Archive for the 'History' Category

Hollywood’s Representation of Naval Aviation: Frank W. “Spig” Wead and John Ford’s “The Wings of Eagles” (1957)

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on January 5, 2012 in Aviation, History and Stories.
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Introduction

During the recently completed centennial of naval aviation (2011), there were many and varied tributes to the factual history of naval aviation. Nevertheless, we cannot forget that public perception of the armed forces is also a strong historical consideration. In Sailing on the Silver Screen: Hollywood and the U.S. Navy, Lawrence Suid has observed that “for most of the past ninety years the American film industry and the U.S. Navy have worked together to their mutual benefit. Hollywood used the Navy to obtain—at little or no cost—personnel, equipment, and locations for movies filled with adventure, romance, and drama. In turn, the Navy obtained—at little or no cost—a positive public image that boosted both its recruiting efforts and its relations with Congress.” This is especially true if we consider how the careers of two pioneers of Hollywood and the U.S. Navy—director John Ford and screenwriter Frank W. “Spig” Wead became intertwined during the Golden Era of filmmaking and how Ford paid tribute to his friend and colleague in The Wings of Eagles (1957).

 

Frank Wead

Frank W. “Spig”’ Wead was a pioneer naval aviator who became a notable Hollywood screenwriter. His many credits include films about the U.S Navy or naval aviation.

 

Wead’s Early Naval Career

Wead was born on October 24, 1885, in Peoria, Illinois. He entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1912 at the age of sixteen and graduated in 1916. He spent time during WWI doing mine work in the North Sea, after which he qualified as a naval aviator. In 1923 he led the Navy team that competed in the Schneider Trophy Race at Cowes, Isle of Wight. Two of his teammates—Lt. David Rittenhouse and Lt. Rutledge Irvine—placed first and second in the race. Wead continued as a naval aviator, setting naval aircraft records for speed, endurance, and distance and eventually working for the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics.

 

Wead’s Hollywood Career

In 1927, an unexpected turn of events changed Wead’s life forever. After he took a fall in his house in Coronado, California, he was seriously injured, having fractured the fifth cervical vertebra in his neck and doing irreparable damage to his spinal cord. After surgery and more than two painful years of recuperation, he progressed to being able to sit up, and, with the aid of steel braces, to walk. Wead decided that he needed another activity to recuperate fully, so he tried his hand at writing. In time he collaborated on a script for The Flying Fleet (1929), the first Hollywood film about contemporary military flying, with Byron Morgan, a former naval aviator who had become a screenwriter for MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer). The Flying Fleet was also the first in a long list of films credited to Wead that were about the U.S. Navy or naval aviation. Wead also wrote screenplays about civil aviation, including one for Air Mail (1932), a film directed by John Ford, and Ceiling Zero (1936), a film directed by Howard Hawks that was based on a play Wead had written that appeared off-Broadway in 1935. He again worked with Ford on They Were Expendable (1945), based on the true story of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron 3, commanded by Medal of Honor winner John D. Bulkeley during the evacuation of the Philippines early in WWII. This film is considered one of the best war films ever made..

 

Wead’s World War II Service

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Wead had gotten permission to reenter the Navy through the good graces of an old friend, Admiral John Towers. His first assignment was as an assistant to Captain Ralph Davison, chief of the Plans Division of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Later, Wead trained air combat intelligence officers at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. From October 1943 to June 1944, he was a planning officer on the staff of the Commander Air Pacific in Hawaii. In this capacity, he helped develop plans for Makin, Tarawa, Eniwetok, and Kwajelein. All these operations led up to the battle for the Marianas Islands.

Wead was also credited with developing the idea of escort carriers (the so-called “Jeep Carriers”), which were employed to provide logistical support for the main carrier forces. During the Marianas air assaults, he was invited onboard the U.S.S. Yorktown by Admiral J. J. Clark as an observer. He was involved in actual combat during the Marianas battle when Japanese aircraft attacked the ship. Despite his disabilities, Wead showed courage and was an inspiration to the crew. After the Marianas, Wead decided to retire from the Navy and return to screenwriting. For his service during WWII, Wead was awarded the Legion of Merit. He died on November 15, 1947 at the age of 52

The Wings of Eagles (1957)

The idea for The Wings of Eagles came about as a way of honoring Wead, but John Ford, the film’s intended director was somewhat reluctant to undertake the project. He and Wead had been close friends. According to Ford’s biographer, Joseph McBride, Ford is reported to have said “I didn’t want to do the picture, because Spig was a great pal of mine. But I didn’t want anyone else to do it.”

That Ford would become involved in a film honoring Wead and the U.S. Navy should come as no surprise. Ford himself became a naval officer quite late in his life. In 1934 he had enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve and was commissioned as a Lt. Commander. In 1939 Ford began to organize the Naval Volunteer Photographic Unit, which eventually became known as the Naval Photographic Organization, to document naval combat activities. In September 1941 Ford was appointed chief of the Field Photographic Branch, which was part of the Office of Strategic Services, headed by William J. Donovan. In that capacity Ford was at the Battle of Midway, which he filmed and whose footage he turned into an Academy Award-winning documentary of the same name in 1942.

Two unsuccessful attempts were made to produce a film about Wead. Finally, Kenneth MacKenna, a story director at MGM, and John Dale Price, Wead’s old friend, now a retired admiral, who eventually became technical advisor for the film, collaborated on a script. After nearly eight months of work, MacKenna submitted the script to the Pentagon for approval, and the Navy’s Office of Information agreed to cooperate, despite some opposition on the grounds that the script contained historical errors.

While the film, which starred John Wayne as Wead, and Maureen O’Hara as his wife “Min,” portrays naval aviation history in a favorable light, it cannot be considered entirely historically accurate, confirming the Navy’s reservations. In addition to historical inaccuracies, some of the Navy’s objections were based on the portrayal of alcohol abuse in the film. Evidently, the drinking scenes that had to do with Maureen O’Hara’s character had to be cut because Wead’s children protested. Nevertheless, the film provides more than subtle hints that alcohol played a significant part in Wead’s life and in the life of his wife, and that it may have been responsible for their inability to reconcile the demands of military life with the demands of family.

 

co-stars of The Wings of Eagles

The co-stars of "The Wings of Eagles," John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara are pictured. The film, a tribute to the naval aviation and Hollywood screenwriting career of Frank “Spig” Wead, was directed by John Ford in 1957.

Evidently it was not practical for Ford to portray Wead’s contributions as a screenwriter to positive depictions of naval aviation in prewar films like Dive Bomber (released in August 1941 before the attack on Pearl Harbor). Instead, he relied heavily on a part-fiction, part-fact portrayal of Wead’s military contributions during the interwar years and in WWII. In fact, Wead’s achievements in WWII are much more factually presented in the film than those that take place during the interwar years. Ford’s message is strong: Wead was not only a staunch defender of naval aviation, but a doer, in spite of his debilitating handicap. Moreover, it is important to realize that The Wings of Eagles is significant also for what it says about American values as seen through the lives and ordeals of military men. The Wings of Eagles, like some of Ford’s other films, displays familiar Fordian themes: the sense of community among American naval men: in this case, naval aviators; naval service as a reflection of national identity; an intermingling of historical fact with historical fancy.

 

Dive Bomber

Errol Flynn (center), the star of "Dive Bomber," a 1941 film written by Frank W. “Spig Wead, poses in a pressure suit with members of the cast and film crew.

Nevertheless, the film may be interpreted on other levels. Dan Ford, Ford’s grandson, contends that the film is a veiled autobiography of his grandfather. Both Wead and Ford were restless and disposed to lives of action. Because they were both disabled, they were attracted to vicarious adventures. Both were involved in moviemaking as a substitute for military careers. Both served in WWII but as observers rather than as combatants. Both neglected their families to focus exclusively on their careers. Both preferred masculine companionship to that of women.

As a result, The Wings of Eagles may be seen as two films. One contains the mythologizing biography of “Spig” Wead and extols naval aviation and American values of patriotism, courage and perseverance. The other, a more personal one, critiques the institution—the U.S. Navy— that would create an atmosphere which is potentially dangerous to family life.

Dom Pisano is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

 

Leaving the Moon, Watching at Home

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on December 30, 2011 in History and space.
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Apollo 17

The Apollo 17 ascent stage lifts off from the Moon, marking the last time humans left the Moon on December 14, 1972.

After pressing some buttons to start up the ascent engine of their lunar module Challenger, astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt left the Moon on December 14, 1972. That’s 39 years ago – before many of us were even born. While these men looked out the tiny triangular windows of the lunar module to see the lunar surface getting farther away, viewers around the world watched that same spacecraft leave the Moon, live and in color on their television sets. Departing the Moon for the last time was (not surprisingly, perhaps) far less interesting to most people than Apollo 11’s first landing over three years prior. Some evidence even suggests that NASA had to pay television networks to cover Apollo 17’s mission at all. Despite all their hard work and technological developments, the final liftoff of humans from the Moon came and went with just a brief notice on the nightly news.

That story, however, overlooks the difficulties engineers had in developing the ability to show the lunar module rocketing back into space. Television cameras of the late 1960s and early 1970s were notoriously bulky, usually requiring huge rolling bases or portable stands. For space use, any piece of equipment needed to be light-weight and easily portable. NASA awarded contracts to build television cameras for Apollo alternately to RCA and Westinghouse, and both companies managed to build units for different missions that met NASA standards for weight, materials, and functionality. For the final three Apollo missions, RCA provided small, portable, color television cameras that could show the astronauts stepping off the lunar module and onto the Moon, and then be moved to a stand or the lunar rover for mobile exploration.

The cameras were very successful, capturing images of numerous EVAs that included sample collection, a driver’s eye-view from the mobile rover, and the pitfalls of trying to just stay standing in a space suit in 1/6 gravity. For the lunar liftoff though, engineers had numerous calculations to make prior to the mission to allow for filming. Attached to a pan and tilt unit, the television camera could be controlled directly from Earth via a large high-gain antenna on the rover. Since signals to and from Earth are delayed by a few seconds due to the 240,000 mile distance, mission engineers suggested pre-programming the lunar module liftoffs for Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17. Based on mathematical calculations, the rover would be driven and left some distance from lunar module, and the camera would automatically tilt up to show the ascent when commanded by the operator on Earth.

That was the plan at least.

On Apollo 15, the tilt mechanism malfunctioned and the camera never moved upwards, allowing the lunar module to slip out of sight. And while the attempt on Apollo 16 gave a longer view of the lunar module rising up, the astronauts actually parked the rover too close to it, which threw off the calculations and timing of the tilt upwards so it left view just a few moments into the flight.

Thankfully, for NASA, those watching at home, and anyone reviewing film footage today, the third attempt was the charm. Cernan and Schmitt parked the rover at just the right distance, all of the mechanisms worked flawlessly, and viewers can still see today how that awkwardly-shaped ascent stage keeps going up until it becomes just a bright speck the sky on its way back to the command module.

How we saw and continue to see the Apollo program is due not only to the engineers at RCA for creating this unique ability, but also the NASA camera operator in Houston, Ed Fendell, for getting the timing just right, and NASA itself for recording and preserving these moments for our collective memory of our last departure from the Moon.

How big of a part do you think NASA’s television coverage of Apollo 17 plays in how we think about that time period? Do you think the same is true of the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011?

 

Apollo 17

A view of the Apollo 17 landing site as seen from the lunar module ascent stage as it left the surface. On the left, you can see the descent stage, the small gold-colored circle, and numerous tracks leading away from it, marking the paths astronauts took on their extra-vehicular activities.

Jennifer Levasseur is a museum specialist in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum, and is responsible curator for the Museum’s collection of space cameras and early human spaceflight astronaut equipment.

The Santa Claus Express, Then and Now

Published by Allan Janus on December 24, 2011 in Archives, Hidden Treasures, History and Stories.
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Santa Claus

NASM 7A45388; Courtesy of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company Records, the University of Akron, University Libraries, Archival Services.

 

In 1925, Mr. S. Claus was looking for a modern alternative to his old-fashioned reindeer-powered sleigh. Having once shown an interest in lighter-than-air flight in the form of hot-air balloons, Santa was favorably inclined when Goodyear came up with a solution — toy delivery via airship, in this case, Pilgrim I, renamed the Santa Claus Express for the occasion. In the photograph shown here, Pilgrim’s pilot Carl Wollam holds the gondola door for Santa (as portrayed by Goodyear employee Jack Yolton). Curiously, they seem to be unconcerned about the effect of drag from the presents festooning the gondola, but as Pilgrim’s top speed was only about 40 MPH, it probably didn’t make much of a difference. Here are some more photographs of Goodyear’s Santa Claus Express, 1925-1927, from the University of Akron’s library. By the way, the Pilgrim gondola is on display at the Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia — we might consider loaning it out to qualified Jolly Old Elves around this time of year…

 

santa

Photograph by Edward E. Ogden. Courtesy of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

The Santa Claus Express was re-instituted by Goodyear last year to support the Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots program. Santa, portrayed in the photo shown above by Spirit of Goodyear mechanic Ron Heaps, and Spirit pilot Gerald Hissem re-enact the original Santa Claus Express photograph.

The staff and volunteers of the National Air and Space Museum hope that all of our readers, visitors and friends have a fine holiday season; and that whatever method of aerial transport Santa chooses, that you’ll get a visit from him on Christmas Eve.

 

Allan Janus is a museum specialist in the National Air and Space Museum’s Archives Division

 

 

WINGS: From the Wright Brothers to the Present

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on December 17, 2011 in Aviation and History.
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Airplane designers will tell you that the wing is the heart of an airplane. For conventional airplanes, it provides most of the lift generated by the airplane; the fuselage and tail contribute only a few percent of the overall lift of the airplane.

 

1900 Wright Glider

A reproduction of the 1900 Wright glider on display in The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

The Wright brothers recognized this from the very start of their work on flying machines.  The wings of their first gliders in 1900 and 1901 were designed on the basis of the aeronautical data reported by the German aeronautical pioneer, Otto Lilienthal. When, however, they measured the aerodynamic lift on their gliders, they found that the measured lift was only one-third of their calculated lift based on Lilienthal’s data. (We know today that the problem was not with Lilienthal’s data, but rather with the Wright’s misinterpretation of his data, based on lack of information about the wing  geometry of Lilienthal’s test model.) Nevertheless, the Wright’s proceeded to carry out their own tests, using a rudimentary wind tunnel of their own design. They learned from their wind tunnel tests the important effect of wing aspect ratio on the lift and drag. (For their rectangular wings, the aspect ratio is equal to the wing span divided by the chord. A large aspect ratio wing is like a slat from a Venetian blind; a low aspect ratio wing is short and stubby.) Their 1900 and 1901 gliders had low aspect ratio wings, aspect ratios of 3.4 and 3.3 respectively. (Lilienthal’s model aspect ratio was 6.48, and is the main reason why the measured  lift of the 1900 and 1901 gliders did not agree with the Wrights’ calculations based on the Lilienthal’s data.)From their wind tunnel data, the Wrights found that a high aspect wing produced more lift and less drag than a low aspect ratio wing. The aspect ratio for their next glider in 1902 was 6.7, and this glider flew beautifully.  The Wright Flyer had an aspect ratio of 6.4. We note that many conventional airplanes today have very similar aspect ratios.

 

Otto Lilienthal

Otto Lilienthal in flight (1894 - 1896)

The wings of the Wright’s flying machines had another important feature. The wing tips could be warped in opposite directions, setting up an unbalanced lift force on the two wings, and hence providing a control mechanism to roll the airplane. The Wrights pioneered the concept of lateral (roll) control – one of their most important technical contributions to the airplane. After a few years, ailerons were employed for roll control in lieu of wing warping, but the Wrights’ contribution was seminal.

The cross-section of a wing taken in the flight direction is called an airfoil. The shape of an airfoil is an important design feature of a wing. For example, it affects the lift and drag of the wing, and has a major effect on the stalling angle of attack (the angle of attack of the wing beyond which the lift dramatically drops off and the drag suddenly increases).The airfoils used by the Wrights were very thin because their wind tunnel test indicated that very thin shapes resulted in lower drag than thick airfoils. Most airplanes through World War I followed suit and used thin airfoils. The early wind tunnel results were misleading, however, because the wind tunnel models were small and the airflow speeds of the air in the wind tunnels were low.  We know today that the much larger size and airspeeds associated with full scale flight resulted in the opposite effect. Thin airfoils experienced “thin airfoil stall” at angles of attack much lower than normal stalling angles of attack. This was due to the separation of the flow over the top surface of the thin airfoil, hence creating much higher drag and a loss of lift. In contrast, under the same operating conditions, thicker airfoils did not encounter flow separation until much higher angles of attack, hence producing more lift and less drag at higher angles of attack. This was discovered by German engineers, and thick airfoils were employed on the Fokker Triplane and the Fokker D-7 toward the end of World War I. These airplanes were able to climb faster and maneuver more sharply than airplanes using thin airfoils, and resulted in the Fokker D-7 being one of the most effective fighters of the War.

airfoil

Airfoil is the name for the special shape of airplane wings. A wing’s airfoil shape—like a teardrop on its side—is always designed to create lift. An airplane wing is designed so air flows faster over the wing than it does beneath the wing.

In the 1920s airplane designers moved towards the use of thick airfoils. By the 1930s, efficient wing designs exhibited large aspect ratios and thick airfoils. The famous Douglas DC-3 is an excellent example, with its aesthetically beautiful high wing  aspect ratio of 9.14 and streamlined 15 percent thick airfoil. Thick airfoils had structural as well as aerodynamic advantages. A thicker wing allowed storage space for fuel tanks and retractable landing gear. A thicker wing also allowed a larger and stronger structural spar along the inside of the wing, which in turn allowed the wing to be cantilevered from the fuselage without any external support wires and struts. This helped to encourage the use of the modern single wing (monoplane) instead of the older two-wing (biplane) configuration.

With the advent of jet airplanes in the 1950s pushing speeds close to and beyond the speed of sound, airfoil and wing shapes made another dramatic change. Thinner airfoils allowed subsonic airplanes to fly closer to the speed of sound before encountering adverse shock waves over the wing, shock waves which greatly increased the drag and reduced the lift. For supersonic airplanes, the driving design feature was to reduce the strength of shock waves on the wings, and hence to reduce the supersonic wave drag.  The thinner the airfoils, the weaker the shocks, and the lower the wave drag. The Lockheed F-104, the first airplane to be designed for sustained speeds at Mach 2, is a perfect example. The airfoil shape on the F-104 is very thin, about 3.5 percent thick, and the leading edge is razor thin, all to reduce the strength of the shock waves from the leading edge of the wing. At the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, you can get within a few feet of the F-104 wing, and see the dramatically thin airfoil. It is almost like making a full circle in airfoil thickness,  returning to that of the Wright brothers, but for completely different flight conditions. Also, many  high speed subsonic and supersonic airplanes have swept wings rather than straight wings, also to reduce the strength of shock waves and to obtain a lower wave drag.

See if you can find the best lift-to-drag ratio for the F-104 airfoil, and learn more about how wings work, in this fun online activity.

F-104

Lockheed F-104A Starfighter on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) flew this F-104A for 19 years as a flying test bed and a chase plane.

Wing and airfoil shapes are still evolving today, driven by new and challenging flight conditions. The drive for more and more fuel economy in flight is driving new and better wing configurations and airfoil shapes to obtain higher lift-to-drag ratios. Also, future hypersonic flight vehicles flying at Mach 5 and higher will require innovative new wing and airfoil shapes. So the evolution marches on.

John Anderson is a curator in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

 

December 7, 1941 and the First Around-the-World Commercial Flight

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on December 8, 2011 in Aviation and History.
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clipper

Pan Am Boeing 314

Stranded. Six days from its home port of San Francisco, a luxurious Boeing 314 flying boat, the Pacific Clipper, was preparing to alight in Auckland, New Zealand, as part of the airline’s transpacific service when the crew of ten learned of the Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. All across the Pacific, Pan Am facilities came under assault: Wake Island, where the Martin M-130 Philippine Clipper returned just in time to pick up the Pan Am staff and escape although riddled with bullet holes; Manila, which had come under direct air attack; Hong Kong, where a Sikorsky S-42B was destroyed at its dock; and, of course, Pearl Harbor. Where to go?

 

Sikorsky

The revolutionary new 32-seat Sikorsky S-42 flying boat entered service in 1934.

Pan Am Captain Robert Ford was faced with a dilemma. After a week in the U.S. Embassy Ford finally received word from Pan Am headquarters that they were to return to the U.S. by flying westward. They were on their own for gasoline and supplies and had to fly over land and water with which none of the crew was familiar. With orders in hand, Captain Ford took off on December 16th, unsure of his fate, backtracked to Noumea, New Caledonia, to pick up the Pan Am staff left there and headed west for Australia. Hours later, they put down in Gladstone, north of Brisbane on the Coral Sea. The next day, Captain Ford and the Pacific Clipper headed northwest to Darwin, flying over the Queensland desert and watching it gradually transform into tropical rainforest near their destination of Darwin. The next goal was Surabaya, in the Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia). Keeping their fingers crossed that the Japanese expansion had not reached this far, the crew of the massive flying boat flew 2,253 kilometers (1,400 miles) over open ocean and reached the city but not before they were intercepted by suspicious British fighter aircraft and escorted in to safety after taxiing through mined waters.

After refueling with automobile grade gasoline, since no 100 octane fuel was available, the Pacific Clipper carefully took off and headed for Trincomalee, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) without any charts, only the coordinates of their destination. With remarkable precision, navigator Roderick Brown found the island and the port city where they alighted safely, although only after avoiding a patrolling Japanese submarine. Refueling once again, the Boeing 314 left Trincomalee on Christmas Eve only to turn back after losing an engine. Repairs took all day on Christmas before they retook to the air on Boxing Day bound for Karachi, India (now Pakistan). After an uneventful flight, Captain Ford continued safely on to Bahrain and then across the vast desert expanse of the Arabian peninsula to Khartoum, Sudan, where they alighted on the Nile. Not wishing to risk any further desert flying, the crew of the Pacific Clipper pressed on to Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and was able to put the huge flying boat down on the Congo River when they reached their destination.

 

Pacific Clipper

"Pacific Clipper" in flight (1944). During the war the "Pacific Clipper" flew for the U.S. Navy with a Pan Am crew.

Fighting the oppressive heat and the strong current of the river, the flying boat once again clawed into the sky becoming airborne before reaching a set of waterfalls. Safely clear of the obstacles, the Pacific Clipper droned 5,766 kilometers (3,583 miles) westward to Natal, Brazil, then up the coast to Port of Spain, Trinidad, and finally on January 6, 1942, to the Marine terminal at La Guardia, Long Island, New York. Total flight time was 209 hours which covered 50,694 kilometers (31,500 miles). It was the first around the world flight by a commercial airliner — the hard way.

After this historic flight, the Pacific Clipper was assigned to the U.S. Navy for the rest of World War II. When the War ended, the aircraft was sold to Universal Airlines who salvaged it after it was damaged in a storm.

Have you ever had a harrowing flight experience? Tell us about it.

Robert van der Linden is Chair of the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum.

The Museum’s Pearl Harbor Survivor

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on December 7, 2011 in Aviation, History and Stories.
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In American military history there are few dates more familiar than “December 7th, 1941… a date which will live in infamy…”

The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on that serene Sunday morning marked America’s official entry into a global war that had been raging in Europe and throughout Asia for many years. Yet after the raid had ended, the wounded treated, and the dead counted, there remained pockets of hope that all was not lost that day.

 

Ford Island Runway

A variety of aircraft were stationed at Ford Island in 1941.

On Ford Island, just across from battleship row, ten Sikorsky JRS-1 Flying Boats (Amphibians) had escaped any serious damage from the multi-wave attack. Early the following morning, around 3:00 am Pearl Harbor time on December 8, Navy JRS-1 crews took to the air in search of the Japanese fleet. The Sikorsky JRS-1, a utility and transport aircraft, was not armed…normally. But that morning, the crew along with several rifle-armed passengers were assigned to not only conduct search and rescue missions, but also search and destroy any Japanese ships that they encountered.

 

JRS-1

The JRS-1 "flew" briefly as it was removed from the transport truck and touched down in the hangar last spring. Our JRS-1 is the only Pearl Harbor-related aircraft in our collection, and the only JRS-1 remaining in the world.

Last June, one of those veteran JRS-1 crewmen visited us at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar and was reunited with the very plane that he had flown as a radioman in those days following the attack. Lt. Cmdr. Harvey Waldron, USN (ret.), recounted the events during a three-hour oral history interview accomplished in the shadow of his old Sikorsky friend.

As he viewed the fuselage of the craft for the first time in nearly six decades, he could not contain the tears, the smiles, and then the joy of being reunited with an object that had been his defender and his home away from home all those many years ago.

 

Lt. Cmdr. Harvey Waldron, USN (ret.)

Lt. Cmdr. Harvey Waldron, USN (ret.) got a chance to view his old radio station inside the JRS-1 at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar.

Waldron and other Pearl Harbor veterans will return to Hawaii this week to participate in what may be the final reunion of Pearl survivors. Each will visit their exact duty location on that Sunday. Waldron was at Hangar 37 during a shift change when the Japanese first wave struck.

On this day, we remember those who perished that Sunday morning, now 70 years ago. We also remember the 16 million more who served and fought during the next four years with bravery, courage, and heroism to help put an end to tyranny around the globe. Veterans like Lt. Cmdr. Harvey Waldron are rare indeed.

To all those veterans of World War II and their families, thank you for your dedicated service!

Do you have any Pearl Harbor stories? Feel free to share them with us.

Dik Daso is the curator of modern military aircraft in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

 

Assessing the Spin-offs of Spaceflight

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on November 25, 2011 in History and space.
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Our lives are enhanced by technologies developed through the research and development supported by the necessities of spaceflight. NASA has documented since 1976 more than 1,300 technologies that have benefited U.S. citizens, improved our quality of life, and helped to advance the nation’s economic welfare.

Of course, much has been made over the years of what NASA calls “spin-offs,” commercial products that had at least some of their origins as a result of spaceflight-related research. Most years the agency puts out a book describing some of the most spectacular, and they range from laser angioplasty to body imaging for medical diagnostics to imaging and data analysis technology. Spin-offs were not Tang and Teflon, neither of which was actually developed for the Apollo program.

NASA has spent a lot of time and trouble trying to track these benefits of the space program in an effort to justify its existence. With the caveat that technology transfer is an exceptionally complex subject that is almost impossible to track properly, these various studies show much about the prospect of technological lagniappe from the U.S. effort to access and operate in space.

Whether good or bad, no amount of cost-benefit analysis, which the spin-off argument essentially makes, can sustain NASA’s historic level of funding. More interesting, and ultimately more useful, would be to explore in depth several key technologies used in spaceflight and trace whatever attributes might have found their way into other sectors. The point, of course, is that the past did not have to develop in the way that it did, and that there is evidence to suggest that the space program pushed technological development in certain paths that might have not been followed otherwise.

More useful, I would assert is a counterfactual question. How would your life today be different if we did not fly in space? There can be no fully satisfactory answer to that question. One person’s vision is another’s belly laugh. But perhaps we can begin with the elimination of instantaneous global telecommunications. Imagine no Internet, no easy international calling, no direct television, no up-to-the-minute sporting events or news from other parts of the world, no skyping to friends worldwide, and the list goes on and on.

The results of these investments in space technology are everywhere around us. It was in no small measure from government investment in miniature electronics technologies in the 1960s and 1970s that the many devices we use today, such as smartphones, sprang. It is from government investment in computing and telecommunications technology that the Internet emerged. It was from government R&D that our space-based system of navigation—the Global Positioning System, or GPS — has made reading a paper map obsolete. These are only a few examples among thousands that might be offered.

 

GPS

The Global Positioning System requires at least 24 satellites to be fully operational and provide global coverage. Satellites are placed in four orbital planes. The GPS satellite orbit at half the distance to geosynchronous orbit, thereby taking 12 hours to complete each orbit.

How our lives would be different had we never engaged in spaceflight from what they are at present cannot really be determined, but it is obvious that they would be quite different. Think of the many high technology capabilities we enjoy—starting with biomedical diagnostics and related technologies and ending with telecommunications breakthroughs—that might well have followed different courses and perhaps have lagged beyond their present breakneck pace as a result. Some of us might well think that a positive development, though I doubt most would want to go back to typewriters, problematic global communication, and the manner in which we lived our lives before the space age. Despite the nostalgia for bygone eras before the information and technology revolution—found in such popular television shows as Mad Men and Pan Am—I believe few would like to return to that time. I certainly wouldn’t.

 

geostationary

This image depicts the geostationary equatorial orbit in which most communications and weather satellites are located.

What might the future hold? Without question, the U.S. is at a critical juncture regarding the long-term health of its science and technology. Knowledge is critical to maintaining America’s competitive edge in the world. It is only possible to maintain our leading edge by increasing investment in a comprehensive R&D program. I look forward to seeing that take place in the near future.

Roger D. Launius is a senior curator in the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Alien Hoax Revealed at the National Air and Space Museum!

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on November 2, 2011 in Aviation, Education, History, Research, space and Web & New Media.
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Last Friday, the Museum hosted an online conference devoted to critical thinking in the Internet age. Using four conspiracy theories in aerospace history to demonstrate effective research techniques, staff from our Museum, the US Department of the Navy, and National History Day engaged with students and teachers from across the globe.

Here are the topics we examined:

  1. What happened to Amelia Earhart? Did she crash in the Pacific, or was her disappearance fabricated as part of a government plot?
  2. Did Franklin Delano Roosevelt know about the attack on Pearl Harbor before it happened?
  3. What are UFOs and are we being visited by extra terrestrials?
  4. Did Americans actually land on the Moon? Or was it all an elaborate hoax?

 

Buzz

Buzz Aldrin salutes the American flag on the Moon.

We chose this theme because it provides excellent examples of why it is important to examine every story with a critical eye. Conspiracy theories always challenge the accepted narrative, interpreting details that institutional analysis either deliberately omits or cannot explain. As such, the people who question these official stories have already begun the process of critical thinking, but they haven’t necessarily followed through to the end.

In order to conduct a more thorough inquiry into each of these subjects, our presenters stepped through a critical thinking checklist that can be described in further detail on the Virtual Salt website. Shortly put, when examining any topic, one should evaluate its Credibility, Accuracy, Reasonableness and Support (CARS). If we apply this tool to any of the conference topics, we discover that the likelihood of conspiracy is very low, but it should be noted that this isn’t always the case. These questions are helpful for any historian or researcher and can be applied to any resource being considered — from newspaper articles to archival photos to historic artifacts.

 

close encounters

The mother ship model used for the 1977 film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" currently on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.

The conference concluded with a panel discussion during which our historians described some of their most exciting discoveries. Our own Tom Crouch, senior curator in the Aeronautics Division, discussed how he determined that the wing tips of the world’s first powered airplane, the 1903 Wright Flyer were actually made from carriage spreaders. This contribution to the historical record shed light on who Orville and Wilbur Wright really were and how they worked. It was an exciting moment in his career.

Another panelist, Randy Papadopoulos, secretariat historian at the Department of the Navy, probably summed it up best when he described a particular “aha” moment he once had:

You realize, wow! This is a singular event. This is something that no one else has considered… The devil is in the details — you have to do some digging to find out, but when you do, you feel this tremendous sense of relief. [You realize] okay, I actually made a contribution that’s original. I’ve done something new here.

We’d like to thank all of our panelists for continuing to contribute original insights through their dedicated and thoughtful research. And thanks to everyone from around the world who participated in our online event.

For those who couldn’t attend, please check out the recordings online.

We enjoyed producing this conference, and we hope to do more. Please let us know what kind of topics you’d like to see us examine in future online events.

Ivey Doyal is a content manager in the Web and New Media Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

Taking Flight with Lady Liberty

Published by The National Air and Space Museum on October 28, 2011 in Archives, Aviation, Highlights from the Collection, History and Uncategorized.
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What comes to mind when you think of the Statue of Liberty? America, freedom, democracy. Her image is immediately recognized around the world as an ambassador for the United States and icon of the American dream.  She has been the focal point of many a celebration over the years and in several cases, the gracious hostess (and waypoint) for aerial races and demonstrations.  In celebration of her 125th anniversary, we gathered a few images, objects, and posters that feature inspiring views of Lady Liberty in the context of flight.

Wilbur Wright flies a Wright Type A by the Statue of Liberty during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in 1909. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives)

Wilbur Wright  was contracted for $15,000 to make a series of flights during the two-week Hudson-Fulton Celebration in 1909, which was commemorating the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s first entry into what would become New York Harbor, and the centennial of Robert Fulton’s first voyage of his North River Steamboat up the Hudson River in 1809. Wilbur made a seven-minute flight on September 29th , circling the Statue of Liberty.  On October 4th, he made a long-distance flight of more than 33 minutes and approximately 20 miles from Governor’s Island to Grant’s Tomb and back, again circling the Statue of Liberty.  It is estimated that a million people witnessed Wilbur’s flight up the Hudson from Governor’s Island. For these flights, Wilbur attached a red canoe under the airplane as a make-shift pontoon in the event he was forced down in the water.  The canoe survives and today is on display in Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio.

The popular journal "Harper's Weekly" covered Wilbur's circling of the Statue of Liberty. An original is on display in "The Wright Brothers & The Invention of the Aerial Age" exhibition in Washington, DC. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives)

John Bevins Moisant flew over New York Harbor in 1910 in a Blériot XI monoplane. This flight took place during the Statue of Liberty Flight prize race on October 27, 1910.  The race was the final event in one of the first major flying meetings held in the U.S., the International Aviation Tournament at Belmont Park, NY.

Clock from the Lindbergh King Collection ( (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

Lady Liberty appears frequently in memorabilia commemorating Charles Lindbergh’s historic solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. On this clock, displayed at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the Statue of Liberty represents New York (America) while the Eiffel Tower represents Paris (Europe) with the Spirit of St. Louis flying between them. Not to scale, of course.

TWA used an inspiring visual of Lady Liberty with one of their Lockheed Constellation aircraft in this advertisement for commercial passenger service to and across the U.S. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

 

Bill Bennett demonstrates his tow-kite in a flight around the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 1969. (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

Bill Bennett played a key role in the initial development of hang gliding in the U.S. He was a spectacular promoter of the sport and stirred publicity for his tow-kites when he flew near the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 1969, released his towrope and circled the monument twice, landing at its base. Several of his gliders are in our collection.

In 1986, a major celebration was held for the restoration and 100 year anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. Liberty Weekend included a blimp race and flyover by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team.  We don’t have any images from Liberty Weekend handy, but here is a great shot of the Thunderbirds with Lady Liberty in 2005.

Six F-16 Fighting Falcons with the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team fly in formation over the Statue of Liberty before an air show May 26, 2005. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Josh Clendenen)

Over the years, the Statue of Liberty has symbolized many things, Freedom, Enlightenment, Compassion, Acceptance to all those arriving in the land of opportunity — what does she mean to you?

Secretary Langley on a Really Good Cup of Coffee

Published by Allan Janus on October 25, 2011 in Archives, Hidden Treasures, Highlights from the Collection and History.
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Langley

Samuel P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Photograph by R. H. Lord

Samuel P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Photograph by R. H. Lord, SI 87-17019.

Blogs across the Smithsonian will give an inside look at the Institution’s archival collections and practices during a month long blogathon in celebration of October’s American Archives Month. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

As the Museum’s Archives Division packs up and continues with our epic move to the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center, we’re occasionally featuring highlights from our collections. When I was working on a collection of the aeronautical papers of Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906), the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, I was struck by the wealth of detail in his research and the meticulousness of his note-taking. And as a man whose interests ranged from astronomy, astrophysics, aeronautics, and bird flight, mathematics, and the reckoning of standard time, Langley enjoyed observing and describing all sorts of processes — and then suggesting improvements. Take this undated memo in which Langley describes in minute detail the preparation of of a really good cup of coffee at the Posthof café in the spa town of Carlsbad in Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary (now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic) to his niece Mary:

Dear Mary,

I hope this will interest you.

Affectionately,

Your Uncle Samuel

The best coffee in Carlsbad is at the Posthof, and is as good as I know of anywhere. I have been looking into the kitchen this morning and seeing it prepared. The statement that figs or anything of the kind are employed is legendary. There is absolutely nothing but coffee, and it owes its superior excellence to the freshness and the pains taken in its making.

1. The coffee in the berry.

There are four kinds of coffee bean employed: the Menado, Ceylon, Java and Preanger. I do not know the English equivalents for the first and last. They are of very different sizes indeed, and this difference in size of the berry must make it difficult to burn them equally.

2. Roasting.

The roasting is done in a rotary wire mesh over a slow fire. The coffee is renewed three times daily. Each time 10 to 20 pounds of coffee is roasted, a girl turning the handle, and the process occupying in each case nearly an hour. In spite of this care, when the beans come out some of them are very dark and these are picked out.

3. Grinding.

The coffee is then ground to a very uniform fineness, something between the head of a small pin and a coarse sand. It is in no ways ground into a snuff-like powder, but is always clearly perceptible as particles between the fingers. The color of the ground coffee is a light chestnut.

4. Mixing with water.

Somewhat over one-quarter of a pound of the ground coffee is measured in a tin and this is emptied into a tin pail holding, I suppose, four to six gallons. Into this is poured, actually boiling soft water, enough to make 10 portions of the coffee. This softness is considered so important, that if the water be at all hard, a little soda is first added to soften it. The coffee and water are then well stirred with a spoon, and the lid put on and allowed to remain two minutes, when it is poured onto a thick straining cloth placed in a tin vessel with large holes at the bottom through which it drains into a white stone pitcher, which is itself set in boiling water. From this pitcher it is poured into the little ones in which it is served on the table.

5. Serving.

The amount of coffee and water just described will, as I have said, make 10 portions, each of which will be, with the addition of the milk, two of the little cups here, or hardly one good breakfast cup as we have it at home. It is served ordinarily with milk which has been boiled, and which has a little whipped cream on top.

6. Comment.

The one criticism I can make is that the coffee with the above proportion of water, is served too diluted for a café au lait. It would be better made half as strong again and diluted with a larger proportion of hot milk.

 

(From the Samuel P. Langley Collection (Accession XXXX-0494), box 38, folder 58. Another collection of Langley’s papers is held by the Smithsonian Institution Archives.)

 

Very interesting — who actually uses figs in coffee-making? But if Secretary Langley were still with us today, I think that I would rather not be the barista at his local coffee shop.

 

Allan Janus is  a museum specialist in the Archives Division of the National Air and Space Museum.