A Wyoming highway closed for three hours so The Air Force could land planes on it

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claims the life of Gen. Andrews.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claim...: 

Monday, May 3, 1943. The crash of Hot Stuff claims the life of Gen. Andrews.

Lt. Gen. Frank Maxwell Andrews, for whom Andrews Air Force Base is named, died in the crash of the B-24 Hot Stuff in Iceland, when it went down in bad weather.

He had been on an inspection tour in the United Kingdom.

Only the plane's tail gunner, SSgt George A. Eisel, survived the crash.  Eisel had survived a previous B-24 crash in North Africa.  He'd live until 1964 when he died at age 64.  Married prior to the war, he and his wife never had any children.

Hot Stuff was the first B-24D to complete 25 missions, well before, it might be noted, the B-17 Memphis Belle did the same.  Hardly anyone recalls Hot Stuff, as the Army went on to emphasize the Memphis Belle following the crash of Hot Stuff and the death of all but one of its crew.  Of note, Hot Suff, predictably, had a much more salacious example of nose art than Memphis Belle, and it's interesting to speculate how the Army would have handled that had the plane been popularized.  At any rate, the story that Memphis Belle was the first US bomber to complete 25 missions is a complete myth.

Andrews was the CO of the ETO at the time of this death.  A West Point Graduate from the class of 1906, he had been in the cavalry branch from 1906 to 1917, when he was assigned to aviation over the objection of his commander.  A prior objection had prevented his reassignment in 1914.

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.

Fly Casper Alliance lobbies for city subsidy.

A new Natrona County Advocacy Group, Fly Casper Alliance, is seeking $50,000 from the City of Casper to help secure the present Delta (Sky West) flight to Salt Lake City.  The flight already receives subsidies from Natrona County, but this one time payment is hoped to help continue to secure the flight.

Related thread:

Delta receives a subsidty to continue serving the Natrona County International Airport

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, April 4, 1943. Airborne tragedies.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, April 4, 1943. Airborne tragedies.: 

Sunday, April 4, 1943. Airborne tragedies.

Today in World War II History—April 4, 1943: Mrs. Thomas Sullivan christens destroyer USS The Sullivans in honor of her five sons killed in the sinking of light cruiser USS Juneau in November 1942.

So reports Sarah Sundin, who also notes that the US II Corps took Hill 369 near El Guettar and that POWs escaped from the Japanese penal colony on Davoa point.  Their escape would break the news of the Bataan Death March, particularly through POW William Dyess.

William Dyess.

Dyess was returned to flying status but would suffer a mechanically stricken aircraft over California, while taking off, that following December and chose to ride the plane down as it was over a populated area.  He died in the crash.

On the tragic aircraft loss theme, I guess, a B-25 went down over Lake Murray, South Carolina on this day, but the entire crew survived.  The nearly intact B-25 was raised in 2005 in excellent condition.

1Lt. W.J. Hatton, pilot; 2Lt. R.F. Toner, copilot; 2Lt. D.P. Hays, navigator; 2Lt. J.S. Woravka, bombardier; TSgt. H.J. Ripslinger, engineer; TSgt. R.E. LaMotte, radio operator; SSgt. G.E. Shelly, gunner; SSgt. V.L. Moore, gunner; and SSgt. S.E. Adams, gunner.  Crew of the Lady Be Good.

Not so fortunate was the crew of Lady Be Good, a B-24.  It disappeared on its return from a bombing raid on Italy, having taken off from an airbase in Libya, which is interesting to consider as North Africa was still subject to fighting on the ground.

The plane grossly overshot its base and was found in 1958 by a British Petroleum crew some 400 plus miles inland.  The bodies were recovered, save for one, two years later after a search.  The crew clearly bailed out once they realized, far too late, they were deeply lost and that the plane would go down. They appear to have survived the parachute descent but died in the desert. The one remaining crewman was likely found by a British patrol over the borderline with Libya in 1953, but was unaware of whom the crewman was, as the plane had been thought to have crashed over the Mediterranean.

A minor incident, it's recalled simply because of the mystery of what occurred to the crew.  Worth recalling as part of that, and contrary to how this is often portrayed in film, many American aircrews were extremely green early on in the war, as in fact this crew was.  This contributed to an extremely high accident rate.

German radio announced that Former Prime Ministers Édouard Daladier and Léon Blum, and former French Army commander in chief, General Maurice Gamelin, had turned over to the Germans by French authorities.  They would spend the rest of the war in Buchewald.

Lex Anteinternet: Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 3. Spring Storms. The Su-27/MQ-9 Incident.

Lex Anteinternet: Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 3. Spring Storms.:   March 16, 2023

Russo Ukrainian War

A Russian Su-27 caused an American drone to crash in the Black Sea yesterday. The two aircraft may have collided.

Russia, which tends to be as dense as a box of rocks about the capabilities of Western equipment, lied and said the drone just suddenly veered off and fell in the sea, apparently wholly unaware that the drone photographed the SU-27 and we'd have the film footage.

D'uh.

Russia is trying to recover the drone presently.

An interesting aspect of this is the release of jet fuel by the Su-27 near the drone.  It may be just me, but I'd fear that the drone's engine would ignite the fuel and send the Su-27 up in a big ball of flame, but apparently not.

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.

United States releases Chinese Balloon photograph taken from U2

 In this photo, you can see the U2's shadow.

Failed Balloon Run

It's now known that the U.S. Air Force did attempt to shoot down the Chinese balloon over Montana, using the F-22's cannons as the intended weapon, but the balloon exceeded the height at which the fighter could operate.

Blog Mirror: THE US AIRFORCE MAY HAVE SHOT DOWN AN AMATEUR RADIO PICO BALLOON OVER CANADA

 

THE US AIRFORCE MAY HAVE SHOT DOWN AN AMATEUR RADIO PICO BALLOON OVER CANADA

Why Canada didn't shoot down the "unidentified" object over its own airspace and relied upon the USAF to do it.

 An excellent thread on NORAD and the strategic considerations that went into it and the modern RCAF:

Why didn't Canada shoot down the object?

Very revealing about the Canadian military budget and the current number of fighter aircraft, and type, that Canada has.