decided to use the airplane as a military weapon in actual warfare.
Therefore it can be understood that the fighting planes of World War I
were fairly elementary in every way. They were fairly standard in design
and construction--all biplanes with enclosed fuselage and two-wheel and
tail-skid landing gear. The French Nieuport-27 fighter plane, brought
out in 1915, was considered the outstanding aërial achievement of its
day. The first of the British fighters was the Sopwith _Camel_. The
Nieuport-27 was followed in 1916 by the famous French Spad and in 1917
by the Nieuport-28. The Germans used the Fokker fighter designed by
Anthony Fokker, a Hollander.
Fighter planes of World War I had an average wingspan of 28 feet, and a
ceiling of about 20,000 feet. They were powered with engines of 150
horsepower, their speeds ranged from 100 to 125 miles per hour. Their
average weight was 1,500 pounds and they carried enough gasoline for a
two hours’ flight and were armed with two .30-caliber machine guns. All
of these planes had the habit of shedding parts under stress of battle
and more pilots were killed during the war because of defective
equipment, lack of parachutes, and inexperience than as a result of
enemy action.
The long-range heavy bomber also came into being during World War I.
Before the conflict was over many farsighted military men visualized it
as the most important military weapon produced by the science of flight.
Our own General “Billy” Mitchell was one of the first to visualize its
possibilities.
The British two-engined Handley-Page bomber carried the brunt of heavy
bombardment action during the war. It carried a one-thousand-pound bomb
load, with its bombs ranging from 15 to 600 pounds each. It had a range
of 250 miles and was credited with a great deal of destructive work
behind the German lines. At the end of the war a new and larger
Handley-Page bomber with a range of 650 miles and a 2-ton bomb load
capacity was ready to carry the war far beyond the enemy’s lines. While
the Germans relied mainly on their big Zeppelins for long-range
bombardment, they also used the big two-engined _Gotha_ bomber for raids
on French cities.
Whether the airplane had any real effect on the outcome of World War I
is questionable. It did, however, set keen-minded military men to
thinking in a manner that made the airplane the key weapon of World War
II.
During World War I, American aviation production was centered around the
three great names that had typified the airplane since its earliest
days--Wright, Curtiss, and Martin. Wilbur Wright died on May 30, 1912,
from typhoid fever, and in 1915 Orville disposed of his interests in the
Wright Company. He continued, however, to act as a consultant for the
company. In California, young Glenn L. Martin’s company had prospered
with war orders from the United States and foreign governments. His
chief engineer was the young midshipman who, not so many years before,
had robbed his penny bank to watch the trials of the first Wright Army
plane--Donald Douglas. Larry Bell, of whom we will hear more in
connection with another great war, was Martin’s general manager. In
1916, the Martin Company and the Wright Company were joined in
partnership, as the Wright-Martin Company. This organization was a heavy
contributor to the war effort, turning out hundreds of airplane engines
for the Allies. The Curtiss company produced the famous Jenny training
plane and many flying boats for the Navy, including the big NC flying
boats. America also produced the celebrated 12-cylinder, 450-horsepower
_Liberty_ engine. It was the lightest per horsepower aviation engine in
the World and was used to power the American-built DH-4 observation
plane used by the Army in the latter part of the war. Considering the
fact that it was only a dozen years since man had first flown in a
powered airplane and that our knowledge of aërial warfare was extremely
limited, both manufacturers and aviators did a splendid job in the First
World War.
It was in terms of men rather than in aërial victories that America
profited. As the result of the foundation laid by men like Wilbur and
Orville Wright, Glenn H. Curtiss, Glenn L. Martin, E. J. Hall and J. G.
Vincent (inventors of the Liberty engine), Guy Vaughn of Curtiss, Donald
Douglas, and others, America gained world leadership in the production
of aircraft engines and airplanes.
Many of the young men who flew the “crates” of World War I for the
American Army and Navy are the men whose names make headlines in
commercial air transport and on the world-wide battlefronts today. Many
a pilot who got his first flying training in a _Jenny_ or a Curtiss
flying boat is now an airline executive or a world-famous flying general
or admiral. It was the steadfast efforts of such veteran airmen as
Mitchell, Arnold, Spaatz, Eaker, Rickenbacker, Harold L. George, Artemus
Gates, Bob Lovett, Louis Brereton, Jimmy Doolittle, Frank Lahm, Gill
Robb Wilson, Jack Jouett, John H. Towers, and others, who have built
American air supremacy.
The famous Curtiss _Jenny_ that served the Army so well as a training
plane also helped keep aviation alive in the days following World War I.
Ex-Army fliers used them for pleasure and business, and a few of them
used them to start some of the country’s first airlines.
[Illustration]
THE FIRST AIR MAIL
On May 15, 1918, America’s first official airplane mail service was
inaugurated. The man in charge was Major Reuben H. Fleet, U. S. Army Air
Service. We will hear more of Major Fleet later on in our story.
Piloted by Army aviators, airplanes took off from Washington, D. C.,
bound for New York, via Philadelphia--and from New York bound for
Washington, by the same route. Twenty minutes after Lieutenant George
Boyle took off from Potomac Park, Washington, with 350 pounds of mail,
he lost his course, and in landing near Waldorf, Maryland, the plane
nosed over, breaking the propeller. Lieutenant Leroy Webb, who took off
from the old Belmont Race Track near New York City at 11:40 A.M., had
better luck, however, and reached Philadelphia an hour and twenty
minutes later. Lieutenant J. C. Edgerton took over the controls and flew
on from there, landing in Washington at 4:00 P.M. Within another half
hour Boy Scouts had completed delivery of the 500 letters and parcels
consigned to Washington, and air mail service in the United States had
begun.
Wartime Curtiss _Jenny_ training planes were used for the first air mail
service. They could carry about 300 pounds of mail and had a top speed
of 90 miles per hour. In August, 1918, the air mail service was taken
over by the Post Office Department.
[Illustration: THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT PASSENGER COMFORT. A TWO-PLACE CABIN
INSTALLED IN A DH-4 BY AIR MAIL MECHANICS IN 1920.]
[Illustration: 1918-1920
WINGSPAN LENGTH
THE DH-4 BIPLANE, ORIGINALLY AN OBSERVATION SHIP IN WORLD WAR I,
WAS CONVERTED FOR PEACETIME USE AS A MAIL PLANE BY THE POST OFFICE
DEPARTMENT.
POWER
ONE 12-CYLINDER, 400-HP., LIQUID-COOLED ENGINE.
THE DH-4 MAIL PLANE WAS POWERED WITH A _LIBERTY_ ENGINE FROM THE
ARMY’S SURPLUS WAR STOCK.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
100 MILES
RANGE
350 MILES
CEILING
4,000
FEET
THE DH-4 HAD A CRUISING SPEED OF APPROXIMATELY 100 MILES PER HOUR
AND A RANGE OF AROUND 350 MILES UNDER GOOD WEATHER CONDITIONS.
=ALTHOUGH IT WAS ABLE= TO REACH A HIGHER CEILING, ITS BEST
PERFORMANCE WAS AT ALTITUDES FROM 2,000 TO 4,000 FEET.
PAYLOAD
2 PERSONS OR 1 PERSON AND 350 POUNDS OF CARGO.
IN ADDITION TO THE PILOT, THE DH-4 COULD CARRY ONE PASSENGER OR A
350-POUND LOAD OF MAIL OR EXPRESS.
THE DH-4 WAS ORIGINALLY BUILT FOR WAR SERVICE WHERE THE COST OF
OPERATION WAS A SECONDARY MATTER. IT WAS A COMPARATIVELY SLOW SHIP AND
DID NOT FLY WELL IN BAD WEATHER. IT HAD A VERY SMALL PAYLOAD CAPACITY
AND WAS COSTLY TO OPERATE. POSTAGE RATE FOR AIR MAIL THEN WAS 24 CENTS
PER OUNCE.]
[Illustration]
The original air mail route of 1918 was only 218 miles in length, but it
was not long before the Post Office Department extended the service. By
September, 1920, transcontinental air mail service was in operation
between New York and San Francisco, California.
Flying in single-engined, open-cockpit Army _Jennies_ and DH-4’s, the
unsung pioneers of our early air mail service were Army aviators. They
had no reliable flight instruments. Roads, rivers, and railroad tracks
were their only airway markers, and the family wash on a clothes line
was the means by which the fliers ascertained their wind direction.
PRECISION BOMBING IS BORN
The end of World War I found Army aviation with a personnel of 18,000
officers and 135,000 enlisted men. Aircraft manufacturers with expanded
production facilities were proceeding at full speed. Within a very short
time the aviation strength of the Army was reduced to 1,000 officers and
10,000 enlisted men. Aircraft contracts were canceled and soon after the
close of the war many aircraft firms were forced out of business. As a
result, the Army was left to carry on with reconditioned wartime
airplanes and engines.
Men like General “Billy” Mitchell fought to keep the Army from
forgetting aviation. This was a peace-loving country and most people
felt that the United States had fought its last war. Mitchell organized
a transcontinental air race. He tried to persuade the Government to
build lighted airways across the country for commercial aviation, but
met with little support. Ex-Army aviators bought discarded Army planes,
barnstormed the country, carried passengers at five dollars a hop, and
tried in every way possible to keep aviation alive. But the early
twenties saw aviation in an almost hopeless struggle for existence.
The three big names of aviation continued to lead in the struggling
airplane manufacturing field. The Wright-Martin Company separated. The
Wright interests became the Wright Aëronautical Corporation and those of
Martin became the Glenn L. Martin Company. The Wright organization made
airplane engines, and the Martin Company, with Glenn L. Martin still its
director, began to build a big two-engine bomber. The Curtiss Company
continued to build airplanes.
The devastating raids made by our big bombers on enemy lands, led many
people to believe that the heavy bomber of the Army Air Forces was a
“miracle” weapon born of World War II. Airmen know better. In World War
I, General Mitchell believed that heavy long-range bombers could have
bombed Germany to a more decisive defeat. However, we had no heavy
bombers in 1918. It was not until 1921 that General Mitchell had an
opportunity to prove the destructive power of aërial bombs.
In July of that year, using six Martin BM-1 bombers, the Army sank the
giant 22,000-ton, ex-German battleship _Ostfriesland_ with aërial bombs
in 25 minutes. “Billy” Mitchell’s theory was proved and America’s policy
of long-range, precision bombing was born.
[Illustration: MARTIN BM-1
AMERICA’S FIRST TWO-ENGINED BOMBER. POWERED WITH TWO 400-HP. _LIBERTY_
ENGINES, ITS SPEED WAS 118 MILES PER HOUR. ITS WINGSPAN WAS 71 FEET.]
[Illustration]
THE U. S. NAVY’S FIRST AIRCRAFT CARRIER
Ever since that morning in January, 1911, when Eugene Ely took off from
a platform on the deck of the cruiser _Pennsylvania_, flew around, and
landed back on the deck, farsighted naval leaders had dreamed of taking
the airplane to sea with the fleet.
World War I and the use of naval aviation in anti-submarine and patrol
duties had stopped progress in experiments along this line. It was not
until the end of the war that Navy men began to consider the idea of
building a surface vessel capable of carrying airplanes to sea. It was
soon recognized that such a ship must be devoted exclusively to the
carrying and handling of airplanes. It must be literally an aircraft
carrier.
The idea of the carrier created several problems. Assuming that the
pilots could land on the bobbing deck of a vessel, how were the planes
to be stopped? Then there was the question of training flying boat
pilots to handle landplanes. While some Navy pilots had obtained
landplane experience overseas during the war, the majority had never
been aloft in any type of machine other than a seaplane.
Nevertheless, the entire idea appealed to our Navy men and the project
was undertaken. The Army agreed to provide landplane training facilities
for Navy pilots. Under the command of Lieutenant Commander G. DeC.
Chavalier, U.S.N., the Navy pilots first mastered the technique of
flying landplanes. They learned to land their planes in small areas
marked out on the ground to represent the deck of a ship. Then a
platform one hundred feet long and forty feet wide was constructed on a
coal barge at the Washington Navy Yard for use in deck landings. The
barge platform proved dangerous, since no arresting gear had yet been
developed, and the training was continued at the Navy Yard in
Philadelphia. Here a platform was erected on the ground and a number of
arresting gear ideas were tested. Finally there was developed a simple
and reliable arresting gear, an outgrowth of the original taut line and
sandbag idea, used by Ely.
In the meantime, the secretary of the Navy had authorized the conversion
of the old collier, _Jupiter_, into an aircraft carrier. A platform, or
flight deck, was built covering the entire top of the ship and the
arresting gear was mounted on it at the stern. The ship’s smokestacks
were set to one side of the deck so as not to interfere with the
landings. The carrier, commissioned the _Langley_, in memory of the
inventive professor, first steamed to sea in October, 1922. At a spot
near Old Point Comfort, where eleven years before Ely had made his
flight from the _Birmingham_, Commander V. C. Griffin soared up from the
deck of the _Langley_.
Out from Norfolk roared Commander Chavalier, to set his plane down in a
perfect landing on the _Langley’s_ deck. The United States Navy had its
first aircraft carrier.
THE FIRST FLIGHT AROUND THE WORLD
Do you remember the young midshipman who spent his savings to go to see
the Wrights fly their plane for the Army at Fort Meyer? After that it
was not long before he decided to leave the Naval Academy to take up a
career in the new field of aviation. By 1920 Donald Douglas was one of
America’s most promising aircraft engineers. At the age of twenty-eight
he was vice president of the Glenn L. Martin Company. At that age most
young men would have been happy to be even close to a position like
that. But not Don Douglas. He still had his dream of great commercial
airliners and he thought that California was the place to build them. He
left his job with Martin and started in business for himself, at a time
when half the aviation industry was struggling for its very existence.
Douglas went to Los Angeles, but friends and bankers alike could see no
future in aviation, and advised him to get out of it. Discouraged but
not beaten, he kept on trying. A chance meeting with a wealthy man in a
barber shop gave him his starting capital and before long the former
midshipman was building planes for the U. S. Navy. In 1924, his Army
Douglas World Cruiser circled the globe, but his great airliners still
were a dream.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: 1924
WINGSPAN 50 FEET
LENGTH 38 FEET
THE U. S. ARMY’S DOUGLAS DWC _CRUISERS_ WERE THE FIRST AIRPLANES TO
CIRCLE THE GLOBE.
POWER
ONE 12-CYLINDER 450-HP. _LIBERTY_ ENGINE
THE DWC’S WERE POWERED WITH WORLD WAR I TYPE OF _LIBERTY_
WATER-COOLED IN-LINE ENGINES.
SPEED
ONE HOUR
100 MILES
RANGE
800+ MILES
CEILING
8,000+ FEET
THE DOUGLAS DWC WAS NOT A VERY FAST AIRPLANE, BUT IT WAS A STURDY
SHIP FOR ITS TIME. IT WAS DESIGNED FOR THE WORLD FLIGHT AND STOOD
UP WELL. THE DWC WEIGHED 6,000 POUNDS EMPTY. FULLY LOADED WITH
GASOLINE AND OIL, IT WEIGHED 8,200 POUNDS. THE TWO CREW MEMBERS
RODE IN SEPARATE, OPEN COCKPITS THE ENGINES WERE THE WEAK SPOT IN
THE SHIP. THE FLIGHT PROVED THE NEED FOR BETTER ENGINES.
PAYLOAD
TWO-MAN CREW
TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO THE FIRST AROUND-THE-WORLD FLIGHT WAS A DARING
OPERATION. CREW MEMBERS TOOK SPECIAL TRAINING. A WORLD-WIDE GROUND
ORGANIZATION WAS SET UP TO SERVICE THE PLANES. THE DWC’S WERE EQUIPPED
TO USE EITHER WHEEL OR PONTOON LANDING GEAR.]
[Illustration]
It was between April 6 and September 28, 1924, that the first flight
around the world was made. Four Douglas Cruisers, each carrying two men,
started the flight from Seattle, Washington. A world-wide organization
was set up to service the planes as they circled the globe. Two of the
planes completed the trip 175 days later. The total distance flown was
26,345 miles and the total flying time was 363 hours, 7 minutes. A third
plane was destroyed in a crash in Alaska early in the flight, and the
fourth sank after a crash in the Atlantic on the last lap of the trip.
The DWC’s used in the flight were powered with 450-horsepower _Liberty_
engines, and the average speed was about 72 miles per hour. This
round-the-world flight was truly a daring operation.
[Illustration]
AIR PROGRESS
In the early twenties the design of the airplane underwent very little
change. The biplane with an enclosed fuselage remained standard in both
military and civil aircraft. With the exception of a few Navy flying
boats, the biplane was a two-place plane capable of carrying the pilot
and one passenger, or 300 pounds of cargo or mail. There were some
attempts at streamlining to eliminate drag, but they consisted mainly of
using fewer wing struts and wire bracings.
Landing gears were made stronger and the oleo landing strut was
introduced. The oleo landing strut was made by two sleevelike cylinders
which operated as does a piston. The upper cylinder was filled with
heavy oil. The landing wheels were attached to the lower cylinder. On
landing, the weight of the airplane caused the cylinder to push up, as a
piston, into the oil-filled upper cylinder. This produced a pressure on
the oil. A small opening in the cylinder allowed the oil slowly to slip
out of the cylinder. This reduced the pressure gradually as the gear
absorbed the landing shock. If you take a bicycle pump and hold your
finger over the valve, then build up pressure in the pump and at the
same time allow just a little air to escape from under your finger, you
will readily see how the oleo landing works. The oleo shock-absorbing
type of landing gear is standard with all modern planes.
Fuselage construction of wooden stringers and posts, with the wire
bracing so familiar in all early airplanes, gave way to the use of
veneered wood covering. The first Douglas planes, the DH-4’s, the
Curtiss Orioles, and the L. W. F. of the early twenties used veneer
covering instead of fabric for their fuselages. This was followed by the
introduction of welded steel tubing for fuselage framework. Several
attempts were made to develop a monoplane in those days but none was
very successful. In Germany, in 1922, the Junkers JL6 was the first
plane successfully to use an internally braced monoplane wing. In this
country it was several years before an aircraft designer dared to
attempt to overcome the prejudiced aviators against the monoplane
design.
[Illustration]
During the middle twenties the names of Wright, Curtiss, and Martin were
still to the fore. The Wright Aëronautical Corporation was the leader in
its field. Its liquid-cooled engines had grown from 120-horsepower to
300-, 400-, 675-horsepower. It also had begun to experiment with and
develop an air-cooled radial airplane engine. This engine, invented by
Charles L. Lawrance, was a result of his study of the Manley radial
engine built for Professor Langley’s _Aerodrome_. The Manley engine was
far ahead of its time. What might have happened had the first Wright
plane and the Manley engine come together in the early days is pure
guesswork. The original Manley radial engine weighed only 3.6 pounds per
horsepower. In the early twenties, when Lawrance started to work with
the Manley engine as a guide, airplane engines weighed about 10 pounds
per horsepower. The Manley engine used in the _Aerodrome_ was
water-cooled and Lawrance went to work to eliminate the extra weight
caused by radiator and water-cooling equipment. So successful were his
first experiments that he joined the Wright Aëronautical Corporation to
collaborate in developing an aircraft engine that was to have a
profound influence on world aviation.
During this time the Curtiss Company continued to build successful
airplanes for both the Army and the Navy, including the first of the
famous Hawk fighters, completed in 1923. Martin worked on improved types
of Army bombers and Douglas built planes for both branches of the
service. In Seattle, Washington, the Boeing Company had started its
first aircraft for the Army. New names such as Beech, Cessna, Sikorsky,
Vought, Fairchild, Northrop, and others began to appear on the
nameplates of new planes.
In the early twenties, with transcontinental mail service well under
way, there were many attempts made to establish air transport and cargo
services. Most of these ventures were undertaken by former military
aviators, using cast-off Army airplanes. Their airports usually were cow
pastures. They planned their own air routes and got their weather
reports from the newspapers. Bad weather would often ground a flight and
passengers were almost as uncertain as the weather. Many of those
pioneer operators had to depend on the dollar-a-ride hops of Sunday
sightseers to “keep the wolf from the door.” One service operated
14-passenger converted Navy seaplanes on a route between New York and
Havana, and another route between Cleveland and Detroit. Most of these
pioneer air transport Operations lasted for only a short time, due to
the heavy cost of maintaining the planes and the lack of properly marked
air routes.
[Illustration]
Difficulties had arisen in the air mail service by 1921. It had become
apparent that air mail would not be valuable to the Government unless it
could be flown by night as well as by day. It had been standard practice
for the mail to be flown only during daylight hours and to be carried by
train at night. The Government was about to abandon the air mail service
when the pilots pointed out that all that was needed was a chain of
airway beacons and lights for the landing fields and planes.
[Illustration:
REVOLVING
BEACON
51-FOOT
TOWER
POWER
HOUSE
COURSE LIGHTS
CONCRETE ARROW
POINTING TO
NEXT BEACON
ROUTE DESIGNATION
BASED ON TERMINAL
CITIES
ROUTE NUMBER
BASED ON MILEAGE
AIRWAY BEACON LIGHT]
To prove their point a group of pilots volunteered to make a continuous
night-and-day flight from San Francisco to New York. Flying in relays
and guided at night by bonfires tended by friendly farmers along the
route, the pilots flew the mail across the country in 33 hours and 21
minutes. The Post Office Department immediately arranged for the
installation of lighted airways and the planes were equipped with
navigation and landing lights.
By July, 1924, a continuous chain of lighted airway beacons marked the
air mail route from coast to coast. Lighted landing fields were
established at 250-mile intervals and through transcontinental air mail
service, with night-and-day flying, was an accomplished fact.
AMERICA’S FIRST ALL-METAL TRANSPORT
We have spoken of the fact that in the early twenties aircraft designers
were hesitant about attempting to overcome the prejudice of aviators
against the internally braced monoplane design. However, there was one
young man who had never been timid about the idea. He was a tall,
scholarly fellow who, as a youngster, was designing and flying model
planes before the Wright Brothers made their first flight. Like the
Wrights he was the son of a minister. This young man, William Bushnell
Stout by name, worked his way through the University of Minnesota by
firing a furnace. After graduation he worked for a newspaper and edited
a boys’ page, one of the first in America that gave complete directions
for building model airplanes.
With the outbreak of World War I, Bill Stout became technical adviser to
the Aircraft Board in Washington. His first advice to the aviation
experts there was to scrap all existing designs and build a streamlined
monoplane with an internally braced wing without struts or wires. They
said it could not be done. Bill promptly sat down and drew workable
plans for such a ship.