This week in AFLCMC history - May 2 - May 8, 2022 Published May 2, 2022 By Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office 02 May 1988 (Bombers Directorate) Colonel Phillip J. Ford, the 384th Bomb Wing Commander, and Lt Gen Ellie G. “Buck” Shuler, Jr., the Eighth Air Force Commander, flew the last Rockwell International (now Boeing) B-1B Lancer (Tail no. 86-0140) from the company’s plant at Palmdale, California, to McConnell AFB in Kansas. The B-1 started as one of the Air Force’s first nuclear strike aircraft after the Air Force switched from high-speed/altitude aircraft for survival to low-level penetrators due to advances in Soviet air defenses. Eventually 100 were built and are still used as conventional bombers, though the fleet is being slowly drawn down. 03 May 1950 (Armament Directorate) North American Aviation’s XN-1 inertial guidance system, intended for the Navaho cruise missile, completed its first flight test in a C-47. The system guided the testbed aircraft to a preselected target, effected a 180-degree turn, and returned the plane to its home base. Inertial navigation was a critical technology for long range missiles. These used an entirely self-contained complex of accelerometers, gyroscopes, and computers to ascertain where it was, where it was headed, and how to get there. They did not require supplemental star sightings or radio signals, though the accuracy over intercontinental distances was measured in miles. After the Navaho was cancelled, the XN-1 was adapted for the first generation of ballistic missile subs. 04 May 1990 (Armament Directorate) The Hughes AIM-120A Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) demonstrated its ability to achieve multiple kills against multiple targets near Eglin AFB. An F-15 fired two of the radar-guided missiles at a pair of QF -100 drones cruising at 10,000 feet and two more at another pair of drones at 5,000 feet. The joint Air Force-Navy AMRAAM program began with a 1975 study and in 1981 Hughes was awarded a full-scale development contract after a competitive "fly-off" against a Raytheon competitor, through both companies received AMRAAM production contract. The missile was operational in 1991 and its first air-to-air kill was in December 1992 when an F-16 shot down and Iraqi MiG-25 Foxbat. 05 May 1948 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Directorate) Boeing flight-tested B-29s that had been converted to aerial tankers with the British “looped hose” system. The company removed armament and armor to install a hose reel, hauling line, more fuel lines, and nylon-lined aluminum fuel tanks in the forward and aft bomb bays. Receiver aircraft had some oxygen equipment removed and fueling lines added. The success of the tests ultimately led the U.S. Air Force to convert 92 B-29s into KB-29M hose-method tankers. Seventy-four B-29s were equipped to receive aerial refueling by hose. The looped hose method was only of use with large multi-crew planes since crew members were required to haul the hose in. A modified method known as the probe and drogue system was developed to allow single seat aircraft to be refueled in the air, while the “flying boom” eventually replaced the hose system. The KB-29 was operational until 1957. (Photo of KB-29P above). 06 May 1941 (Fighters & Advanced Aircraft Directorate) The Republic Aviation XP–47B Thunderbolt fighter-bomber flew for the first time. Alexander Kartveli, a Georgian émigré, designed the plane as Republic’s chief engineer. The original XP-47A concept was relatively small and used an inline-piston engine, but the Army Air Corps passed on it. Kartveli went back to the drawing board and produced the XP-47B: a larger, heavier plane, equipped with a powerful turbocharged Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine (a rarity for Army fighters), elliptical wings, and a sloping “razorback.” With over 15,000 built, the P-47 proved to be one of the outstanding fighters of World War II and was exceptional in the ground attack role, due to its durable engine/construction and heavy armament. It saw only limited post-war usage, however. Kartveli continued as Re-public’s chief engineer, leading designs for the company’s post-war jets, its Century series fighters, and even consulted on the A-10 Thunderbolt II after he retired. 08 May 1945 (AFLCMC) President Harry Truman, who had been sworn in less than a month earlier upon the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, proclaimed this Tuesday as Victory in Europe, or V-E, Day. The remains of the Nazi hierarchy had signed surrender papers the evening before. Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz served as the German head of state in the absence of the presumed-dead Adolph Hitler. In the US, war-time work at Army Air Force fields, such as Wright, Patterson, Hanscom, Tinker, Eglin, and Hill continued unabated, as the Pacific War against Japan was still raging with no clear end in sight. This Week in AFLCMC History Highlight: 07 May 19 The world’s first fully successful flight of a pressurized airplane: the Lockheed XC-35, with a cabin designed by the Army Air Corps at Wright Field in Dayton, OH. By the early 1920s, aviation experts recognized flying in the thin air at high altitudes was the key to longer range and higher speeds, but also was incompatible with the physiological needs of human pilots. Enclosing the crew and passengers in a cabin that regulated pressure and temperature may have been an obvious solution, but it proved anything but simple. Wright Field’s predecessors at McCook Field, also in Dayton, first designed an aircraft pressure cabin in 1921. They fitted a biplane with a sealable steel tank cockpit that had thick glass portholes and a wind-driven supercharger for pressurization. Test pilot Harold Harris made the initial flight on 8 June 1921, discovering the controls, safety features, and visibility were woefully inadequate when the cabin severely over-pressurized and overheated. He landed safely, but the experiment was shelved for more than a decade. As aircraft grew larger and more capable into the 1930s, interest in cabin pressurization renewed. Technical developments in engine turbocharging, metal aircraft construction, and environmental controls solved some of the ancillary problems and facilitated its introduction. Wright Field conducted high-altitude aircraft studies in 1929 and 1934 that concluded there were no major obstacles preventing a viable pressure cabin. In April 1935, Capt Carl Greene of Wright Field’s Aircraft Branch initiated a Supercharged Cabin program, using a systems approach that involved nearly every technical organization at the Field. The Power Plant Branch developed the cabin supercharger. The Materials Branch selected and tested the pressure shell and windows. The Aircraft Branch designed the cabin itself. Future aeromedical pioneer Harry Armstrong, who had just arrived in Dayton, studied the physiological requirements, as well as the effects of rapid decompression, should a window blow out, as happened to a French researcher that same year. Wright Field built a successful ground test article in-house, then contracted with Lockheed for $112,197 to equip an Electra with the experimental cabin. The cabin was made of aluminum, had very small windows, held 3 crew and 2 passengers, added a pressurization control station and even had a bathroom. Lockheed assembled the plane in Burbank, CA, before being ferrying it pressurized to Dayton. The XC-35 earned the 1937 Collier Trophy. With the concept successfully proven, Boeing made the first production pressurized passenger plane in 1940, the Stratoliner, and the first military one, the B-29. The XC-35 later served on National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) test projects before being retired to the Smithsonian, where it is currently in storage.