Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, being fueled at Karachi, Sindh. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)
16 June 1937: After flying nearly 2,000 miles (3,220 kilometers) the previous day, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan lay over at Karachi, Sindh (now, Pakistan). The Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, is fueled and serviced in preparation for the next leg of the Around-the-World flight.
Landward from Karachi there is desert. To the north is the thirsty hilly landscape of Kohistan, the limestone spurs of the Kirthir range, breaking down southwards into sandy wastes. Southerly is a monotonous expanse riddled by creeks and mangrove swamps reaching to the coast, and further south the great Indus River, born one thousand miles north in Afghanistan, flows into the Arabian Sea. The city’s population is close to 300,000, its seaport serving a huge hinterland which embraces the whole of Sind, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, the Punjab, and beyond. Karachi airdrome is, I think, the largest that I know. It is the main intermediate point on all the traffic from Europe to India and the east. Imperial Airways flies frequent schedules all the way to Australia, and K.L.M. to the Dutch East Indies. In military aviation it is, I suppose, the most important headquarters in India, strategically located in relation to the mountain country of the Northwest Frontier, with its troublesome tribes.
In our hurried scheme of things, with the problems of our own special transport uppermost, most of or time “ashore” was spent in and around hangars. More important far than sightseeing was seeing to it that our faithful sky steed was well groomed and fed, its minute mechanical wants cared for. So the geography of our journey likely will remain most clearly memorized in terms of landing-field environments, of odors of baking metal, gasoline and perspiring ground crews; of the roar of warming motors and the clatter of metal-working tools. Such impressions competed, perforce, with the lovely sights of the new worlds we glimpsed; the delectable perfumes of flowers, spices and fragrant country side the sounds and songs and music of diverse peoples. . . . Of all those things, external to the task at hand, we clutched what we could.
—Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E Special, NR16020, undergoing maintenance inside a hangar at Karachi, Sindh. (Purdue University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections)
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)
