Category FLIGHT and M ОТІOIM

Most aircraft used by the U. S. military today are jet planes. There are super­fast spy planes-the Mach 3 SR-71A, for example-and enormous cargo planes designed to carry heavy loads, such as the C-5 Galaxy. Not all military aircraft need pilots. Drones, or unmanned air vehicles, are directed from the ground.

The main strike force of an air force is its bombers. The U. S. Air Force has the B-52, B-1B, and B-2 “stealth” bomber. Some planes designated as fighters, such as the F-117, are in fact ground attack aircraft that drop guided bombs and other weapons. Another effective air­craft is the A-10 Thunderbolt, which is heavily armed to support ground troops.

Electronic warfare planes can jam enemy communications and defense systems. Planes called Airborne Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) act as air­borne command centers.

The fastest planes now in service are multipurpose airplanes such as the F-15 Eagle, first flown in 1972 to combat the Soviet MiG-25. A recent version is the F-15E, which weighs 81,000 pounds (36,775 kilograms). The F-15 flies at 2.5 times the speed of sound and carries bombs, electronic jamming devices, guns, and guided missiles of various kinds.

Instead of weaving about the sky in dogfights like a World War II pilot, the modern pilot fights at long range. A mil­itary airplane is flown with the aid of computers. A visual display gives pilots a virtual reality image of the sky or battlefield and helps them detect and aim missiles at a target many miles away.

Most airplanes leave a radar trace, especially at very high speed. To evade radar, warplanes can fly at low levels to slip under the radar screen. Some high-tech aircraft, known as stealth planes, are designed to have a reduced radar profile, making them almost invis­ible to a hostile radar tracking system.

When their flight is announced, passen­gers make their way to one of the num­bered boarding gates. From the gate, most passengers walk directly to the air­plane doors along an enclosed bridge. At small airports, they may walk across the apron and climb steps to enter the cabin.

After all the passengers are seated on board, the pilot waits for air traffic control to give the signal for takeoff. When told to move into position, the pilot uses lanes called taxiways to move the plane from the airport terminal onto the runway.

As one aircraft takes off, another is usually preparing to land. Once a plane has landed, it moves off the runway onto the loading apron to unload its passengers and cargo. Passengers collect their bags from a baggage reclaim area, where the bags from each flight are delivered on conveyor belts.

Before leaving the airport, passengers who enter a country on an international flight must go through the additional step of being cleared through immigra­tion and customs. These government departments control the movement of people and goods into their countries.

N

SEE ALSO:

• Air Traffic Control • Aircraft,

Commercial • Pilot

_____________________________________________ /

Everything had been tried and tested for the Moon landing. It was time for the actual mission to take place. The astro­nauts selected for the crew of Apollo 11

Florida. Nearly one million people gath­ered to watch from the surrounding beaches. Within minutes, the rocket’s first stage was out of fuel and dropped off, as the other stages would do when their jobs were done.

During the flight from Earth, the spacecraft reached a speed of 24,300 miles per hour (39,100 kilometers per hour). After the initial acceleration to break free of Earth’s gravity, the speed

Braking rockets slowed the spacecraft and sent it into lunar orbit. As their spacecraft traveled in orbit around the Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin prepared for their descent to the surface. They entered the Eagle, the lunar module, and separated it from the command module Columbia, leaving Collins in orbit in Columbia to await their return.

allistics is the scientific study of projectiles. A projectile is an object flying without engine power after it has been fired or launched. Baseballs and golf balls are projectiles. Cannonballs, bullets, and artillery shells are also projectiles. Rockets and certain types of spacecraft can be projectiles, too.

Ballistic Science

The science of ballistics was developed hundreds of years ago to help gunners figure out where their cannonballs would land. When a cannonball is fired from a cannon tilted up at an angle, it rises as it flies away from the cannon. Its upward motion is slowed down by grav­ity until it stops rising and falls back to the ground. The flight path of a projec­tile is called its trajectory.

If gravity were the only force acting on a cannonball, its path would follow a curving shape called a parabola. In fact, it falls short, because the air pushes back against it. This air resistance, called drag, slows the cannonball.

The first person to make a scientific study of ballistics was Italian mathe­matician and engineer Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia (1499-1557). Tartaglia was the first person to notice that a cannonball followed a curved path. Until he pointed this out in the 1530s, people thought a cannonball flew in a straight line.

A pointed projectile causes less drag than a ball. For this reason bullets, artillery shells, and rockets have pointed noses. A pointed projectile, however, tends to tumble as it flies through the air. Bullets and artillery shells are made to spin to stop them from tumbling and to keep them flying point first. This action is called spin stabilization. Some rockets are also spin stabilized. Large rockets, like arrows, are stabilized by tail fins.

Many of the planes that fought in World War I (1914-1918) were biplanes. There were fighters and bombers built by man­ufacturers such as Nieuport-Delage in France, Fokker in Germany, and Sopwith in the United Kingdom. The first four – engine bomber was a biplane-Igor Sikorsky’s giant Ilya Mourometz-that could carry sixteen people at 80 miles per hour (129 kilometers per hour). The Vickers Vimy airplane that made the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic

Ocean (June 14-15, 1919) was a biplane. So was the U. S. Army Air Service Martin MB-1 plane that made a “round the rim” flight, traveling the perimeter of the United States in November 1919.

In the 1920s, biplanes were used by barnstormers for aerobatic displays. Biplanes also carried mail and passen­gers when commercial airlines started running regular services. They were widely used by the military, both as land-based planes and as naval aircraft on the first aircraft carriers.

Biplanes and monoplanes competed on equal terms for the first thirty years of powered flight history. No airplane of the period could fly much faster than around 200 miles per hour (320 kilome­ters per hour). The fastest biplane fight­ers of the early 1930s, such as the British Hawker Fury, had a top speed of only 210 miles per hour (338 kilometers per hour). By the mid-1930s, however, a new era was dawning. Streamlined mono­planes were flying at over 300 miles per hour (480 kilometers per hour). Biplanes could not be stream­lined, and even with bigger engines they were unable to com­pete in terms of speed.

О An early airliner, the Handley Page 42 (HP-42) of the 1930s was a biplane with a luxurious lounge.

THE SESQUIPLANE

A variation of the biplane is the sesquiplane (literally, "one-and-a – half wings"). It has one wing (the lower) much smaller than the normal-sized upper wing. One of the largest of the sesquiplanes was the Antonov 2, originally a Soviet design of 1947, but later built in Poland and China. This sesquiplane carried up to twelve passengers, and it could land on snow (with skis) or on water (with floats) as well as operate from small wilderness airfields.

_____________________________________________ /

During the 1920s, Boeing won govern­ment contracts for airplanes such as the Boeing 15, a biplane fighter that entered service with the U. S. Navy in 1925. The 15 was followed by the 21, a primary trainer. The 40, a mail plane ordered by the U. S. Postal Service, was flown from 1927 on the San Francisco-Chicago route. The newly formed Boeing Air

Transport Corporation managed and flew the mail route.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Boeing gained valuable experience in air transportation, flying its first purpose – built passenger plane, the 80, in 1928. The three-engine 80 airplane could carry eighteen passengers at up to 138 miles per hour (220 kilometers per hour). Boeing was also successful in selling fighter planes, such as the P-12 and P-26 pursuit planes.

Date of birth: Between 1905 and 1913. Place of birth: Pensacola, Florida.

Died: August 9, 1980.

Major contribution: Set many speed and altitude records; headed Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II.

Awards: Distinguished Service Medal; fifteen Clifford Harmon Trophies;

William Mitchell Memorial Award;

French Legion d’Honneur; gold medal from Federation Aeronautique Internationale; U. S. Aviation Hall of Fame; International Aerospace Hall of Fame.

acqueline Cochran was perhaps the most accomplished women flier of all time as well as the holder of many records. She also gave important service to both Britain and the United States during World War II.

It is believed that Cochran was orphaned and raised in foster homes as a child. She lived in poverty and went to work in a cotton mill while still very young. Cochran later was trained as a beautician, work that she enjoyed. Sometime around 1930, she moved to New York City, hoping to gain more suc­cess in beauty salons there.

In 1932, on a trip to Florida, she met Floyd Bostwick Odium, a millionaire. They married 4 years later. When they first met, Cochran had told Odium that she hoped to produce and sell her own cosmetics. Odium suggested that she

learn to fly an airplane so she that could carry her products to different cities. Cochran went to flight school and earned her pilot’s license in just a few weeks.

Two years later, in 1934, Cochran entered a flying race from London to Melbourne, Australia. She was forced to abandon that race, and another the next year, due to mechanical difficulties. In 1937, however, Cochran had success in the Bendix race from Los Angeles to Cleveland. She finished first among the women competitors and trailed only two male pilots. That same year, Cochran set a speed record by flying from New York to Miami in just over 4 hours and 12 minutes. She also set a female speed record of nearly 204 miles per hour (328 kilometers per hour) that year. The fol­lowing year, Cochran won the Bendix,

beating all competitors, male and female. In 1939 Cochran flew higher than any woman had before, reaching 30,052 feet (9,160 meters). Later in the same year, she set two new speed records.

In 1939 World War II broke out in Europe. In 1941 Cochran joined other women fliers in piloting planes from the United States to the United Kingdom. Once there, she trained women to do noncombat flying tasks. The goal was to free men from these jobs so they could fly combat missions.

After the United States entered the war, Cochran recrossed the Atlantic to do similar work back home. She was put in charge of a new unit, the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Its thou­sand or so pilots moved aircraft to need­ed locations and helped train male pilots. These women logged more than 60 million miles (97 million kilometers) of flying, performing a vital service.

Although the WASP force was dis­banded, Cochran remained devoted to flying. When jet airplanes were devel­oped, she learned how to fly them and worked as a test pilot for aircraft compa­nies Lockheed and Northrop. In 1953 Cochran set various speed records and became the first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound. In the early 1960s she set new records for women in altitude (55,253 feet, or 16,841 meters) and speed (1,429 miles per hour or 2,299 kilometers per hour). As the United States began forming its space program, Cochran pushed to be named a

woman astronaut. Government officials, however, decided against selecting any women at the time.

Cochran was slowed in the 1970s by a heart condition. Although she had to cut back on her flying, she continued to work as an advisor to the U. S. Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and several museums. She died in 1980.

——————————————— N

SEE ALSO:

• Pilot • Supersonic Flight

• World War II

_________________ J

Type: Jet passenger transport. Manufacturer: De Havilland.

First flight: July 27, 1949.

Primary use: Airlines.

he De Havilland Comet was the first jet airliner. Its appearance in 1952 caused great interest because of its unrivaled speed, but the Comet success story was interrupted by a series of crashes.

The Comet Project

In 1944, before the end of World War II, the British government anticipated the growth of aviation in the postwar era. It requested airplane manufacturers to plan a new generation of aircraft for civilian use. The government wanted to see designs for a jet airliner able to fly faster than any existing passenger air­craft. The airplane would travel routes between the United Kingdom and the United States as well as to the various nations of the British Commonwealth, such as India and South Africa.

De Havilland was asked to consider the project. This British company was no stranger to high-speed aircraft: In 1934, it had built the Comet, a two-seater rac­ing plane. During World War II, De Havilland had built one of the most suc­cessful Allied warplanes: the very fast Mosquito fighter-bomber.

De Havilland designers started work on a jet airliner in 1946. They decided it, too, would be called the Comet. At this

TECH^TALK

COMET 1

Capacity: 36-44 passengers.

Engines: Four De Havilland Ghost turbojets.

Wingspan: 115 feet (35 meters).

Length: 93 feet (26.4 meters).

Weight: 105,000 pounds (47,670 kilograms).

Range: 1,750 miles (2,816 kilometers).

Cruising speed: 490 miles per hour (788 kilometers per hour).

_____________________________________________ /

stage in aviation history, jet engines were very new technology. Little was known about the effects on airplanes of prolonged high-speed flight at great altitudes. The Comet builders were pioneers-they also were designing an airplane much bigger than any jet plane so far flown. At the time, there were only a handful of jet planes flying, and almost all were single-seat fighters.

In the early days of military flying, a pilot could simply bail out. This meant jumping out of the plane using a para­chute. Fighter pilots and bomber crews during World War II were sometimes able to escape from crashing aircraft, but only after opening cockpit canopies and exit hatches. As aircraft flew faster and higher, engineers came up with the idea of a “flying seat” to automatically separate pilot from aircraft.

On July 24, 1946, British pilot Bernard Lynch successfully ejected from a Meteor jet flying at 320 miles per hour (515 kilometers per hour) at the height of about 8,000 feet (about 2,440 meters), and later from as high as 30,000 feet (9,145 meters). The first American test of an ejection seat was on August 17, 1946, from a P-61 airplane.

The first American pilot to make an emergency ejection from a jet plane was Lieutenant J. L. Fruin of the U. S. Navy. On August 9, 1949, he ejected from his F2H-1 Banshee fighter, at around 575 miles per hour (925 kilometers per hour). The effectiveness of an ejection seat at zero level was shown during tests car­ried out by the Martin-Baker Company in 1955. A squadron leader in the British air force was shot out of a Meteor jet speeding along a runway at 120 miles an hour (193 kilometers per hour). The

A LONG LANDING

The longest-ever parachute descent after ejecting was that of Lieutenant Colonel William H. Rankin of the U. S. Marine Corps in 1959. After ejecting from his F8U Crusader jet at

47,0 feet (14,325 meters), he fell through a violent thunderstorm. Instead of taking just a few minutes to reach the ground, he was in the air for an amazing 40 minutes. The strong currents of air generated by the storm kept whisking him upward.

________ ._______ J

seat rose 70 feet (21.3 meters) into the air before the parachute opened. In 1955 American test pilot George F. Smith ejected from an F-100 Super Sabre while diving at more than 700 miles per hour (1,126 kilometers per hour)—the first supersonic ejection escape.

The modern combat pilot still has cause to be grateful for ejection seats. In June 1995, U. S. Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady ejected over Bosnia in Europe after his F-16 fighter was hit by a surface-to-air missile. He landed safely and, after evading capture for six days, was rescued by a search team.

N

SEE ALSO:

• Aircraft, Military • Ballistics

• Force • Parachute • Pilot

_____________________________________________ /

lying boats and sea­planes are airplanes that can take off and land on water. A seaplane, or float­plane, looks like a regular air­plane. Instead of landing gear with wheels, however, it has a pair of canoe-shaped floats to keep the seaplane afloat.

A flying boat is a type of sea­plane, but it has a boat-shaped hull, or body, which rests in the water. It has floats fitted on struts beneath the wings to provide extra balance. An amphibian is a seaplane that also has wheels for landing at an airfield.

Most flying boats and seaplanes are high-winged designs, sometimes using a “gull-wing” V-shape. The shape places the engines as high above the water as possible, clear of spray. To take off and land, the aircraft skim over the water.

The Age of Water-Based Aircraft

For a time, seaplanes were the fastest planes in the world. In 1931 the British Supermarine S6B held the world’s air speed record, at 406.9 miles per hour (654.8 kilometers per hour). Small sea­planes were carried on battleships for reconnaissance missions. The seaplane was launched by catapult; on return, it landed on the ocean’s surface and was lifted up out of the water by a crane on
the ship. Today, helicopters do the same job on many naval ships.

A flying boat was bigger than a reg­ular seaplane-some were very large. In some situations it was safer than a land plane because, in an emergency, it could land on the ocean and float until rescue arrived. Flying boats were very popular in the 1930s for carrying passengers. The big cabin of a flying boat offered a high standard of luxury to passengers, who could go ashore when the plane landed, spend a night in a hotel, and resume their journey next day.

In World War II (1939-1945), flying boats were used for ocean patrols and for hunting enemy submarines. They also pioneered new air routes across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. After World War II, land planes got faster. More

airports were built in cities-and it was between cities that most air passengers wanted to travel. By 1950, the age of the flying boat had ended.