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Classic Wings Magazine WWII Naval Aviation Research Pacific Luftwaffe Resource Center
When Hollywood Ruled The Skies - Volumes 1 through 4 by Bruce Oriss


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PostPosted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 11:18 pm 
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The idea for some sort of emergency locator transmitter goes back to at least 1938, when a man in London named R. V. Wrightson provisionally patented a "distress-call transmitter" that was intended to activate "in the event of the undercarriage breaking or if the engine stops with the ignition switch on".[1] However, it is unclear if this was ever installed in any aircraft.

The origins of the modern ELT may lie with the United States Air Force, which instituted development of a "Crash-Locator Beacon" and a "Crash-Locator Bearing Recorder" in the early 1950s.[2] The result may be a patent filed in 1961 for a "Light Weight Crash Locator Beacon (2,979,608) that was assigned to the USAF. A catapultable/ejectable design, the T13E2, was also under development at that time.[3]

Interest in "crash locator beacons" really seems to take off around 1964. In that year, the device was being tested on C-133s and C-135s[4] and the FAA began encouraging its development following testing on two DC-3s the year before.[5]

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PostPosted: Mon Jul 19, 2021 8:33 pm 
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I came across an interesting article in the October 1947 issue of Flying magazine called "So You Think That's New?" about the aircraft design firsts that, while seemingly recent, are actually far older than expected. The concepts include:
  • Flying Wing - XB-35 - Burgess-Dunne [Ed. Technically the British Dunne D.8 was first, with the Burgess-Dunne being the license built American version.]
  • Dorsal Fin - P-51 - Lohner [111] [Ed. The Lohner 111.03 is shown, but the earlier 111.02 had a dorsal fin as well - albeit smaller.]
  • External Radiator - P-51 - Junkers J-2
  • Counter-Rotating Propeller - XF8B - Deperdussin[-de Feure Model 2][1]
  • Brody System - L-5 - Bleriot [XI][2]
  • Droppable Fuel Tanks - P-47 - Dornier D-1 [Ed. Droppable fuel tanks were mentioned in a previous post.]
  • Amphibious Floats - [X]C-47[C] - Loening M-81
  • Propeller in Tail - Douglas Cloudster - Borel Pusher [Ed. The Borel is predated by the Paulhan-Tatin Aéro-Torpille No.1.]
  • Rockets - Corsair - [Farman HF.20 (?)] [Ed. These are the Le Prieur rockets mentioned in a previous post.]
  • Target Planes - OQ-14 - [GL-1][3]
  • Pressurized Cockpit - P-80 - DH-9

The first aircraft with a riveted metal fuselage was the Hall XFH. (It's worth noting that Hall also submitted a patent, 1,857,754, for countersunk flush rivets in 1925. More information can be found in an article about the development of flush riveting.) Only 23 years later came the first "large-scale use of titanium in aircraft structures" with the Douglas X-3 Stiletto.[4][5]

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 24, 2021 10:14 pm 
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As was discussed in a recent thread, tip tanks were patented by Kelly Johnson at Lockheed in a patent, 2,421,699, filed in 1944:
Attachment:
2,421,699 - Auxiliary Fuel Tank.png
2,421,699 - Auxiliary Fuel Tank.png [ 166.16 KiB | Viewed 3591 times ]

(Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office)

The answer for first airplane with a fuel injected engine depends on what type of injection you're talking about. The first gasoline direct injection engine "was a two-stroke aircraft engine designed by Otto Mader in 1916."[1] Determining the first manifold injection engine is a bit more iffy, but it was definitely established by 1906, when the Antoinette 8V was first produced.[2] The first airplane to use this engine appears to be none other than the the Santos-Dumont 14-bis. (I have found conflicting sources on whether or not the original engine on the Wright Flyer had a carburetor.[3][4] I don't have enough mechanical knowledge to determine which one is correct, but I suspect the problem is that the design the Wright Brothers used does not fit neatly into either category.)

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 25, 2021 8:09 pm 
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The idea of ducted spinners was mentioned in a previous post and revised in another one, but I came across an image from a 1917 issue of Aerial Age Weekly that pushes the date of its first invention back even further:
Attachment:
Curtiss S-3.png
Curtiss S-3.png [ 437.17 KiB | Viewed 3565 times ]

(Source: Aerial Age Weekly via HathiTrust)

A little bit of searching found me the name of the airplane, the Curtiss S-3, and another picture - this one showing a different configuration of the airplane with a cone in place inside the spinner:
Image
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Also discussed in a previous post was the first angle of attack indicator and how a stall warning device is essentially another version of it. If so, the Sperry "Stallometer" from 1917 - a device consisting of an airspeed measurement unit connected to a warning light on the instrument panel, qualifies:
Attachment:
Sperry Stallometer.png
Sperry Stallometer.png [ 1.47 MiB | Viewed 3565 times ]

(Source: The Aeroplane via HathiTrust)

Finally, I came across a book called Aviation Firsts: 336 Questions and Answers that seems relevant to this thread.

EDIT (23-07-24): A device similar to the "Stallometer", the "Guardianair", is described in an article in the January 1931 issue of Popular Aviation. However, it differed by being connected to a rudimentary automatic pilot rather than warning the pilot:
Attachment:
Popular Aviation, January 1931, page 31 (Reduced).png
Popular Aviation, January 1931, page 31 (Reduced).png [ 1.03 MiB | Viewed 553 times ]

(Source: Popular Aviation via Google Books)

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Last edited by Noha307 on Mon Jul 24, 2023 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 25, 2021 11:09 pm 
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Very interesting stuff, mate! Love the thread.


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PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:07 pm 
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Maty12 wrote:
Very interesting stuff, mate! Love the thread.

Thanks! I just keep running into different historical footnotes with all of the stuff I've been reading through and they are indeed interesting enough that I can't resist sharing them!

Speaking of which, just this evening I stumbled across a mention that Aeronautical Research Foundation was sponsored by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to experiment with quieter airplanes in 1948. The experiments involved testing propellers of various numbers of blades on a Stinson Voyager 150 and a Piper J3 Cub. This resulted in what may be the first examples of an airplane with six and eight bladed propellers:
Attachment:
Stinson Voyager 150 with Six Bladed Propeller.png


Attachment:
Stinson Voyager 150 with Eight Bladed Propeller.png


(Source: Aviation Week via Internet Archive)

This is noted as a follow on to testing with a five bladed propeller on an L-5 the year before. This research almost certainly eventually led to the creation of the Lockheed YO-3.

I also have two updates to previous posts:
  • The surprisingly-advanced-for-its-time "Flightray" cathode ray tube system developed in 1936 is named by NASM as being the "[f]irst integrated flight instrumentation system ("Glass cockpit") flown". The exact definition of a glass cockpit is somewhat difficult to nail down, but if this counts as an example of one it would beat out the system in the F-111D mentioned in a previous post by several decades.[1]
  • It's worth remembering that, as pointed out by an article from 1937 in Popular Aviation, the perforated dive brakes mentioned in a previous post were technically developed by Northrop, not Douglas. The reason that the design later became associated with Douglas (via the SBD), is that Northrop operated as a division of Douglas until 1937 when it was dissolved and the latter took over the former's plant.[2]

EDIT (21-11-07): Interestingly, less than a month before the patent for the "Flightray" system was filed, a cathode-ray beam direction finder instrument was being offered for sale by the Airplane & Marine Direction Finder Corporation:
Attachment:
Cathode-Ray Beam Direction Direction Finder Indicator.png


(Source: Aviation Week via Internet Archive)

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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:03 pm 
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I did a little bit of research today and it seems like the claim for the first aerial ambulance is highly muddled as similar developments were happening at the same time in multiple places around the world. What is clear is that the common thread linking all of them was World War I and the concept was only truly realized towards the end of the war.

Despite the general sounding title, over half of the book Aviation Workhorses Around the World by G. R. Duval is about air ambulances and it has some excellent photographic coverage of the subject. The introduction states that:
G. R. Duval wrote:
The first recorded case of a casualty transported by a heavier-than-air machine was in 1915, when a French pilot flew a wounded Serbian airman to safety during the retreat of the Serbian Army. During World War I in Europe, the large number of field hospitals and dressing stations obviated any need for air evacuation, but individual medical officers in the Middle East used their initiative, resulting for example in the carriage of a wounded trooper to hospital from the Sinai Desert in 1917, and in the conversion of a D.H.6 trainer to carry a stretcher case at Helwan in Egypt, in 1918. During the latter year, the French used air ambulances in Morocco, the Americans experimented with a Curtiss flying-boat to carry injured seamen ashore from warships, whilst in Canada a small batch of Curtiss JN-4s were probably the first aircraft to be built as air ambulances. Also in 1918, a French Vosin X was equipped to carry a surgical unit with X-ray apparatus, and accommodation for two stretcher patients; the other French ambulances were Breguet 14s. Just before the war ended, the U.S. Army ordered that one aeroplane at each airfield was to be modified for ambulance work, although how far this was carried out is not known. [emphasis added]

(Source: Godfrey Richard Duval, ed., Aviation Workhorses Around the World (Truro, Cornwall: D. Bradford Barton Limited, 1977), 6.)

Although qualifying it with the terms "practical" and "modification", a later picture caption seems to repeat the claim above, stating that:
G. R. Duval wrote:
The R.A.F. (Canada) Curtiss JN-4(CAN) Air, the first of seven under production by Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd., and probably the first practical modification of an aircraft for this purpose.

(Source: Godfrey Richard Duval, ed., Aviation Workhorses Around the World (Truro, Cornwall: D. Bradford Barton Limited, 1977), 10.)

An article in Air & Space magazine, paraphrasing the book Aeromedical Evacuation: The Management of Acute and Stabilized Patients by William Hurd and John G. Jernigan, notes an earlier, although unsuccessful, attempt at aeromedical transport:
Mike Klesius wrote:
In 1910, two Army medical officers, Captain George H.R. Grosman and Lieutenant A.L. Rhodes, used their own money to design the first documented air ambulance. (On its maiden flight, in Fort Barrancas, Florida, it traveled 500 yards and crashed.) The first true evacuation of the wounded in airplanes specifically equipped for the job took place during World War I, when French medical officer Eugene Chassaing transformed military airplanes into air ambulances: In April 1918 at Flanders, Belgium, a modified Dorand II flew two patients side by side in the fuselage. By the end of the war, U.S. Army Major Nelson Driver and Captain William Ocker had converted a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny into a flying ambulance.

(Source: Mike Klesius, “The Flying Emergency Room,” Air & Space, November 2012.)

A multi-volume official history, The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, elaborates on the Serbian claim above, noting that:
Frank W. Weed wrote:
[D]uring the retreat of the Serbian Army in November and December, 1915, 13 wounded or sick were transported 80 to 200 kilometers. This was an emergency measure, and no special provision was made by the modification of the plane. The maneuver was successful, and not only were the patients safely transported, but they escaped otherwise inevitable capture. [emphasis added]

(Source: Frank W. Weed, The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, vol. V (Washington, 1923), 416.)

A French doctor directed the conversion of an airframe that was first used in September 1917:
Frank W. Weed wrote:
In France, during the World War, Doctor Chassaing, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, succeeded in inducing the aviation department to construct an airplane ambulance designed for patients in a recumbent position. The airplane was first tried out at Villacoublay in September, 1917, and later on the Aisne front.

(Source: Frank W. Weed, The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, vol. V (Washington, 1923), 416-417.)

However, the first aerial ambulance used in the United States was created in early 1918:
Frank W. Weed wrote:
So far as records show, the first flying field to use the airplane in transporting medical officers to the site of crashes, and also for transporting patients, was Gerstner Field, Lake Charles, La. This station was located in low swampy country surrounded by many bayous. Crashes occurred at places which could be reached by no transportation except the airplane, consequently, in February, 1918, the commanding officer at that field authorized the conversion of a JN-4 airplane into an ambulance, and it was completed and placed in commission during that month. Two officers on duty at the station made the plans and supervised the construction of this ambulance at Gerstner Field. They are entitled to the credit for first transporting patients in an airplane ambulance in this country.

(Source: Frank W. Weed, The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, vol. V (Washington, 1923), 417.)

Attachment:
JN-4D Air Ambulance.png
JN-4D Air Ambulance.png [ 625.35 KiB | Viewed 3410 times ]

Frank W. Weed wrote:
FIG. 141.-Airplane ambulance, first used at Gerstner Field, La., January 28, 1918.

(Source: Frank W. Weed, The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, vol. V (Washington, 1923), 417.)

The photograph above, which accompanies the text, shows a JN-4 with the number "3131" painted on the lower rear fuselage. This is very likely the Signal Corps serial number and does indeed correspond to a series of JN-4Ds on Joe Baugher's list. It is worth noting that, based on its success, this conversion was directed to be repeated at other Air Service flying fields. So while a number of photographs of converted JN-4s can be found online (including in a General Aviation News article), this one appears to be the first.

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:54 pm 
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The first aircraft with an internal crane is unclear. One of the problems is defining what constitutes a crane. The earliest instance I have found of the specific modern sense of "overhead lifting device running the length of a transport aircraft cargo compartment" is the C-74:
Image
(Source: Disneo-Art)

At Tempelhof Airport in 1948 during the Berlin Airlift:
Image
(Source: ČTK via Aktuálně.cz)

In addition to overhead crane, the C-74 also had a smaller swing out crane at the forward loading door:
Image
(Source: AMC History Office via Replica in Scale)

As well as a portion of the lower fuselage that could be removed to allow an elevator to lift cargo from directly beneath the airplane, seen below on 42-65402:
Image
(Source: Air-and-Space.com)

However, it is worth noting two other earlier aircraft that, while not quite meeting the conception of "crane" I was thinking of, could be seen as having predecessors to the technology. World War II American medium and heavy bombers mounted an internal winch designed for lifting ordnance into the bomb bay (and, in the B-24 only, could be used to rescue the stuck ball turret gunner).[1] Here's one in the B-17G Aluminum Overcast:
Image
(Source: Twin Beech.com via Warbird Information Exchange)

The other aircraft is the Short Sunderland, which featured bomb racks which could be rolled in and out of a door in the fuselage underneath the wings. Pictured below is a Mark I, N9027:
Image
(Source: Imperial War Museum via Wikimedia Commons)

Another technology I ran into is the "Autosyn Remote Indicating System", that allowed remote indication of aircraft instruments.[2] (Which, among other things, mean no longer having to mount the instruments on the engines or other areas outside the cockpit like on the Ford Tri-Motor.) The device was developed by the Pioneer Instrument Company and a paper from 1939 states that it was first flight tested in 1932, but unfortunately it does not mention the airplane used.[3]

Not to be confused with the Autosyn, it is unclear when the propeller synchronizer was developed. However, a development of it, the synchrophaser, which matches blade position as well as engine rpm, seems to have originated in the mid-1950s.[4] Apparently developed concurrently by Hamilton Standard, Aeroproducts, and Curtiss-Wright as the Synchrophaser, Phase Synchronizer, and Synchrophasing Device, respectively, it was tested on multiple aircraft around the same time.[5] The Hamilton Standard version was tested on the two YC-121Fs, 53-8157 and 53-8158. A DC-7B of Panagra may have been the first operational use.[6] L-1649 Starliner had them installed as well.[7]

There is a claim that the Earth inductor compass was invented by Morris Titterington at the Pioneer Instrument Company in 1924.[8] However, while he was key in its development, the first use in aviation predates this. At least as early as 1923 an unknown de Havilland airplane of the Instruments and Navigation Branch of McCook Field was flew with the device.[9] It may have flown even before that, as it had been in development there since at least 1921.[10] The device would go on to gain fame as a tool used by Lindberg in the Spirit of St. Louis and Pioneer took the chance to promote it in the first issue of Aero Digest following the flight.[11]

Finally, on a World War I note, the Siemens-Schuckert D.I was likely the first airplane to use a bi-rotary engine.[12]

EDIT (22-07-23): To combine the subjects of two of the entries above, a good description of what may be one of the first remote compasses can be found on page 19 of the 3 January 1921 issue of Aviation and Aircraft Journal.

EDIT (22-10-01): Drawings showing the use of the bomb bay hoist in the B-17 to lift 500; 1,000; 1,600 and 2,000 pound bombs can be found on the Armament page of the Hangar Thirteen website.

EDIT (23-03-19): An "engine synchronism indicator" is mentioned as being invented by the appropriately named Carl C. Tinker in the September 1932 issue of Aero Digest. Described as a combination of a tachometer and a synchroscope, it is specifically mentioned as utilizing a spinning indicator to relay whether the engines are unsynchronized.[13]

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 29, 2021 5:22 pm 
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On the night of 22/23 July 1940 the Fighter Interception Unit (FIU) using a Blenheim Mk. IF achieved the first airborne radar intercepted kill in history, shooting down a Dornier Do 17 Z of 2 Staffel, Kampfgeschwader 3.
Image

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 10, 2021 8:31 pm 
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To start, I thought I would go back and respond to a question from a previous post that was never answered:
DuxfordThunderbolt wrote:
Does anyone know when formation ("slime") lights first came into play? I'm assuming that it was a tech solution developed in a vacuum, i.e., not developed for a single airframe but for the plural "aircraft". I also wonder which was the first type to have them installed, or at least the aircraft type that did initial testing?

Apparently, slime lights were introduced partway through the F-4 production run, as later variants had them, but earlier ones did not. The first production F-4 they were installed on was an F-4E-45-MC, 69-7579.[1] A 1955 paper titled Formation Lights for Fighter Aircraft cited in the aforementioned reference, suggests that interest in formation lighting began in 1945 with a conference at the Bureau of Medicine about the causes of aircraft accidents at night.[2]

Researching this question lead me down a path to consider aircraft lighting firsts more broadly. An article from the Boeing Technical Journal claims "(i)n 1925, the first landing lights were installed on a mail plane and powered by a charged car battery".[3] However, this likely refers to either only Boeing-built aircraft or only mailplanes, as the Flight Test Section of McCook Field was experimenting with landing lights in "the JN-4H, the USXB-1 and the Glenn Martin Bomber" as early as 1921.[4] A DH-4B was also being used for this purpose by 1922.[5] A "10-volt, 16[-]ampere bulb mounted in front of an 8-in parabolic reflector" was initially tested, but it was found to be inadequate and was replaced by a 12-volt, 100-ampere bulb with a 13-in parabolic reflector.[6]

Applications for a "dirigible headlight, an "aircraft lamp", and a "retractable landing light" were filed in 1918, 1922, and 1928, respectively.[7][8][9] The famous Grimes Manufacturing Company was relatively late to the scene, with Warren Grimes only filing his first patent in 1935.[10]

United Air Lines seems to have been a pioneer in postwar rotating beacons, with the airline being mentioned in multiple articles in the early 1950s and even having been assigned a patent for one filed in 1953.[11][12][13][14] It seems the technology started to reach the mainstream around this time, with other articles noting the need for something better than the navigation lights of the day.[15] Interestingly, one connects the need to a 1953 mid-air collision involving a UAL Convair 340.[16] Indeed, it may be that some of the mid-air collisions of the 1950s (e.g. 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision) that led to the International Civil Aviation Organization adding an amendment in reference to navigation lights in 1957 and a Federal Aviation Regulation mentioning anti-collision lights being promulgated the same year.[17]

In the vein of "So You Think That's New" mentioned in a previous post, the idea of moving the entire empennage by hinging the rear fuselage instead of just the control surfaces predates the Mooney M20 by over 35 years. (It's worth noting that this could be considered the technically correct definition of an "all-flying tail" as the modern usage generally refers to an "all-flying tailplane" or "stabilator", where only the horizontal stabilizer itself moves. A guess at the first airplane with the latter was briefly touched on in a previous post.) The Albree Pigeon-Fraser, which first flew in 1917, featured this design:
[Link to Oversize Image]
(Source: National Archives)

Surprisingly, one of the three prototypes survives in the collection of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.[18]

Another concept that was first used sometime before is that of the gun bay or gun port door. Although its first use (at least for me) was associated with the F-22, I recently discovered that the SAAB J 32 Lansen also used a form of shutters.[19]

Harkening back to the first use of cruise missiles on He 111s mentioned in a previous post, I was surprised to learn that the first use of active radar homing in a missile was also in an air-to-surface missile dropped from a bomber in 1944. Beyond that, there is a bit of uncertainty:
  • If I am interpreting the Wikipedia article correctly, the first examples may have technically been modified Pelican missiles and not Bats.[20]
  • Most sources seem to agree that the first test of the missile (whatever its name) was on 29 July 1944, when four missiles were launched at the SS James Longstreet.[21] However, one source states "Bat Missile flight tests started in May 1944".[22]
  • The type of aircraft used in the above test is not clear. Bats are usually thought of being dropped by PB4Ys, but a multitude of other aircraft were used at various points during testing.[23]

For more information about guided missile firsts, see the article "The Birth of Guided Missiles" by Rear Admiral Delmar S. Fahrney.

As far as the first aircraft to carry an air-to-air active radar homing missile, it may have been a B-58! A B-58, 55-665, was modified to carry the Hughes GAR-9 Falcon and test firings were conducted in May 1962.[24][25]

EDIT (22-02-15): One apparent precursor to slime lights was a system using Lucite wingtips, elevators, and ailerons developed by the Aeromedical Equipment Laboratory at NAMC Philadelphia in 1947:
Attachment:
Naval Aviation News September 1947 Page 31.png
Naval Aviation News September 1947 Page 31.png [ 138.31 KiB | Viewed 1618 times ]

Naval Aviation News wrote:
It may look like St. Elmo's fire, but it's really lucite installed on wing tips, rudder
and elevators by Aero Medical Equipment Laboratory, NAMC Philadelphia, to find
the best kind of exterior lighting for night-flying planes. Pilots often get confused by
ground lights, stars or similar single lights and fly into each other or into the ground.
The lab is also studying employment of flashing lights like commercial planes install.

(Source: “[Untitled],” Naval Aviation News, September 1947, 31.)

Unfortunately, the relevant report, "A Method of Exterior Aircraft Illumination Using Transparent Acrylic Plastic" is not available on DTIC.[26]

EDIT (22-03-26): Another early innovator in aircraft lighting was a Northwest Airlines captain named Bill Atkins. He apparently designed some of the first strobe lights and suggested moving them to the wingtips from the fuselage. His designs were first tested on his personal Piper Cub in 1953-1954, and later General Mills corporate DC-3 (possibly 41-18689/06095/N51F), before being installed on a DC-6B, #656.[27]

EDIT (22-11-21): I recently learned that the very early F-86s, the F-86A-1 and some A-5s, also had such doors.[28] The first production P-86A, 47-605, first flew on 20 May 1948.[29] (However, in apparent pictures of the first flight they are not visible. Nevertheless, a picture of it on display in 1978 shows it with them in place and 47-611 is seen with them only four months later. It's possible the gun port doors were considered secret and censored out similar to how the serial number was painted over in the famous photograph of Mustang IA, 41-37416.) So, the use of the technology in the Lansen was apparently predated by at least four years. (It is not clear if the prototype for the Lansen, first flown in 1952, had armament. If not, then the difference would be seven years, as the production version entered service in 1955.[19])

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:34 pm 
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Determining the first purpose built dive bomber is difficult due to the gradual nature of the development of the tactic, but it may have been the Heinkel He 50.

The first aircraft with an ejection seat has been touched on in a previous post, but there are some further ejection seat firsts that haven't been covered. The Martin-Baker Mk.2 was the first seat with automatic seat-man separation and entered service with the RAF in 1953.[1] Since it was initially deployed as a retrofit to the Mk.1 seat, and therefore a number of different models of aircraft were fitted with it around the same time, determining a first aircraft would likely be very difficult. However, the first use of a Mk.2 was by a Supermarine Attacker on 15 May 1953.[2]

The development of rocket propelled and zero-zero ejection seats are intertwined. "Gunpowder" propelled seats had reached the limit of their capabilities - the increase in power necessary to achieve zero-zero capability with one or two instantaneous charges would risk severely injuring the pilot.[3] According to Wikipedia, the first airplane with a rocket propelled ejection seat was the F-102.[3] This seems to be referring to the "interim" seat which apparently started out with an M-3 catapult design, but was later modified to use an MK-1 combination rocket/catapult system.[4] A replacement seat, the Convair "B" seat, was in use starting in 1959.[4] (The aircraft used in some of the 1961 testing was apparently F-106B, s/n 57-2507.[5]) Strangely, an article from the Royal Aeronautical Society claims that the "[w]orld’s first rocket-assisted ejection from an aircraft in flight" occurred in 1962.[1] However, it was not until the third and final F-106 ejection seat, the ROCAT, or rocket-catapult, that the aircraft had a zero-zero capable seat. By the time it was first live-tested in 1965, Martin-Baker had already beaten the United States to the punch, testing a zero-zero seat in 1961.[4][1] The first production Martin-Baker design to incorporate zero-zero capability seems to be the Mk.6.[6] Again, it is not clear what the first aircraft with a Mk.6 was, but the first ejection using one was on 28 November 1966.[7]

Interestingly, while researching this post, I learned that my initial statement of first aircraft with an ejection seat could be incorrect. There are claims that ejection seats were first tested in a Ju 87 B:
Image
(Source: Nevington War Museum)

However, the He 280 first flew in 1940 and the earliest claimed date I have found for this picture is 1941.[8] So either the He 280 was first tested without an ejection seat and it was only retrofitted later, or this picture is from later testing. The former is possible, as the first ejection from the He 280 only took place in January 1942.[8] (Incidentally, the above picture is apparently a screenshot pulled from Reichsluftfahrtministerium Film Nr. 597. A low quality version is available on YouTube.)

Finally, while not exactly dealing with firsts, I came across two articles about individuals key to the development of the variable pitch propeller that I feel are still relevant enough to include here:

EDIT (22-11-27): A post on WW2Aircraft.net includes some pictures of an exhibit at the Canada Aviation & Space Museum about Mr. Turnbull's variable pitch propeller.

EDIT (23-03-19): Apparently, there may be some dispute as to the date of the first emergency ejection. An article in the October 1986 issue of Approach magazine about the history of ejection seats gives the date as 13 January 1943.[9]

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Last edited by Noha307 on Sun Mar 19, 2023 5:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:54 pm 
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The first civilian aircraft with a backup or emergency ram air turbine appears to be the VC10. As seen in a picture, the prototype aircraft, G-ARTA, actually had two - an "ELRAT" for the electrical system and a "HYRAT" for hydraulics.[1] The units were manufactured by Dowty.[2] (The VC10 had a few other unusual design features, including a periscope! It may have also been the first airliner to be able to carry a spare engine in a pod under the wing.)

I use the qualifiers backup and emergency in the paragraph above because wind driven generators were in use before World War II, but they operated on a constant basis. (Similar to the relationship between stall warning instruments and angle of attack indicators mentioned in a previous post, wind driven generators could be considered some of the first auxiliary power units.) While the first use of these is not clear, the National Archives has excellent photographs of one manufactured in 1918 by Western Electric both assembled and disassembled.

According to a 1939 article in Aviation, spot welding was used on the XOS2U. However, the wording implies that the XOS2U may have only been the first production aircraft to to use it. Although the piece describes Vought's work with spot welding as "pioneering", another source notes that it was jointly developed with the Naval Aircraft Factory. (Interestingly, while it is mentioned in the context of ships - and not aircraft - a report does suggest the Naval Aircraft Factory was experimenting with the technology as early as 1924.[3]) Furthermore, it is important to note that all of the above only refers to aircraft constructed of aluminum. The first aircraft to use spot welding on any type of material was very likely the Budd BB-1 Pioneer, which was constructed of stainless steel.[4]

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:37 pm 
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The supplanting of cathode ray tube technology - mentioned in a previous post - by liquid-crystal displays was necessary for the creation of the first seatback in-flight entertainment systems. The first instances of SIFES occurred in Northwest Airlines Boeing 747s in July 1988. The specific airframe to first use them is unclear, but the sets were manufactured by a company called AirVision. Other details of the first implementation seem to be in dispute, with one source reporting there were 119 screens measuring 3 1/2-inches, another stating there were only 116 screens, and a third stating they were only 2.7 inches.[1][2][3] (Interestingly, according to a 1937 article in Popular Mechanics, Northwest was also apparently an early implementer of air to ground radiotelephone service.[4])

Pressurization has been covered in a previous post, but drop-down emergency oxygen systems have not. An answer on the aviation portion of Stack Exchange put me on the right track. It mentioned an advertisement for such a system developed by Scott Aviation Corporation appeared in the 1957 issue of Flying. The fact that it was described as being "in prototype production" and that it "introduces a new concept of respiratory protection for passengers and crew" suggests that it was a new technology at the time.[5] A patent for the automatic drop down mask was applied for by John J. Swearingen and Ernest B. McFadden only two years prior.[6] The first airplanes to be equipped with it were the Boeing 707, the Douglas DC-8, and the Convair 880.[7] While it is unclear if all three were equipped with it from the start, but presuming they were, the 707 would be first as it was the first to fly. (For some good historical summaries of the broader concept of oxygen masks in aviation, see: A Brief History of US Military Aviation Oxygen Breathing Systems and an FAA Passenger Oxygen Mask Design Study)

Finally, a particularly tough question to answer has been the first airplane with guns installed inside the wings. Not above the wing, not below the wing (as in the Gloster Gladiator), not in the cowling, but inside the wings. So far, the earliest example I can find is the predecessor of the Polikarpov I-16, the TsKB-12. While actual guns were not installed until later, test flights started in 1933 with dummy gun barrels in the wings.[8] However, I feel like there is almost certainly an earlier example than this.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 12, 2021 5:48 pm 
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The first airborne early warning and control (AEWC) aircraft was a Wellington Ic, R1629, that was specially modified with "a rotating Yagi dipole array, an ASV Mk.II receiver, a special high powered transmitter and a nine inch (23cm) PPI display" for testing in what was termed the "Air Control of Interception", or ACI role. However, the system was dismantled in April 1942 before it could ever be used in combat. A different Wellington was "fitted with an ASV Mk.VI radar and PPI display" and operationally trialed in January 1945.[1] (More information on this subject is apparently available in the April 1987 issue of Flypast magazine.)

Image
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Meanwhile, across the pond, the U.S. Navy had created Project Cadillac in 1942. It resulted in the XTBM-3W, which first flew on 5 August 1944 and was fitted with an APS-20 radar.[2][3] (For more pictures of radar equipped Avengers, see another thread.)

Image
(Source: The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia)

The first aircraft with a rotordome was not the E-2, but instead a Lockheed WV-2E Warning Star, BuNo 126512, with an AN/APS-70.[4][5][6]

Image
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The first aircraft to carry a pulse-Doppler radar, giving it look down/shoot down capability, was actually already mentioned in a previous post. The B-58, 55-665, nicknamed Snoopy, was fitted with an AN/ASG-18 radar for testing.

Image
(Source: Check-Six.com)

The two HR2S-1Ws, BuNos 141646 and 141647, which mounted either the AN/APS-20E or AN/APS-32, were the first helicopters with an AEW system.[7]

Image
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The first aircraft with a passive electronically scanned array, or PESA, radar was the B-1B, which mounted the the AN/APQ-164.[8] However, it was the BRLS-8B Zaslon radar mounted on the the MiG-31 that made a major stir when it debuted at the 1991 Paris Airshow, as it was the first implementation of PESA on a fighter.

Image
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

While active electronically scanned array, or AESA, radars were initially conceived of as ground-based ballistic missile defense in the United States and Soviet Union during the 1960s, the Israelis and Japanese were apparently pioneers in the design of airborne systems. The EL/M-2075 Phalcon, the first airborne AESA radar, was developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and Elta Electronics Industries. It was installed in a Boeing 707, msn 19000, that was delivered to, of all military branches, the Chilean Air Force![9] The first mass produced example, the J/APG-1, was installed in the Mitsubishi F-2.

Finally, for a detailed history of radar development by the U.S. Navy see the report: Evolution of Naval Radio-electronics and Contributions of the Naval Research Laboratory.

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PostPosted: Sun Jan 02, 2022 8:49 pm 
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Although everyone remembers the A-10 for its "titanium bathtub", the first airplane with an armored cockpit may have been the Junkers J.I. It is also reported to be the first all metal aircraft to enter mass production.[1]

While area rule was conceived of in World War II Germany and used on a number of paper projects, the first aircraft to make use of the theory and actually fly was the F11F.[2]

The subject of first aircraft radio was covered in previous posts (1, 2), but I recently came across a bit more information. According to a recent NASM blog post, "the first lightweight radio transmitter built for use on aircraft" was "[d]esigned and built by Hugo Leuteritz of Pan American" in the late 1920s. It also mentions that the ARC Model D, which was "[d]esigned by the Aircraft Radio Corporation in 1929" was "the first commercial navigation receiver". While there is no mention of what aircraft the Model D was installed on, the former was used on "Pan Am's first route...in 1928".[3] (Note, Pan Am's first flights occurred in 1927 with air mail. It was only in 1928 that the airline first carried passengers.) Leuteritz was hired in mid-1928, by which point Pan Am had purchased Fokker F-10s and Sikorsky S-38s to complement its original Fokker F-VIIs.[4] So the radio was almost certainly installed in one of these aircraft.

The invention of the Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) is attributed to Charles Donald Bateman. In 1974, while working for Sundstrand Data Control, he filed patents 3,946,358 and 3,922,637 for the instrument and system respectively. However, according to a 2016 Bloomberg article, tests were apparently carried out in 1971 with a "small plane" at the site of the Alaska Airlines Flight 1866 crash. The article includes a picture of a King Air that is described as "a Honeywell plane the company used to test his safety devices", but it is likely that this is a different airframe as the picture appears to have been taken for the article.[5]

The development of the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) is complicated due to the fact that, during the 1960s and 1970s, there were multiple organizations working on the same issue. (As an illustration, a 1977 bibliography of the issue runs some 277 pages.) Some of these programs include:
  • The McDonnell Eliminate Range Zero System (EROS) demonstrated in 1963 and tested in 1965.[6]
  • The Honeywell Proximity Warning Indicator system developed in 1968 and fielded by U.S. Army helicopters in 1969.[6]
  • The RCA Separation Control of Aircraft by Nonsynchronous Techniques (SECANT) system family tested by the U.S. Navy prior to 1978.[7] One particular implementation was the Vertical Escape Collision Avoidance System (VECAS).[6]
  • The Honeywell Avionic Observation of Intruder Danger (AVOID) system also tested by the U.S. Navy prior to 1978.[6][7]

However, the origins of the modern system apparently began with the Beacon Collision Avoidance System (BCAS) developed by the Federal Aviation Administration in the 1970s. The system was based on the Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System (ATCRBS) and first assembled in 1975.[8] Testing apparently employed a Beechcraft Bonanza, Cessna 172, Grumman G-159, and Convair CV-880.[7]

BCAS would later be developed into the modern TCAS II system.[9] According to an FAA booklet, "prototypes of TCAS II were installed on two Piedmont Airlines Boeing 727[s]" at some point between 1981 and 1986, when the system was certified.[10]

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