This week in AFLCMC history - April 25 - 29, 2022 Published April 25, 2022 By Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office 25 Apr 1992 (Fighters & Advanced Aircraft Dir.) The second of two Lockheed YF-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter prototypes crashed at Edwards AFB testing low-approach landings. The F-22 was the first Air Force fighter to use thrust vectoring along with conventional control surfaces. On this flight, test pilot Tom Morgenfeld had raised the landing gear after a second low approach when the plane entered into Pilot- Induced Oscillations (PIOs) and crashed into the runway; he escaped uninjured. Investigations revealed that a transition in how the pitch controls responded between the gear-down/gear-up positions and rate-limiting of the control surfaces contributed to the accident. These were fixed for production F-22s by changes in the flight control software. (See photo) 26 Apr 1984 (Armament Dir./Hanscom AFB) Lieutenant General Robert M. Bond died ejecting from an airplane at the Nevada Test Site. Bond had been a fighter pilot since joining the Air Force in 1951. He flew combat missions in the Korean War, and over 200 more in Vietnam in the F-105, F-4, and A-7. During the 1970s, he worked under the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development, focusing on future tactical fighter programs, including the HAVE BLUE program that produced the Lockheed F-117 “stealth fighter.” From 1978-1981 he commanded the Armament Division at Eglin AFB (now AFLCMC Armament Dir.), then became the Vice Commander of Air Force Systems Command. His accident occurred flying a MiG-23 Flogger fighter, part of the then-highly-secretive “Red Eagles” collection of Soviet air-craft that the USAF had obtained for flight testing. Hanscom AFB named its Systems Management Engineering Facility IV for him in 1991. 27 Apr 1911 (AFLCMC) The US Army Signal Corps Aeronautical Division accepted its second airplane. The original Wright Military Flyer, Signal Corps Airplane No.1, was the sole aircraft for the Army from 1909-1911, but wear and tear from repeated crashes necessitated its retirement. The second airplane, called the Model D Type IV, came from the Wright Brothers’ rival, Glen Curtiss. In an effort to circumvent the Wrights’ patents on airplane control systems (wing warping), Curtiss’ planes used moveable ailerons on the wings. Otherwise, it was similar in construction, though using a differing method of pilot control inputs, causing no small confusion as airmen transitioned from one type to the other. 29 Apr 1964/1965 (Armament Directorate) On 29 April 1964, Air Force Systems Command established the Missile-X-I System Program Office in the Aeronautical Systems Division. Exactly one year later, HQ USAF issued System Definition Directive ZAGM-69A, formally authorizing initiation of project definition for the Short-Range Attack Missile (SRAM). Missile-X-I, aka SRAM, originated in “Project Forecast,” the study of possible future Air Force systems. It called for an all-weather, air-to-surface missile for the destruction of enemy air defenses. Boeing won the development and production contract in 1966, at first under the Total Package Procurement construct, but changing Air Force requirements and developmental difficulties, particularly with the rocket propulsion system, negated that concept. SRAMs entered service in 1972. 30 Apr 1949 (Propulsion Directorate) The Air Materiel Command at Wright Field announced that the Air Force would no longer develop new aircraft reciprocating (piston) engines. The combination of piston engines and propellers had been the paradigm from the Wright Brothers through World War II. When the first practical jet engines emerged during the war, they were quickly adopted as the power plant of the future because of the radical improvement in speed they offered. The Air Force continued to use and improve piston engines into the 1950s, such as the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 on the B-36, but R&D investment dropped from $7 Million in 1946 to less than $200,000 by 1949. 1 May 1960 (ISR & SOF Directorate) Former Air Force pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down by a surface-to-air missile in his Lockheed U-2C while overflying Russia. Powers ejected safely and was captured, tried, and imprisoned by the Soviets until repatriated in 1962. He died flying a news helicopter in 1977. The U-2 was developed by the Lockheed Skunk Works as a high-altitude, long-range photoreconnaissance aircraft. At the time, it was capable of flying higher than opposing air defenses and interceptor aircraft. Powers’ plane was an original U-2A converted to a C model with a more powerful engine. The incident suspended overflights of the Soviet Union and caused the USAF to reconsider its ability to penetrate air defenses through altitude and speed. The Air Force continues to operate the U-2, with its System Program Office in AFLCMC’s ISR & SOF Directorate. This Week in AFLCMC History Highlight: 28 April 1919 Leslie J. Irvin made the world’s first freefall, ripcord-operated parachute jump from an airplane, at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio. Since the 18th Century, parachutes were mainly the “static line” type. These used a pack attached to a structure or hot air balloon basket by a rope (the static line). The wearer connected to the chute inside by a harness. When the user jumped, the lines grew taut and pulled the parachute free from the pack to open it. The first widespread use of parachutes for emergencies was on balloons during World War I. Few parachutes were available for Allied airplanes, however, because leaders thought they would make airmen abandon salvageable airplanes and pilots considered them unmasculine. The Germans were early adopters, but discovered that static lines were prone to entangling the parachute and pilot with the airplane structure, especially if it was spinning - a sight witnessed to the horror of Allied aviators. American pilots had no parachutes available when they joined the war. General Billy Mitchell, who headed the US air forces in France, immediately instigated a parachute development program after he saw the Germans using them. Mitchell assigned the task to pre-war aerobat and test pilot Floyd Smith, who was a government inspector at the Dayton-Wright Aircraft factory at the time and was working on parachute concepts on the side. He began a development and test program at McCook Field. He brought in others with relevant experience and was commanded by Maj Edward Hoffman when the war ended. They tested nearly every design in the world, many brought to them by their inventors. On more than one occasion, these inventions were demonstrated with fatal results. Conventional wisdom, even among aviation medicine experts, was that freefall induced unconsciousness, thus rendering a pilot unable to deploy a parachute himself. The McCook team knew this to be nonsense, based on first-hand experience. Floyd Smith was credited with conceiving the idea of a parachute opened by the pilot, with no static line. The pilot would jump free, then pull a ripcord to open the chute, thereby avoiding the entanglement problem inherent with static lines. Major Hoffman brought in stunt jumper Leslie Irvin for the first live test. Smith flew Irvin to 1500’ altitude over McCook Field. The chute operated perfectly, though a windy landing caused Irvin to break both his ankles. That chute became the basis for the Army’s first standardized parachute, the Model A, though the Air Service did not mandate its use until January 1923.