Category AVIATION &ТНЕ ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

After World War II, commercial aviation inter­ests in England conceded that the state of British aircraft technology and production was woefully behind that of the United States. The British, by necessity, had concentrated their efforts on fighter aircraft during the war, while the United States had been able to pursue transport devel­opment as well. The British concluded that they could never catch up with the Americans in exist­ing technology, but they saw a chance at leveling the competitive playing field with the United States by using the conventional turbojet in a new series of passenger transports.

In 1949, the De Havilland Comet began flight-testing with a design expectation of speeds of 480 miles per hour at flight levels of 35,000 feet. (See Figure 19-4.) While pressurized aircraft had been flying since the late 1930s, no airliner had faced the stresses that would be imposed at this projected altitude. The De Havilland Comet completed testing and entered into service on British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in May 1952, to the thrill and applause of the world. The first turbojet airliner halved flight times over BOAC’s world routes. To the surprise of many, the Comet made money even though

its operating costs were three times that of the DC-6, even charging regular fares. The differ­ence was that the Comet flew virtually full on all flights, proving that high-density seating was commercially feasible, at least on the vibration- free Comet. Next, Air France inaugurated jet ser­vice on some of its routes with the Comet. In the United States, it was still DC-7 and Superconstel­lation piston engine service.

The Comet had three serious accidents in 1953. The third one involved the airplane com­ing apart in the air, possibly due to a design flaw, but it had occurred in connection with suspected thunderstorm penetration and was written off to the expected result of thunderstorm force. A fourth accident on January 10, 1954 grounded all seven of the Comets. This fourth Comet was lost over the Mediterranean Sea as it climbed above

26,0 feet. Its wreckage fell into the sea and was not immediately available for study. A com­mission formed in England to study the accidents came up with some 50 fixes to be incorporated into the Comet fleet. These adjustments were made and the Comets resumed service.

The wreckage of the Mediterranean crash was recovered and taken to the Civil Aviation Investigation Branch in England for analysis. As

the investigation was proceeding, another Comet disappeared on April 8, 1954 on a flight from Rome to Cairo as it climbed to 35,000 feet. The fleet was again grounded and an all-out investi­gation was ordered to resolve the cause. It was fully appreciated that the future and reputation of the English aircraft production industry was now at risk, as was the entire future of commercial jet transportation.

The Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farn – borough, headquarters for British aeronautical research, was given the task of solving the mys­tery of the Comets’ crashes. A test procedure was contrived to expose the fuselage to a lifetime of pressurization and depressurization cycles, but at a rate 40 times faster than would normally occur. On June 24, 1954, the Comet’s fuselage failed, developing a structural crack at the corner of one of the square windows, and expanding away down the fuselage. This indicated that the Comets likely had exploded, not unlike a bomb, due to the interior pressure of the aircraft. In August 1954, the last section of the doomed Rome to Cairo Comet was recovered. The investigators’ conclu­sion of the cause of the crash was confirmed as the Comet’s fuselage disclosed an almost exact duplication of the test results. The Comet 1 never flew again. Two later iterations of the Comet never flew commercially. The official findings of the British government’s inquiry included that “more study both in design and by experiment” was needed to secure an economically safe life of the pressure cabin. These requirements were not met until 1958, at which time the Comet 4 made the first transatlantic jet commercial flight, on October 4, 1958. By then, the British advantage had been lost, and the United States aircraft pro­duction community was just getting started.

The responsibilities of the FAA discussed above grew and were assumed over time as civilian aviation sector activities developed. All of these responsibilities relate to civil aviation operations occurring on the surface of the earth and within the earth’s atmosphere. When the United States began operations beyond the earth’s atmosphere with the first U. S. space launch in 1958, and for many years thereafter, all U. S. space activities were the exclu­sive province of either NASA or the military.

With the passage by Congress of the Com­mercial Space Launch Act of 1985, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (referred to as FAA/AST) was created within the FAA. Under this statute, AST has the responsibility to:

* Regulate the commercial space transporta­tion industry, only to the extent necessary to

ensure compliance with international obliga­tions of the United States and to protect the public health and safety, safety of property, and national security and foreign policy interests of the United States;

• Encourage, facilitate, and promote commer­cial space launches by the private sector;

• Recommend appropriate changes in federal statutes, treaties, regulations, policies, plans, and procedures;

• Facilitate the strengthening and expansion of the United States space transportation infrastructure.

FAA/AST is organized into three divisions:

• Space Systems Development Division (AST-100)

® Licensing and Safety Division (AST-200)

• Systems Engineering and Training Division (AST-300)

Because the FAA has been assigned an entirely new role in aviation safety, staffing and expertise concerns have been expressed both within and out­side the agency. This has been compounded by the fact that, while the original thrust of the FAA’s over­sight related to unmanned launches of expendable launch vehicles, commercial space activity is rapidly expanding into space tourism, so that the FAA’s responsibility for licensing reusable launch vehicle missions will need to expand correspondingly. As of the end of 2009, FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation had a staff of 71 full-time employees, including 12 new aerospace engineers, and had established field offices at Edwards Air Force Base and NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

For a more thorough discussion of commer­cial space launch activities in the United States and the role of FAA/AST, please refer to Chapter 41.

Late in the autumn of 1878, our father came into the house one evening with some object partly concealed in his hands, and before we could see what it was, he tossed it into the air. Instead of falling to the floor as we expected, it flew across the room till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor. It was a little toy, known to scientists as a “helicoptere," but which we, with sublime disregard for science, at once dubbed a “bat.” It was a light frame of cork and bamboo, covered with paper, which formed two screws, driven in opposite direc­tions by rubber bands under torsion. A toy so delicate lasted only a short time in the hands of small boys, but its memory was abiding.

Later, the boys became experts in kite build­ing and in flying them until their age made this activity unseemingly childish. They also built model “helicopteres,” making them larger and larger. The larger they become, they discovered, the less they flew. In this way they began to learn the rudimentary physics of aerodynamics, that a machine having only twice the linear dimensions of another would require eight times the power to achieve lift. Thus, were they introduced to coef­ficients of aerodynamic lift.

In the late 19th century, the bicycle was advanced technology, and its popularity made its commercial appeal very great. The Wrights opened a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, and became adept at machinery and mechanics. In the middle of the decade of the 1890s, the brothers had some limited knowledge of the small group of engineers and scientists who had conducted experiments with gliders and flying machines. But it was not until the death of Otto Lilienthal, in 1896, that they seriously took up the study of aeronautics. They began reading works by Chanute, Lilienthal, Langley, and arti­cles published by the Smithsonian Institution. They saw at once that the field of aviation was neatly divided between the advocates advanc­ing theories and experimentation related to
propulsion, or powered flight, like Langley and Maxim, and those advocates of soaring flight, like Lilienthal, Mouillard, and Chanute. The sympathies of the Wright brothers lay with the latter group, based on the sound logic that until the problem of control of an aerial vehicle could be solved, the question of power would not be relevant. They, therefore, zeroed in on the prob­lem of control.

As they educated themselves with the avail­able literature, they also noted that the years between 1895 and 1900 represented a brief time of heightened activity in aeronautics, and a time of great public expectation that a solution to the problem of flight would be found. But successful flight did not materialize. Maxim, after spending $100,000 in the effort, abandoned his work. The Ader machine, built at the expense of the French government, was a failure. Lilienthal and Pilcher were killed in experiments, and Chanute and most others seemed to be having little success. The Wrights concluded that the public, distressed and disappointed by the failures and tragedies, had given up on the idea of manned, powered flight. As they said, the whole process seemed to have been shuffled off to that purgatory of sci­ence and engineering that was concerned with such things as the perpetual motion machine.

So it was that they harked back to their days of kite flying. They began their active experi­mentation in October 1900 at Kitty Hawk. (See Figure 7-1.) They chose that venue for its con­stant, substantial breezes, and because of the ele­vation of the sand dunes and unobstructed terrain that joined the sea. Their machine was designed in large part from the work of Chanute with its struts and wire bracing, and from the Lilienthal tables from which the coefficient of lift could be calculated. It was to be flown tethered to the ground, as a kite with a man aboard, and also as a glider. The 1900 experiments failed to con­firm published data on wind pressures and lift, although they did confirm the basic effectiveness of lateral and vertical control, innovations that were original to the Wrights. The main problems

of lift and drag were daunting, but as the brothers left Kitty Hawk as winter approached, they were encouraged enough to plan improvements to be tested the next summer.

On their return to North Carolina on July 11, 1901, the design of the glider was essentially the same (see Figure 7-2), except that it was made larger and the camber of the wings was increased in order to attempt to provide for greater lift.

Still, the amount of lift achieved was disappoint­ing. The brothers reluctantly concluded that the published data of flight, particularly as concerned lift, could not be trusted. The center of pressure calculated from the tables was too far forward, resulting in a nose-heavy trim. Even attempts to manipulate the “warping mechanism” of the wings while attempting on-board gliding did not result in the satisfactory trials experienced the year before. Wilbur and Orville were so dispir­ited that they broke camp a month earlier than they had planned, and returned to Dayton. As recollected by Orville:

… we doubted that we would ever resume our experiments. Although we had broken the record for distance in gliding, and although Mr. Chanute, who was present at that time, assured us that our results were better than had ever before been attained, yet when we looked at the time and money which we had expended, and considered the progress made and the distance yet to go, we con­sidered our experiments a failure. At that time I made the prediction that men would sometime fly, but that it would not be within our lifetime.1

also provided insight into the need of a vertical “vane” as they called it; what today is known as a rudder. (See Figure 7-3.)

The design of the 1902 glider (see Figure 7-4), incorporating the results of their testing in the wind tunnel, was the first aircraft that solved the fundamental problems of soaring flight, lift and control, and it constituted a major departure from their first two gliders. They returned to Kill Devil Hills in the late summer of 1902 and by the mid­dle of September, they had begun kiting experi­ments. In a letter to Milton Wright on October 2, 1902, Wilbur wrote:

Our new machine is a very great improve­ment over anything we had built before and over anything any one has built. We have far beaten all record for flatness of glides as we in some cases have descended only degrees from the horizontal while other machines descended from 7.5 to 11 degrees. . . . This means that in soaring we can descend much slower, and in a power machine can fly with much less power. The new machine is also much more controllable than any heretofore built so the danger is correspondingly reduced. We are being

When they returned to Dayton, Wilbur and Orville began to believe that the information that had previously been developed, particularly the Smeaton coefficient and data compiled by Otto Lilienthal regarding pressures, were in error. They determined to verify all of the necessary data, such as coefficient of lift and wind pressures, from their own experimentation. Rather than secure this information from building and crashing more glid­ers, they set about to make these determinations more scientifically. They constructed a state-of – the-art wind tunnel and developed instruments to quantify lift and drag. They tested over 80 differ­ent wing configurations in their wind tunnel and, in the process, confirmed that prevailing data on coefficient of lift were wrong. They also were able to identify an optimum shape of wing, one much longer and narrower, for their new machine. Tests

careful and will avoid accident of serious nature if possible. Yesterday I tried three glides from the top of the hill and made 506 ft, 504.4 ft, and 550 ft, respectively in dis­tance passed over. Everything is so much more satisfactory that we now believe that the flying problem is really nearing its solution.

bicycle shop was left unattended for extended periods of time. They hired a machinist in 1901 by the name of Charlie Taylor to mind the store in their absence and to take on bicycle repair work that they would have to miss due to their absence. It was Taylor who built the one-cylinder engine that the Wrights used to drive their wind tunnel for the 1902 Dayton experiments. When the Wrights finally got to the matter of propulsion for the Flyer, they turned to Charlie Taylor.

They calculated that the engine could weigh no more than 180 pounds and that it would take at least 8 horsepower to sustain the Flyer in flight. Taylor came up with a 4-cylinder in-line water cooled engine that weighed 178 pounds and produced 16 horsepower, that is until the valves heated up, and then it put out only 12 horsepower. It had no carburetor, and with a weight to power ratio of 14 to 1, this was not nearly the engine that Charles Manly had built

for Langley, whose ratio was 4 to 1, but it was enough for the Wrights’ purposes in 1903.

The second part of the propulsion problem was the propeller. There were no available data on aircraft propellers, and their research into marine propellers turned out to be a dead end. They approached the problem in the same way as they had approached the wing lift. They just rotated the wing 90 degrees, put a twist in it and they had created a propeller. The efficiency of the propeller designs was tested in the wind tun­nel until the best was found.

There was no guesswork in the 1903 experi­ments. The Wright brothers had brought the scientific method to their task, and the total design had been proven on paper. They also possessed the skills of mechanics and craftsmen to put it all together in the final product and in a workmanlike manner. Free, controlled, and sustained powered flight was at last achieved on December 17, 1903 in their design known as the Flyer I. (See Figures 7-5 and 7-6.) This
craft was damaged after its fourth flight (852 feet in 59 seconds), although it was salvaged and returned to Dayton, Ohio. In 1928, Orville sent it for display to the London Science Museum. Since 1949, it has been on display at the Smith­sonian Institution.

The Wrights continued their research and development at Huffman Prairie, Ohio, begin­ning in 1904. They built a second powered model, the Flyer II (see Figure 7-7), that was virtually identical to the Flyer /, but 320 pounds lighter. They attempted short hops in the Flyer II, but they were having difficulty with the under­powered engine and the lack of the favorable winds enjoyed at Kitty Hawk. In September 1904, they developed a catapult launching sys­tem to get the airplane quickly up to flying speed. This system allowed them to again concentrate on flying and on extending the range of their flights. On May 23, 1904, the Wrights invited newspaper reporters to view their experiments on condition that no photographs be taken. Lack of

wind, a cranky engine, and control problems left the reporters less than impressed, all of which contributed to the belief that the Wrights’ claims were overblown. This failure also reinforced their
penchant for conducting their work in secret. Yet they persevered, and by the end of 1904 they had made 105 successful flights and logged a total of 45 minutes flying time.

In 1905 the Flyer III was launched (see Figure 7-8). After a series of serious mishaps, the Wrights made several significant changes to the Flyer based on their conclusion that longitu­dinal stability was the problem. They increased the area of the elevator to almost two times its former dimension. Believing that the elevator was too close to the wings, they extended it to a point almost twice as far from the leading edge of the wing as previously. When testing resumed, it was immediately apparent that these changes had made the Flyer truly airworthy. This was regarded by the Wrights as their final design, having with it solved all major control problems, and it became generally acknowl­edged to be the world’s first practical airplane. (See Figure 7-9.) On October 5, 1905, the Wrights completed a flight of 24 miles in 38 minutes, landing only when the gas tank on the airplane ran dry. Being highly satisfied with their design, but wondering what practical use
the airplane could be, they lobbied the U. S. government, suggesting that the airplane might be used for military scouting and reconnais­sance. The War Department was not interested, advising the Wrights that the United States had “no requirements” for their invention.

The Wrights had applied for, but still had not secured, a patent in 1905 and they were not willing to make the details of their product pub­lic. After the negative press received in 1904, reporters were not invited to view the machine or its performance and the few articles published about it during this time were generally inaccu­rate. Their sole support came from Octave Cha – nute, who had seen the aircraft, had seen it fly, and who knew the details of its construction. His correspondence with his contacts throughout the world was about the only sustaining force that kept the Wrights’ accomplishments above rank rumor. When visitors began to come to Dayton to view their machine and to interview them, the

Wrights shunned all publicity and even disas­sembled the Flyer and stowed away the parts from view for almost three years. The Flyer did not fly again until 1908 when it was adapted to carry two people.

Rejected at home, the Wrights turned to Europe, where aviation was taking hold. The asking price for the aircraft was $200,000, a very large sum in those days. Although they guaran­teed its performance, they refused to demonstrate it to a prospective purchaser until a price had been negotiated and paid. Not surprisingly, no sales were recorded. At the same time, experi­menters were proceeding with their own indi­vidual designs and making progress, although none had come close to accomplishing what the Wrights had. This fact, in addition to the secrecy that surrounded the Wrights’ 1905 experiments, produced widespread skepticism in the aviation community. Skepticism even took the form of
sarcasm and taunting. Consider the tone of the following article from the very prominent Scien­tific American magazine, entitled “The Wright Aeroplane and Its Fabled Performance.”3

A Parisian automobile paper recently pub­lished a letter from the Wright brothers to Capt. Ferber of the French army, in which statements are made that certainly need some public substantiation from the Wright brothers. In the letter in question it is alleged that on September 26, the Wright motor-driven aeroplane covered a distance of 17.961 kilometers in 18 minutes and 9 seconds, and that its further progress was stopped by lack of gasoline. On September 29 a distance of 19.57 kilometers was cov­ered in 19 minutes and 55 seconds, the gas­oline supply again having been exhausted. On September 30 the machine traveled 16 kilometers in 17 minutes and 15 seconds;

this time a hot bearing prevented further remarkable progress. Then came some eye­opening records. Here they are:

October 3: 25.535 kilometers in 25 minutes and 5 seconds. (Cause of Stoppage, hot bearing.) October 4: 33.456 kilometers in 33 minutes and 17 seconds. (Cause of Stoppage, hot bearing.) October 5: 38.956 kilometers in 33 minutes and 3 seconds. (Cause of Stoppage, exhaus­tion of gasoline supply.)

It seems that these alleged experi­ments were made at Dayton, Ohio, a fairly large town, and that the newspapers of the United States, alert as they are, allowed these sensational performances to escape their notice. When it is considered that Langley never even successfully launched his man-carrying machine, that Langley’s experimental model never flew more than a mile, and that Wright’s mysterious aero­plane covered a reputed distance of 38 kilometers at the rate of one kilometer a minute, we have the right to exact further information before we place reliance on these French reports. Unfortunately, the Wright brothers are hardly disposed to pub­lish any substantiation or to make pub­lic experiment, for reasons best known to themselves. If such sensational and tre­mendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost every­body feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face—even if he has to scale a 15-story sky-scraper to do so—would not have ascertained all about them and pub­lished them for broadcast long ago? Why, particularly, as it is further alleged, should the Wrights desire to sell their invention to the French government for a “million” francs. Surely their own is the first to which they would be likely to apply.

We certainly want more light on the sub­ject.4

On May 22, 1906, the U. S. Patent Office granted Patent No. 821,393 to the Wrights for their design. The patent was broad enough to cover the entire craft, although the main claim in the patent was to the means of control. Diagrams, accompanied by step-by-step explanations of the workings of their three-dimensional means of con­trol, clearly show the originality of their design.

Ultimately, the infant aviation community did not accept that the work of the Wright broth­ers was worthy enough as to command royalties. In Europe, the patent was to be ignored and the Wrights’ lateral control innovations were to be shamefully duplicated, as in the Bleriot mono­planes, for example. In the United States, Glenn Curtiss would begin developing designs of air­planes with a form of aileron control without payment of royalties. But he strenuously main­tained that the incorporation of the “aileron” into the wing was outside of the Wrights’ patent. It was subsequently demonstrated, in fact, that the “warping” of the wing had the long-term physi­cal effect of weakening the structure of the wing. The aileron, of course, has no such effect.

In 1907, though, things began to improve for the secretive Wrights. The War Department that year announced a competition for an air­plane for government use. The specifications tracked those that the Wrights had earlier adver­tised to the government. The Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk, a more isolated venue than Huffman Prairie, re-established their camp, and began testing their modified Flyer, which now had two side-by-side seats mounted in the upright position. This version was known as the Model A.

By 1908, the Wrights were satisfied with their modified design and were ready, not only for the Army competition, but to begin the European marketing of the Flyer. The Wrights decided to divide their efforts. Orville returned to Dayton and prepared a machine for demon­stration. Wilbur journeyed to France to fulfill the terms of a contract that had finally been suc­cessfully negotiated for the sale of the Flyer. The terms of the French contract varied significantly from the bid submitted by Orville to the U. S. War Department.

The bid to the United States government was for one aircraft, for $25,000, deliverable in 200 days with an additional 30 days allowed for flight demonstration. The French contract agreed to deliver four aircraft, for $4,000 each, and to receive a lump sum payment of $100,000 and a 50% interest in the French purchasing company. The French contract also required that the aircraft successfully complete flights of 31 miles each, while carrying a passenger, and that the Wrights teach three students to fly and solo.

Wilbur was to be the subject of extensive ridicule on his arrival in France, where the terms of the contract had been widely publicized, and where it was generally believed that no aircraft was capable of accomplishing the requirements of the contract. As far as the French knew, the successful short flight of M. Santos-Dumont in 1906 outside of Paris not only established him as the first to fly, but also created the “opera­tions envelope” for the “aeroplane” in general (that original flight covered a distance of 200 feet). Wilbur set up operations outside of Paris and resolutely went about preparing to meet his part of the bargain. After flawless demonstra­tions in August 1908, not only of the capabilities of the Model A but also of his piloting skills, the combination of which greatly surpassed anything the French had ever seen, he almost overnight became a national hero. Wilbur then began a series of record-setting accomplishments: [5]

5. November 23, 1908—A new altitude record bringing with it a prize of 2,500 French francs.

6. December 31, 1908—A new duration and distance record (2 hours, 18 minutes) for the Coupe de Michelin Trophy and a prize of

20,0 French francs.

Wilbur became the toast of France, the recipient of medals, commendations, and the honoree of testimonial dinners. He was even given a standing ovation by the French Sen­ate. Flights were conducted throughout Europe for the remainder of 1908 and into 1909 with increasing acclaim from the Europeans. (See Figure 7-10.) Audiences were had with King Alfonso of Spain, King Victor Emmanuel of Italy, and King Edward VII of England. During the demonstrations in Italy, the American indus­trialist J. P. Morgan chanced to see one of the flights and was later instrumental in helping the Wrights secure financial backing from wealthy investors in New York. In England, the Wrights met Charles Rolls of Rolls-Royce renown, who purchased a Wright Flyer for his personal use, the first private airplane purchase in history.

Meanwhile, in September 1908, Orville began the demonstrations for the U. S. government in Ft. Myer, Virginia. (See Figure 7-11.) The demonstrations were attended by Lt. Thomas Selfridge, as a government representative, and he was authorized to accompany Orville as a pas­senger on one of the flights being evaluated by the government. (See Figure 7-12.) As we will see in the next chapter, Selfridge was a member of the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA), which had designed and, for the first time in America, publicly flown an airplane. The Wrights, in fact, regarded the activities of the AEA as an infringe­ment on their patent.

Orville was not pleased that Lt. Selfridge was to be given an up-close look at the Flyer, but the flight proceeded aloft with the two antago­nists aboard. As the aircraft flew at 80 feet, one of the propellers somehow struck a bracing wire,

FIGURE 7-10 Wilbur Wright flying in France—1909.

FIGURE 7-11 Orville Wright at Fort Myer, Virginia—1908.

FIGURE 7-12 Lt. Thomas Selfridge and Orville Wright prior to a take off at Ft. Myer, Virginia—1908.

causing it to snap in two. Orville was unable to control the Flyer, and it dove almost vertically into the ground in front of the horrified specta­tors. Lt. Selfridge was killed, becoming the first fatality due to an airplane accident, and Orville was very seriously injured. The demonstrations were cancelled.

« If you are looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds; but if you really wish to learn, you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial.»

Wilbur Wright, from an address to the Western Society of Engineers in Chicago, 18 September 1901

After his release from the hospital, Orville traveled to France as a part of his recuperation and participated along with Wilbur and their sister Katherine in the victorious tour of Europe. When the Wrights returned to the United States in May 1909, they were welcomed as national heroes. President Taft feted them at the White House and awarded them a Congressional medal.

The War Department had extended the time for completion of flight tests that had begun in 1908 until Orville could recover from his injuries. The tests were resumed on June 29, 1909 with a new model of the former Model A Flyer. This version was called the Military Flyer, weigh­ing 740 pounds and with a Wright 4-cylinder 34 horsepower engine, which offered more speed. On July 12, Orville completed the duration por­tion of the Army requirements by staying aloft for 1 hour and 12 minutes with Army Lt. Frank Lahm aboard the aircraft, exceeding the test parameters. Orville next began the flight to meet the Army speed requirement of 40 miles per hour. He climbed the Flyer to 400 feet and, assum­ing a slight nose-down attitude, streaked past his launching derrick at 42.583 miles per hour. He flew a victory lap around Arlington National Cemetery and landed. The first military aircraft had just been purchased at a cost of $30,000 ($25,000 contract price plus bonus of $5,000 for the extra two miles per hour attained in the test). Wheels were installed on this version in 1910.

The Wright Company was formed in November 1909 as an aircraft production com­pany with the backing of New York financiers, and the brothers continued to improve on the Model A design. The Model В was the first pro­duction airplane with a 75-horsepower Rausen – berger engine, and was the first Wright aircraft to fly without a canard in front. It was also the first to have a single elevator located aft, although it continued to use wing warping for banking con­trol. The military version of the Model В adopted ailerons for the first time for lateral control.

The Wright Company produced a number of different models through 1916, the last year of production, with various design modifications, although Orville Wright sold his interest in the company to a group of financiers in 1915. The Model F was the first Wright airplane to adopt a fuselage, on which the elevator was placed atop the rudder located on the tail of the aircraft. The Model К was the first tractor (forward-facing propellers) airplane produced by the Wright Company, and on the К model wing warping was finally abandoned completely in favor of aileron control.

Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in 1912, and although Orville remained in the avia­tion arena for years, he was never to take another principal role.

« It may be that the invention of the aeroplane flying-machine will be deemed to have been of less mate­rial value to the world than the dis­covery of Bessemer and open-hearth steel, or the perfection of the tele­graph, or the introduction of new and more scientific methods in the man­agement of our great industrial works.

To us, however, the conquest of the air, to use a hackneyed phrase, is a technical triumph so dramatic and so amazing that it overshadows in importance every feat that the inven­tor has accomplished. If we are apt to lose our sense of proportion, it is not only because it was but yesterday that we learned the secret of the bird, but also because we have dreamed of flying long before we succeeded in ploughing the water in a dugout canoe. From Icarus to the Wright Brothers is a far cry.??

Waldemar Kaempffert, The New Art of Flying, 1910

Endnotes

1. Kelly, Fred. The Wright Brothers: A Biography authorized by Orville Wright (New York, Ballantine Books, 1956).

2. Charles Manly had been working on the Balzer engine since 1900 and, by the first part of 1902, had success­fully upgraded the Balzer motor from a heavy 12 horse­power engine to a marvel of 51 horsepower weighing only 207 pounds. It had a weight to power ratio of 4 to 1.

3. January 13, 1905, Vol. XCIV, No. 2, page 40.

4. See Appendix 2, an address by A. G. Bell on the presenta­tion of the Langley Medal to Gustave Eiffel in 1913. In this speech Dr. Bell provides a then contemporary explanation of the confusion and general lack of awareness that the public and the scientific community labored under regard­ing innovations of flight.

It was generally believed that no air-cooled type of engine could ever supplant the exceed­ingly efficient water-cooled engines that had been developed both in the automotive and air­craft industries. The ability to operate large dis­placement engines at high crankshaft speeds was central to this efficiency, and air-cooled engines could not match those crankshaft speeds. Cooling was a big problem. It was also believed that the excessive “head resistance” of radial engines would not compete with in-line water – cooled engines, generating excessive drag. Yet, if they could be made to work, air-cooled engines offered many advantages over liquid-cooled engines, with their associated requirements of plumbing, radiators, and attendant weight. Hardly anyone believed that the radial would work, except Fred Rentschler, and perhaps Charles Lawrance. The Curtiss Aeronautical and Packard factories were firmly committed to liquid-cooled engines.

Lawrance Aero Engine Company was experimenting with a small, З-cylinder French radial in Lawrance’s New York City loft, but it was underfunded and disorganized and it was not making much headway. Lawrance and his backers approached Wright Aeronautical for talks, and Rentschler was assigned to confer with them. The Lawrance group said that the Navy was interested in the air-cooled engine and would contract for a properly developed radial that could be produced in sufficient numbers. This was soon confirmed by the head of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Admiral Moffet, who asked Rentschler to come down to Washington to talk about the Lawrance situation. As a result of this discussion, Wright Aeronautical took over the Lawrance operation and moved it to New Jersey in 1923.

The engine at the time was known as the J-l radial, but the Lawrance group lacked the funds and technical expertise to bring its power up to military standards. Within several months, the Wright engineers had redesigned the engine into a workable product, and they continued to improve the design, reliability, cooling, and fuel consumption. The engine design would ultimately be known as the “Whirlwind,” a 200-horsepower, 790-inch displacement radial designated the J-5 or R-790, and it was introduced in 1925. The Navy bought it and used it, mostly in trainers. It made an unheard-of endurance flight of over 50 hours in April 1927 and it was selected by Charles Lind­bergh for his transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in May 1927.

But Rentschler would not be there at the end. In the summer of 1924 it became appar­ent that the board of directors of Wright

Aeronautical, which was composed of invest­ment bankers who had no appreciation for what Rentschler was trying to accomplish, was going to make the arduous effort of creating a competi­tive radial engine very difficult, if not impossible.

The Whirlwind was a fine machine, but Rentschler was convinced that the radial engine concept could be much more powerful and much more efficient, and that it could compete with the 400- and 500-horsepower liquid-cooled engines on which the military relied. But development would take more time and much more money, and the Wright board of directors was not inter­ested in such costly projects.

Rentschler had decided to leave the com­pany. He was discouraged and he had taken ill. He resigned and was determined to give it all up. But on recovering his health at the beginning of 1925, he set out to find a way to continue his quest in radial aviation engines. Although he had little money, he did have hometown contacts, and his brother, Gordon, was a vice-president of National City Bank of New York. Gordon had also been recently elected to the board of direc­tors of Niles-Bement-Pond, a Hamilton company well known to both Gordon and Fred. Colonel Deeds was also on the Niles Board, and Niles owned Pratt & Whitney Tool Company. Pratt & Whitney was sitting on piles of cash from World War I operations.

Rentschler went down to Washington for a confidential talk with Admiral Moffet, and to seek some insight as to how the Navy might view his move from Wright Aeronautical. The discussions went extremely well; the admiral told him that the Navy would be “overwhelm­ingly” interested if such a powerful radial could be produced.[8]

Rentschler’s next stop was an all-day appointment with the president of Niles-Bement – Pond in New York City, James K. Cullen, who was a close friend of Rentschler’s father in Hamilton. Rentschler told Cullen that he estimated he would need $500,000 through the design, con­struction, preliminary tests, and proof of the new

engine. If the engine proved reliable, he would need up to another one million dollars before any return could be expected. Cullen didn’t blink; instead he said he would provide the money from “surplus funds.” It got better. Cullen said there was empty space at the Pratt & Whitney plant in East Hartford and that Rentschler could have it for his use—he could also use the P&W name!

Contract arrangements were completed on July 14, 1925, with Rentschler taking 50 percent of the stock of the new company, which was to be called Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company, and Pratt & Whitney Tool Company taking the other 50 percent. The core engineering group from Wright Aeronautical, George Mead, Don Brown, and Andrew Willagoos, committed to joining him. They roughed out the general char­acteristics of the proposed new engine, including displacement, power range, and a weight limita­tion. They included innovations never before used, either in the United States or in Europe.

Wasting no time, the group set up shop and went to work in the Willagoos garage in Mont­clair, New Jersey, while the move to Hartford was arranged. The goal was understood by all: an air-cooled radial in the 400-horsepower class. By August the plant was operating in Hartford, and by Christmas Day 1925, the new engine had been completely designed, machined, and assem­bled. Within a few hours on the test stand, power readings showed well above 400 horsepower. It weighed 650 pounds. It was proving to be a thoroughbred.

Navy personnel were swept off their feet. By October 1926, the Navy sent a contract for 200 of the engines and Pratt and Whitney Aircraft was on its way. Due to the sound it made, the group decided on “Bees” as a general designa­tion for the P&W engine types. Rentschler’s wife suggested that the first engine type be called the “Wasp.” And so it was.

There was still the question of “head resis­tance”; Packard and Curtiss maintained that the radial could never match their engines in speed, even though their engines were heavier. Rentschler believed that, if properly cowled, the radial could be cooled at high speed. Nine out of ten “experts” disagreed. In side-by-side tests, however, the Wasp held a slight edge in speed over the Curtiss D-12, and the Wasp out climbed and turned inside its competitor. The installed weight differential between the Wasp and the Liberty was 1,000 pounds, and between the Wasp and the D-12, 650 to 700 pounds. These figures translated into useful load for a Wasp-driven airplane.

The P&W engineers continued to design and test, and soon they had developed the 500-horsepower “Hornet,” which the Navy liked as well. By 1927, when the first large aircraft carriers, the Lexington and the Saratoga, were launched, all 160 airplanes on deck had either Wasp or Hornet engines. It took the Army two years to come around to the Wasp and Hornet for their fighters. For the rest of the decade, P&W engines set the standard. By 1929, 2,500 Wasps had been delivered, and the engine was to remain in production until 1960. When the last Wasp was turned out, the production run numbered 34,966.

But the company was soon in for some com­petition. After the departure of Rentschler and his engineers from Wright Aeronautical, the company regrouped. By 1929, Wright Aeronautical had perfected the 575-horsepower air-cooled Cyclone that was to see extensive use in the coming years in both civilian and military aircraft, installed in the DC-3 and B-17. Wright Aeronautical, ironi­cally because of the long-standing enmity between the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss, merged with Curtiss Aircraft on July 5, 1929 and operates under the name Curtiss-Wright to this day.

The development of the heavy radial engine in 1925 and 1926 transformed the aviation industry, leading to the privatization of airmail, the build­ing of larger aircraft, the creation of the first safe passenger airlines, and creating a rehable, lighter – weight engine. It would lead to the first transcon­tinental airline, composed of Boeing and P&W, and to the merging of P&W with Chance Vought Aircraft, Hamilton Standard, and Sikorsky. We will get more into those details in the next chapters.

Because of these developments, the role of government was just beginning to define itself in the new world of commercial aviation. [9] 1

Regulation

Chapter 12 The Privatization of Airmail

Chapter 13 The Founding of the Airlines

Chapter 14 New Deal—The

Roosevelt Administration

Eastern Air Lines emerged in 1934 as the surviv­ing entity following Black-McKellar. The pre­decessor company, Eastern Air Transport, was owned by the holding company, North American Aviation, which in turn was controlled by Gen­eral Motors as of 1933. Eddie Rickenbacker (see Figure 15-1), World War I hero and fighter ace, was hired by General Motors as a consultant and then was made general manager of Eastern Air

Transport in 1934. Eastern Air Transport was successor to the original line, Pitcairn Aviation, and it later absorbed the Luddington Line and New York Airways before becoming Eastern Air Lines. When General Motors tired of the airline business in 1938, Rickenbacker purchased the company and steadily increased its business and its mileage.

In 1937, Eastern Air Lines had routes from New York to Miami and to Atlanta and points south and west, New Orleans, Houston, and San Antonio, all through Washington, D. C. It also flew the Chicago to Miami route through India­napolis, Nashville, and Atlanta.

TWA

TWA was the designation taken by the airline combined at the behest of Walter Folger Brown. A combination of the former Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) and Western Air Express, it flew the middle transcontinental route from New York to Los Angeles under the name Transcontinental and Western Air. After Black-McKellar, the air­line simply added “Inc.” after its name in order to comply with the prohibition of Postmaster Gen­eral Farley that precluded those airlines which had participated in the Brown meetings from bid­ding on the new airmail contracts in 1934.

TWA had been a part of North American Aviation in the early 1930s, and General Motors controlled the holding company. After Brown – McKellar, General Motors sold its interests to John D. Hertz and Lehman Brothers, who then had effective control of TWA.

Jack Frye, at the age of 26, was TWA’s operational vice president in 1930. He had founded Standard Air Lines in the 1920s, after stints at flight instructing and stunt flying, and went with the company when it was purchased by Western Air Express. With the merger of Western and TAT, he suddenly found himself in charge of operations of a transcontinental airline. TWA, and most other airlines, relied heavily on the trimotors in the early 1930s. With the 1931 crash of the Fokker Trimotor in which Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne was killed, government-mandated inspections of that plane’s wooden wing structure became cost-prohibitive, not to mention the fact that the flying public thereafter was not keen on stepping aboard that airplane. Frye needed new equipment.

In 1932, Frye had heard the buzz in the avia­tion community of a new prototype in the works at Boeing, the model 247. (See Figure 15-2.) This airplane was to be a giant leap forward with its low mono-wing, and two engines instead of three that were mounted into the wings in nacelles (taking

advantage of NACA research) that greatly reduced drag. The 247 used stressed all-metal skin, retract­able landing gear (a first), insulated cabin walls, hot water heating, and double ventilation systems. This airplane would fly from one coast to the other in only 19’/2 hours, 12 hours less than with the trimotors. Fueling stops were reduced from 14 to 6. Frye decided that TWA had to have these airplanes.

When he inquired, he was advised that United Airlines (the sister company to the Boe­ing manufacturing arm) had already placed an order for 60 of the new planes, an order that it would take all of two years to fill, thus pre­cluding any deliveries to other airlines. The 247 became operational in June 1933.

In the fall of 1932, Frye wrote to a number of aircraft manufacturers setting out airplane perfor­mance specifications for new equipment that TWA would be interested in purchasing. Although the specifications included that the airplane have three engines, the engineers at a small company located in California, known as Douglas Aircraft, believed that the performance specifications could be met with a twin engine design, including the require­ment for a 10,000 foot minimum service ceiling on one engine (necessary to clear the Rockies).

A prototype was fielded in July 1933, the DC-1 (see Figure 15-3), the designation for the Douglas Commercial Number 1. If this had been poker, the DC-1 would have called the В-247 and raised it. The DC-1 engine mountings and cowling were similar to the 247, incorporating the design developed by NACA, but the land­ing gear of the DC-1 folded up into the engine nacelles. The engines, Wright Cyclones, had been engineered to produce 710 horsepower due to 87-octane gasoline having become commer­cially available during the period of the plane’s construction. Although the constant speed propel­ler was still a few years off, the DC-1 did have a 2-speed propeller that could be set either for takeoff or for cruise (a first). Additional firsts included an automatic pilot and efficient wing flaps. Flight tests showed that Frye’s perfor­mance specifications had been met. Only one DC-1 was built and that one was purchased by TWA. It was placed in limited service in 1933.

When Postmaster General Farley sent his notice dated February 9, 1934, canceling all air­mail contracts effective February 19, 1934, Frye decided to make his own statement. With Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern Air Transport as co-pilot, on February 18, 1934, Frye took off from Los

Angeles in the DC-1 loaded with airmail and flew it to Newark, with fueling stops in Kansas City and Columbus, in 13 hours and 4 minutes, setting the transcontinental speed record at the time.

The DC-2, with 14 seats, was brought to production in 1934, and 193 were built. The next year, in 1935, Douglas came out with the DC-3 (see Figure 15-4) (21 seats) with 900-horsepower

Wright Cyclones (DC-ЗА with 1,200-horsepower P&W engines), and Douglas would, before it was all over, build 455 of them for commercial use and 10,174 for the military. By 1936, the DC-3 had reduced the transcontinental flying time to about 17 hours. The airplane was awarded the Collier Trophy in 1936 and became known as “the plane that changed the world.” And, indeed, it was used all over the world—in World War II in Burma, this airplane, which at normal configu­ration seated 21 passengers, set a load record of 72 refugees safely delivered, and 6 more stow­aways were discovered on landing.

By late 1938, pressurized airplanes were on the drawing boards. Boeing designed a com­mercial transport, the 307 (see Figure 15-5), I scheduled for delivery in 1939. It was based on < the basic B-17 design with four 900-horsepower I Wright R-1820 Cyclone engines. This airplane

СГ)

% had a service ceiling of 26,200 feet and was I the first commercial liner pressurized for high – | altitude flight. The airplane came to be known as I the “Stratoliner.” Jack Frye decided that TWA had to have them too, so he placed an order

with Boeing for five of the new planes. But his board of directors, chaired by John D. Hertz of Lehman Brothers, did not agree. In December 1938, TWA’s board voted to cancel Frye’s order to Boeing for the B-307.

Jack Frye knew that this dispute represented an essential disagreement concerning his and the board’s vision for the future of TWA. He also knew that this disagreement would likely mean his being removed if control of the company remained in the hands of the present directors. Jack Frye was acquainted with Howard Hughes (see Figure 15-6), the eccentric multimillionaire and aviation pioneer in his own right, who was then living in Los Angeles and involved in the movie-making business. Hughes had an abid­ing interest in aviation and had even worked for American Airlines, under an assumed name, as a co-pilot in 1932, flying between Los Angeles and Chicago. He listened to Frye, sided with his logic in the B-307 dispute with the board of directors, and agreed to buy the company. He began secretly buying up TWA stock. By April, it was public knowledge that Hughes was becoming a substantial stockholder in the airline, so much so that the significant interests repre­sented by Lehman and Hertz decided to pull out of the company, the second time Lehman had

departed the field. Control was effectively passed to Howard Hughes, the Boeing order for the 307 was reinstated, and the future of TWA remained firmly in the grip of Jack Frye, now with Howard Hughes. On July 8, 1940, the 307 was placed into service on the New York to Los Angeles route, reducing the transcontinental flying time to 14l/2 hours.

Hughes was a singular individual and unique in all known respects. He was born wealthy, son of the founder of the Hughes Tool Company of Houston, Texas. As soon as he could, he left Houston, began traveling the world, and wound up in Hollywood. He entered the film business and, in the process of directing his first film, Hell’s Angels, a story of British pilots in World War I, he became fascinated with aviation and learned to fly.

Even as a young man, Hughes was obses­sive, wanting to be the best, to know the most, and never to fail. With absolutely no concerns about money, he began the design and build­ing of an airplane racer, the H-1, with which he would set a world’s speed record of 352 miles per hour in 1935. He set a transcontinental speed record of 7 hours and 27 minutes with the H-l in January 1936. He flew practically every com­mercial airplane in production over the next sev­eral years, gaining experience in long-distance navigation and planning, as well as execution at the controls, until he launched his most ambitious attempt yet: a round the world flight in the Lock­heed Electra.

The record in 1938 stood from Wiley Post’s solo circumnavigation in 1933 at 7 days and 18 hours. Hughes’ route took him from New York to Paris in less than half the time it took Lind­bergh, then across Europe into Russia and Siberia to Alaska. From Fairbanks he refueled in Min­neapolis and returned to Floyd Bennett Field in New York triumphant in three and a half days, halving Post’s record.

Hughes had some prior acquaintance with TWA; in fact, one of its vice presidents had been a stunt pilot for Hughes’ movie, Hell’s

Angels. Hughes was also more pilot than busi­nessman. As Jack Frye would later remark, “One thing about Hughes, he did have an understand­ing about the airplane.” He fully understood the advantage of having an airplane that could top most of the weather, so he agreed with Frye’s position on the Boeing 307.

The U. S. aircraft industry took its cue from its potential customers. The industry was obviously not interested in designing and building airplanes unless and until a market existed for them. The concept of the turboprop (the turbine jet engine used to drive a propeller) was considered the likely next commercially successful form of pro­pulsion, and research and development efforts were stepped up both in military and commercial circles, particularly at Lockheed.

There was one other possibility. Boeing’s reputation as a builder of military aircraft, mainly bombers and tankers, was unequalled. But Doug­las and Lockheed were far ahead of Boeing in the commercial transport field. Boeing had taken a back seat to Douglas and Lockheed in every commercial airliner contest thus far—the B-247 ran second to the DC-3, the B-307 lost out to the Connie and to WWII, and the B-377 could not compete with the DC-7 and the Super Constel­lation. Boeing had built the C-97 piston engine tanker for the Air Force, but it was not adequate for fueling the new jet bombers, the B-47 and the B-52. The Air Force, Boeing reckoned, would be in the market for a new jet tanker.

Boeing decided to take the gamble. On April 22, 1952, Boeing’s board of direc­tors authorized the expenditure of one-fourth of the company’s total net worth, $15 million, to develop a prototype. Neither the airlines nor the military had actually expressed an interest in purchasing such an airplane, nor had any appro­priation been secured in Congress for replacing the C-97. Boeing officially designated the project the model 367-80, and it was known internally at Boeing as the “dash 80” thereafter. But the des­ignation that the world would come to know was the “707.”

Boeing had the largest and the only state – of-the-art wind tunnel for testing aircraft shapes. The development of this wind tunnel, in fact, had been responsible for the adoption of the swept-wing design first incorporated in the B-47. (See Figure 19-5.) The 707 design was adapted through wind tunnel testing for over 4,000 hours. Redundant systems, overlapping structural com­ponents, multiple strength round windows, plug

type doors for better pressurization seals, and spot welds set the standard for the jet aircraft production industry to come. The exterior shell of the 707 was engineered before the Comet disasters. Boeing decided that the skin of the aircraft would be aluminum, of a thickness that turned out to be 4’/2 times as thick as the Comet’s (the Comet’s exterior shell was so designed in order to save weight). Boeing also incorporated a new alloy, known as titanium, that was as light as aluminum but stronger than steel, to bolster the strength and fatigue resistance of the 707’s skin. Then the engineers put the design through 50,000 pressurization cycles with no evidence of metal fatigue.

Tests revealed that the positioning of the aircraft’s engines on pylons slung underneath the wings provided the best lift efficiency and had the added benefit of allowing easy access to the engines for maintenance. The wings were also designed to carry 17,000 gallons of fuel, thus allowing for nonstop transcontinental range.

In 1952, Douglas was investigating the feasibility of jet-powered airliners but only went so far as to construct a full-scale wooden mockup of what was to become the DC-8. The problem in the industry, with both manufacturers and carriers, was one of confidence. None of the industry lead­ers could seem to project a solution to the financial impact of the cost of construction of the high­flying jet airliner and its cost of operation, par­ticularly from the fuel standpoint. The J-57 was still not available. Projections of cost per aircraft approximated $4 million, contrasted to the $1.5 million price tag of the DC-7. Aviation industry leaders were not convinced that jets were commer­cially viable. C. R. Smith of American Airlines was of the opinion that in order to justify going to jetliners, the cost of operating them should be no higher than the cost of operating the DC-6. Of course, no one knew what the costs of operation of a jet fleet would be. Fuel consumption could be projected, but some costs, such as parts, mainte­nance, and engine life (time between overhaul, or TBO) would have to await experience. Among the Americans, only Juan Trippe dissented.

Trippe had been interested in the De Havilland Comet when it first came out, and had placed orders for three of the airplanes sub­ject to their specifications meeting the United States Civil Aeronautics Administration require­ments. There was, in fact, some concern that the CAA would not grant the Comet an airwor­thiness type certificate based on CAA reser­vations (prophetic, as it turned out) about the square corners of the windows in the aircraft. The CAA had recommended oval windows but De Havilland appeared to be satisfied with its design, citing design safety tolerances much in excess of expected stresses. Subsequent events would tragically vindicate the CAA’s position but, without U. S. approval, Trippe was left in the age of piston aircraft. By the time the problems with the Comet had been rectified in the rede­sign of the Comet 4, in 1958, the 707 was light years ahead of the old Comet design. The Comet, for instance, had seating for 67 while the 707’s capacity was 130.

Boeing’s gamble paid off when, in March 1955, it received its first order for the 707, not as the anticipated passenger airliner, but as the first jet tanker ordered by the Air Force. The first 707 was rolled out of its hangar at Renton, Wash­ington, in May 1955, and completed its maiden flight on July 15, 1955. The 707 prototype would undergo flight testing for the next three years before being placed in commercial airline ser­vice. The largest aircraft then in commercial service was the Boeing Stratocruiser and the 707 was 15 times more powerful, twice as fast, and almost twice as big. Douglas, now convinced of the feasibility of building civilian jet aircraft, announced that it would complete its design and begin production of the DC-8.

Pan American, alone among the American carriers, seemed interested in jets, despite their projected economic indicators. Trippe had seen how the public had abandoned piston-powered airplanes in droves for the Comet, and it was his purpose to be the first to supply the high-fly­ing, vibration-free, 500-mile-per-hour airplane of the future to America. Just as he had been among the first to abandon the wood and wire airplane and put the Fokker Trimotor all-metal cantilevered monoplane in service in 1928 (Key West to Havana), the first to inaugurate extended over-water service in the great Clipper amphibians, the first to offer his airline passen­gers hotel accommodations in his own hotels at their destinations, and among the first to switch to pressurized aircraft, he was now the first to order the first U. S.-produced commercial jet airliner. He did so against the prevailing indus­try tide in October 1955 with the announcement that he had ordered 20 Boeing 707s and, to the great delight of Douglas who did not actually have a real airplane in existence, twenty-five Douglas DC-8s. At a total capital outlay of $269 million, Pan American had committed to the largest airplane acquisition in the history of the industry.

The 707 and the DC-8 were so similar in appearance that it was hard to distinguish between them. But there were real differences to the potential customers, the airlines. First was cabin width, then length, then seating capacity, then the engines. The airlines seemed to prefer the DC-8 design. Before very long, Douglas had twice the orders for DC-8s than Boeing did for 707s. Boeing began making modifications, first to widen the fuselage to a dimension one inch wider than the DC-8, then to increase its length, wingspan, and range. Soon, it had another ver­sion of the original 707, and this time the airlines liked it. In 1955, Douglas outsold Boeing, only to be put in second place at the end of 1956. The airlines were now getting caught up in the idea of the jet age, and orders began to pour in. United States airlines bought, but so did foreign airlines. Eastern, Delta, KLM, SAS, Japan Air Lines, and Swissair all bought Douglas. American, Conti­nental, Western, TWA, Air France, Sabena, and Lufthansa went with Boeing. Boeing had finally broken the old jinx of second best. All told, Boe­ing would win the numbers competition against Douglas by almost 2 to 1. The most satisfying event, though, might have been the selection by the president of the United States of the Boeing 707 as the first jet Air Force One, in 1959.

Lockheed declined to enter the competition, concentrating on the turboprop as its best guess of where the future of commercial aviation lay. Lockheed’s contribution was to be the Electra, which in 1957 became the first propjet put in service by U. S. airlines. Only 169 planes were produced, some for the Navy, designated as the P-З. Convair submitted its 880 in 1959 but was unable to compete with the Boeing and Douglas jetliners, losing some $270 million for its efforts.

On October 26, 1958, Pan American became the first American air carrier to inaugurate sched­uled jet service with the 707 on its New York to Paris flight. National Airlines was next on December 10, 1958, with a 707 leased from Pan Am that was put on the New York-Miami run to mark the first domestic jet service. Eastern was flying the same route with Lockheed Electras, and immediately began losing out to National. American followed domestically by putting the 707 to work on the transcontinental route, then TWA. United was out of action awaiting the delivery of the first DC-8s, still in the production phase. Eastern could not seem to accept that the jet age had really arrived, and was woefully late in acquiring its first jets, much to its economic disadvantage against its competitors.

On any competitive route in the late 1950s, jets trounced the piston airplanes. The flying public loved jets, and this translated into filled passenger seats. The load factor went up dra­matically on jet routes, and their capacity was almost twice that of the DC-7. The airlines were surprised to find that the reliability of the new jet engines greatly reduced failure concerns which had become commonplace with the great turbo­compound piston engines, and that replacement parts and maintenance costs were much lower than expected. Time Between Overhaul (TBO) was a federally mandated life expectancy of the piston engine used in commercial service in the late 1950s, and it was about 800 hours. The FAA found that jet engines could greatly exceed this limit, and gradually raised the TBO for jets to

4,0 hours. This artificial limit was ultimately discarded entirely in favor of a progressive main­tenance schedule designed around the few critical components of the jet engine.

Passenger-mile costs proved to be about the same as on the DC-7. Although fuel consumption in the 707 was much higher than the DC-7, the actual passenger miles per gallon for the 707 was 42 compared to the 59 passenger miles per gallon for the DC-7. The lower cost for jet fuel (kero­sene) compared to high-octane gasoline off-set this slight difference. The economics of commer­cial jet travel were working out after all, and the flying public embraced the jet age.

The historic mission of the FAA has been to not only administer the requirements of safety in the aviation community, but also to “promote”

aviation in the overall national transportation scheme. The FAA has come under criticism from time to time that this dual role really amounts to a conflict of interest in promoting the airlines, on the one hand, and enforcing its regulations applicable to them, on the other hand. The issue resurfaced in the high visibility aftermath of the Valuejet crash in the Florida Everglades in 1996. The FAA had determined that the discount carrier was not in significant violation of the FARs, that FAA oversight and inspection of the airline had been standard, and reported its conclusion that the airline was “safe.” Within six weeks, the FAA had shut down the company based on additional findings of serious violations of regulations relating to the transportation of hazardous materials, which led to the conclusion that such violations were the direct cause of the catastrophic crash, with the loss of all lives on board.

In 1996, Congress revised the FAA’s mis­sion in the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act, removing the “dual mandate” by repealing the duty of the administrator to “promote civil aeronautics.” Instead, Congress directed the FAA to consider as its highest priority the “maintain­ing and enhancing of safety and security of air commerce.”

Chapter 8 Glenn Curtiss

Chapter 9 World War I, NACA,

and the End of the Wright Patent Litigation

Chapter 10 Airmail Story

Chapter 11 Horsepower

lenn Curtiss’ efforts were to overlap the Wrights’ and, as has been said, he was to take off where they left off. He began as a young man excelling in bicycle racing in 1896, becoming champion for western New York State. In 1900 he started his own bicycle shop in Hammonds – port, N. Y., where he built a version he called the Hercules. He took to installing on these bikes a 1-cylinder gasoline engine kit, which he bought and assembled. Due to its poor construction, he began to modify this engine and before long he had designed and produced a motorbike with his own 2-cylinder air-cooled engine design that was handily defeating all competing models. In 1902 he formed the G. H. Curtiss Manufacturing Com­pany, where he produced the Hercules motor­cycle, a favorite all over the United States due to the excellence of its engine (see Figure 8-1). He set an unofficial speed record of 64 miles per hour in 1903 at Yonkers, N. Y. with the Hercules and a world official speed record of 136.27 miles per hour at Ormond Beach, FL four years later atop his V8, 268-cubic inch, 40-horsepower model.

elivery of mail was a feature of colonial America, although a haphazard and irregu­lar practice, and was mainly a function of private enterprise. Mail was often left and picked up at taverns and inns. Benjamin Franklin served as Philadelphia’s postmaster beginning in 1737, and was appointed the deputy postmaster general for the American colonies in 1753. He brought order to the system by mapping routes between sta­tions, establishing post roads and mileposts, and inaugurated the use of stagecoaches to deliver mail under contract. He was appointed postmas­ter general by the Continental Congress in 1775 and the practices he had put in place continued.

The Constitution of the United States spe­cifically authorizes Congress to establish post offices and post roads. When California was admitted to the Union in 1850 and the discov­ery of gold (a main source of wealth for the United States at the time) made rapid commu­nication essential between the seat of govern­ment and commercial centers in the east and the new, developing west coast, the government con­tracted with the privately owned “Pony Express” to deliver the mail. The Pony Express short­ened mail delivery over the 2,000-mile route to about 10 days. Expedited communication has, from time immemorial, been a highly valued
quality of civilization and a legitimate, necessary governmental function.

Congressional legislation in the 19th century made railroads officially “post roads.” The Post Office Department contracted with the railroads to deliver intercity and transcontinental mail, which was the mainstay of national mail deliv­ery until well into the 20th century. In the late 19th century, passenger trains included “postal cars,” where mail was sorted en route by postal employees.

The government “airmail” experiment that was begun in 1918 was a government operation because there was no reliable private sector to perform that mission. Contrary to the practice in other countries, passenger and cargo transporta­tion has not been a government function in the United States. Even when the railroads were nationalized between 1917 and 1920 due to the requirements of transportation control in World War I, they were returned to private operation as soon as practicable. Although the government dalliance with airmail delivery was a successful experiment to advance a legitimate government function, it also hastened the building of an avia­tion infrastructure of lighted airways and landing fields that could inure to the benefit of a private aviation transportation system. As late as 1925,

however, it was hard to find much evidence of an emerging privately operated transportation system.

From the Wright’s first flight in 1903 to the middle of the 1920s, there had been only two known attempts to start a scheduled passenger flying service, or airline, in the United States. The first was the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line inaugurated on January 1, 1914 to serve the

18- mile over water route between the two Florida cities with a 26-foot Benoist XIV flying boat. (See Figures 12-1 and 12-2.) Although the little air service carried 1,200 passengers over the twenty – three minute route during the next several months, at a fare of $5.00 each, business sagged with the departure of the northern tourists and their money in the spring, and the company folded.

The other one was a short-lived idea of a Manhattan Cadillac dealer by the name of Inglis M. Uppercu. Uppercu ran an aerial sightseeing service in New York that he had started as an offshoot of having manufactured seaplanes (see Figure 12-3, Aeromarine Corp) for the Navy during World War I. In 1920, he bought out a small Key West to Havana mail line and began to supplement the cargo with passengers. Prohibi­tion (which outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages) went into effect in the

United States beginning in 1920 as a result of the 18th Amendment, and Uppercu correctly figured that Cuba and the Bahamas, with their plentiful rum and sunshine, would make a fetching desti­nation for thirsty and cold Americans.

He formed Aeromarine West Indies Air­ways and during his first year carried 6,814 passengers in seven flying boats, flying 95,000 miles. He noted that people who seemed to be terrified of flying at altitude over land appeared to have no fear of flying a few feet above water in a flying boat. The airline published sched­ules and met them. During its second year, the fleet was expanded to 15 aircraft, which car­ried 9,107 passengers on 2,000 flights. After two widely publicized accidents, resulting in the deaths of several passengers, and receiv­ing exceedingly bad press that emphasized the complete absence of any kind of government mandated safeguards for the flying public, the bloom was off the rose. Uppercu shut down his airline in 1923.

Henry Ford, who by the middle of the 1920s was quite successful as the manufacturer of auto­mobiles, saw that he had a legitimate busi­ness use for airplanes in the middle 1920s. Ford Motor Company had automobile plants in various locales, including Detroit, Cleveland,

Chicago, and Dearborn, and it was necessary to carry parts and machinery between them on a regular basis. Ford became acquainted with William E. Stout, an idea-man and former air­plane designer, who had a passion to build an all-metal airplane. The craft would be built of duralumin, not quite as light as aluminum but twice as strong. Ford decided to back Stout who did, in fact, produce a single engine high wing monoplane constructed almost completely of metal, all as advertised. Its corrugated metal sides and thick wings looked remarkably like those produced in Germany by the Junkers Company,

but no one said anything. It was powered by the Liberty water-cooled engine, carried eight pas­sengers and was dubbed Maiden Detroit.

Ford not only bought the plane, he bought the plant as well. He started Ford Air Transport and began a regular service between his plants. He then set Stout on a course to develop a bigger all metal airplane, one that would go down in his­tory as the Ford Trimotor.

In 1924, Stout’s efforts resulted in the tri­motor Ford 3-AT, a bulbous-nosed monstros­ity configured with the pilot seated in an open cockpit above the high-winged fuselage. The
design was so horrendous that Ford retired Stout and turned the design function over to his team of engineers, which included William McDonnell. McDonnell’s name was destined to lead the merged McDonnell Douglas Corpo­ration in 1967.

The story goes that progress on convert­ing the mongrel 3-AT to a more aesthetically pleasing and efficient design was slow, until one day in 1926 when a Fokker F-7 Trimotor monoplane showed up in Dearborn, under the command of Admiral Richard E. Byrd. The airplane was gratuitously hangared for the night at Ford’s field, and it is said that Ford’s design team with tape measure in hand did not get much sleep that night. In due course, the Ford 4-AT Trimotor emerged from the Ford team’s plans and sketches, bearing a striking likeness to the Fokker F-7. The Ford Trimotor, affec­tionately dubbed the “Tin Goose,” sported the same heavy cantilevered wing without wire bracing as did the F-7, and its dimensions and engine mountings were similar. The airplane conveyed a sense of sturdiness and stability to the 14 passengers it could carry at 100 miles per hour over a distance of 250 miles. Refinements in this basic design were continued into the 1930s, with 199 Trimotors ultimately produced.

In spite of the individual efforts of a number of adventurers and various businessmen, in 1925 there was no momentum to be found in the world of commercial aviation. Progress was measured in fits and starts, like the two defunct airlines mentioned above, and popular confidence was justifiably lacking due to the unreliability of the engines and aircraft of the time. Passenger air traffic was basically unknown. We saw in Chapter 11 how things were about to change for the better in the quality and reliability of aircraft engines, and progress was also being made in airframe design and construction, yet aviation wandered aimlessly over the countryside. That is, except for the airmail. What the private sector needed was a reason to fly.