This Week In AFLCMC History - July 10 - July 16, 2023 Published July 10, 2023 By Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office 10 Jul 1961 (Fighters & Advanced Aircraft Dir./Eglin AFB) In Dec 1960, the F-105D entered Category II flight testing with Eglin AFB’s 335th Tactical Fighter Squadron (335 TFS). These tests primarily focused on the things that had changed with the upgrade to the D version—the fire-control system, the instrument layout (see inset), and the navigation system. To really test these upgrades, the 335 TFS’s commander, Lt Col Paul Hoza, took an F-105D up on Jul 10, 1961, for a nonstop, blind-flying mission from Eglin AFB to Nellis AFB. The mission was designed to simulate the delivery of a nuclear weapon, and Lt Col Hoza flew the whole way with instruments alone at altitudes between 500 and 1,000 feet. The 1,520-mile journey, which even included refueling above Texas and some flying through mountain passes, was completed successfully. 11 Jul 1989 (Hill AFB) On this date, three stolen F-16 engines were returned to Hill AFB. The Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-200 engines disappeared from the base over the Fourth of July holiday, to the astonishment of the maintenance crews who found them missing. The three 17-foot-long engines were valued at nearly $10 million altogether and weighed about 3,200 pounds each. They were recovered quickly by the FBI as part of “Operation Punchout”—a 2.5 year joint undercover sting operation where the FBI posed as a military surplus store to investigate the theft and illegal sales of government property. The thieves were two military policemen at Hill—A1C Brian D. Roth and SrA Danny J. Stroud—who were subsequently imprisoned for their crimes. In all, Operation Punchout uncovered 65 cases of the unlawful sale or suspected theft and trafficking of government property. 12 Jul 1973 (History Office) 50 years ago today, a devastating fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis destroyed between 16 and 18 million military personnel records. This was about 80% of the records for veterans of the Army, Army Air Force, and Air Force who’d served between 1912 and 1963. Unfortunately, there were no backups. The fire began just after midnight, and burned for nearly 24 hours: Difficulties in combat-ting the conflagration included the smoke being too thick to accurately identify the source of the fire (which started somewhere on the sixth floor), and low water pressure making efforts to fight the flames especially challenging. In all, 42 fire districts showed up on scene. Throughout the day, heroic archivists strove to save what could be saved before the fire spread further, but the loss was still staggering in scale. Efforts continue to this day to restore 6.5 million of the damaged records that were recovered. 14 Jul 1958 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.) Although there had been experiments with it in the decades prior, aerial refueling really came into its own in the 1950s. It was early in this decade that the first real production tanker, the KC-97, was rolled out. The subsequent KC-135, still flying today, was brought into service in 1957. But during this period, there was an on-going debate about which refueling system was better for the Air Force: the probe-and-drogue method developed by the British, or the flying boom method developed in America. A flyoff in 1951 had found that pilots in smaller, more maneuverable planes preferred the probe-and-drogue method, but Strategic Air Command (SAC) preferred the flying boom’s higher fuel transfer rate for its bombers. On July 14, 1958 (65 years ago this year), the Air Force officially announced that its airplanes would utilize the flying boom, though the US Navy chose the probe and drogue. 15 Jul 1998 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.) Today, 25 years ago, the Beechcraft T-6A Texan II had its first flight over Wichita, Kansas. Built by the Raytheon Airplane Company, the T-6 serves as the primary training aircraft for both Air Force and Navy pilots when they’re first learning how to fly. Once a pilot graduates from the T-6, they track into one of three main types of aircraft. These tracks ultimately determine what sort of vehicle the new pilot will fly when they graduate from Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (SUPT), and they include (1) the USAF fighter-bomber track or Navy strike track; (2) the USAF airlift-tanker track or Navy maritime track; or (3) the USAF or Navy helicopter track. The T-6 prepares all of these pilots for their future assignments by helping them first master the basics of flying. The T-6 is also used for Undergraduate Com-bat Systems Officer Training at NAS Pensacola; and T-6 simulators are used in Undergraduate RPA Training for new Re-motely Piloted Aircraft pilots. 16 Jul 1945 (USAF/AFLCMC) With a movie about Robert Oppenheimer releasing next week, it is perhaps worth noting that on this date the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Called “the Gadget” (a “name” suggested by Oppenheimer himself simply to avoid its being called “a bomb” in front of workers), this nuclear device had a yield of 19 kilotons. It was the prototype for the “Fat Man” bomb used against the Japanese at Nagasaki less than a month later. AFLCMC’s predecessors were deeply involved in the at-om bomb project: Wright Field prototyped the B-29 modifications (the “Project Silverplate” B-29s) that were required to carry the bombs to Japan (as existing configurations were not adequate), and over the proceeding decades, acquired the aircraft that would carry nuclear bombs as one part of the Cold War’s “nuclear triad” (bombers, cruise missiles, and submarines). 100 Years Ago in AFLCMC History: The Gerhardt Cycleplane (13 July 1923) Dusk came late over the small team scurrying about on the grounds of McCook Field, illuminated only by the headlights of a car and the modest skyline of downtown Dayton across the river. Suddenly, brilliant lights flooded the Field and the buzz of an airplane engine grew louder. The plane alighted, taxied up the hangar where the group had assembled, and out hopped “Lucky Jim” Doolittle. The part-time test pilot, student at McCook’s Air Service School of Engineering, and already-famous record-setting aviator was at an uncharacteristic loss for words at the sight before him. One evening some months earlier, McCook’s Flight Research Department head, Fred Gerhardt (left), Mr. E.L. Pratt of the Flying Section, and a few engineering colleagues sat around having a “hot argument” over the possibility of a human-powered aircraft—presumably not involving alcohol, as this was in the early years of Prohibition. Pratt took it upon himself to work out the math, while Gerhardt pondered his recent experience working with visiting Russian professor Georges de Bothezat—who had designed the marginally-successful quadcopter that was still being “flown” around McCook Field. The two had discussed the theoretical possibility of a “multi-plane” aircraft that used many small wings stacked vertically, rather than the more typical biplane or triplane configuration. Gerhardt felt this might be the solution to the man-powered aircraft discussion. Gerhardt, his parents, Pratt, and several other friends spent their off-hours and money secretly designing and constructing a pedal-powered airplane in an old barn—no doubt wary of the relentless collegial ribbing that would inevitably ensue if their self-proclaimed “high probability of failure” did in fact occur. They brought in Harold Harris, McCook’s chief test pilot to render his professional opinion. Though he had several “first flights” of aircraft types, including the first pressurized aircraft and the first successful emergency freefall parachute jump, under his belt, he did not volunteer as guinea pig for this one. When the project outgrew the barn, McCook’s leadership gave them permission to occupy the former de Bothezat helicopter hangar at the far end of the field, which also had been built there in secret over the previous two years. On this inauspicious July evening, Friday the 13th, Gerhardt, Pratt, Harris, and Harris’ wife rolled out the “Gerhardt Cycleplane” that then dumbfounded Doolittle. The torpedo-shaped fuselage, tail, and propeller looked conventional, but the chassis and wings were decidedly not: the pilot’s legs protruded from the bottom, resting on a set of bicycle pedals and gears that drove the propeller. In the middle, seven sets of impossibly thin 40-foot wings, bisected by four vertical struts, gave the overall impression of a flying grate. The structure was made of balsawood and covered with fine silk, weighing just 100 pounds total. Gerhardt served as the first test pilot, but “despite the most violent [pedaling] efforts on the part of the cycleplane operator, the craft refused to budge an inch.” The others jumped in to give the craft a push, but un-fortunately broke off the flimsy tail. “Needless to say, the test was not considered an unqualified success,” Gerhardt recalled pithily. Undeterred and in the spirit of the Wright Brothers, the team repaired the cycleplane over the next four days and tried a different launching technique. This time, they hooked it up to a car using a rope, which pulled it, pilotless, into the air at low speed. Encouraged, Pratt hopped aboard for another tow test, actually making it into the air and staying there “with considerable exertion." The slack tow line indicated that his foot power alone was maintaining flight. The observers noted the wings bowed badly, leading them to add another strut. On the 19th, they were able to fly, after a towed takeoff, for about 20 feet...and attracted the attention of the local press. Gerhardt explained to them that it was a “scientific curiosity” meant to demonstrate theories, not a practical device of any sort, but all agreed that this was the first time such a human-powered aircraft had flown. Following a vacation by Gerhardt, the team made some design changes and structural improvements to the cycleplane and readied it for another round of testing in November. On Sunday, November 11th, Gerhardt took the controls of his craft in front of McCook’s main hangar, started to roll with help from the team and a tow rope, then just as he left the ground, the wings collapsed in a heap. Fortunately Gerhardt wasn’t hurt, except for his pride. For better or worse, he had arranged for the test to be filmed by McCook’s eminent photography crew. While the cycleplane disappeared into history, the film footage did not. It has in fact lived in infamy, appearing in countless documentaries and books regarding bizarre aircraft and spectacular failures—all images shot at AFLCMC’s predecessor facility in Dayton. Fred Gerhardt moved to Michigan a few years later, but returned with a newly-designed cycleplane in 1928 to the old de Bothezat hangar at the now-defunct McCook Field site—the Engineering Division had mostly moved to the current Wright-Patterson AFB in 1927—but never actually tested it. Fire from a discarded cigarette destroyed it while in storage back in Michigan. While at McCook, Gerhardt married Darlene Crist, a secretary from the Flight Test Section. She returned to work at Wright Field during World War II, but the pair divorced after the war. Darlene remained at WPAFB, spending the rest of her life documenting local aviation history.