23 March 1998: First flight, Chengdu Aircraft Corporation J-10 Vigorous Dragon. The J-10 is a single-place, single-engine multi-role fighter.
23 March 1998
Category Archives: Aviation
23 March 1948
The photo reconnaissance project was dropped and TG/278 became a test bed for the de Havilland Engine Company Ghost 2 turbojet (Halford H.2), which produced 4,400 pounds of thrust (19.57 kilonewtons) at 10,000 r.p.m. The Vampire could take the Ghost engine to altitudes beyond the reach of the Avro Lancaster/Ghost test bed already in use. The airplane’s wing tips were each extended 4 feet (1.219 meters) to increase lift.
The aircraft was stripped of paint to reduce weight. Smaller batteries were used and placed in normal ballast locations. Special instrumentation and recording cine cameras were installed in the gun compartment, and ten cylinders of compressed air for breathing replaced the Vampire’s radio equipment. At takeoff, the Vampire carried 202 gallons (765 liters) of fuel, 40 gallons less than maximum, sufficient for only one hour of flight. The takeoff weight of TG/278 was 8,400 pounds (3,810 kilograms).
John Cunningham had previously flown TG/278 to a world record 799.644 kilometers per hour (496.876 miles per hour) over a 100 kilometer course at Lympne Airport, 31 August 1947.³
TG/278 continued as a test aircraft until it was damaged by an engine fire in October 1950. It was used as an instructional airframe at RAF Halton.
A standard Vampire F.1 was 9.370 meters (30 feet, 8.9 inches) long with a wingspan of 12.192 meters (40 feet, 0 inches) and overall height of 2.700 meters (8 feet, 10.3 inches). The fighter had an empty weight of 6,380 pounds (2,894 kilograms) and gross weight of 8,587 pounds (3,895 kilograms).
The basic Vampire F.1 was powered by a de Havilland-built Halford H.1B Goblin turbojet engine. This engine used a single-stage centrifugal-flow compressor and single-stage axial-flow turbine. It had a straight-through configuration rather than the reverse-flow of the Whittle turbojet from which it was derived. It produced 2,460 pounds of thrust (10.94 kilonewtons) at 9,500 r.p.m., and 3,000 pounds (13.34 kilonewtons) at 10,500 r.p.m. The Goblin weighed approximately 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms).
It had a maximum speed of 540 miles per hour (869 kilometers per hour), a service ceiling of 41,000 feet (12,497 meters) and range of 730 miles (1,175 kilometers).
The Vampire F.1 was armed with four 20 mm Hispano autocannon in the nose, with 150 rounds of ammunition per gun.
Group Captain John Cunningham C.B.E., D.S.O. and Two Bars, D.F.C. and Bar, A.E., D.L., F.R.Ae.S, was born 1917 and educated at Croydon. In 1935 he became an apprentice at De Havilland’s and also joined the Auxiliary Air Force, where he trained as a pilot. He was commissioned as a Pilot Officer, 7 May 1936, and was promoted to Flying Officer, 5 December 1937. Cunningham was called to active duty in August 1939, just before World War II began, and promoted to Flight Lieutenant, 12 March 1940.
While flying with No. 604 Squadron, Cunningham was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, 28 January 1941. He was appointed Acting Squadron Leader, Auxiliary Air Force, and was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order, 29 April 1941. The Gazette reported,
“This officer has continued to display the highest devotion to duty in night fighting operations. One night in April, 1941, he destroyed two enemy bombers during a single patrol and a week later destroyed three enemy raiders during three different patrols. Squadron Leader Cunningham has now destroyed at least ten enemy aircraft and damaged a number of others. His courage and skill are an inspiration to all.”
—The London Gazette, 29 April 1941, Page 2445 at Column 1.
Acting Squadron Leader Cunningham’s promotion to Squadron Leader (Temporary) became official 10 June 1941. The King approved the award of a Bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross, 19 September 1941. Squadron Leader Cunningham took command of No. 604 Squadron 1 August 1946.
On 3 March 1944 Wing Commander Cunningham received a second Bar to his Distinguished Service Order. According to The Gazette,
“Within a recent period Wing Commander Cunningham has destroyed three more hostile aircraft and his last success on the night of 2nd January, 1944, brings his total victories to 20, all with the exception of one being obtained at night. He is a magnificent leader, whose exceptional ability and wide knowledge of every aspect of night flying has contributed in large measure to the high standard of operational efficiency of his squadron which has destroyed a very large number of enemy aircraft. His iron determination and unswerving devotion to duty have set an example beyond praise.”
—The London Gazette, 3 March 1944, Page 1059 at Column 1.
Promoted to Group Captain 3 July 1944, Cunningham was the highest scoring Royal Air Force night fighter pilot of World War II, credited with shooting down 20 enemy airplanes. He was responsible for the myth that eating carrots would improve night vision.
In addition to the medals awarded by the United Kingdom, he also held the United States Silver Star, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Order of the patriotic War (1st Class).
Following the War, John Cunningham returned to de Havilland as a test pilot. After the death of Geoffrey Raoul de Havilland, Jr., in 1946, Cunningham became the de Havilland’s chief test pilot. He remained with the firm through a series of mergers, finally retiring in 1980.
Cunningham was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) in 1951, and promoted to Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) in 1963. He relinquished his Auxiliary Air Force commission 1 August 1967.
Group Captain John Cunningham C.B.E., D.S.O. and Two Bars, D.F.C. and Bar, A.E., D.L., died 21 July 2002 at the age of 84 years.
¹ FAI Record File Number 9844
² FAI Record File Number 11713: 17,083 meters (56,047 feet)
³ FAI Record File Number 8884
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes
22 March 1979
22 March 1979: The Lockheed CP-140 Aurora 140101 (N64996) made its first flight from Hollywood-Burbank Airport at Burbank, California. The pilot in command was Lockheed’s Chief Test Pilot John (“Chris”) Christiansen. The airplane had been initially rolled out of Lockheed’s Building 360 on 25 January 1979.
The CP-140 Aurora is flown by two pilots and a flight engineer. During missions it is crewed by 8–10 mission specialists. It is 116 feet, 10 inches (35.611 meters) long with a wingspan of 99 feet, 8 inches (30.378 meters) and height of 33 feet, 8.5 inches (10.274 meters). The total wing area is 1,300.0 square feet (120.77 square meters). The wings use a symmetrical NACA 0014 airfoil at the root and NACA 0012 at the tip. The wings have 6° dihedral with 2° 30′ negative twist. The angle of incidence is 3°. The airplane has an empty weight of 61,491 pounds (27,890 kilograms) and maximum permissible weight of 142,000 pounds (64,410 kilograms).
The CP-140 has a maximum speed of 395 knots (455 miles per hour/732 kilometers per hour). Its service ceiling is 35,100 feet (10,698 meters). The patrol plane has a fuel capacity of 7,661 Imperial gallons (9,200 U.S. gallons/34.828 liters), giving it a maximum range of 5,100 nautical miles (5,869 statute miles/9,445 kilometers). At a mission radius of 1,000 nautical miles (1,151 statute miles/1,852 kilometers), the Aurora can remain on station for 8 hours, 12 minutes.
The CP-140 Aurora is armed with eight Mark 46 Mod V homing torpedoes carried in its weapons bay. There are ten underwing hardpoints. Sonobuoys can be dropped from the belly. A Magnetic Anomaly Detector, the “MAD boom,” is mounted at the tail of the aircraft.
The CP-140 fleet underwent an Aircraft Incremental Modernization Project (AIMP) beginning in 1998. The Aurora Structural Life Extension Program (ASLEP) was completed in 2020. The airplane is expected to remain in service until 2030.
The Auroras are based at Greenwood, Nova Scotia, and Comox, British Columbia. The first CP-140, 140101, remains in service.
John Jean (“Chris”) Christiansen was born 1 May 1923, at Oslo, Norway. He was the second of three children of John Christiansen, a painter, and Ruth Floby Christiansen. After the family immigrated to the United States, he grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Christiansen attended Woodrow Wilson High School in Saint Paul, graduating in 1942. He played football and was a member of the W Club.
In June 1942, he was employed by Hayden Motor Service in St. Paul. When he registered for the draft (conscription), he was described as being 5 feet, 10 inches (1.778 meters) tall, 160 pounds (72.6 kilograms), with a ruddy complexion, blonde hair and blue eyes.
John Christiansen married Miss Alice Phoebe Zeis, who had been a fellow student at Woodrow Wilson High School. They had one son. Christiansen was later married to Diane S. Schindler.
Christiansen served in the United States Navy during World War II and the Korean War.
John Christiansen joined the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation as an experimental test pilot in 1953. During his career with Lockheed, he made the first flights of the prototype YP3V-1 (P-3 Orion), 25 November 1958, and the YS-3A Viking, 21 January 1972. He retired from Lockheed in 1983.
John Christiansen died at Lake Havasu, Arizona, 6 September 1998, at the age of 75 years.
Full Disclosure: TDiA’s father, Bart Robert Swopes (1925–1995) was Lockheed’s Configuration Manager of both the S-3A Viking and the CP-140 Aurora.
© 2023, Bryan R. Swopes
22 March 1956
22 March 1956: While carrying the U.S. Navy’s Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket, problems developed aboard both the research rocketplane and the “mothership.” The modified four-engine heavy bomber, a U.S. Air Force Boeing B-29-95-BW Superfortress 45-21787 (which had been transferred to the U.S. Navy 5 May 1947 and redesignated P2B-1S Superfortress), had a runaway propeller on the Number 4 engine, outboard on the right wing. The propeller broke apart from excessive rotational speed, slicing through the Number 3 engine, the fuselage, and striking the Number 2 engine.
NACA research test pilot John Barron (“Jack”) MacKay, in the cockpit of the Skyrocket, had called “No drop!” because of problems with the rocketplane, but he was jettisoned so that the mothership could maintain flight and make an emergency landing.
McKay dumped the Skyrocket’s propellants and glided to the lake bed.
“Each rocket-plane pilot had worked out, in conjunction with the pilot of the mother ship, a procedure to follow if any emergency developed in either plane. Jack McKay, who had developed into a very able test pilot, and I had agreed with Butchart that if something went wrong after either of us had entered the cockpit of the Skyrocket and had closed the canopy, he would immediately jettison the rocket plane, leaving the rocket-plane pilot to look after his own hide. As a matter of fact, McKay and Butchart later ran into such an emergency. One day something went haywire in a propeller on the B-29 mother plane. As agreed, Butchart instantly cut loose the Skyrocket. A split second later the B-29 prop tore loose and cartwheeled through the space the Skyrocket had just vacated. McKay landed without difficulty; but had Butchart not cut the parasite plane loose, the prop would have ripped into its fuel tanks, causing an explosion that would have killed everyone, including McKay.”
— Always Another Dawn: The Story of a Rocket Test Pilot, by A. Scott Crossfield and Clay Blair, Jr., The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York, 1960, Chapter 21 at Pages 201–202.
The Superfortress pilots, Stanley Paul Butchart and Neil Alden Armstrong, landed the plane safely on the lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base.
Neil Armstrong would land on The Moon 13 years later.
The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics took over P2B-1S Bu. No. 84029 from the U.S. Navy 27 August 1951, and designated it NACA 137. It was retired and placed in storage at NAS Litchfield Park, Arizona, 5 August 1959. NACA sold it to Allied Aircraft Sales, and it received the civilian registration N91329. It was next sold to Ralph W. and Stephen Johnson’s American Air Museum in Oakland, California. The bomber was restored to the B-29 configuration, including gun turrets. It is now in the Kermit Weeks’ Fantasy of Flight collection near Polk City, Florida, with FAA registration N29KW.
© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes
22 March 1948
Adapted from a single-seat P-80C Shooting Star jet fighter, Lockheed engineers added 38.6 inches (0.980 meter) to the fuselage forward of the wing for a second cockpit, instrumentation and flight controls, and another 12 inches (0.305 meter) aft. A more powerful engine, an Allison J33-A-23 with 4,600 pounds of thrust, helped offset the increased weight of the modified airplane. Internal fuel capacity decreased 72 gallons (273 liters) to 353 (1,336 liters).
The Lockheed T-33A Shooting Star is 37.72 feet (11.50 meters) long, with a wingspan of 37.54 feet (11.44 meters), and overall height of 11.67 feet (3.56 meters). The wings a total area of 234.8 square feet (21.8 square meters). They have an angle of incidence of 1° with -1° 30′ of twist and 3° 49.8′ dihedral. The “T-Bird” has a basic weight of 9,637 pounds (4,371 kilograms), and gross weight of 15,280 pounds (6,931 kilograms).
Cruise speed for maximum range is 0.68 Mach. The maximum speed is 505 knots (581 miles per hour/935 kilometers per hour), or 0.8 Mach, whichever is lower. Service ceiling 44,700 feet (1,3625 meters). The maximum range is 1,071 nautical miles (1,232 statute miles/1,983 kilometers).¹
While the P-80 fighter was armed with six .50-caliber machine guns in the nose, the trainer was usually unarmed. Two machine guns could be installed for gunnery training.
In production for 11 years, 5,691 T-33As were built by Lockheed, with licensed production of another 656 by Canadair Ltd., and 210 by Kawasaki Kokuki K.K. For over five decades, the “T-Bird” was used to train many tens of thousands of military pilots worldwide.
TF-80C 48-356 was rebuilt as the prototype for Lockheed’s YF-94A interceptor, and then modified further to the F-94B. Sources have reported it as being stored at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
¹ Specifications and performance data from T-33A PERFORMANCE EVALUATION, AFFTC-TR-61-22, May 1961, Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California. The Project Pilot was Captain Thomas P. Stafford, U.S. Air Force. Stafford was next selected for the NASA Gemini Program, and flew Gemini 6A and Gemini 9. He commanded Apollo 10.
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes