Yakovlev Aircraft since 1924

Unlike many of the famous aircraft designers in the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yakovlev was for most of his life a 'one-man band'. Though the increasing complexity of his aircraft inevitably required the growth of a large design and engineering staff, he did not delegate each major area to a deputy. He remained the kingpin, who personally decided what should be created, and managed the entire project. He was above all, a survivor. Someone said 'The way to get ahead is to find out what the boss wants and give him lots of it'. This was Yakovlev to the proverbial T His very first aeroplane was dedicated to Lenin's successor as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, A I Rykov. He designated all his first 18 designs with the initials AIR, until in 1937 Rykov became one of the many thousands arrested and summarily executed. By this time Yakovlev had cultivated the protection of Stalin. Like Goering, Stalin had little interest in such niceties of design as whether an aeroplane could be dismantled to fit on a rail flatcar, but intense interest in how fast it could fly. So Yakovlev took care to build fast aeroplanes.

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Walkaround 32 - SR-71 Blackbird

(Front Cover) An SR-71A (61-7980) assigned to Detachment (Det) 4, 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing (SRW) sits on the ramp at Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall, England. This Blackbird flew a Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) mission over Libya after the US air strikes (Operation EL DORADO CANYON) on 15 April 1986. (Previous Page) An A-12 (number 130/60-6933) appears in Its original natural metal and Black paint scheme in early 1963. The A-12 flight test and operational hangars were located at the south end of the 'Area 51' facility in Nevada and have subsequently been used for HAVE BLUE flight testing as well as the first home for the Lockheed F-117As prior to being reassigned to Tonopah Test Range, Nevada. (Author's Collection) (Back Cover) Sporting the Lockheed Skunk Works insignia on the tail, this SR-71A (61-7955) flies a high altitude test mission in the 1970s. The Air Force Logistics Command operated this Blackbird from Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.

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Uncovering The Grumman F-14 A-B-D Tomcat

This third book in DACO's "Uncovering the---" series also is meant to pay homage to Grumman's last feline, now that the Tomcat is definitively withdrawn from carrier operations after a tremendous career. Since its maiden flight on December 21, 1970 it performed at center stage on countless occasions. It is a formidable aircraft, designed to host an equally formidable weapon: the awesome AIM-54 Phoenix - a deadly accurate long-range missile. Three variants of the F-14 were produced; the A, B and D. The original B-model was to incorporate improved F407 engines, to be followed by a C-model with improved avionics. However, budget cuts in the early 1970s doomed these two initiatives. Eventually, some A models were re-engined (and some aircraft were built new) with F110 engines and designated as F-14A+, being re-designated F-14B after Operation Desert Storm (ODS). The final, and most-advanced Tomcat was the F-14D, which mated the new engines with digital avionics. While flown as a fleet defense fighter throughout the Cold War, after ODS the Tomcat in its final years was reinvented as the Fleet's premier fighter-bomber.

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The Royal Air Force of World War Two In Colour

Until the late 1940s colour photographs were, if not rare, a novelty in the United Kingdom and even then were usually only available as transparencies for projection or viewing with a magnifier. Their inclusion in printed works was limited by the high cost of the reproduction process. A number of techniques for producing colour photographs had been introduced during the early part of the century, but not until the launching of Kodachrome in the United States in 1935 was a truly viable colour product—viable in terms of process and of cost—marketed. From the commercially available 35mm stock, a limited amount had reached Britain prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Also available in the immediate pre-war years was Dufaycolor, produced in England, and Agfa, from European sources. Particularly where British forces are concerned, the photographic record of the 1939-45 war years is predominantly in black and white and comes from the work of official or accredited Press photographers. In fact, the use of private cameras on military installations was forbidden, although in some units this regulation was not strictly adhered to. Additionally, monochrome film gradually became scarce: by the mid-war years it was largely unobtainable by civilians.

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North American FJ-1 Fury

It was 1944, and a new age in aviation was dawning in the European skies, the jet age. As more German jets appeared in combat, it became a foregone conclusion that Japan would be producing them too. These facts prompted the Navy to issue a requirement for carrier jet fighters. In late 1944 BuAer sent requests to several manufacturers for jet proposals. Up to that time only one all-jet fighter contract had been issued — for the McDonnell XFD-1 (FH-1) Phantom (see Naval Fighters #3). From the proposals submitted, BuAer technical desk chose three designs to be developed. These were the McDonnell XFD-2 (F2H) Banshee (see Naval Fighter #2), the Chance Vought XF6U Pirate and the North American XFJ-1 Fury. Since these decisions were taking place in a war environment, the Navy could not bank on one airframe manufacturer or for that matter one engine manufacturer to produce a capable jet to counter the possible Japanese threat. Therefore, the F2H was planned around two of the Westinghouse J-34 turbojets, the F6U around one Westinghouse J-34 turbojet, the FH-1 around two of the Westinghouse 19-XB turbojets and the FJ-1 around one General Electric TG-180, which became the Allison J-35.

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Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet

Das erste, von einer Rakete angetriebene Einsatzflugzeug der Welt, die Me 163 B, dürfte wahrscheinlich auch das einzige Flugzeug sein, bei dessen Entwicklung kein Mensch ahnen konnte, was später aus ihm wurde. Außerdem ist es eines der ganz wenigen Flugzeuge mit einem falschen Namen, denn mit dem bekannten Professor Willy Messerschmitt hat es nur soviel zu tun, als es in seinen Werken gebaut wurde. Sein wirklicher Vater heißt Dr. Alexander Lippisch. Aber nicht einmal dieser konnte sich während der langen Entwicklungszeit dieses Flugzeuges vorstellen, was aus dem kleinen schwanzlosen Vogel werden würde, den er mit so unendlicher Geduld und Verbissenheit schließlich "flügge" gemacht hatte. Alexander Lippisch war alles andere, denn ein Doktor, als er im Jahre 1920 sich mit dem Gedanken beschäftigte, ein schwanzloses Segelflugzeug zu bauen. Einige andere taten dies auch, gaben es jedoch bald wieder auf, weil es immense Schwierigkeiten gab und böse Abstürze. Lippisch blieb trotzig und mit verbissener Energie begann er zu rechnen und Modell um Modell zu bauen. Von den spärlichen Vorbildern, die ihm zur Verfügung standen, war nicht viel zu verwenden, denn es gab in jenen Jahren zwischen 1921 und 1926 nur sehr lückenhafte Erfahrungen im Bau von schwanzlosen Flugzeugen. Was Alexander Lippisch zu leisten hatte, war darum echte Pionierarbeit.

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Junkers Ju-88 vol.III

The monotonous drone of lour Pratt & Whitney engines seemed to be omnipresent. It completely filled the inside of the BuNo 32022 (42-40282) PB4Y-1 Liberator Indifferent to the noise, a VB-103 crew carefully combed the airspace around their aircraft. Their commander, Ll. (jg) James H. Alexander, had led them on a number of combat missions over the Bay of Biscay and there were no indications that the September 4, 1043 sortie would be in any way different from the previous ones they had flown. The co-pilot, Lt. (jg) Paul B. Kinney, along with three other crew-members, trained their binoculars on the surface of the sea in search of a familiar U-boat shape. At the same time the gunners eyeballed the skies for any air-to-air threat. They certainly had good reasons to be vigilant: two days before It. Keith W. Wickstroms crew did not return to their base at St. Eval, Cornwall. In his last message the radio operator reported that the aircraft was being attacked by several Ju 88s...

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Junkers Ju-88 vol.II

October 14 1942. Two Junkers 88s in mottled camouflage droned west wards. Formations of dark clouds rolled past the bombers. From time to time gaps in the clouds revealed the undulating surface of the Mediterranean. Visibility from the cockpit was rather poor. The canopy glazing was alternately spattered with water droplets and blasted clear by the slipstream. Fortunately, the sky became clearer as the two Ju 88s drew closer to the north African coastline. Finally, the last clouds behind them, the crews saw the red disk of the rising sun far away on the eastern horizon. In the lead machine the Kommandeur of II./KG 77, Hptm, Heinrich Paepcke, awarded the Ritterkreuz on September 5, 1940, had already noticed the very narrow coastline, an orange thread against the dark sky. Both Junkers dropped to sea level. After a while the crews recognized the characteristic rugged shore of the El Alamein area. Minutes later they swept over it. Hugging the ground, the white buildings of Ras Shagig loomed out lo the right, but the area was silent. There was no indication that their presence had been noticed. They pulled up to 1000 m to get a better view of the area. They had already flown past the railroad running along the shore.

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Junkers Ju-88 vol.I

It was the evening of April 6 1941. Two German armies were conducting an offensive in the Balkans in support of their Italian ally, which had been fighting a Greek army for six months, laced with still Greek resistance, the Italian strike had lost its great momentum. With plans to attack Russia, the German's intent was to "restore order" On their southern flank. That evening twenty Ju 88s of III./KG 30 were droning low over the waves, tracking due cast towards the darkening Mediterranean horizon. There were no radar defenses in this northern sector of the theater and only British naval vessels could detect aircraft approaching the coast of Greece. The German flyers were little concerned by this as they knew that no Royal Navy aircraft carriers were in the vicinity. The friendly airfields of Sicily had been left far behind. Each machine was carrying two half-ton LMA mines and one SC 250 bomb in its bomb bay. In addition some of the group were equipped with parachute flares in case (heir target was shrouded in darkness.

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Grumman F4F Wildcat

The old sweats of VF-42 weren't exactly overjoyed with the armament changes. Compared to their previous F4F Dash-3's, the new Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat fighters had a number of drawbacks. Besides the fact that the pilots had been reluctantly assigned to VF-3, which was being reformed after the Coral Sea battle, Lt Cdr Fenton's recent subordinates were skeptical about increasing the number of fighter pilots now embarked on board the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown. The new fighter was to blame for the situation. The F4F-4's folding wings allowed the mother ship to carry 27 machines instead of the previous 18 non-folding winged F4F-3's. Smaller ammunition magazines represented another significant disadvantage. The F4F-4's armament of six machine guns could fire a 22-second salvo, which was a major decrease in performance compared to the 42-second salvo of its predecessor. As if that wasn't enough, the six half-inch Brownings were synchronized in quite an unusual fashion. Their salvos converged in pairs at distances of 800, 1000 and 1200 feet. This type of scattered fire covered a wide area but at the same time made it impossible to focus on a chosen target. "Felix the Cat's" pilots had other reservations about Grumman's product as well. One of the pilots casting a critical eye over the latest Wildcat was Lt(jg) Elbert McCuskey.

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Air Pictorial 1956 02

IN discussing matters of great moment, particularly where comparisons are involved, it is essential to keep the issues in perspective. During the last twelve months, disappointments which have been encountered in respect of the performance and prospects of certain British aircraft have resulted in the growth of a measure of criticism, much of it of a querulous nature, and which has undoubtedly had some effect on public opinion and particularly as taxpayers who, in the final analysis, have always to foot the bill in cases of failure as well as of successes. Stories of failure never lose anything in the telling, and when political issues are involved, as they are in this particular matter, failures tend to be magnified at the expense of successes. Elsewhere in this issue appears an article which, alongside the disappointments which have figured in British aircraft production in the last few years, sets forth the experiences of the American aircraft industry and the fighting services in regard to the same kind of aircraft. It involves no reflection on American designers or manufacturers to dwell on the infinitely greater losses which have been sustained in connection with the design and production of fighting aircraft in the United States since the end of the last war.

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Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa I-III in Japanese Army Airforce Service

The outstanding success of the Nakajima Ki. 27 Type 97 Fighter had established chief engineer Hideo Itokawa as the dean of Japanese Army fighter designers. With this one design the Nakajima Aircraft Company (Nakajima Hikoki K.K.) ended Kawasaki's historic role as the prime supplier of Army fighters, a position held by the smaller firm by virtue of consistently winning a series of design competitions. With selection of the Nakajima Ki. 27 design, the JAAF totally rejected the designs of the other two bidding firms for the Type 97 Fighter contract. The timing of this victory was particularly appropriate for Nakajima, for a new attitude toward Army aircraft design competitions was sweeping over Army Air Headquarters in Tokyo. The fantastic cost faced by the manufacturing firms in an open competition where there could be only one winner imposed financial burdens on these producers which could no longer be tolerated by the firms. Political pressure to eliminate the competitive selection of aircraft was applied by Mitsubishi and Kawasaki and reached into the halls of the Japanese Diet, and members of this legislative body passed the word in no uncertain terms to Army Air. Thus, at the very time when the JAAF was considering a follow-on design to their new Type 97 Fighter they were restricted to the selection of a single supplier. At that moment Nakajima stood alone as the producer of modern monoplane fighters for the JAAF.

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Nakajima Ki-27 Nate

It is necessary to go back to the mid-twenties in order to trace the origins of the Nakajima Ki-27. In March 1927, Koku Hombu (Army Headquarters) invited bids from Mitsubishi, Nakajima, Kawasaki and Ishikawajima to design a Japanese fighter aircraft which could replace the basic fighter currently in service, the Nakajima Type Ko 4 (Ko-Shiki Yon-Gata Sentoki - in the IJAAF designation scheme, the Ko stood for Nieuport-produced aircraft, while the number 4, i.e. yon, the successive type number). The Ko 4, a license-based variety of the French Nieuport 29C1, was the first fighter to be manufactured in quantity by Japan for her IJAAF. A total of 608 machines left the Nakajima assembly line between December 1923 and January 1932. The Ko 4 was a replacement for the Type Hei 1 fighter (imported SPAD XIII) and Type Ko 3 (licensed Nieuport 24C1 and 27C1). However, the origin of the Ko 4, like the older Hei 1 and Ko 3, can be traced as far back as WW1, the French progenitor having been first flown in June 1918. There was thus an urgent requirement to replace it with a more advanced construction.

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Mitsubishi Ki-67 Ki-109 Hiryu in Japanese Army Airforce Service

To the pilots and crews of the newly-formed Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF) 110th Heavy Bomber Regiment at Hamamatsu on the east coast of the Japanese home island of Honshu, the raids seemed misplaced. They were completely over water. It was the kind of attack operation that the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force (JNAF) had been trained to do since the middle 1930s. But now that the heart of Japan was coming under attack early in 1945 by the massive American B-29 Superfortress bombers from the Marianas—stationed almost 1300 miles away on Saipan, Tinian, and Guam—the JNAF was incapable of effectively striking back. The air forces of the Imperial Navy had all they could do to hold the line in the Philippines and elsewhere throughout Japan's scattered Pacific Island Empire. The defense of Japan had to be left largely to the Army. Any logical, or even illogical, attempt to hinder or halt the B-29 raids on Japan was a part of that defense. Thus, the Army found itself conducting bombing raids that took two days to accomplish, with most of that time spent in total darkness and completely out of sight of land. The first sporadic B-29 bombing raids on Japan had originated from China in the summer of 1944. The American crews were inexperienced, and the ranges were too long to make any major impression.

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Hitler's Stuka Squadrons

In 1888, the young engineer moved ro Dessau and joined the research staff of the Deutsche Continental Gasgesellschaft, which developed internal combustion engines. Its technical director was Wilhelm Oechselhauser and, in 1890, he and Junkers joined forces to found the Versuchsanstalt fur Gasmotoren von Oechselhauser 6c Junkers at Dessau. While Junkers supervised technical development, his partner provided rhe necessary funds. The partnership lasted until 1893, when the two men went their separate ways. The year before, while still working with Oechselhauser, junkers had set up his own civil engineering company in Dessau. It specialized in thermodynamics, the branch of physics that concentrates on changing heat into, and from, other forms of energy. Lacking funds, Junkers found a new partner in Dr Robert Ludwig, a friend from his student days in Berlin. In 1895, with his help, he founded Junkers & Co, also at Dessau. The new company manufactured gas heaters, and became successful enough to establish new premises in Dessau's Albrechtstrasse. However, arguments over who should exercise control of the company became increasingly acrimonious. The matter eventually went to litigation, and Junkers was compelled to buy Ludwig's shares for 52,000 Marks.

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Lockheed Aircraft since 1913

Like many other young people raised in occupied Europe during the Second World War. I first associated the name Lockheed with the P-38s criss-crossing the sky in their hunt for Luftwaffe aircraft and Wehrmacht vehicles. In particular. I remember vividly a day in 1944 when a 'double queue' from one of the Fifteenth Air Force's Fighter Groups left an unexploded 20 mm shell embedded in the law library of the top-storey tenant in our apartment building. A quarter of a century later I was part of a Douglas team engaged in a fierce competitive struggle while marketing DC-10s against Lockheed's L-1011s. Whether as a child, when my enthusiasm for aviation was sparked in part by wartime Lightnings, or as an adult, whose professional future depended on helping to outdo the TriStar team. I came to admire greatly the aircraft bearing the Lockheed name. I was thus delighted when, after I had completed the manuscript of McDonnell Douglas Aircraft since 1920, I was asked by Putnam to undertake a companion volume on Lockheed Aircraft since 1913.

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Helicopters - An Illustrated History of Their Impact

Definition: A helicopter, also called a rotary-wing aircraft, may be defined as any flying machine that utilizes rotating wings to provide lift, propulsion, and control forces that enable the aircraft to rise vertically and hover above the ground. A helicopter flies by means of thrust (lift) generated by a set of wings (blades) rotating around a shaft protruding above the fuselage of the aircraft. The spinning blades create an airflow over them, which produces lift. Pilots maneuver the helicopter by varying the pitch, or angle, of the rotor blades as they move through the air. Reciprocating (piston) and gas turbine engines provide the power on modern helicopters to turn the blades through a transmission and connecting shafts. A true helicopter can lift off vertically, fly forward, backward, or sideways, climb to altitude, cruise at speed, and then descend to a hover before landing—feats achieved in nature only by the hummingbird or the dragonfly. Many aviation experts consider the helicopter the most innovative and versatile vehicle known to man. Although practical helicopters first flew just over sixty years ago, they are without question one of the most vital aircraft in the world today. Various types of helicopters manufactured by numerous companies, located in several nations, operate in the most remote areas of the world, inaccessible to other aircraft or vehicles. From the loftiest mountain peaks, to the most inhospitable jungles, over the seas, and to the frozen poles, helicopters function admirably, despite the most adverse weather and terrain.

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Heinkel He 162 Spatz (Volksjager)

The infamous newsreel footage will be familiar to many, taken somewhere in the grounds of the Reichstag towards the end of April 1945. The well-known, but no longer imposing figure of the Fuhrer stands, his wavering hand caressing the cheeks of the young soldiers dressed in their ill-fitting uniforms. Incredibly, these schoolboy warriors, weighed down by their machine guns and panzerfausts are about to be thrown into combat in an attempt to stem the tide of history, a tide which will see the destruction of the 'Thousand Year Reich/' in this but its thirteenth year. These flickering images appear to us now, along with their participants, as if performers in some grotesque Greek tragedy. Yet, incredible as it may seem, the entire Volkssturm project was in fact pursued in all seriousness by its protagonists and indeed pursued to a bitter conclusion... One such Volkssturm idea that was taken seriously may be summarised as follows - after ab-initio training on gliders, boys of age sixteen to eighteen years were supposed to quickly undergo type training on an un-powered two-seater aircraft and then to switch onto a single-seat jet fighter. The program had been named Volksjager (People's fighter). Thousands of inexpensive and easy-to-make jet fighters were expected to shoot down any allied aircraft to be found over the heavily bombed German cities and industrial centres.,.

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Heinkel He 115 - Torpedo, Reconnaissance, Mine Layer Seaplane of the Luftwaffe

On 1 March 1935 the Luftwaffe was officially established as an independent branch of the German Wehrmacht. At that time the naval pilots had only the antiquated He 59 at their disposal for use as a twin-engine floatplane. A more modern airplane was needed, and based on a 1935 requirement issued by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM), the Heinkel Flugzeug-werke produced a twin engine multi-purpose seaplane towards the end of 1936 as a replacement for the He 59. Hamburger Flugzeugbau developed the Ha 140 as a competing design. Heinkel's product was given the designation He 115. Siegfried Giinter, the designer, developed the He 115 as an all-metal mid-wing aircraft, which initially was powered by two BMW 132 N engines producing 865 hp each (later, as with all follow-on models, the aircraft was equipped with BMW 132 K engines at 960 hp each). The operational use for the aircraft: long-range reconnaissance, torpedo bomber, minelayer and fog dispenser. The structural sturdiness was evaluated in accordance with Beanspruchungsgruppe H 3, during which particular attention was given to its seaworthiness. Testing of individual components took place in the spring of 1937 using an He 59 D modified by Arado. This aircraft flew with a canopy mock-up for determining the most favorable configuration for the machine gun position in the fuselage nose. A cage-like design resulted, which had a traversing cupola attached for the machine gun. This design reflected the commonly held concept which called for the gunner to man the machine gun in either a sitting or half upright position. A specific height was inherent in such a design, however, and the complete subassembly didn't entirely fit in with the otherwise elegant lines of the He 115.

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Grumman F6F Hellcat

The Eleventh Fighter Squadron of the US Navy, known among those in the know as VF-11 "Sundowners", had already completed one operational tour. Its location -Guadalcanal - was a recommendation in itself. Fifty five aerial victories between April and July of 1943 were evidence of the high potential of the personnel, promoted from novice to veteran in a very short time. After its return to the US in August, the unit continued to use its equipment until mid-October, when the last F4F's were replaced by F6F's. The Squadron and its 54 pilots, commanded by Commander Gene Fairfax, would not fight on Hellcats for another year. For VF-11 the second tour really began just in early October, 1944. The unit's whole personnel were then on board of the aircraft carrier USS "Hornet". The pilots took over the equipment of the retiring VF-2. The markings of the battered F6F-3s, F6F-5s and F6F-5Ps weren't changed. The "Sundowners" settled for adding their emblem to the fuselages and began preparing for another combat debut. A part of TF38, the "Hornet" left Manus (Northern Papua) and headed straight for its destination - Nansei Shoto Archipelago.

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