Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, January 18, 1911. First landing on a ship

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, January 18, 1911. First landing on a s...: Eugene Burton Ely landed a Curtiss biplane on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania. It was the first such landing in history. Last edition: Satu...

Wednesday, January 18, 1911. First landing on a ship.

Eugene Burton Ely landed a Curtiss biplane on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania.

It was the first such landing in history.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 14, 1911. Bay of Whales.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Antarctic, Art, boats and ships, Clothing, Exploration, Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, Roald Amundsen

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.: 

Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.

The legendary aviation mystery of Flight 19 occurred when five Grumman TBFs disappeared in a training flight between Florida and Bermuda, together with a PBM Mariner that was sent to look for the missing aircraft.

The PBM is believed to have exploded.

No doubt because none of the aircraft have ever been found, the mystery remains an enduring and popular one, and it is part of the Bermuda Triangle set of myths.

The French government nationalized five banks.

Last edition:

Monday, December 3, 1945. A Walk In The Sun.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, 1945 at the movies, Advertising, Aircraft, Arab League, British League of Nations Mandates, Israel, Movies, Palestine, Retail, Royal Navy, World War Two

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, November 14, 1910. First Ship Launch.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, November 14, 1910. First Ship Launch.: 

Monday, November 14, 1910. First Ship Launch.

Eugene B. Ely took off in an airplane from the USS Birmingham in the first shipboard takeoff.

He landed in Hampton Roads.

He'd follow that up by being the first person to land an airplane on a ship on January 18, 1911.

Not too surprisingly, he died in an aviation accident on October 19, 1911. He received a posthumous Distinguished Flying Cross on February 16, 1933.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 20, 1925. Coolidge orders Billy Mitchell Court Martialed.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 20, 1925. Coolidge orders Billy ...: 

Tuesday, October 20, 1925. Coolidge orders Billy Mitchell Court Martialed.

President Coolidge directed the Department of War (the real one, not the one that "War Secretary" Pete Hegseth claims to run, to court marital Col. Billy Mitchell for insubordination.

Frankly, Mitchel was clearly insubordinate, albeit correct in his view.

It's admirable, though, that Mitchell was willing to go down for his views.  I wonder how many senior officers in the service today would be willing to do so?

Coolidge issued this statement, on this day:

I have several questions here relating to an Arms Conference, rather a Limitation of Arms Conference. These are hypothetical questions and I don’t want to undertake to commit the Government in any way in advance of specific questions. I think I can repeat what I said at the last conference – that it was exceedingly gratifying to have the European nations make the agreements which they made at Locarno. The Department was expecting to receive the text today – I think they are published. I have conferred with Secretary Kellogg about them and he will make, or have made, a careful analysis and study of them in the Department. At the time the Dawes plan was entered into it was thought necessary to secure the active cooperation of American citizens in order to reach an agreement, but the great outstanding fact there was that an agreement was finally made. This Locarno agreement is a step in advance of that, and aside from the details of the agreement it seems to me that the great outstanding and satisfying fact is that it is a very clear indication that public opinion in Europe has become sufficiently settled that the suspicions and hatreds that were generated by the war have been sufficiently dissipated so that the actual political representatives of the governments were able to get together and make an important agreement of this kind. I should perhaps have said when I was speaking of the Dawes agreement that one of the fundamental things about that was that it was not made by the political representatives of the governments at that time, but was made by experts that were called in that didn’t have any political considerations at stake. It seems to me the present agreement is exceedingly encouraging on account of that feature. Of course I regard it also as encouraging on account of what it has done. It has been well said that it is perhaps the most important action taken in Europe since the signing of the Armistice. Now, I had been waiting for something of that kind before taking any active steps about considering the calling of a Disarmament Conference at Washington. I think I told the newspaper conference some time ago that a very large part of the considerations that have come before a Disarmament Conference relate peculiarly and almost entirely to Europe. That would be so in relation to any land disarmament. We have reduced our land forces so that that isn’t an American question, and while I would like to have an Arms Conference here because it could include both land and naval forces, yet I wouldn’t want to take any step that would be construed or in effect embarrass the European nations in solving their own problems of land disarmament. I wouldn’ t want to make the slightest criticism of any action they were taking that pointed in that direction, or have our Government say or do anything that would in the slightest way embarrass the bringing of that proposal to a successful conclusion. Now that is about the only attitude I can express at the present time. It is possible for the European nations to hold a Disarmament Conference that to my mind would be exceedingly useful, and which might make agreements that would be of great benefit not only to the European nations but to all the world. If they can do that I hope very much that they will. If the question of naval limitations is to be considered, then I suppose it would be necessary to include America, and it was for that special reason that I thought there would be greater hope of reaching a successful conclusion if an Arms Conference was held in this country. But I can’t answer those questions in advance of whether we are going to have a conference here, whether we would attend a conference abroad, until specific proposals have been made. When they are made, why then we will see whether it is best to accept them. Nor can I say whether we should want to call a conference here until there has been a preliminary sounding out of nations it would be proposed to invite, in order to find out whether such a proposal was agreeable to them. I might restate too the well known and what I hope is becoming the historic attitude of our Government, of desiring to do everything that we can, without jeopardizing our own interests, to help the European situation. We have realized all along that it would be useless to have any thought over there that there must be a constant reliance on us. I think I have stated in some of my addresses that we couldn’t help people very much until they showed a disposition to help themselves. I think that disposition is becoming more and more apparent abroad every day, and it is a rising of a condition that is exceedingly gratifying to those that want to help and those that want to see the European situation progressively developed.

I haven’t any information about any proposed action by the War Department in relation to Colonel Mitchell, and any information that is to be given out about that would come from them.

I haven’t made any statement or taken any action relative to a further extension of leave to General Butler. I think you are all familiar with the letter that I sent to the Mayor about a year ago and its contents. I don’t feel called on to make any statement about it or take any further action until the Mayor has acted.

These inquiries seem to be pretty much all in relation to the situation abroad which I have discussed, and the leave of General Butler which I think I have covered. If you want to have any more information about that why consult my letter which was made public about a year ago.

Last edition:

Friday, October 16, 1925. The Locarno conference ended with several agreements in place and an atmosphere of optimism.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Diplomacy, Europe, Locarno Conference

Air Force One.

Air Force One has been in the news a lot recently, and it  started before the Qatari proposal to give the United States, or Donald Trump (it isn't clear which) a luxury outfitted Boeing 747.

Technically "Air Force One" is a call sign, and merely denotes an airplane the Chief Executive is a passenger in.  If a President rode in an Air Force Cessna, that would be Air Force One.  But everyone knows that it refers to one of two Boeing VC-25s, militarized 747s, that are designated for the Presidents use.

RD-2

Interestingly, the first aircraft designated for Presidential use was a Navy airplane, an amphibious Douglas Dolphin RD-2 that was luxury outfitted for use by President Roosevelt.  It was used from 1933 to 1939, and obviously not for transglobal flight.  The President didn't really do extensive travel until World War Two.

Roosevelt's once used VC-54C.

In spite of concerns over commercial aviation being used to carry the President during the war, it was in fact used and it wasn 't until 1945 that a new designated Presidential aircraft was acquired, that being a  Secret Service reconfigured a Douglas C-54 Skymaster (VC-54C) which was named the Sacred Cow.  It contained a sleeping area, radiotelephone, and retractable battery-powered elevator to lift Roosevelt in his wheelchair. It's only use by Roosevelt was to fly the then dying President to Yalta.  Truman used it thereafter, but it was replaced by military DC-6 (VC-118) thereafter.

Truman's VC-118.

President Eisenhower, who of course knew planes well, to Lockheed C-121 Constellations, Columbine II and Columbine III. The Constellation was a very popular airplane at the time, and Douglas MacArthur also had one, that one spending many years after its service at the Natrona County International Airport on an abandoned runway.

Columbine II was the first Presidential aircraft to receive the designation Air Force One.

At the end of Eisenhower's Presidency Boeing 707s came in, in part because the Soviets were using a jet to transport their Premier.  707s remained through the Nixon era, giving good service in this role.

747s, as VC-25s, entered specialized manufacture for use as Air Force One during Reagan's administration, although the first one would enter service after that.  They've been used ever since.

These aren't normal 747s.  They are packed with communications and electronic warfare equipment in order to have combat survivability.  

Replacing the current two aircraft that are used as Air Force One is a topic that the Air Force started looking at quite a few years ago.  The 747 variant which the VC-25 isn't made anymore.  Production of 747s stopped in 2023 in favor of more modern aircraft.  Still, the airframe remains useful in this role, and after the Air Force started to look into options, updating a 747-8 appeared to be the best option.  Only Boeing was interested in the project anyway, and it will take a massive financial loss to do it.  

The aircraft that are being retrofitted for this role was built, originally, as a commercial airliner. The projected is a massive one, and the delivery date will be in 2027.

What the new Air Force Ones will look like.

Enter Qatar.

Qatar has offered to give the US (I guess) a luxury Boeing 747-8 for use as Air Force One until the other 747-8s are complete.  But here's the thing.  Boeing has been working on the complicated task fo converting the two existing 747-8s for this use for several years. After all, it's basically a combat aircraft.  All accepting the plane would do is give Boeing a third one to convert, which wouldn't be ready for years.

Trump is being childish about this, as he is about a lot of things.  He doesn't seem to grasp the nature of the aircraft, and likely a lot of other people don't as well.  In his case, this is inexcusable.  It's a combat airplane.

Frankly, it's a Cold War combat airplane.

Which gets to this.

The 747 was a big massive airliner in an era in which it was the queen of the sky. That era is over and airlines have moved on to more modern aircraft.  The world in which Ronald Reagan ordered 747s is gone as well.  It's still useful to have an aircraft that can be used in a global thermonuclear war, which is what it is, but that's not going to happen and it makes no sense to use it to go on weekend golfing trips to Florida.

But that's what Trump tends to use it for.

That raises an entire series of other questions, many of which have little to do with aircraft, but some of which do.  It's notable that other Presidents have used lighter aircraft for more mundane trips.  In November 1999, President Bill Clinton flew from Ankara, Turkey, to Cengiz Topel Naval Air Station outside Izmit, Turkey, aboard a marked C-20C.  In 2000, President Clinton flew to Pakistan aboard an unmarked Gulfstream III.  In 2003, President George W. Bush flew in the co-pilot seat of a Sea Control Squadron Thirty-Five (VS-35) S-3B Viking from Naval Air Station North Island, California to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, with that latter obviously being an exception. Barack Obama used a Gulfstream C-37 variant on a personal trip in 2009.

Trump can use something else than a 747 for what he uses Air Force One for in almost every single instance.

Indeed, the entire topic brings up a lot of things about the risks of having an airplane like this, a luxury airliner inside, which is really a combat aircraft.  It makes it easy to forget what it really is, and it makes a President feel like an Emperor, which he is not.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, August 27, 1924. First flight of the USS Los Angeles.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, August 27, 1924. Color photos over the...: 

Wednesday, August 27, 1924. Color photos over the wire.

The German built, due to reparations, USS Los Angeles made its first flight.

The Lost Angeles over Berlin, 1924.

She was the longest serving rigid airship, serving, with interruptions, until 1939.

Last edition:

Monday, August 25, 1924. Ratifying the Dawes Plan and questionable movies.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 at the Movies, Camping, Dawes Plan, Diplomacy, German Weimar Republic, Movies, Politics

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, February 18, 1944. Operation Jericho and Operation Hailstorm.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, February 18, 1944. Operation Jericho and Operation Hail 

Friday, February 18, 1944. Operation Jericho and Operation Hailstorm

Mosquitoes over Amiens prison. Mosquitos and Typhoons featured in the raid.

Royal Air Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft breached the walls of the Amiens prison, allowing 258 prisoners to escape.

French Resistance members were staged outside to spirit escapees to freedom, or at least away from the Germans.  2/3s of them were recaptured.  However, half of those due to be executed did escape, although many escapees were shot by guards as they felt.  Resistance escapees exposed over sixty Gestapo agents and informers, which was a blow to the Germans.  Prisoners re arrested by the French were simply let go.

The mission was requested by somebody, but the details of it remain a secret to this day.

Heavy fighting occured at Anzio on the Anzio Campoeone Road.  German armored reserves  consisting of the 26th Panzer Division and 29th Panzer Grenadier Division were committed to the attack but Allied artillery prevents significant gains. 

The HMS Penelope was sunk off of Naples by the U-410.

At Cassino attacks by Indian and New Zealand forces fail to advance.

The Battle of Karavia Bay, a nighttime action, ended up blocking the Japanese port.

The Red Army captured Staraya.

Lots of Japanese Imperial Navy ships were headed to the bottom in Truk Lagoon.

Truck was a Japanese disaster.

The Germans lost the U-406 and U-7, the latter in an accident.

Marines landed on Engebi Island, Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands.

President Roosevelt vetoed the Bankhead Bill ending food subsidies.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, November 10, 1943. Heroes and martyrs.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, November 10, 1943. Heroes and martyrs.: 

Crash-landing of F6F-3, Number 30 of Fighting Squadron Two (VF-2), USS Enterprise, November 10, 1943.  Lt. Walter L. Chewning Jr., the catapult officer of the USS Enterprise, is seen leaping up on the burning blame to rescue the pilot, Ensign Bryon M. Johnson.  Johnson would receive hardly any injury.

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.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, August 31, 1943. Debut of the F6F.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, August 31, 1943. Debut of the F6F.: 

Tuesday, August 31, 1943. Debut of the F6F.

Grumman F6Fs made their combat debut.

The fighter was a leap in Navy fighter technology, joining the Corsair as a new generation of flattop launched fighter aircraft.  The plane would be responsible for approximately 2/3s of the Japanese aircraft shot down by the U.S. Navy during World War Two.

The carrier born first use was in a day-long raid on Marcus Island.

Radar equipped F6F's would remain in service until 1954, completing their service as night fighters.

On the same day, the 14th Air Force bombed Gia Lam, Co Bi, Ichang Airfiled, Stonecutters Island and the Yoyang rail yards.  The 5th Air Force hit trages in Saint George Channel and the Dutch East Indes.

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 18, 1943. Blimp attack.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 18, 1943. Alexander appointed governo...: The U.S. airship K-74 depth charged the German U-134, which returned fire with its 20mm deck guns. The K-74 was shot down.  The unsuccessful attack was the only such instance of an airship attacking a submarine during World War Two.

K class airship.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, June 6, 1943. Famous Navy Crewman, A-36

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, June 6, 1943. Radio broadcasts, Triple Cro...:

Paul Newman, having enlisted days before his 18th birthday, was called up for service in the Navy.

Newman wanted to be a pilot, but was taken out of flight school when it was discovered he was color blind.  He went on to be a torpedo bomber crewman.

Sarah Sundin noted Newman's enlistment, but also noted the A36:

Today in World War II History—June 6, 1943: North American A-36 Apache flies first combat mission in a US Twelfth Air Force mission to Pantelleria. Future actor Paul Newman enlists in the US Navy, age 18.

We don't think much of the A-36, the dive bomber version of the P-51.  The odd aircraft only came into existence in the first place as the 1942 appropriations for new fighter aircraft had run out and converting the assembly line to dive bombers kept the P-51 line open.  Only 500 were built, with most used by the U.S. Army Air Force, but some used by the RAF.

A-36 in Italy.

This Day in Aviation: Lieutenant Commander Virgil Childers (“Squash”) Griffin, Jr., United States Navy, made the first takeoff from an aircraft carrier of the U. S. Navy.

This Day in Aviation: Lieutenant Commander Virgil Childers (“Squash”) Griffin, Jr., United States Navy, made the first takeoff from an aircraft carrier of the U. S. Navy.

Vought VE-7 approaching the USS Langley in October 1922.  This is the same ship, with the same sort of aircraft, involved in the item noted above.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday December 1, 1941. Lighter than air.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday December 1, 1941. Lighter than air.: 

Thursday December 1, 1941. Lighter than air.

The US airship C-7 flew from Hampton Roads, Virginia to Washington D.C. filled with helium, rather than explosive hydrogen, making it the first airship to use that gas.

This was a large event given that helium, of which the United States has a large supply, is so much safer in this use than hydrogen.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday August 1, 1941. New things.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday August 1, 1941. New things.: The United States Navy was about to get a brand new, and very advanced, torpedo bomber in the form of the Grumman TBF. TBF's at the Natr...

Lex Anteinternet: Monday August 1, 1921. Looking at the 300th Anniv...

Lex Anteinternet: Monday August 1, 1921. Looking at the 300th Anniv...: On this day in 1921, President Harding addressed a crowd at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding...

Why Unidentified Aerial Phenomena are almost certainly not aliens.

 Allow me to have a large element of skepticism.

If you follow the news at all, you've been reading of "leaked" Navy videos of UFOs, followed by official confirmation from Navy pilots along the lines "gosh, we don't know what the heck those things are".

Yeah. . . well. . . 

What we know for sure is that in recent years, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena have been interacting with ships of the U.S. Navy as well as Navy aircraft.  Video of them has been steadily "leaked" for several years, and the service, which normally likes to keep the most mundane things secret, has been pretty active in babbling about it.

Oh. . . and not just that.

The Navy also has applied for a patent for technology that appears to offer impossible high speed drives for aircraft, and acting to force through the patents when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office looked like it was going to say "oh bull".  The patenting Navy agent, moreover, a mysteriously named and mysterious scientist, has written babbly papers that are out there, but not well circulated.

So, what's going on?

Gaslighting, most likely.

To those who follow international developments, the US and the Peoples Republic of China are, quite frankly, sliding towards war in a way that reminiscent of Imperial Japan and the US in the late 1930s and early 1940s.  China acts like a late 19th Century imperial power and is building up its naval forces in an alarming way.  China is a land power and has no real need whatsoever for a defensive navy.  The only real use of a navy for China is offensive, or to pose a threat as it could be offensive.

And China has been busy posing a threat.  It's using its navy to muscle in on anything it can in the region.  It's constantly at odds with Vietnam off the latter's coast.  It's threatening the Philippines, whose erratic president shows no signs of backing down to China, and its been so concerning to Japan that Japan is now revising its defense posture.  Most of all, it's been threatening to Taiwan, which it regards as a breakaway province which it sort of is.

The problem with a nation flexing its naval muscle is that sooner or later, it goes from flexing to "I wonder how this stuff really works?"  Almost all totalitarian powers with big navies get to that point and there's no reason to believe that China won't.  Given that, the US (and as noted Japan) have been planning to fight China.  

This has resulted in a plan to overhaul the Marine Corps with a Chinese war specifically in mind, and the Navy, upon whom the brunt of any Chinese action would fall, at least initially, has been planning for that as well. And the Navy is worried.

As it should be.

The United States Navy has been a aircraft carrier centric navy ever since December 7, 1941 when it became one by default.  And its been the world's most power navy as a carrier based navy.  Carries have allowed the United States to project power around the world in a way that no other country can.  But in the age of missiles, a real question now exists and is being debated on whether the age of carriers is ending.

Plenty of defense analysts say no, but plenty say yes.  Truth is, we just don't know, and absent a major naval contest with a major naval power, which right now there isn't, we won't know.  But China is attempting to become that power and it has the ability to act pretty stoutly in its own region right now.

So how does this relate to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena?

The U.S. military has a long history of using the UFO phenomena/fandom for disinformation.  It notoriously did this in a pretty cruel way in at least one instance in the 60s/70s in which it completely wrecked the psychological health of a victim of a disinformation campaign that it got rolling, even planting a bogus crashed UFO to keep it rolling.  Beyond that, it's been pretty willing to use the stories of "weird alien craft" to cover its own developments, with plenty of the weird alien craft simply being developments in the US aerospace industry.

Given that, and the fact that at the same time the service purports to be taking this really seriously, it continually leaks information about it, and it doesn't seem really all that bothered, the best evidence here is something else is going on, of which there are a lot of possibilities.  These range from the service developing some really high tech drones and testing them against the same Navy units (they're usually the same ones) again and again to just having the ability to make this stuff all up.

So why the leaks?

If the service is experimenting with high tech drones, and if the experiment is going well, leaking the information may serve as a warning to potential enemies, notably the PRC, that "look, we have something so nifty our own Navy can't do squat about it. . .let alone yours".  Being vague about it probably serves the US  interest better than simply coming out with "Nanner, nanner. . surface fleets are obsolete . . .".  After all, once we admit we have them, at that point the race to figure them out is really on.

On the other hand, maybe we're just making the whole thing up.  We have been worried in the past about other nations development super high tech aircraft, notably the Soviet Union, then Russia post USSR, and now China.  Running around patenting mysterious things and having weird things going on may be a disinformation campaign designed to make a potential enemy a little hesitant.  And they'd hesitate, because. . . .

Maybe we really have developed some super high tech craft, either manned or unmanned, that are now so advanced that we feel pretty comfortable testing them against a control set, that being, at first, the same U.S. Navy units again and again.  A recent report indicates that other navies are now experiencing the same thing, and we might frankly be doing the same thing with them.  There's no reason to believe that a nation that would do U2 overflights over hostile nations in the 60s, and then SR71 flights the same way, which tested the spread of biological weapons by actually spreading biological agents off of the coast of California, and which tested the intelligence use of LSD by giving it to unsuspecting CIA employees, might not do this.  

Indeed, it'd make for a pretty good test.

Potomac Park including Hains Point, as well as the Naval Air Station Anacostia (upper left) and the Army Air Service's Bolling Field. October 9, 1920.