• Fledgling Days Of American Aviation

Over the years I've owned and flown three biplanes built by Travel Air Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas. The principals of the operation were Clyde Cessna, Lloyd Stearman, and Walter Beech, although the outfit was, it turned out, a success thanks to Olive Anne Mellor who later became Mrs. Beech and Chairman of Beech Aircraft. Here's some fascinating background on how other names you know became part of aviation history.

How many of you know that in 1910 the mighty Martin Marietta Company got its start in an abandoned church in Santa Ana, CA? That's where the late Glenn L. Martin with his mother “Minta” Martin, and a mechanic named Roy Beal, built a fragile contraption in which Glenn “taught himself” to fly.

It has often been told how the Douglas Company started operations in 1920 by renting the rear of a barbershop on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. The barbershop is still there.

The Lockheed Company built its first Vega in 1927 in what is now the Victory Cleaners and Dryers at 1040 Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood.

Claude Ryan who at 24 held a reserve commission as a flyer, had his hair cut in San Diego one day in 1922. The barber told him how the town aviator was in jail for smuggling Chinese across the border. Claude investigated and stayed on in San Diego to rent the old airfield from the city at $50 a month and replace the guy in the pokey. He agreed to fly North instead of South.

In 1928, the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, Transcontinental Air Transport (now TWA) and the Douglas Company chipped in enough money to start North American Aviation, a holding company. The present company bearing the Northrop name came into being in a small hotel in Hawthorne. The “hotel” was conveniently vacant and available because the police who raided it found that steady residents were a passel of money-minded gals who entertained transitory male guests.

After Glenn Martin built his airplane in the church, he moved to a vacant apricot cannery in Santa Ana and built two more. In 1912 he moved to 9th and Los Angeles Streets in downtown Los Angeles. Glenn was then running a three-ring-circus. Foremost, he was a showman who traveled the circuit of county fairs and air meets as an exhibitionist aviator. Secondly, he was an airplane manufacturer. He met his payroll and bought his lumber, linen and bailing wire from proceeds of his precision exhibition flying. His mother and two men ran the factory when Glenn was risking his neck and gadding about the country. One of the men was 22-year old Donald Douglas who was the “engineering department” and the other was a Santa Monica boy named Larry Bell, who ran the shop

The third circus ring was a flying school. It had a land plane operation in Griffith Park and later at Bennett's Farm in Inglewood, and a hydroplane operation at a place that's now part of the Watts District. A stunt flyer named Floyd Smith ran it. One of his first pupils was Eric Springer, who later became an instructor and then Martin's test pilot, still later the test pilot for the early Douglas Company, and then a Division Manager.

Eric and Floyd taught a rich young man named Bill Boeing to fly. Having mastered the art; Boeing bought a Martin biplane, hired Ross Stem, Glenn's personal mechanic, and shipped the airplane to Seattle. Later, when it crashed into the lake and Boeing set about to repair it, he ordered some spare parts from Martin in Los Angeles.

Martin, remembering the proselytizing incident with Ross Stem, decided to take his sweet time and let Boeing stew. Bill Boeing said, “To Hell with him”, and told Ross Stern to get busy and build one of their own.

Boeing had a friend named Westerfelt and they decided to form a company and build two airplanes. These two “BW” airplanes bore a remarkable resemblance to the Martin airplane, which, in turn, had been copied, from Glenn Curtiss. There seems to be a moral about customer relations and product support mixed up in this episode.

During WW-I, a bunch of sharpies from Wall Street in New York got control of the Wright Company in Dayton and the Martin Company in Los Angeles. They merged the two companies into the Wright-Martin Company. They sent a young man named Chance Vought to be their Chief Engineer. Donald Douglas lost no time in quitting and went to work for the U.S. Signal Corp.

The Wright-Martin Company started building obsolete “standard” biplanes and Hispano-Suiza engines, with the latter under a license agreement with the French Government. Martin told them what they could do with them, and took off for Cleveland, taking Larry Bell and Eric Springer with him.

Having the backing of a baseball mogul to build a new factory, Martin was soon joined by Donald Douglas who went to work and came up with the design of the Martin Bomber. It came out too late to see service in WW-I, but showed its superiority when General Billy Mitchell made everyone mad at him by sinking the captured German battlefleet. The deathblow to the allegedly Dreadnaught “Osfriesland” was delivered by the Douglas designed Martin Bomber.

At Cleveland, a young fellow called “Dutch” Kindelberger joined the Martin Company as an engineer. Also a veteran Army pilot from WW-I named Carl Squier became Sales Manager. His name would become one of the most venerable names in Lockheed history. Back in 1920, Donald Douglas had saved $600 and struck out on his own. He returned to Los Angeles, found a backer, David Davis, rented the rear of a barbershop and some space in the loft of a carpenter's shop where they built a passenger airplane called “The Cloudster”

Claude Ryan bought this a couple years later and made daily flights between San Diego and Los Angeles with it. This gives Ryan the distinction of being the owner and operator of the first Douglas Commercial Transport, and certainly a claim to be among the original airline passenger operators.

In 1922, Donald Douglas was awarded a contract to build three torpedo planes for the U.S. Navy. Douglas lived in Santa Monica, but worked in Los Angeles. Away out in the wilderness at what is now 25th Street and Wiltshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, there was an abandoned barn-like movie studio. One day Douglas stopped his roadster and prowled around to investigate. The studio became the first real home of the Douglas Aircraft Company.

With the $120,000 Navy contract, Donald Douglas needed and could afford one or two engineers. He hired my brother Gordon Scott newly over from serving an apprenticeship to the Martinside and the Fairey Aviation Companies in England. Gordon was well schooled in the little known science of Aviation by 1923.

My first association with some of the early pioneers occurred when I visited my brother Gordon at the barn at 25th Street. I found him outside on a ladder washing windows. They were dirty and he was the youngest engineer. There were no janitorial services at the Douglas Company in those days.

Gordon introduced me to Art Mankey, his boss and Chief Draftsman, and four of his fellow engineers. There was a towhead guy called Jack Northrop, a chap named Jerry Vultee, and a fellow named Dick Von Hake, a reserve Army flyer. Jack Northrop came from Santa Barbara where he had worked during WW-I for the Lockheed Aircraft Manufacturing Company. The fourth member of the Engineering Group was Ed Heinemann. They were all working on the design of the Douglas World Cruisers. Shortly afterwards, Jack Northrop left the Douglas Company in 1926. Working at home, he designed a wonderfully advanced streamlined airplane. He tied back with Allan Loughead who found a rich man, F. E. Keeler, willing to finance a new Lockheed Aircraft Company.

They rented a small shop in Hollywood and built the Northrop designed Lockheed “Vega”. It was sensational with its clean lines and high performance.

In May 1927, Lindbergh flew to Paris and triggered a bedlam where everyone was trying to fly everywhere. Before the first Vega was built, William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the Hearst newspaper chain, bought it and entered it in the Dole Race from the Mainland to Honolulu, which was scheduled for 12 August 1927.

In June 1927, my brother Gordon left the Douglas Company to become Jack Northrop's assistant at Lockheed. He also managed to get himself hired as the navigator on the “Golden Eagle”, the name chosen by Mr. Hearst for the Vega, which hopefully would be the first airplane to span the Pacific.

The race was a disaster! Ten lives were lost. The “Golden Eagle” and its crew vanished off the face of the earth.

With its only airplane lost under mysterious circumstances, a black cloud hung heavily over the little shop in Hollywood. However, Captain George H. Wilkins, later to become Sir Hubert Wilkins, took the Number Two airplane and made a successful polar flight from Nome, Alaska to Spitzbergen, Norway. After that a string of successful flights were to put the name of Lockheed very much in the forefront of aviation.

At Lockheed, Jack Northrop replaced the lost Gordon Scott with Jerry Vultee. In 1928, Jack quit the Lockheed Company to start a new company in Glendale called Avion. Jerry Vultee then moved up to become Chief Engineer at Lockheed. He hired Dick van Hake from the Douglas Company to be his assistant. A young man named Cliff Garrett joined the Lockheed Company as the driver of their pick-up truck.

I went to work at Lockheed shortly after the “Golden Eagle” was lost. I became the 26th Lockheed employee. The Vegas were made almost entirely of wood and I became a half-assed carpenter, generally known as a “wood butcher”

In 1929, Jerry Vultee quit the Lockheed Company to start the Airplane Development Company, which became the Vultee Aircraft Company, a division of E. L. Cord, the automobile manufacturer. He later merged with Reuben Fleet's Consolidated Aircraft Company to become Convair. When Vultee left Lockheed, Dick van Hake became the Chief Engineer.

In the meantime, Glenn Martin closed his Cleveland plant and moved to Baltimore. His production man Larry Bell moved to Buffalo to found the Bell Aircraft Company. Carl Squier left Martin to tie in with the Detroit Aircraft Company, which had acquired the Lockheed Aircraft Company and seven others. They hoped to become the “General Motors” of the aircraft business! They appointed Carl Squier as General Manager of the Lockheed plant, which moved to Burbank in 1928.

At this time, General Motors had acquired North American Aviation, which consisted of several aircraft companies in the East. Ernie Breech, formerly with Bendix but now with General Motors, hired “Dutch” Kindelberger away from Douglas to head up the aircraft manufacturing units. “Dutch” took Lee Atwood and Stan Smithson with him. The companies involved were Fokker Aircraft, Pitcairn Aviation (later Eastern Airlines), Sperry Gyroscope and Berliner-Joyce. Kindelberger merged Fokker and Berliner-Joyce into a single company and moved the entire operation to Inglewood, California.

Thus, a handful of young men played roles, which profoundly affected all of our lives and the lives of millions of other Americans. They changed Southern California from a wasteland with a few orange groves, apricot and avocado orchards and the celluloid industry of Hollywood to a highly sophisticated industrial complex with millions of prosperous inhabitants.

This technological explosion had some very humble and human beginnings. The “Acorns” took root in some strange places: a church, a cannery, a barbershop, but from them mighty Oaks have indeed come to fruition.

From a speech given by Mr. Denham S. Scott to the AIA on March 19, 1968.
Reprinted from North American Aviation Retirees Bulletin - Summer 2001

• Morning Mission

Zero dark thirty get up. Not enough sleep, too much coffee.

Tip-toe into the bedroom and leave a heartfelt "'till I see you again" kiss. Risks acknowledged but mostly ignored.

Weather brief, yellow sheet, pre-flight on the cold ramp. Climb aboard. The smell of jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, aluminum, sweat.

Professional colleagues in the truest incredible-detail-of-knowledge sense. Friends and buddies. Respect and reliance the common bond.

The mission is the thing. Serious, lives at stake. Lives to save, often more lives at risk.

Secretly amazed they let you do this and pay you for it. But not nearly enough. The youngsters make poverty level wages—the local grocery store has a box for diapers and baby food donations.

No excuse sir, that's what we say. What's their excuse, the ones that pork the budget?

• A Different Era

Lets all stand around and watch the excitement, and then after the crash run right over and get a close look. But on the topic of close looks, when was the last time you saw anything like the third segment in this old video on an airliner? Maybe the good ol' PSA days?

• Old Bird

Click to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Captain Sim C-130 Experience

• Audacious

"Armi" Armitage, was the test pilot of the "Credible Sport" rocket-powered Hercules and retired from Lockheed in 1982 after 30+ years of service. He spoke to a Lockheed Martin pilot club meeting. According to the minutes this is what happned:

After the failure of the hostage rescue mission in Iran on April 24, 1980, the Office of the Secretary of Defense approached Lockheed Georgia to modify 3 C-130H aircraft.

These aircraft were to take off from Eglin AFB in Florida, refuel in-flight on the way to Iran, and then land in the Amjadien soccer stadium across the street from the U. S. embassy in Teheran Iran with the intention of extracting the American hostages from the Embassy. After rescuing the hostages, these aircraft were to land on the the USS Nimitz in the Persian Gulf.


The plan was to modify three C-130s to land and takeoff on a soccer field. The program was so highly classified that the commanding officer of Eglin AFB had told him that it had such high priority that if Eglin needed to be shut down, that could be done.

The ship had eight retrorockets that delivered a total of 80,000 pounds of thrust to stop the C-130 once it was on the ground, l80,000 pounds of thrust to take off with and two pairs of rockets on either side to arrest the vertical descent. There was no trouble in hitting the ground, the hard part was firing the rockets at just the right altitude so their three second burn was timed correctly.

Iran had been our ally until the Shah was ousted from power by the Revolutionary Guard. Student militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 taking the Marine guards and embassy staff as hostages. After releasing some of the hostages, 53 remained. In the spring of 1980 a rescue attempt utilizing helicopters and C-130s was aborted when a helicopter collided with a C-130 tanker and eight servicemen were killed. With the presidential elections looming in November another plan was formulated. Lockheed was asked if a C-130 could be modified to take off and land on a soccer field. Lockheed evaluated the offer.

It was determined that 180,000 of thrust, equal to the thrust of 19-1/2 of the C-130's standard turboprop engines, would be required to get a C-130 off in the length of a soccer field and over the surrounding obstructions. The rocket engines would burn out at different times and there were rocket engines on the pylons in case of asymmetric thrust; yaw only firing. The plane would be 300 feet in the air after traveling 300 feet forward and with a takeoff roll of just 100 feet. Landing was the big problem. We had delivered 66 C-130's to Iran and the pilot was familiar with the soccer field in question. A dorsal and horizontal fin was added and all control surfaces were enlarged 35%. Double slotted flaps were added. It required 85% power to maintain five knots above stall speed. Go arounds would be a problem. The ailerons and other control surfaces were made fully hydraulically powered for quicker response.

The plane first flew in August. There was none of the formal flight test regimen to be followed because of the time span involved getting the hostages out of Tehran before the November presidential elections. If there were an accident, the project would never be talked about; if it were successful, it would never be talked about.

The project was divided up with the rocket control systems going to IBM. There were two pairs of rockets under the wing roots on each side. They had a three second duration of burn. They were fired manually 58 times. If they were fired too late, you would bounce.

The hostages were daily marched around the soccer field near the American Embassy and we were given advance notice of when the hostages would be at the field on a given day by one of the many Iranians who were still friendly to the U.S. The planes were equipped with flares, a radar altimeter and even a laser altimeter that looked ahead at the landing aim point to give a precise slant altitude above the touchdown point. A computer was to control the firing of the rockets. If the retrorockets fired before they were on the ground, they were dead. A test was scheduled for three days before the planned mission date in October. If the test were successful, the mission would be a go.

There were all kinds of glitches. All rocket firings up to now had been done manually. Early that morning Arni told the general and Lockheed personnel to postpone the test. The general said it was bigger than they were. Armi asked whether his refusing to fly the plane would put the test off, citing the general's earlier statement that he should use his best judgment. The general would order the Air Force pilots who had been flying with Armi to conduct the test (they were standing around them listening to the discussion). The general said that if the Air Force pilots refused to fly, they would be court marshaled.

Armi agreed to fly the test, but only if safety switches were installed to preclude the computer accidentally firing the rockets prematurely. It was agreed. There were three safety switches, one for the navigator for the vertically firing descent arresting rockets, one on the copilot's column and one on the pilot's column for the retrorockets. All the switches were on safe and it was the intent of the crew (six in all) to fire the rockets manually.

There were lots of dignitaries at the special Eglin AFB field prepared especially for the program. It was too early and too political. To be on the safe side they made the assisted takeoff first. Everything went well on takeoff and they came around for the landing.

Armi said it was one of those perfect approaches where you were right where you wanted to be, 85 to 86 knots. All the fire fighting equipment was ready and standing by. The navigator had control of the lifting rockets because his laser altimeter was the most accurate gage of height above the ground. At 50 feet he hit the switch, to fire the rockets at 49 feet above the ground. Armi heard a loud bang but they didn't fire. The pilots had control of the stopping rockets and both switches were on safe.

Armi lost part of his visibility, the upper retrorockets had fired. At 49 feet the lifting rockets had not fired. They had full flaps. Three fourths of the time they had fired the retrorockets on the ground roll, the engines had quit due to the exhaust gas temperature spike caused by the heat of the rocket's plumes.

He realized they were going to crash and his instructors had always said that if you're going to crash, try and hit flat. At 19 feet the rest of the retrorockets fired. They hit hard.

Four of the crew went out the back of the plane, Armi and the flight engineer were ready to jump out the crew entry door, but there was a sea of flames on the ground. One of the fire crew saw them and shot foam so they could get out.

After the firefighters had finished he asked the general and Lockheed officials present to accompany him and to go on board the crashed plane and observe the position of the safety switches. Both the pilots and co-pilots switches were still in the safe position.

Even though they hit hard, there was only one bruise on one crew member and one bit tongue because that person tended to stick it out between his teeth during stressful tasks. The general had stated that if there was an accident, there would be no accident investigation team. One month later an accident investigation team showed up.. The team knew nothing of the program. The full bird colonel leading the investigation asked if there were any comments before they started. The general who had been in charge of the program and other high ranking officers and Lockheed officials were present.

Armi spoke up and asked if the recorders could be turned off and the secretaries asked to leave. The colonel looked at the other officers and agreed. Armi gave a five-minute speil about how rushed and tenuous the program was and how he had been assured that if there were an accident, there would be no investigation.

Armi, stated that every pertinent Air Force regulation was violated. The general agreed. This was not normal, a politically drive program that from start to finish had been accomplished in two months. Armi, indicating that if he was fired as a result of the crash, said "I'm a civilian. I will sue." He would not be held responsible. The general agreed. Arni again stated that he would like to be part of the engineering investigation.

The colonel asked what we do now? The accident investigation was canceled. Later they had an engineering investigation.

The C-130 has the capability. He said it was a shame there was not enough time to get the bugs worked out. They had an Iranian general who was going to have all the radars out of commission. We had a lot of help. In the end, they said, "Don't come." The Iranian leaders wanted to end the hostage situation, but wanted to save face. The hostages were released shortly after President Reagan was sworn in.


Armi said that until Peter Jennings came on the evening news with the story, he wasn't aware that it had been declassified. He called a friend in Special Forces. He advised him not to mention names or get too specific. He believed there was potential to use AC-130 in a similar role in the future.

He added that the problem of the engines EGT spiking and causing the engines to quit was only when they operating at higher power while the retrorockets were firing. By going to ground power quickly, the engines would overheat momentarily but not shut off.

--

The following 3 C-130 H airframes were pulled out of active Air Force service inventory, and were considered expendable. These airframes were modified from April to August 1980 as follows:

# 4658 382 c-41 d 74-1683, Airframe #1 Assigned to the 463 Tactical Air Wing Oct 1977 to Sept 1980. Modified to a YMC-130H configuration for a rescue operation in Iran. With a C-141 in-flight refueling pod, DC-130 type radome. 30 Rockets total (ASROC engines provided by the Navy) pointing forward and downward on the forward and rear fuselage. This was the first airframe modified. It was tested at Duke field Eglin AFB. It flew approximately 4 test flights there. This aircraft crashed at a demonstration on Oct 29, 1980 with, Col. Belden as pilot in command. The airframe was buried at Duke field Eglin AFB after the crash.

# 4669 382 c-41 d 74-1686 Airframe #2 Assigned to the 463 T A W September 1976 to 1980. Modified to Y M C-130 H. 4950 Tactical Air Wing November 1982 to October 1987. Modified for a rescue operation in Iran. Modified as 74-1683. This airframe was used for experimental testing purposes at Warner Robins AFB. These test provided the foundation and prototype testing for the Combat Talon II aircraft. This airframe was DE-modified and given to the Warner Robins museum in March 1988.

# 4667 382 c-41 d 74-2065, Airframe #3 Assigned to the 463 T A W Oct 1977 to Sept 1980. This airframe was never completely modified to YMC-130H configuration and was used as a test platform for form fit and function of parts. The rockets were never fitted. This Airframe was de-modified in November 1984 at Lockheed Ontario. Painted in Lizard Camouflage scheme February 1988. Oct. 1991 assigned to the 773AS to present day.