Contents
The Engines
The very first flight test that the Wright's were required to pass called for a speed of at least 40 miles per hour. From that beginning all speed changes came either from increases in power or reductions in drag. Drag reduction contributed to 25% of the improvement. Power increases gave the other 75%. Practically all of the improvements were directed toward heat reduction or direction. The first Wright engine, built by Frank Taylor from scratch produced 16 horsepower when first started but when warm would only give 25% less of 12 horsepower.
The
Oddly enough & Whitney Aircraft Company dedicated itself to radial engines but survived by providing the army with improved Hisso types. The Navy liked the radial engines for its dirigibles so they contacted Wright Aeronautical about its projected radial engine. Other than the military there was little market for newly developed engines.
In 1926 P &W came up with an insect engine series beginning with the Wasp that met the needs of the Navy by comparing favorably with inline types. P & W shipped 1656, 425 h.p.Wasps in1927 mostly to the Navy but with a few to parts of the Boeing conglomerate. Newer larger engines came with many Wasp interchangeable parts but improved cooling fins, superchargers, carburetors and bearing materials.
About this time (1928) the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, founded in 1915 as a government agency came up with the NACA cowling for radial engines. The open enclosure added an effective 80+ horsepower to a 400 h.p. engine with improved cooling and no increase in fuel use or engine weight. By 1937 the same cowling developments proved that cowling an engine was more effective in cooling than leaving it exposed to the relative wind. NACA had a laboratory facility and airport at Langley Field, Hampton VA with wind tunnels for cowling, wing and propeller research. Early studies of DC-3 stall characteristics and de-icing were made at Langley.
The challenge of the float carburetor and supercharger were still to be conquered. P & W engines were used by the Navy, Lindbergh, Earhart, the racers of that era had airplanes built around the engine like the Gee Bee. In 1934 there were 34,000 licensed pilots.
Getting Ready for
Engine reliability grew from a handful of hours to over 1500 hours by 1929. B-29 engines were unable to acquire over a hundred hours between 1942 and 1944. By the end of the war they were getting 800 hours. Operational procedures, sodium filled valves, and more heat resistant metals made the difference.
The search for more efficient (read deadly) was ongoing and while England went from obsolete to obsolescent to the Avro Lancaster. A
Special 'crash' airports were built so that heavy equipment could be immediately available to clear a runway. Heat systems were used to lift the fog so aircraft could land. Searchlights were used to point the way and mark a spot in the sky over an airport. The German sea-rescue system was far superior to that of the British.
More complex aircraft with more complex engines, electronics, instrumentation and weapons required more highly trained maintenance personnel. This required that those few who knew about such things would become teachers in schools. Schools require buildings for classrooms as well as for living. Prior to learning the equipment you must go to school to learn the basics. Then you go to an intermediate school where you get to work and learn about older equipment.
Finally, the trainee gets to work under the supervision of an experienced craftsman. I went through such a process only the schooling was preceded by four months of military training. Of my three years of service, I spent a year and a half going to school.
The required pipeline to bring qualified technicians to a level where they are capable of maintaining a piece of radar equipment exceeds that required to train a pilot, navigator, or bombardier. There were always shortages in equipment for the aircraft and for the training of the technicians. There were always difficulties getting the right people to place where they were needed. I was one of a cadre of fifty MOS 718 radar bombardment technicians who waited for over three months to get shipped overseas. Then we went as though we were supposed to have been there yesterday. Yet, when we got there some of us were assigned duties that had nothing to do with our training. The training command is like a living 'slinkey' moving in devious ways but always in spurts.
It was not until 2003 that I learned the reason for the sudden spurt in my ‘slinky' movement to war. A few days prior to my 13 day trip from Miami to Karagapur, India a German guided bomb had sunk a British troop
ship off the coast of North Africa. The ship's sinking resulted in the largest loss of life for any such event in
Special equipment had to be designed to work with every different aircraft. A mechanic trained on wood and fabric had to be retrained to work with metal on metal airplanes. Only the De Havilland Mosquito could still use a woodworker's skill. The wide open fields defining an airport changed to extended runways into the prevailing wind with hangars as required for various levels of maintenance. At one point it became more economic not to repair. Scrap and pick up a new one. Aircraft were built without the anticipation that spare parts might be needed based upon wartime consumption rather than that of peacetime. In August of the year 2000 Boeing company said that they could supply new aircraft more cheaply than the Air Force Depots could rebuild aircraft that had reached their service limits.
The so-called precision bombing never existed. The average bomb missed its target by miles. Gunners on bombers hit fighters more by chance than by aiming accuracy. The change to area bombing came more by chance recognition that inaccurate navigation and bombing inaccuracy made it obvious that only a few were capable of hitting a specific target. Pathfinders were used to mark targets for others to hit. Pictures were taken of the bombs during the drop as a check for accuracy.
Without the help of the U.S. the British never had a chance. They lacked the manpower to efficiently use their technology. They had not recovered from
Radar
Had I only known that my training in radar during
By 1939 eight nations were in the process of developing some form of radar. The first radio echo detection was demonstrated in 1904 in the Netherlands. In 1922 the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory accidentally made a similar discovery but did not follow up. The triode vacuum tube amplifier was needed along with the cathode ray tube was needed to display radio pulse reception. Such a tube had existed since 1897 but lacked the phosphor and ray gun needed to focus and move the beam. By 1921 the oscilloscope existed that could do all that was needed. By 1929 television had been demonstrated. Radar existed before
Germany' premiere radar laboratory was supported by the navy. Philips developed a split-anode magnetron (a magnetron is used to power your microwave) that in 1934 was used as a pulse transmitter but the use of a cathode-ray tube was deemed to be to fragile for use on ships by some of Admiral Raeder's officers. However, other radar developments of this and other devices gave Germany a superior air-defense system and night fighting capability.
England in 1935 experimented with radio detection and ranging and took the result to develop the Chain Home system of radar towers that was used to win the Battle of Britain. The use of VHF radios along with the CH system put Britain ahead of the world in creation of an air defense system. By comparison the U.S. Navy did not adopt VHF until 1943.
Just when it appeared that England was about to lose the war, Winston Churchill on his own, sent a group of English scientists to the U.S. with the most advanced and secret of its weapons. Among these was the cavity magnetron that was capable of dramatically boosting centimeter wavelength transmission power by a 3000 multiple. I believe this is the first technological event ever to make such a dramatic jump. It was this tube that made practical airborne radar. Included weapons were the Rolls Royce Merlin aircraft engine and the proximity artillery fuse. Admiral King so disliked the British that his refusal to utilize to the fullest extent their expertise in anti-submarine warfare cost the U.S. hundreds of ships and thousands of lives.
Two critical
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