Lex Anteinternet: Friday, November 2, 1923. Air Speed Record

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, November 2, 1923. A person of interest.:

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Harlold J. Brow set a new flight airspeed record of 250 mph, making him the first person to fly faster than 400 kph.  His plane was a Curtis racer.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, Sepember 22, 1923. The ZR-1 over Washington, D.C.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, Sepember 22, 1923. Henning Hotel Robbed.: 

Saturday, Sepember 22, 1923. Henning Hotel Robbed.

The Navy's ZR-1 dirigible flew over Washington, D. C.

September 1, 1923.

 

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, August 22, 1923. Air Mail.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, August 22, 1923. Oaths of Office, Air Ma...: 

Tuesday, August 22, 1923. Oaths of Office, Air Mail, No French Concessions, Japanese Navy Disaster, Societal Shifts.

Mail was getting speedier.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, July 27, 1923. Martin MS-1s.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, July 27, 1923. Casper living on Tulsa Time?: 

The Federal Archives list these photos of a Martin MS-1 that the Navy was experimenting with.  The concept was to carry the biplane on a submarine, something that proved viable, and while the U.S. Navy gave up on it by World War Two the Japanese did not.

The Imperial Japanese Navy would, in turn, use submarine born monoplanes to attack the U.S. West Coast, albeit with no success.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 15, 2023. First service by Aeroflot.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 15, 2023. Harding drives a golden sp...:

Sunday, July 15, 2023. Harding drives a golden spike.

The most dangerous major airline in the world, Aeroflot, saw its birth when its predecessor, Dobrolet, began operations with a flight from Moscow to Nizhny.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, July 9, 1923. Unsuccessful Dawn To Dusk flight.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, July 9, 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne:  The first attempt at a dawn to dusk transcontinental flight failed as Lt. Russell Maugham was forced to land in a pasture at St. Joseph, Missouri due to engine trouble.

Maugham telling Chief of Air Service Mason Patrick and Secretary of War John W. Weeks about the unsuccessful flight.

Maugham was from Logan Utah and joined the Army as a pilot during World War One.  His career would span through World War Two.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, June 28, 1923. Bert Cole, local pioneering aviator, killed.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, June 28, 1923. Turkey's first election, H...: Bert Cole, famous local pilot, but one already known for a tragic airborne death in Evansville, died in an airplane accident himself.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, May 2, 1923. Beginning of a historic and perilous flight.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, May 2, 1923. Beginning of a historic a...: 

Wednesday, May 2, 1923. Beginning of a historic and perilous flight.

U.S. Army Air Service pilots Lt. John A. Macready and Lt. Oakley G. Kelly commenced the first nonstop North American transcontinental flight on this day in 1923.  Their flight in a Fokker T-2 took them from Roosevelt Field, Long Island to Rockwell Field, San Diego in 27 hours with much of the nighttime flight through storms in uncertain territory.

Fokker T 2 (F.IV).

McCready, who had joined the Army in 1917, held a string of early aviation records but left the service in 1926 and became the head of the Aviation department of Shell Oil.  He reentered the Air Force in 1942 and held several combat commands, leaving again in 1948.  He died in 1969 at age 91, an accomplishment in and of itself given that he was an early record-breaking aviator.

He is the only three time recipient of the Mackay Trophy.

Oalkey G. Kelley had a long flying career as well.  He also retired in 1948, passing away at age 74 in 1966.  Both men retired to California, although McCready was from there.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday March 8, 1923. Air to Air, almost.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday March 8, 1923. Air to Air, almost.: 

Thursday March 8, 1923. Air to Air, almost.

Inventor Lawrence Sperry, inventor of the autopilot and artificial horizon, demonstrated that air-to-air refueling was a theoretical possibility by intentionally touching a Sperry Messenger to a deHavilland flown by Lt. Clyde Finter.  He did it eight times.

Sperry Messenger.

Both plans maintained a speed of 65 mph during the demonstration.

Sperry would go down over the English Channel that December, losing his life at age 30.  He was flying a Sperry Messenger at the time.  His company lives on.