Lockheed C-5A Galaxy 66-8304, the second one built, during a test flight near Edwards AFB. (U.S. Air Force)
15 June 1969: At Edwards Air Force Base, California, the second Lockheed C-5A Galaxy transport, 66-8304, set several records, including the heaviest takeoff weight, 762,800 pounds (346,000 kilograms), and the heaviest landing weight, 600,000 pounds (272,155 kilograms).
The Dayton Daily News reported:
C-5 Galaxy Heaviest Ever Flown
The world’s largest airplane, the Air Force’s Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, took off weighing more than three-quarter of a million pounds Sunday, the heaviest weight ever flown in an aircraft.
The flight was made at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., as a routine step in the continuing C-5 test program, according to Aeronautical Systems Division officials at Wright-Patterson AFB, where the C-5 program is managed.
THE PLANE WEIGHED 762,000 pounds at takeoff. This included 325,000 pounds for the plane itself, 50,000 pounds of test equipment, 233,000 pounds of fuel, and 154,000 pounds of water ballast simulating cargo.
Previously the C-5 had taken off at a record weight of 728,100 pounds.
THE HEAVYWEIGHT was the No. 2 C-5, which flew from Marrietta, Ga., where teh planes are built by the Lockheed Georgia Co., to Edwards.
Meantime, C-5 No. 5, which will come to Wright-Patterson next year, has made its maiden flight at Dobbins AFB, Ga.
The big transport plane flew for an hour and 25 minutes over north Georgia last Thursday.
THE PLANE IS SCHEDULED to arrive at ASD’s directorate of flight test for all-weather testing in March, 1970.
—Dayton Daily News, Vol. 92, No. 281, Monday, June 16, 1969, at Page 3, Column 1
Lockheed C-5A Galaxy 66-8304 arrived at The Boneyard, 2004. It was the fifth C-5 to be retired. (Phillip Michaels/AMARC)Lockheed C-5A Galaxy 66-8304 in the reclamation area at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona. (Phillip Michaels/AMARC)
The Navy Flight Demonstration Team Hellcats taxi out for their first public performance, Craig Field, Jacksonville, Florida, 15 June 1946. (Butch Voris collection)
15 June 1946: At Craig Field, Jacksonville Florida, the United States Navy’s Navy Flight Demonstration Team made its first public appearance at the municipal airport’s dedication ceremony. A flight of three lightened Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat fighters, led by Officer-in-Charge Lieutenant Commander Roy Marlin Voris, flew a fifteen minute aerobatic performance.
The team had been formed for the purpose of raising public political support for the Navy. Their fighters were painted overall glossy sea blue with “U.S. NAVY” on the fuselage in gold leaf. A single numeral, also gold leaf, on the vertical fin identified each individual airplane.
Five weeks later, 21 July, the team would first call themselves The Blue Angels.
The pilots of the Navy Flight Demonstration Team with one of their Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat fighters. Left to right: Lieutenant Al Taddeo, Lieutenant (j.g.) Gale Stouse, Lieutenant Commander Roy “Butch” Voris, Lieutenant Maurice N. Wickendoll, and Lieutenant Melvin Cassidy. (Butch Voris Collection)
In addition to Lieutenant Commander Voris, other pilots in the original demonstration team were Lieutenant Commander Lloyd G. Barnard, Lieutenant Melvin Cassidy, Lieutenant Alfred Taddeo, Lieutenant Maurice N. Wickendoll and Lieutenant (j.g.) Gale Stouse.
Flight leader Lieutenant Commander Roy W. “Butch” Voris with his Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat, Bu. No. 80097, circa May–August 1946. (U.S. Navy)
The Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat is single-place, single-engine fighter designed early in World War II to operate from the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers. It is a low wing monoplane of all metal construction. The wings can be folded against the sides of the fuselage for storage aboard the carriers. Landing gear is conventional, retractable, and includes an arresting hook. The Hellcat became operational in 1944.
The F6F-5 is 33 feet, 7 inches (10.236 meters) long with a wingspan of 42, feet 10 inches (12.842 meters) and overall height of 14 feet, 5 inches (4.394 meters). It has an empty weight of 9,238 pounds (4,190 kilograms) and maximum takeoff weight of 15,300 pounds (6,940 kilograms).
The F6F-5 Hellcat is powered by a 2,804.4-cubic-inch-displacement (45.956 liter) air-cooled, supercharged, Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp SSB2-G (R-2800-10W) twin-row 18-cylinder radial engine with water injection. The engine had with a compression ratio of 6.65:1 and was rated at 1,550 horsepower at 2,550 r.p.m. at 21,500 feet (6,553 meters), and 2,000 horsepower at 2,700 r.p.m. for takeoff. The engine drove a three-bladed Hamilton Standard Hydromatic constant-speed propeller with a diameter of 13 feet, 1 inch (3.988 meters) through a 2:1 gear reduction. The R-2800-10 was 4 feet, 4.50 inches (1.334 meters) in diameter, 7 feet, 4.47 inches (2.247 meters) long, and weighed 2,480 pounds (1,125 kilograms), each.
The F6F-5 had a maximum speed of 276 knots (318 miles per hour/511 kilometers per hour) at Sea Level and 330 knots (380 miles per hour/611 kilometers per hour) at 23,400 feet (7,132 meters). The Hellcat’s service ceiling was 35,100 feet (10.698 meters) and it had a combat radius of 820 nautical miles (944 miles/1,519 kilometers). The maximum ferry range is 1,330 nautical miles (1,531 miles/2,463 kilometers).
The Hellcat’s armament consisted of six Browning AN-M2 .50-caliber machine guns, mounted three in each wing, with 400 rounds of ammunition per gun.
Between 1942 and 1945, the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, Bethpage, New York, built 12,275 F6F Hellcats. This was the largest number of any aircraft type produced by a single plant.
Four Grumman F6F-5 Four Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat fighters of the Navy Flight Demonstration Team, circa May–August 1946
Jackie Cochran arriving at Cleveland, Ohio, 1 September 1938. (Eisenhower Archives)
Miss Cochran Again Gets Harmon Trophy
NEW YORK, June 15. (AP)—Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt today presented the Harmon Aviatrix Trophy to Jacqueline Cochran for the second year in succession as “the world’s outstanding woman flyer.”
In addition, Miss Cochran, who in private life is Mrs. Floyd Odlum, was awarded a medal stamped in memory of the late King Albert of Belgium—the first American to receive it.
—Los Angeles Times, Vol. LVIII, Friday, 16 June 1939, Part I, Page 13, Column 1
Seversky AP-7 NX1384, c/n 145. (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives)
Ms. Cochran was awarded the trophy by Mrs. Roosevelt at an Advertising Club luncheon in New York City. It was the second time she had won the Harmon International Aviatrix Trophy. The 1939 trophy was in honor of Cochran’s winning the Bendix Trophy Race, 1 September 1938.
Jackie Cochran is presented the Harmon International Aviatrix Trophy by Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Acme)
Jackie Cochran departed the Union Air Terminal, Burbank, California, at 3:00 a.m., 1 September 1939, flying her Seversky AP-7, NX1384, c/n 145. Her destination was Cleveland, Ohio, the finish line for the Bendix Trophy Race, 2,042 miles (3,286 kilometers) away.
Ms. Cochran was the third pilot to leave Burbank, but the first to arrive at Cleveland. Her elapsed time for the flight from California to Ohio was 8 hours, 10 minutes, 31.4 seconds, for an average speed of 249.774 miles per hour (401.895 kilometers per hour). For her first place finish, Ms. Cochran won a prize of $12,500.
Vincent Bendix congratulates Jackie Cochran on her winning of the Bendix Trophy Race, 1 September 1938. (NASM-155034)
Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E NR16020 being serviced at Karachi, Sindh, 16 June 1937. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)
15 June 1937: Leg 18. Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan fly from Assab, Eritrea, to Karachi, Sindh (now, Pakistan), a distance of 1,880 miles (2,865 kilometers). Prohibited from flyng over Saudi Arabia, they skirt along the southern coastline.
We left Assab early on the morning of the fifteenth, well before daylight. First we cut across a deep indentation on the Eritrean coast, and thence at an angle flew over the narrow southern entrance to the Red Sea called Bab-al-Mandah to the Arabian shore. That reached, we straightened out over the desolate southeastern tip of Arabia, checking over Aden after the sun was well up, one hundred and seventy-five miles on our way. . . Flying by foreigners over Arabia is not welcome. . . Finally the authorities relented. . . They gave permission to land at Aden, and permission to fly thence to Karachi, possibly stopping first at Gwadar, 350 miles up the coast at the mouth of the Persian gulf in Baluchistan close to the Persian border. It was stipulated that we were not to fly over Arabia itself but along the edge of the sea. So from Aden, as directed, I held a course along the coast. Sometimes the blue Arabian Sea was below. Sometimes clouds piled along the ocean’s edge forced us shoreward for brief stages. Flying high, we were able to see considerable of this forbidden and forbidding country. Surely some of the wastelands of the world bordered our route. One could scarcely imagine a more desolate region than that shore…Beyond Ras el Hadd, which is on the eastern end of Arabia, facing the Gulf of Oman, we cut across to Gwada, which we checked over at five o’clock. Thence we skirted the coast southeastward to Karachi, arriving at 7.05 P.M. I think our elapsed time for the 1,920 miles from Assab to Karachi was 13 hours and 10 minutes. . . .
—Amelia Earhart
Great Circle route from Assab, Eritrea, to Aden, then onward to Karachi. 1,588 nautical miles (1,828 statute miles/2,942 kilometers). Earhart and Noonan were instructed to follow the southeastern coastline of Saudi Arabia, and not overfly the country itself. (Great Circle Mapper)
Captain Gordon Percy Olley, M.M., with Imperial Airways’ Handley Page W.8b G-EBBI, R.M.A. Prince Henry, circa 1926. (Unattributed)
15 June 1928: Imperial Airways’ Captain Gordon P. Olley flew an Armstrong Whitworth A.W.154 Argosy Mk.I, G-EBLF, City of Glasgow, with 18 passengers aboard, from Croydon to Edinburgh Turnhouse in a race with the London and North Eastern Railways’ famed Class A-1 Flying Scotsman. The apple green steam-powered 4–6–2 Pacific-type locomotive pulled the world’s fastest passenger train in express service from London, England, to Glasgow, Scotland.
Imperial Airways’ Armstrong Whitworth Argosy Mk.I G-EBLF, City of Glasgow. (Unattributed)
Flight reported:
Trainv. Aeroplane
A novel “stunt” was carried out on June 15 when a simultaneous journey was made from London to Edinburgh by train and aeroplane—the “Flying Scotsman” and the Imperial Airways Armstrong-Whitworth air liner “City of Glasgow” respectively. After breakfast at the Savoy Hotel, the two parties of travellers proceeded to their respective points of departure—King’s Cross and Croydon. Train and aeroplane both departed at the same time, 10 a.m., the “City of Glasgow” being piloted by Capt. G. P. Olley, who was accompanied by Mr. J. Birkett, aged 79, a retired L.N.E.R. engine driver, Air Vice-Marshal Sir Vyell Vyvyan and Maj. Brackley. Capt. G. P. Jones, Imperial Airways pilot, was a passenger on the train! The “City of Glasgow” flew via the East Coast, and made stops at Bircham, Newton, and Cramlington; it arrived at Turnhouse Aerodrome, Edinburgh, 15 minutes before the “Flying Scotsman” reached Waverley Station.
—FLIGHT The Aircraft Engineer & Airships, No. 1017. (No. 25 Vol. XX.), 21 June 1928, at Page 464, Column 2
Gordon Olley’s pilot license, issued 16 September 1919. (Air Ministry)
Gordon Percy Olley had been an aircraft mechanic during World War I, then became an observer. He was next trained as a fighter pilot flying Nieuport 17 and 27 fighters and is credited with 10 aerial victories between 1 June and 14 October 1917. He was awarded the Military Medal for bravery, and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps. After the War he became a civil aviator. Olley was the first pilot to have logged more than 1,000,000 air miles (1,609,344 kilometers).
Armstrong Whitworth A.W.154 Argosy Mk.I G-EBLF, City of Glasgow. (Unattributed)
City of Glasgow was the first of three Argosy Mk.I airliners built by Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Limited for Imperial Airways. It made its first flight 16 May 1925. A three-engine, three-bay biplane, it was 65 feet (19.812 meters) long and had a wingspan of 90 feet, 7½ inches (27.623 meters). The total wing area was 1,886 square feet (175.2 square meters). Its maximum takeoff weight was 19,200 pounds (8,709 kilograms). The Argosy was described as an “exceptionally comfortable airplane to fly in. . .”
The Argosy Mk.I was powered by three air-cooled, Normally-aspirated 1,511.89-cubic-inch-displacement (24.775 liter) Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar Series IIIA two-row 14-cylinder radial engines, rated at 385 horsepower at 1,700 r.p.m., and 425 horsepower at 1,900 r.p.m. The direct-drive engines turned two-bladed propellers.
The Argosy had a cruising speed of 90–95 miles per hour (145–153 kilometers per hour) and maximum speed of 110 miles per hour (177 kilometers per hour). Its maximum range was 400 miles (644 kilometers).
Three-view drawing of Armstrong Whitworth Argosy Mk.I (NACA)
During the airliner-vs.-passenger train race, the Argosy made three refueling stops which required a total of 1 hour, 24 minutes. Captain Olley and his airliner completed the 390-mile (627.6 kilometer) journey approximately 15 minutes faster than the train.
City of Glasgow was later upgraded to the Argosy Mk.II standard, which used the Jaguar Mk.IVA gear-reduction engines, rated at 420 horsepower. G-EBLF was withdrawn from use at Croydon, December 1934.
Imperial Airways’ Armstrong Whitworth A.W.154 Argosy Mk.1, G-EBLF, City of Glasgow. (Unattributed)
The Flying Scotsman is a Standard Gauge 4-6-2 Pacific steam-powered railway locomotive produced by the Doncaster Works, Great Northern Railway’s “Plant” at Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. It was built in 1923 as a Class A-1 locomotive for the London and North Eastern Railway. In January 1947, it was rebuilt to the Class A-3 configuration. It was later renumbered 502, 103 and 60103. Flying Scotsman set two world records for steam locomotives, for speed and distance.
The locomotive with its tender is 70 feet, 5-1/8 inches (21.463 meters) long, 13 feet, 1 inch (3.988 meters) high and weighs 156 tons, 12 centals (350,640 pounds, or 159,048 kilograms). The six driving wheels each have a diameter of 6 feet, 8 inches (2.032 meters). At 85% of maximum boiler pressure (225 p.s.i., 15.17 Bar), the locomotive produces 32,909 pounds of tractive effort. Flying Scotsman was the first locomotive officially certified to have a speed of 100 miles per hour (161 kilometers per hour).
London and North Eastern Railway’s rebuilt Class A-3 Gresley 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive No. 4472, Flying Scotsman, at Swayfield Lodge on the Down Slow line with the 09:30 London Kings Cross-to-York charter, Sunday, 27 February 1983. (David Ingham)
The locomotive was originally assigned Great Northern Railway number 1472, before being taken over by LNER prior to completion. In 1924, it was given number 4472 and named Flying Scotsman. It was one of five Pacific-type express passenger locomotives designed by Sir Nigel Gresley that were used to pull the London-to-Edinburgh Flying Scotsman passenger train, beginning in 1928. The journey by rail was 392 miles (631 kilometers) and the train was able to complete this non-stop by carrying 9 tons (8.2 metric tons) of coal in a tender and replenishing the water supply with a system of troughs located between the rails.
Flying Scotsman was retired in 1963 after driving 2,076,000 miles (3,340,998 kilometers). The locomotive has been restored and is owned by the National Railway Museum. It was overhauled and began testing in January 2016.
L.N.E.R. 4-6-2 Three Cylinder Express Passenger Locomotive, the Flying Scotsman. at the National Railway Museum.
