21:21The Russians now increasingly saw the Allied victory in which they had been a partner as largely their own.

01:21:27The Western world was either bled white by the war or demobilized.

01:21:32Russia and its communist allies alone kept their armies intact.

01:21:36Their whole creed was one of force, and they began imposing that force on Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.

01:21:46Russia's abrupt belligerence forced this country's attention upon the air power we had let melt away.

01:21:51For the third time in little more than a generation, the nation set about building a modern air arm.

01:21:58This one to be shaped around the fantastic speeds the gas turbine engine provided.

01:22:05Then, in 1948, when the Russians sealed off the land corridors leading to western Berlin,

01:22:11the United States, England, and France countered with a famous Berlin airlift.

01:22:15From their bases outside the Iron Curtain, a steady stream of airplanes flew night and day,

01:22:21supplying West Berlin's two million residents with food, fuel, and medicine.

01:22:25Finally, the communists capitulated and reopened the land corridor.

01:22:30Then, they sent their minions into war in Korea.

01:22:34There, the United Nations chose to stand and fight.

01:22:37It was a strange, bitter, circumscribed war.

01:22:41The Air Force's prime striking weapon, its strategic air command, was ruled out of bounds.

01:22:46The first sustained jet combat in history took place in a quadrangle of sky up to 40,000 feet above

01:22:53the Earth,

01:22:53but always south of the Yalu River.

01:22:56Russia sent aloft a first-rate jet fighter, the MiG.

01:23:00Only the Air Force's saber from the United Nations array of fighter planes could match it.

01:23:05It was a war in which transport airplanes flew 7,000 miles to deliver materiel and to return sick and

01:23:13wounded men.

01:23:13And it was a war in which the helicopter, with its ability to fly standing still and land anywhere,

01:23:20did a multitude of jobs.

01:23:22Among them, transporting literally thousands of wounded from the battlefield to rear area hospitals for prompt surgical attention.

01:23:30Under the impact of Korea, the nation had begun again to turn out modern aircraft in quantities.

01:23:36Mundy Peel, the chairman of the Industries Association.

01:23:39We as an aircraft industry are, at the present time, turning out about 14,000 airplanes.

01:23:46At the moment, we are a healthy industry.

01:23:49We have to pour back a tremendous amount of funds into research and development,

01:23:53funds that we earn when we make the airplanes.

01:23:55This is a very healthy thing.

01:23:57It creates competition.

01:23:59We want competition.

01:24:00Dutch Kindelberger, whose organization built the saber, pictures the sky 10 miles high as man flies at a speed approaching

01:24:07that of sound.

01:24:08Today, we are flying at very great speeds and at very high altitudes.

01:24:13As a matter of fact, up in the area at which a lot of the fighting is being done, around

01:24:1950,000 feet,

01:24:21we have a different world.

01:24:23It's a thin, blue, dark blue air.

01:24:29The sun doesn't shine so brilliantly because there's nothing to reflect it.

01:24:33There's no plane of reference for the pilots, such as hills or clouds or sky.

01:24:38In such an atmosphere as this, even a bomber is hard to see.

01:24:42The trouble that we are facing, the future, is not the sound barrier.

01:24:48We know how to fly through that now.

01:24:50Now, the thing that is bothering everybody is the thermodynamic barrier.

01:24:58The air flowing over an airplane at these very high speeds, by friction, will heat up the surface of the

01:25:07airplane.

01:25:08As a matter of fact, if we go to Mach number two, which is twice the speed of sound at

01:25:14sea level,

01:25:15the surface of the airplane will get hot very rapidly and will stabilize at about 500 degrees.

01:25:25Since ordinary aluminum alloy loses half its strength by 350 degrees,

01:25:32and that even titanium and steels begin to give trouble at 500 and 600 degrees,

01:25:39it's obvious that we are in a great deal of difficulty in the future.

01:25:44There also are many things like hydraulic fluid.

01:25:48We don't know how to make hydraulic fluid that won't boil away at this temperature.

01:25:52We don't know how to make packings that won't seize at this temperature, or bearings, or lubricants.

01:25:58In fact, the bubble with which everybody is familiar gets soft and would lose its shape and disappear at 300

01:26:06degrees.

01:26:06So we have ahead of us a great deal of research and a long, long time of trouble

01:26:14before we are going to be going anything like the speeds at which our magazine supplement writers seem to think

01:26:23we are ready for tomorrow.

01:26:25Modern test pilots who fly at sonic speeds and incredible altitudes take an equally factual view of their calling.

01:26:32Tex Johnston sums up his philosophy after putting the J-57-powered B-52 through its paces.

01:26:40After 12 years of testing, 10 years in the jet field,

01:26:49involving the first jet airplane to fly in this country, the P-59,

01:26:54the first rocket airplane to fly in the United States, the X-1,

01:26:59incidentally the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound,

01:27:04the B-47, the B-52,

01:27:07I believe all the more in the two old sayings.

01:27:10First, that one test flight is worth a thousand expert opinions,

01:27:16and the other one for the fly boys,

01:27:18the altitude above you and runway behind you will never do you any good.

01:27:23Chuck Yeager, the first man to fly through the sonic barrier,

01:27:27and Bill Bridgman, a test pilot who has flown almost twice the speed of sound

01:27:31and has piloted a plane at an altitude of 79,000 feet,

01:27:36discussed their calling in language peculiarly their own.

01:27:39Certainly enjoyed the work.

01:27:41I think launching is the only safe way to get into that kind of flying.

01:27:45It's a heck of a lot of safe takeoffs, that's for sure.

01:27:48Yeah, and you burn so much fuel when you take off

01:27:51before you get up to the altitude where the airplane can drop you.

01:27:54And actually, I personally think that's the most fun involved in a flight

01:27:57is when the guy cuts you loose, you're just hanging there for a minute,

01:27:59just like on a roller coaster.

01:28:01Yeah.

01:28:01You were pretty close to the stall, too, when you came out of there, weren't you?

01:28:04Yeah.

01:28:04You dropped out at 29?

01:28:05We stalled at around 240 indicated with the full fuel load,

01:28:09so one time, I remember Jack Ridley, we had a release failure,

01:28:13and he dropped me out at about 180 indicated,

01:28:15and I didn't know which end was up for a while.

01:28:19Well, I know it's on a skyrocket, but when we first dropped out,

01:28:22you could kind of feel the stall by watching the boom out there.

01:28:26The boom began to shake while she was on the nipple.

01:28:28I don't know what you...

01:28:29You see it bend?

01:28:30Well, I see it oscillate a little bit, yeah.

01:28:32And so the airplane has evolved from the Wrights,

01:28:34whose first flights at Kitty Hawk were at speeds hardly faster than an athlete can run,

01:28:39to speeds today where the Bridgmans, the Yeagers, and the Johnstons

01:28:43travel faster than a bullet.

01:28:47Horizons far beyond today's achievements still beckon.

01:29:13Your name, sir?

01:29:14Frank D. Long.

01:29:16Have you flown before?

01:29:19Yes, I've flown before.

01:29:25The End

01:29:29The End

01:29:30The End

01:29:38The End

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended