Aviation History - July 2022

76 Pages·2022·80.6 MB·English

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26
AVIATION
H I S T O R Y
AUTUMN 2022
FEATURES
26 FOXBAT FOLLIES
Was the Soviet’s MiG-25 Foxbat
as awesome as it appeared to be?
BY STEPHAN WILKINSON
36 THE 10 WORST FIGHTERS
A reconnaissance version of the OF WORLD WAR II
MiG-25 Foxbat takes to the sky.
With these airplanes you get the good,
the bad and the ugly—minus the good.
BY ROBERT GUTTMAN
44 “A WORTHY CAUSE”
Before he created King Kong, American
adventurer Merian C. Cooper flew for Poland.
BY TOM HUNTINGTON
36
52 THE CATCH OF CATCH22
How a Hollywood movie assembled
a private squadron of B-25 bombers.
52 BY MARK CARLSON
60 ANOTHER DAY
THE MUSIC DIED
The 1963 crash of a Piper Comanche killed
country music star Patsy Cline. What happened?
BY TOM LECOMPTE
DEPARTMENTS E;
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14 FLIGHT LOG AZENNOMMAND
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44 16 EXTREMES EVGENIY RITAGE C
18 PORTFOLIO BRARY/YY AND HE
24 FR6O6M R TEHVIEE CWOSCKPIT APHICS IMAGE LIM; NAVAL HISTOR
70 FLIGHT TEST T GRSEU
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72 FINAL APPROACH P: FPAC
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MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER
AVIATION
Aviation History
ONLINE
H I S T O R Y
You’ll find much more from Aviation History on AUTUMN 2022 / VOL. 32, NO. 6
the web’s leading history resource: historynet.com
TOM HUNTINGTON EDITOR
HOW THE B-25 BECAME THE LARRY PORGES SENIOR EDITOR
ULTIMATE STRAFER OF WORLD JON GUTTMAN RESEARCH DIRECTOR
WAR II
STEPHAN WILKINSON CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
A featured player in the movie Catch-22, the
ARTHUR H. SANFELICI EDITOR EMERITUS
North American B-25 Mitchell was intended
to be a medium bomber. Instead, the Mitchell BRIAN WALKER GROUP DESIGN DIRECTOR
found its true calling in World War II as a MELISSA A. WINN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
low-level attack bomber and strafer. PAUL FISHER ART DIRECTOR
historynet.com/b25bomber GUY ACETO PHOTO EDITOR
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AIRPLANES THAT SHOULD HAVE MICHAEL Y. PARK MANAGING EDITOR, DIGITAL
CLAIRE BARRETT NEWS AND SOCIAL EDITOR
NEVER FLOWN

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but it takes real gumption to put it into
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destroyed during the filming of the 1930
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4 AUTUMN 2022
MR. MENDOCINO
MAILBAG
I just read your article on the helped settle the final configuration for the modern airplane. Willough-
original fire bombers (“A Bap- by’s Pelican with its triangular ailerons was a unique design of the “hey,
tism by Fire”) in the May 2022 issue of Avia- let’s try this” variety, like the Wright brothers’ wing warping. I think an
tion History. A couple of years ago, while hav- article on the early efforts in the Wrights’ era, when inventors were still
ing lunch with the guys at the airport in trying to define the airplane, would be interesting.
Madera, California, I mentioned an N3N in Louis Chandler
Chico for sale on the internet. A friend said, Monroeville, Pennsylvania
“After lunch let’s go look at it.” We did, and he
WHAT GOES AROUND…
bought Mr. Mendocino, Harold Hendrickson’s
fire bomber. I had no idea what that nose art A thank you to Dan Zamansky for the well-penned and timely piece, “The
Luftwaffe’s Lost Cause” (May 2022). It forces one to pause and ponder:
Does any tyrant ever crack a history book? As Zamansky articulates well,
a bit less than a lifetime ago the world witnessed the Russians in a fight to
the death against a foe determined to strip them of their freedom and sov-
ereignty, and history teaches us that what most imbued them with a win-
ning spirit was the certain knowledge that they were defending their very
right to exist. Now the victors of that conflict would visit the same horrors
on another sovereign nation. And expect what by way of response? Bou-
quets at the border? At the end of the day, I can only wish Putin’s version
of Russia all the glory that was heaped upon postwar Nazi Germany!
Michael McCrath
Seattle, Washington
meant until I read the article. It will be pro-
tected now—it’s precious. I have flown Mr.
Dear Aviation History readers:
Mendocino—proud then, even prouder now!
Bill Hoffrage Beginning with this issue, Aviation History is moving to a quarterly
Madera, California publication schedule. But worry not: existing subscriptions will be
extended, so you’ll get all the issues you paid for. We’ve made some
THE REAL FIRST
exciting improvements, with plenty more in the works—all in the
With all due respect to Colonel Harry A. Hal- aim of giving our valued readers even more than before:
verson, he was not the first to bomb the Ploesti
oilfields in Romania (Flight Test, May 2022). • We’ve redesigned our website to make it more compelling and
The first aerial bombing there took place active and easier to search. Two million users visit every month;
during World War I by German Army Zeppelin check it out at historynet.com.
LZ.86. The airship was based near Temesvar • And we’re offering a subscribers-only email newsletter, “Monthly
(now Timisoara), Hungary, and her com- Mail Drop,” which includes fresh material not available else-
mander was Hauptmann Walter Wolff. On the where. Soon subscribers will also have exclusive access to special
night of September 3/4, 1916, it bombed both content on the website with the insight, excitement and quality
Bucharest and Ploesti but then crashed while you expect from Aviation History.
attempting to land, killing nine of the crew in- • Plus, we’re going to digitize all back issues of Aviation History,
cluding Wolff. Ploesti was bombed at least going back to 1990. This tremendous and unprecedented resource
once more that month by the Zeppelin LZ.101. will soon be available to subscribers. We’ll keep you up to date.
Steve Suddaby
Annandale, Virginia If you aren’t a subscriber, go to shop.historynet.com and sign up
today so you don’t miss a thing! If you are a subscriber—thank you—
Steve Suddaby is one of the leading specialists and stand by for great things to come.
about bombing in World War I, so we will not
argue with him. However, Halverson was the Please reference the terms and conditions of your subscription for
first to bomb Ploesti during World War II. additional details on magazine delivery each year.
DESIGNING INVENTORS
ELY
K
AN The recent article about Hugh Willoughby
R SEND LETTERS TO: Aviation History Editor, HISTORYNET, 901 North Glebe
F
ESY (“The War Hawk and the Pelican,” May 2022) Road, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203 OR EMAIL TO aviationhistory@
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OU reminded me of other early experiments that historynet.com (Letters may be edited)
C
AUTUMN 2022 5
A REPLICA OF THE
WORLD’S FIRST BOMBER
BRIEFING
Mike Fithian approached his re-creation of a
1912 Etrich Taube with compulsive work-
manship and attention to detail. That’s because he wanted to
build a faithful representation of the airplane his grandfather
had flown in World War I.
He succeeded.
Robert Eyb was a pilot in the tiny Imperial and Royal Aus-
tro-Hungarian Air Service during the run-up to World War I.
When his maternal grandson sought a building venture,
Fithian recalled a photograph he had seen of Grandpa Eyb and
his airplane.
The original Taube was not designed as a warbird, for it first flew in Shown in early Austro-Hungarian military
1910. When it did go to war, it achieved notoriety as the world’s first markings, Mike Fithian’s Etrich Taube is a replica
of one of the most stable, easy-to-fly airplanes of
bomber, after an Italian Army Taube in 1911 dropped several grape-
1911, when an Italian used one to drop grenades.
fruit-size grenades on Bedouin troops in Libya who were allied with Tur-
The Austro-Hungarians had relegated it to a
key during the brief Italo-Turkish War. (See “The Father of Aerial Bom-
training role by the end of 1914.
bardment,” May 2022.) Just days earlier, on October 23, Captain Mario
Piazza reconnoitered the enemy for about an hour in a French Blériot XI, of conventional wheels—and named the result
making that history’s first heavier-than-air “warbird.” after himself. Easygoing Etrich didn’t bother to
E
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Since Taube is German for “dove,” many assume that the airplane’s defend his patent; before long, his unlicensed de- O
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bird-like planform indicates the designer’s inspiration. In fact, the wings sign was being cranked out by 14 different compa- R
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are patterned after the seeds of the Javan cucumber tree, which burst nies, including Rumpler’s. C
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from pods high in the trees and propagate after gliding for long distances. Fithian’s Taube is currently based at Old HIN
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Austrian engineer Ignaz Etrich applied the principal to his primitive, Rhinebeck Aerodrome, the famous upstate New OL
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wing-warping design. York vintage-airplanes site, where it will occa- M
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Some think of this airplane as a Rumpler Taube, because another Aus- sionally take to the air on gentle-weather days for R
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trian, Edmund Rumpler, made some minor changes to the design—such the amazement of summer-weekend visitors. — AVI
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as replacing the castering four-wheel crosswind landing gear with a pair Stephan Wilkinson OT
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6 AUTUMN 2022
A Stratotanker Joins
the Air Force Museum
Earhart
Relic Sells at
This summer a Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker with the tail number 60-
0329 became the latest addition to the National Museum of the United
Auction
States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The airplane came with a story.
Anyone who has refueled from a KC-135 since the airplane arrived in the
U.S. Air Force in 1957 can testify that, while the big Boeings made in-air In February 2022, Heritage Auctions of
refueling a standard procedure for the Strategic and Tactical Air Com- Dallas, Texas, sold a leather flying cap
mands, such operations were seldom routine. For the crew of 60-0329, one once worn by Amelia Earhart on a histo-
mission in May 1967 proved exceptionally dramatic. ry-making flight across the Atlantic. The
The Stratotanker was refueling two Lockheed F-104C Starfighters off winning bid was $825,000.
Vietnam when it got an emergency request from six Navy planes over the Earhart is best known today for disap-
Gulf of Tonkin—two Douglas KA-3 Skywarriors, two Vought F-8 Crusad- pearing during an attempt to fly around
ers and two McDonnell F-4 Phantom IIs that were dangerously low on fuel. the world in 1937. Born in Kansas in 1897,
Breaking contact with the F-104s, the tanker descended to 5,000 feet, since Earhart made her first flight, in a barn-
even the KA-3s, which were Navy tankers, had too little fuel to ascend any stormer’s airplane, when she was 23,
higher. Upon reaching their “customers,” the KC-135 crew worked out a began taking flying lessons within two
“daisy chain” formation in which they refueled one of the KA-3s, which in weeks, and bought her own airplane in
turn fueled an F-8 behind it, and then they repeated that unprecedented July 1921. Book publisher George P. Put-
procedure until all six planes had been replenished. The Stratotanker crew nam (later Earhart’s husband) arranged
was subsequently awarded the Air Force’s Mackay Trophy for most meri- to get her onboard a transatlantic flight
torious service of the year. attempt with pilot Wilmer Stultz and
Since then, 60-0329 continued its faithful service through a series of copilot Louis Gordon. The trio took off
upgrades—particularly in the 1980s, when it was among the KC-135s that from Newfoundland on June 17, 1928, in a
received new engines that increased efficiency by 25 percent, allowing Fokker F.VII and landed in Wales nearly
M; them to offload 50 percent more fuel and reduce operational costs. Re- 21 hours later. Even though only a pas-
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HA. designated as a KC-135R, 60-0329 ended 60 years of faithful service senger, Earhart had become the first
S,
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O when it retired from the Hawaii Air National Guard and made its last woman to fly across the Atlantic and she
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A flight to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on April 30, 2022. From there, wrote a book about her experience, 20
E
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RIT in July, it took its place among the historic aircraft at the NMUSAF. Some Hrs. 40 Min.: Our Flight in the Friendship.
E
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T: of them might even be former customers. — Jon Guttman Earhart later piloted her own record-
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P RI setting flights, which included becoming
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ES AIAGES Earhart wore the leather cap on the
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AUTUMN 2022 7
Career Change
Visitors to the University Hills area of Denver, Colorado, might be sur-
prised to notice the top of a large white aircraft just barely visible behind
a tall wooden fence in this residential neighborhood. Peer over the fence
and you will see the complete fuselage of a vintage passenger airliner. It
is, in fact, all that remains of Charlie-21, one of only four DC-7 airframes
still known to exist out of the 338 constructed by the Douglas Aircraft
Company. Built in 1954, DC-7 number C-1921 was powered by four piston
engines and originally flew for United Airlines before being sold to the
Dooley Aircraft Company in Arizona as a charter plane. Eventually out-
dated, the airplane was due to be scrapped. Instead, Iliff Preschool in
Denver purchased the airframe in the early 1970s and had it transported
When is an airliner not an airliner?
overland to its site, where it was converted into a classroom. Significant
When it’s been converted into a
classroom. DC-7 C-1921 now serves in work was done on the airframe to make it stable for day-to-day use, but it
that capacity for the Iliff Preschool in still retains much of its original configuration. Standing in or around the
Denver, Colorado. airframe is a remarkable experience. Now crewed by small children,
Charlie-21 flies in their imagination on a daily basis. — Douglas G. Adler
AERO ARTIFACT
FLYING COLORS
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8 AUTUMN 2022