Page:Aeronautics and Astronautics Chronology 1915-1960.pdf/25



January 16: Spanish rebel planes began daily bombing of Barcelona from Majorca.

February 10: British Hurricane fighter flown from Edinburgh to Northolt, near London, at an average speed of 408.75 mph, J. W. Gillan as pilot.

February 26: Secretary of Interior Ickes approved purchase by the Federal Government of helium plants at Dexter, Kans., thus giving the Government a virtual monopoly. On May 11, his refusal to sell helium to Germany was upheld by the President.

February 21: The goodwill flight to Buenos Aires of six B-17's under Lt. Col. Robert D. Olds, which had left Miami on February 17, returned to Langley Field, Va.

April 21: Navy delivered XF2A-1 to Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory of NACA, which marked initiation of full-scale wind tunnel tests, which resulted in increasing speed of the XF2A-1 by 31 mph and led to utilization of NACA testing of other high-performance aircraft by both the Army and the Navy. Data thus obtained were also directly applicable to the design of new aircraft.

June 1: Routine use of radiosondes initiated at NAS Anacostia, Washington, D.C. By the end of the year, the balloon-carried radio meteorographs were also used in Navy fleet operations.

June 6: The Daniel Guggenheim Medal for 1938 awarded to A. H. R. Fedden for "contributions to the development of aircraft engine design and for the specific design of the sleeve valve aircraft engine."

June 9: British Government announced intention to purchase U.S. Lockheed Hudsons and North American Harvards for aerial reconnaissance and training purposes.

June 28: President Roosevelt signed the Civil Air Authority Act.

August 22: The Civil Aeronautics Act became effective, coordinating all nonmilitary aviation under the Civil Aeronautics Authority.

August 22: First American use of drone target aircraft in antiaircraft exercises, the Ranger fired upon a radio-controlled JH-1 making simulated horizontal bombing attack on the fleet.

August 29: Maj. Alexander de Seversky set east-west transcontinental speed record of 10 hours 2 minutes 55.7 seconds in a 2,457-mile flight.

September 12: Wind tunnel capable of simulating altitudes to 37,000 feet dedicated at MIT as a memorial to the Wright brothers.

September 14: Radio-controlled Navy N2C-2 target drone made simulated dive-bombing attack on battleship Utah in test firing of antiaircraft battery.

September 29: Brig. Gen. Henry H. Arnold named Chief of the Army Air Corps to replace Maj. Gen. O. Westover, killed in crash on September 21.

September 30: Agreement signed at Munich, Germany, between Germany, Britain, France, and Italy, allowing Germany to occupy the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, an event in which the relative air strength of the major nations was a prominent factor.

October 19: Curtiss XP-40 Tomahawk made its first flight.

During October: British Purchasing Commission ordered 200 Lockheed Hudsons (military version of Super Electra airliner), the first American-built aircraft to see operational service with the RAF in World War II.


 * All-wood British de Havilland Mosquito twin-engine bomber conceived, official order for 50 received on March 1, 1940.

December 10: First static test of James Wyld's regeneratively cooled rocket thrust chambers, which achieved 90-pound thrust.


 * ARS tested R. C. Truax's rocket thrust chamber at New Rochelle, N.Y., which achieved 20-pound thrust before burning through.

December 16: First successful test of NACA high-speed motion-picture camera developed by C. D. Miller, conducted at Langley Laboratory, later used extensively in photographic analysis of combustion and operated up to rates of 40,000 photographs per second.


 * Navy K-2 airship delivered to NAS Lakehurst for trials, the prototype for World War II K Class patrol airships, of which 135 were procured.

December 17: Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, National Bureau of Standards, delivered the second Wright Brothers Lecture at Columbia University.

December 30: Special Committee on "Future Research Facilities of NACA" recommended the creation of another laboratory; resulted in Ames Aeronautical Laboratory at Moffett Field.

During 1938: Jack Parsons of Cal Tech conceived the value of slow-burning rocket propellant of constant thrust for JATO use, active development of which was undertaken by Cal Tech in 1940.


 * Vital importance of the factor of duration in pilot's exposure to hypoxia demonstrated in animal experiments by H. G. Armstrong and J. W. Heim.


 * Heinz von Diringshofen, German scientist, conducted research on human tolerance to multiple g-loads; exposed test subjects to a few seconds of sub-gravity by putting an aircraft through a vertical dive.

1938-39: NACA developed airfoils providing laminar flow to a degree far greater than previously obtainable (based in part upon Ludwig Prandtl's boundary layer theory in NACA Report 116 published in 1921); Eastman N. Jacobs developed low-drag wing sections worthy of special mention.

January 16: Maj. Gen. Frank M. Andrews, Chief of Army General Headquarters Air Force, in an address to the annual convention of the National Aeronautic Association at St. Louis, said that the United States was a fifth- or sixth-rate air power.

January 21: Dr. George W. Lewis, NACA Director of Aeronautical Research, elected president of the IAS.

January 31: Dr. Edward P. Warner appointed economic and technical adviser of the CAA.

February 11: Lockheed P-38 Lightning first flown across the Nation from California, to a crack-up landing at Mitchel Field, Long Island, Lt. Ben Kelsey as pilot.

During February: Airflow Research Staff at Langley Laboratory initiated revaluation of jet propulsion for aircraft at speeds higher than considered by Buckingham in NACA Report No. 159 published in 1923.

March 26: Capt. John H. Towers named Chief of Bureau of Aeronautics with rank of Rear Admiral.

April 3: President Roosevelt signed the National Defense Act of 1940, authorizing 6,000 airplanes and increasing personnel of Army Air Corps to 3,203 officers and 45,000 enlisted men, and appropriating $300 million for the Air Corps.

April 7: Amphibian version of PBY flying boat ordered by the Navy from Consolidated.

April 20: The free-flight tunnel placed into operation at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory.

April 20-21: Experiments with four-bladed controllable propeller on Curtiss P-36 begun at Wright Field.

April 28: Flying a Messerschmitt BF-109R, Fritz Wendel achieved a record speed of 468.9 mph in level flight, at Augsburg, Germany. 36