SMITHSONIAN ANNALS - si

108 Pages·2006·4.68 MB·English

SMITHSONIAN
ANNALS
VOLUME 1
NUMBER 1
The First Nonstop Coast-to-Coast Flight and
the Historic T-2 Airplane • Louis S. Casey
S M I T H S O N I AN I N S T I T U T I ON
NATIONAL AIR MUSEUM • Washington, D.C.
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SMITHSONIAN ANNALS OF FLIGHT
VOLUME 1 • NUMBER 1
The First Nonstop
Coast-to-Coast Flight
and
the Historic T-2 Airplane
Louis S. CASEY
Curator of Flightcraft Division
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • NATIONAL AIR MUSEUM
WASHINGTON, D.C. • 1964
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C., 20402 Price 70 cents
Contents
Page
FOREWORD vn
PREFACE ix
FLIGHT OF THE T-2
Introduction 1
The First Attempts 8
The Coast-to-Goast Flight 19
THE AIRPLANE
Technical Details of the T-2 35
Wings 35
Fuselage 40
Engines 46
Genealogy of the T-2 48
The Constructors 48
The Aircraft 56
APPENDIX
War Department, Air Service, Engineering Division,
Contract 344-T, June 30, 1922 76
Anthony Fokker as Aircraft Designer 84
Log of Accompanying DH-4B, Rockwell Field,
Calif., Nov. 3, 1922 88
BIBLIOGRAPHY 90

Foreword
The impact of man-made flight upon society has extended to all phases
of our life—scientific, political, economic, social, and educational. With
this influence has come a whole new science of aeronautics and astronautics.
Military science has changed almost completely. A great new transporta
tion system and important new industries have developed. The peoples of
the world are now next-door neighbors. Our educational processes reflect
the new geographical, scientific, and language needs developed by these
changes. This revolution has occurred in the less than sixty years between
the Wright brothers first flight, on December 17, 1903, and the first orbital
space flight. In this brief period the rapid pace of flight development has
outrun the orderly recording and documentation of its history.
This crowded and on-going chapter of American history is the subject of
a new series of publications, Smithsonian Annals of Flight, of which this paper
is the first. By this means the National Air Museum of the Smithsonian
Institution will add to the published literature of flight history and will
record important aspects of that history, particularly as they relate to the
collections of the Museum.
It is the hope of the Smithsonian Institution that this series will be useful
to historians and research students and also to the large public that takes
pride in this great and important area of American and world development.
S. DILLON RIPLEY
Secretary, Smithsonian Institution