Category SUPERPLANES John Gabriel Navarra

Modern bomber aircraft are streamlined giants. They are equipped with the best jet engines, which produce speeds that compare favorably with fighter aircraft. Bombers nor­mally have extensive ranges. And when a bomber is equipped for aerial refueling, it has a virtually unlimited range.

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is the last of the so – called “conventional bombers/’ The first B-52 was flown in April 1952. The last Stratofortress came off the production line in 1962.

The B-52 was designed as a nuclear bomber. Its belly is divided into two separate bomb bays to carry two nuclear weapons. As many as twelve Short Range Attack Missiles (SRAM) can be carried externally under the wings.

The last of the B-52S built has a wingspan of 185 feet. From nose to tail, the plane is 160 feet long. The B-52 is

powered by eight jet engines that push it through the air at 650 miles per hour. Its unrefueled range is more than

6,0 miles, and the plane normally flies above 50,000 feet.

The Stratof or tress carries a crew of six. There are two pilots, a navigator, a radar bombardier, an electronic coun­termeasures officer, and a fire-control director who sits in the forward section of the aircraft. The tail guns are trained through the use of radar that is mounted in the tail.

A Convair B-58 Hustler is shown above in the process of completing an aerial refueling. The B-58 is a Mach 2 bomber that was first flown on November 11, 1956. The Hustler was the first supersonic bomber in the world.

The B-58 with an overall length of 97 feet is much shorter than the B-52. The B-58S delta wing spans almost 57 feet. The delta-wing design of the B-58 requires that all takeoffs and landings be made at high speeds. The takeoff speed of a B-58 is often above 230 miles per hour. Its landing speed is as high as 190 miles per hour.

The B-58 shown above carries a three-man crew consist­ing of the aircraft commander, bombardier navigator, and the defense-systems operator. The entire wing and most of the fuselage behind the cockpit are used to store more than fifty tons of fuel. The weapons payload—18,000 pounds of bombs—is carried beneath the aircraft in a long pod. The pod can be seen in the photo; it is numbered B-1105.

A photo of the B-i strategic bomber is shown on page 53. This aircraft was developed by the Air Force to mod­ernize its bomber fleet. The first flight of a B-i took place on December 23, 1974. A rather extensive flight test pro­gram was developed by the Air Force for the B-i.

The В-1 is a variable-wing bomber. In the extended or forward position the wingspan is 135 feet. In the folded or swept-back position the wingspan is 78 feet. The swing wing allows the B-i to perform efficiently at low and high speeds.

At low, slow speeds a straight wing is much more efficient than a swept wing. During takeoffs, landings, air­borne loiter, and aerial refueling there is a distinct advan­tage to being able to place the B-Ts wings in a straight or forward position.

Four powerful jet engines give the 150-foot-long B-i a top speed of Mach 2.1, which is approximately 1,350 miles per hour. For high-speed supersonic flight at both low – level and high altitudes, there is a definite advantage to having the wings in a swept position.

A military air transport is an aircraft designed for the movement of cargo and passengers. Transports usually have the capability of being modified so they can be used for special missions. For example, the photo below shows the interior of a C-141 modified to provide litters, oxygen equipment, and the facilities necessary for the air evacua­tion of wounded.

A Lockheed C-141 Starlifter is shown in the photo on the opposite page. The Military Airlift Command began using these planes in 1963. The C-141 has a maximum takeoff weight of around 320,000 pounds. Today the C-141 is used primarily for carrying troops.

The C-141 has a 145-foot fuselage. It has a wingspan of 160 feet. The T-tail stands 39 feet high. The C-141 has four fanjet engines. Each of the engines develops 21,000 pounds of thrust, which allow the C-141 to cruise at more than 500 miles per hour.

The C-141 can carry troops in airline-type seats. Study the photo of the C-141 interior on the opposite page. There are seven rows of airline-type seats behind the lit­ters.

The C-141 was the first pure jet aircraft specifically de­signed and built to meet military standards as a troop and cargo carrier. This four-engine, T-tailed jet regularly flies nonstop from Dover Air Foce Base in Delaware to Ger­many. It can fly nonstop from San Francisco to Tokyo.

The gigantic С-5 Galaxy, put into service in 1970, is modeled after the C-141. But it is much larger than the C-141. The C-5, for example, has a maximum takeoff weight of 760,000 pounds. This is almost two and one-half times greater than the C-141S takeoff weight.

The C-5 is just about 248 feet long. It has a wingspan of almost 223 feet. The T-tail of the C-5 reaches 65 feet into the air.

The C-5 has unique front and rear cargo openings. The visor-nose opening at the front of the plane can be seen in the lower photo on the opposite page. The cargo compart­ment is 121 feet long, 13.5 feet high, and 19 feet wide. The C-s’s cargo floor area is triple that of the C-141 Starlifter. And the volume of the C~5’s cargo hold is four and one-half times larger than that of the C-141.

The C-5 does not carry troops in the cargo compart­ment. The second story or upper deck, however, has sev­enty-three seats that are in a rear compartment. Drivers and operators of equipment being airlifted use the seats available in the rear compartment on the upper deck. The forward compartment on the upper deck has accommo­dations for a six-man crew, a six-man relief crew, and eight couriers. The flight deck, of course, has the work sta­tions for the crew.

Four jet engines are mounted on pylons beneath the wing. The average cruise speed of the C-5 is 520 miles per hour. The Galaxy flies above 35,000 feet and has a range of 6,300 miles with 100,000 pounds of cargo. The maxi­mum load it can carry is 255,000 pounds.

The traditional purpose of aircraft has been to provide a means of transportation for people and cargo. In this third section, you will read about helicopters, VTOLs, and the space shuttle program. Each of these machines is designed to accomplish the task of transporting people and cargo in a very special way.

Many agencies of government are beginning to find that their missions can best be accomplished by the use of air­craft. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis­tration, a branch of the United States Department of Com­merce, for example, has found that specially outfitted aircraft can provide valuable information about the atmos­phere and the ocean. In addition, specially equipped re­search aircraft are being used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to make surveys of the Earth’s surface and objects in space.

Private companies are finding that aircraft can help them in their tasks, too. The Zapata Corporation, for exam­ple, is a company that uses modern technology to good ad­vantage. They have found a very important use for a spe­cially equipped light plane.

Most helicopters flying today use simple rotating blades to get lift and control. A main rotating blade lifts the craft. The small blade at the tail helps the pilot to move the hel­icopter in different directions.

The tail blade does something else, too. It balances the twisting forces of the main blade. Without the tail blade the cabin of the helicopter would spin like a top.

Sikorsky Aircraft s ABC helicopter is shown in the photo below. The ABC does not have a tail blade. It has two main blades. One is placed above the other. These blades rotate in opposite directions. They balance each other and the cabin does not spin.

The ABC in the photo is flying over the Connecticut countryside. The tail with movable parts allows the pilot to change direction. This new tail feature gives the pilot greater control of the craft and offers improved maneu – ■ verability.

Sikorsky Aircrafts twin-turbine-powered S-76 shown above has a four-blade main rotor. No wheels can be seen in the photo. The wheels are retractable. The S-76 carries up to twelve passengers plus a crew of two. It has a maxi­mum cruise speed of 179 miles per hour and a range of 460 miles.

The instrument panel of the S-76 is shown below. IFR equipment is installed. The S-76 is equipped with com­munication and navigation aids for all-weather operation.

The Sikorsky S-58T—shown in the photos on this page—is a medium-lift helicopter. The S-58T above is heading for a drop zone on the shore in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The helicopter is carrying a load of cement from one of the ships waiting in the harbor. Helicopter unload­ing is being used because Jeddah’s dock facilities are not adequate for the amount of shipping coming into the port.

The Sikorsky S-61 can carry thirty passengers plus its crew. This helicopter has a cruise speed of 140 miles per hour and a range of about 500 miles. Okanagan Helicop­ters in Canada and New York Airways in the United States put the S-61 to good use in passenger service.

The S-61 gives good reliable service. One of these trans­port helicopters operated by the Evergreen Company is shown landing on a drilling rig in the Gulf of Alaska. High winds, heavy seas, ice, rain, and snow are constant threats to operations in these waters.

Oceans and mountains are no longer significant barriers to travel. In this age of jet aircraft the time it takes to cross such barriers is not very significant. Today it is possible to reach any location on this planet of ours in less than twenty-four hours.

The high-speed transportation of jet aircraft is available to almost everyone. Each day commercial airlines carry more than one-half million people on giant subsonic air­craft. High-performance military aircraft are streaking across the sky at twice the speed of sound. And commer­cial supersonic transports are carrying passengers from continent to continent.

Our present world-wide transportation network would not be possible without jet aircraft. The airplane is an im­portant part of our social, political, and economic life. In this book you will find information about some of the air­craft used in commercial and military aviation. In addition, you will find a section that details the use of aircraft for special purposes such as weather forecasting, astronomical observation, and surveying.

JOHN GABRIEL NAVARRA

The length of a runway limits the kinds of planes that can land at an airport. Airlines have been searching for ways to get around this problem. One answer is to use aircraft that can take off and land vertically.

The vertical takeoff and landing machines are known as VTOL airplanes. A VTOL does not need a runway. It can hover like a helicopter. And it can fly like a regular air­plane.

The X-22A is a VTOL aircraft. It has four huge ducted fans. Four jet engines provide the power to drive the seven-foot-diameter propellers. The fans can be tilted. They can be tilted vertically or horizontally.

During takeoff the fans of the X-22A are tilted ver­tically. The thrust is directed downward. The downward thrust causes the plane to be lifted straight up.

As the X-22A rises, the pilot begins tilting the fans hori­zontally. In the photograph on the opposite page, the fans are being tilted from a vertical to a horizontal position. The plane moves forward with the fans in a horizontal po­sition.

The X-22A basically is a research craft. It is 40 feet long and 20 feet high. The X-22A has two wings. A fan is fixed to the end of each wing. The long wing—located just for­ward of the vertical stabilizer—has a span of 39 feet. The shorter wing is mounted just behind the cockpit.

The Vertol 76 shown above is a VTOL that has a tilt­wing. With the wings in the position shown in the photo­graph, the propellers are used as rotary wings for takeoff. The wings and engines tilt to a horizontal position to pro­vide thrust and lift for conventional flight.

The Hawker Siddeley Harrier shown below is a British fighter used by the Royal Air Force. It has a speed of Mach 1,25 and operates above 50,000 feet. The Harrier looks like a regular jet but it is a VTOL. There is a thrust – deflection nozzle inside its engine. The nozzle is used to direct the exhaust power of its engine downward for takeoff and landing and to the rear for horizontal flight.

Today the airline industry is large and varied. If you want to fly nonstop from New York to San Francisco, you can make a reservation on any of a number of domestic com­mercial airline flights. An around-the-world tour is ar­ranged through an international commercial airline.

Much of the success of an airline stems from the careful selection of the aircraft it uses. Other things being equal, airline passengers favor the airline that gets them there first. Speed is one of the factors in attracting passengers. There is a constant race among the airlines to be the first with newer, larger, and faster planes.

The design of an airliner evolves slowly. It is usually a compromise between what several airlines want. The pres­ent realities also play an important part in the design of a commercial airliner. For example, the sudden jump in the cost of jet fuel has made a lot of the aircraft currently flying too costly. And other aircraft are too noisy to meet the new environmental rules! The airliner of the future must be quiet and it must be economical to fly.

The space-shuttle orbiter Enterprise left the ground for the first time on the morning of February 18, 1977. The craft shown below was riding piggyback atop a modified Boeing 747. This first flight lasted two and one-half hours. The 747 carried the shuttle to a height of 16,000 feet to test the stability of the vehicle.

The shuttle is a true space-transportation system. It con­sists of two stages: a booster for launch from earth, and an airplane-like manned reusable orbiter for flight into space where it will conduct its missions. The orbiter is designed to be flown back to the earth and to land at a conven­tionally sized airstrip.

The shuttle will lift off vertically as shown in the lower picture on the opposite page. Two solid-propellant booster rockets will fire in parallel with three liquid-propelled rocket engines of the orbiter. After burnout, the solid rocket will be jettisoned and parachuted to the ocean where it will be recovered.

The orbiter is equipped with a delta wing. A crew of four is responsible for the operation of the orbiter. The or – biter’s cargo compartment is 15 feet in diameter and 60 feet long. This craft will carry payloads of 65,000 pounds into space. The payload can consist of either people or cargo.

The orbiter will make space operations less complex and less costly. It will also encourage greater participation in space flight. Scientists and engineers, for example, will be able to go into orbit to check on their experiments. In the upper picture opposite, the manipulator arm of the orbiter is extended to retrieve a satellite.

When the orbiter completes a mission in space, its pilots will fire its rockets to slow it down. Then they will direct the orbiter so it re-enters the earth’s atmosphere. The or­biter will be flown through the atmosphere and landed like an airplane on a jet-sized airstrip. Each orbiter is designed to be reused up to a hundred times.

Scheduled commercial aviation began on April 6, 1926. On that historic day, the small Swallow biplane—shown in the photo below—lifted into the air at Pasco, Washington, and flew toward Elko, Nevada, 487 miles away. The cargo on board was sixty-four pounds of mail.

Interest in flying was high in the 1920s. People wanted to go along as passengers on the mail planes. The only space available for a passenger, however, was in the open cockpit along with the mail sacks!

The first airplane designed for passengers had a forward cabin. But the pilot flew in an open cockpit. Passengers are in the process of boarding the Boeing 40B-4 shown in the upper photo opposite. There was space for four passengers in the forward cabin area between the wings. The Boeing 40B-4 was in service in 1926. It soared along at 110 miles per hour.

The forerunner of the all-metal airliner was the sleek

Boeing Monomail. This single-engine plane had cabin space for passengers just forward of the open cockpit. The Monomail—shown in the lower photo on page n— had re­tractable landing gear.

By 1930, the Boeing 80A, a tri-engine plane, was the last word in comfort. It featured cushioned seats and wide windows. Twelve passengers traveled in relative comfort between San Francisco and Chicago on the flight shown in the photo above.

In the photo, the Boeing 80A is flying just north of Chicago’s Loop. The Chicago of today is quite different from the Chicago of 1930. But some familiar landmarks can be seen in the photo. In the background at the upper left you can see the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower.

The first Douglas DC-3 was flown on December 17, 0.935. The DC-3 became the workhouse of the airlines. It was the first airliner capable of earning a profit carrying only passengers. The industry put these planes into service as fast as they could be produced. More than 10,000 DC – 3s were built and about 1,000 are still in service through­out the world.

The DC-3 shown below was designed for twenty-one passengers. It has a wingspan of 95 feet and a length of almost 65 feet. A maximum speed of 230 miles per hour is developed at 9,000 feet. The DC-3’s cruising speed is 155 miles per hour. It has a range of 1,300 miles and a service ceiling of 29,000 feet.

In the Atlantic Ocean, the job of flying into the most vio­lent weather in the world is assigned to flying weathermen of the U. S. Air Force. These men are known as hurricane hunters. They fly Lockheed WC-130 Hercules aircraft.

The WC-130 shown in the photograph is on the ground at Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico. The aircraft is a four-engine turboprop that can cruise at 350 miles per hour. The “W” denotes that it has been weather modified. This means that it is packed with special weather instru­ments.

Data for altitudes below the flight level are obtained by an instrument called a dropsonde, which is a collection of weather-sensing instruments in a small case. The drop­sonde being prepared in the lower photo opposite will be dropped from the WC-130 by parachute. The instrument readings are radioed back to the aircraft by a small trans­mitter in the dropsonde.

The WP-3D Orion shown above is a weather plane op­erated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis­tration. Special weather-radar units are housed in its nose, in the large black blister below the fuselage, and in the tail. The WP-3D operates effectively from sea level to

30,0 feet. It can loiter at speeds between 200 and 260 miles per hour. Top speed for the WP-3D is about 460 miles per hour.