Page:Aeronautics and Astronautics Chronology 1915-1960.pdf/13

 using candle-lighted free balloons at Hampton Roads in flights since January, announced by the Navy.

June 4: Army Air Service (AAS) was created in the Army reorganization bill signed by President Wilson. AAS consisted of 1,516 officers and 16,000 enlisted men.

June 8: Lt. J. H. Wilson (USA) made a series of high-altitude jumps, parachuting from a record altitude of 19,861 feet over San Antonio, Tex.

June 11: The NACA's own program of aeronautics research, conducted by its own staff in its own facilities, was begun with the first operation of the first NACA 5-foot wind tunnel at Langley Laboratory.

June 21: Because development of military rigid airships by the Navy was considered proper, and one logically leading to the development of commercial types, the NACA urged adequate funding of the Navy program in spite of recent airship disasters.


 * Navy approved installation of J. V. Martin retractable landing gear on VE-7 Vought airplane, but no evidence indicates it was done. First U.S. retractable landing gear was used by J. V. Martin K-III in 1918-19 period.

June 28: The NACA formally encouraged the Army and Navy to detail officers to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for aeronautical engineering study and offered use of its facilities and personnel to further research and experimental work outside of Government.

July 1: Wright Aeronautical produced a French Hisso "cannon engine" which fired 37-mm shells through the propeller shaft.

July 7: Navy F5L seaplane flown by means of radiocompass from Hampton Roads to U.S.S. Ohio at sea.

July 13: Cdr. J. C. Hunsaker (USN) elected Honorary Fellow of Royal Aeronautical Society of England, the first time this distinction was conferred on one not a British subject.

During July-September: Inaccessible parts of Alaska mapped from the air by Army Air Service pilots, headed by Capt. St. Clair Streett (USA).

November 1: First U.S. international passenger service started by Aeromarine West Indies Airways between Key West, Fla., and Havana, Cuba.

November 25: First Pulitzer race won by Lt. C. C. Mosely in a Verville-Packard 600 at Mitchel Field, N.Y., flying a distance of 132 miles at a speed of 156.54 mph.

During 1920: NACA Report No. 84, entitled "Data on the Design of Plywood for Aircraft," by Armin Elmendorf of the Forest Service, provided basic guidance for aircraft design as well as broader applications.


 * New aircraft engine laboratory, the second, was completed at the National Bureau of Standards capable of testing 800-hp engines. Work carried out under the direction of L. J. Briggs provided new data on the viscosity of air.


 * Wind tunnel at Leland Stanford Aerodynamic Laboratory devoted entirely to propeller tests under direction of W. F. Durand, while NACA's George DeBothezat carried on aerodynamic studies at McCook Field.


 * Secretaries of War and Navy appointed joint Aeronautical Board to consider military questions regarding use of aeronautics by both services. Having no connection with the NACA, the Aeronautical Board replaced the Joint Army and Navy Technical Aircraft Board established during the war to expedite military procurement and exploitation of aviation.


 * The NACA formulated and recommended reservations regarding the Convention on International Air Navigation (1919) to the State Department prior to U.S. ratification.


 * New aircraft engines of this year included the French Hisso-design 180- and 300-hp engines by Wright; the Aeromarine 120 and 180; the Parckard 300- and 600-hp types; and the Lawrance 60- and 200-hp air-cooled engines.


 * Moon eclipse observed by Lts. J. H. Tilton and W. H. Cushing from height of 3 miles at NAS Rockaway, N.Y.

During 1920-22: Robert H. Goddard experimented with liquid oxygen and various liquid hydrocarbons, including gasoline and liquid propane as well as ether, as rocket fuel, under a grant by Clark University. He concluded that although oxygen and hydrogen possessed the greatest heat energy per unit mass, that liquid oxygen and liquid methane offered greatest heat value of combinations which could be used without considerable difficulty. But, he said, "the most practical combination appears to be liquid oxygen and gasoline."

January 10: 700-hp aircraft engine having 18 cylinders arranged in three banks of six, tested at Engineering Division, McCook Field.

January 25: Committee on Law of Aviation, American Bar Association, filed initial report on the necessity of aerial law. On August 25, the ABA recommended Federal aerial legislation.

January 26: Post Office Department operated regular daily airmail routes over a distance of 3,460 miles.

February 21: First transcontinental flight within 24 hours, made by Lt. W. D. Coney in a DH-4B from San Diego, Calif., to Jacksonville, Fla., in 22 hours and 27 minutes.


 * School for Flight Surgeons at Mitchell Field recognized as a Special Service School in War Department General Order No. 7.

March 16: U.S. Public Health Service initiated aerial survey of the Mississippi Valley watershed.

March 23: Parachute jump from 23,700 feet made by Lt. A. G. Hamilton (USA) at Chanute Field, Ill.

April 1: President Harding directed NACA to organize an inter-departmental subcommittee to recommend Federal regulation of air navigation. After a series of meetings this committee's report was approved by the Executive Committee of NACA on April 9, and transmitted to the President.

April 12: President Harding recommended establishment of a Bureau of Aviation within the Department of Commerce, in his address to Congress.

April 18: John J. Ide appointed as technical assistant in charge of the Paris office of the NACA, a post he held until 1940 and resumed after the end of World War II.

April 23: Aerial photo survey of Dominican Republic coastline completed by First Air Squadron of the USMC; and in June, it completed aerial survey of Haitian coastline.

June 8: First flight of an Army Air Service pressurized cabin airplane was made, a D-9-A aircraft piloted by Lt. Harold R. Harris.

June 9: The NACA authorized construction of compressed-air wind tunnel (20 atmospheres) with a 5-foot test section at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory.

July 9-11: Aerial study of San Andreas rift, the line of earthquakes of 1857 and 1906 in California Coast Range, made by Prof. Bailey Willis of the Seismological Society of America.

July 13-21: In a series of Army-Navy bombing tests off the Virginia Capes, airplanes sank the captured German destroyer G-102, light cruiser Frankfort, and battleship Ostfriesland.

July 29: Brig. Gen. William Mitchell led 17 bombers in "raid" over New York.

August 1: World War I high-altitude bombsight mounted on a gyrostabilized base tested by Navy Torpedo Squadron at Yorktown, Va., marking completion of first phase of Carl L. Norden's development of a bombsight for BuOrd. 12