Saint-Exupéry was never seen again.
In 1998 a fisherman found his silver identity bracelet on the sea floor south of Marseilles. Parts of the aircraft were recovered in 2003.
“Saint-Ex” wrote Night Flight; Flight to Arras; Wind, Sand and Stars’ and The Little Prince, as well as many other works. He was a gifted writer.
© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes
31 July 1923: The original patent application, Serial No. 654,955, for the legendary Browning .50-caliber machine gun was filed with the United States Patent Office on 31 July 1923. Patent Number 1,628,226 was issued to the estate of John Moses Browning by the Patent Office on 10 May 1927.
The majority of United States combat aircraft during World War II were armed with the Browning Machine Gun, Caliber .50, AN-M2. The machine gun could be mounted as a fixed weapon in the aircraft’s wings or nose, in flexible mounts, or power-operated turrets.
The basic aircraft Browning machine gun, cal. .50, AN-M2. . . is an automatic, recoil-operated, belt-fed, air-cooled machine gun. The metallic link disintegrating belt is used in all firing of the gun. The gun is designed for all cal. .50 aircraft machine gun installations. By properly repositioning some of the component parts, ammunition may be fed into the gun from either the right or the left side.
—TM9-225 War Department Technical Manual, BROWNING MACHINE GUN, CALIBER .50, AN-M2, AIRCRAFT, BASIC, 28 January 1947, Section II., Paragraph 3. General, at Page 2
The Browning Machine Gun (“BMG”) was designed by John Moses Browning, who had also designed the Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911, the standard sidearm of the U.S. military for 74 years; the Rifle, Caliber .30, Automatic, Browning, M1918 (best known as the “Browning Automatic Rifle” or “BAR”); the Browning Machine Gun, Caliber .30, M1919; and the Browning Hi-Power, a 9 × 19 mm double-action semiautomatic pistol designed for Fabrique National (FN) of Herstal, Belgium.
The AN-M2 aircraft machine gun has an overall length of 56.25 inches (1.429 meters) and weighs 61.00 pounds (27.67 kilograms). The barrel is cylindrical, and 36.00 inches (0.91 meters) long. It is surrounded by a barrel jacket with ventilation holes to dissipate heat. The bore has 8 rifled-grooves with a right-hand twist, making one complete turn in every 15.00 inches (0.381 meters).
The basic AN-M2 gun could be modified to be manually fired with the substitution of a “spade grip” back plate. It could also be changed from left-hand ammunition feed to right hand by reversing some internal parts.
The M2 machine gun had a rate of fire of 750 to 850 rounds per minute.
Ammunition is ball, armor-piercing, armor-piercing-incendiary, tracer, blank (no bullet), and dummy. The armor-piercing cartridge, M2, has a muzzle velocity of 2,840 feet per second (866 meters per second) and maximum range of 7,275 yards (6,652 meters). Some .50-caliber rounds have muzzle velocities as high as 3,450 feet per second (1,052 meters per second), though most range from 2,730 fps to 2,900 fps (832–884 m/s). The ammunition produces chamber pressures of approximately 55,000 pounds per square inch (3,792 bar).
The .50 BMG cartridge is 5.45 inches (13.843 centimeters) long (NATO 12.7 × 99). The rimless, tapered bottleneck case is 3.91 inches (9.931 centimeters) long, with diameters of 0.560 inches (14.224 millimeters) at the neck, 0.735 inches (18.669 millimeters) at the shoulder, and 0.804 inches (20.422 millimeters) at the base. The bullet is 2.31 inches (58.67 millimeters) long, with a maximum diameter of 0.510 inches (12.954 millimeters) and weighs 706.7 grains (1.6 ounces, 45.8 grams).
© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes
31 July 1901: At “10 minutes before 11 in the morning,” the gas balloon Preussen (Prussia) began to ascend from Tempelhofer Felde at Berlin, capital city of the Königreich Preußen (Kingdom of Prussia) and the German Empire.
Carried aloft in the open gondola were two men, Reinhard Joachim Süring of the Prussian Meteorological Institute, and Josef Arthur Stanislas Berson.
There was a light wind from the northwest, and the air temperature was 23.4 °C. (74.1 °F.). The air pressure was 762.0 millimeters (30.0 inches) of Mercury.
The balloon was made by Continental Caoutchouk und Guttapercha-Compagnie, Hannover, at a cost of 20,000ℳ. To inflate the balloon at the airfield, 1,080 pressurized cylinders containing 5,400 cubic meters (190,700 cubic feet) of hydrogen were used. When fully inflated at altitude, the spherical envelope had a maximum volume of 8,400 cubic meters (296,643 cubic feet).
In the gondola were four 1,000 liter (35 cubic foot) cylinders of oxygen for breathing, and 8,000 kilograms (17,637 pounds) pounds of ballast contained in 63 kilogram (139 pound) sand bags and 36 kilogram (79 pound) bags of iron filings.
Süring and Berson reached an altitude of 5,000 meters (16,404 feet) in 40 minutes. The air temperature was -7 °C. (19.4 °F.). The envelope had reached its maximum volume by this time.
After 3 hours, Preussen had ascended to 8,000 meters (26,247 feet), and in four hours, it reached 9,000 meters (29,528 feet). There, the air temperature was -32 °C. (-25.6 °F.).
The aeronauts had run out of breathing oxygen at 8,170 meters (26,804 feet).
The last observed altitude the men reached was 10,225 meters (33,547 feet), with an air temperature of -35.7 °C. (-32.3 °F.). Josef Berson saw Süring lose consciousness and pulled the emergency valve to vent gas from the balloon and start its descent. He too lost conciousness due to hypoxia.
“. . . dass der Ballon noch kurz nachdem auch der zweite Korbinsasse bei 10500 m das Bewussstein verloren hatte, um mindestens 300 weitere Meter stieg, sonit Maximalhöhe von sicherlich 10800 m (vielleicht 11000 m) erreicht und hierauf unfer Nachwirkung des Ventilzuges in ein jahes Fallen umbog.”
[Google English translation: “Shortly after the second basket occupant had lost the awareness stone at 10500 m, the balloon rose at least 300 meters further, reaching a maximum height of certainly 10800 m (perhaps 11000 m), and then reversed our after-effect of the valve train into a sudden fall.]
Both men regained consciousness at about 6,000 meters, but were unable to regain control of the ballon’s descent until 2,500 meters. Süring and Berson returned to Earth near Briesen, Kreis Cottbus, Germany, at 18:25 that evening. The total duration of their flight was 7 hours, 36 minutes.
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes
Flying magazine briefly commented the record run:
“. . . he ran the Mustang’s Merlin engine at 110 inches of manifold pressure [7.93 Bar] and 3,800 r.p.m. (it was designed for 61 inches and 3,000 r.p.m.) and fed it 110 gallons [416.4 liters] of 115/145-octane fuel with manganese additive, enough for only two passes.”
—Flying, Vol. 112, No. 1, January 1985, at Page 64.
Taylor’s air racer was Dago Red,² a North American Aviation P-51D-30-NA Mustang. The fighter had been built at Inglewood, California, in 1944 and assigned U.S. Army Air Corps serial number 44-74996. When the U.S. Air Force retired the last of its Mustangs from Air National Guard service in 1957, 44-74996 was sold as surplus.
The airplane was issued the civil registration N5410V. The Mustang changed ownership many times before it crashed after an engine failure at Concorde, California, 16 August 1970. After a decade in storage, the wreck was rebuilt as an air racer.
The P-51D was modified for air racing. It’s wings were “clipped” (shortened) and the upper fuselage re-shaped, both intended to reduce aerodynamic drag. Approximately 2½ feet (0.76 meters) were removed from each wing tip. The Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 engine also received many internal modifications to increase power output, and to survive that increase. The Merlin turned a Hamilton Standard “paddle blade” propeller. (Dago Red‘s current engine is based on the post-war Rolls-Royce Merlin 620-series commercial variant.)
On 21 August 1989, an Unlimited Class Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat, Rare Bear, exceeded Dago Red‘s record speed while setting its own FAI record,³ averaging 850.24 kilometers per hour (528.315 miles per hour) over a shorter 3 kilometer course. Both airplanes’ records stood until they were retired due to changes in the sporting code.
In addition to its world speed record, Dago Red has won the National Championship Air Races six times.
¹ FAI Record File Number 8434
² “Dago Red” is a derogatory American slang term referring to an Italian-style blended dark red wine. It was also the name of a commercial brand sold in the 1970s. Dago Red sold for about $2.00 per bottle ($13.29 in 2020). (Thanks to “Dr. Vinny” for the info).
³ FAI Record File Number 8437
© 2020, Bryan R. Swopes
Designers had planned to use an experimental 3,421.194-cubic-inch-displacement (56.063 liter) liquid-cooled, supercharged and turbosupercharged Allison V-3420 twenty-four cylinder, four-bank “double V” engine. It produced a maximum of 2,885 horsepower at 3,000 r.p.m. The engine was not available in time, however, and four air-cooled Pratt & Whitney R-1830 (Twin Wasp) engines were used instead. With one-third the horsepower, this substitution left the experimental bomber hopelessly underpowered as a combat aircraft. (The Douglas XB-19 was retrofitted with V-3420s in 1942, and re-designated XB-19A.)
The XB-15 was a very large four-engine mid-wing monoplane with retractable landing gear. It was of aluminum monocoque construction with fabric-covered flight control surfaces. The XB-15 had a ten-man crew which worked in shifts on long duration flights.
The prototype bomber was 87 feet, 7 inches (26.695 meters) long with a wingspan of 149 feet (45.415 meters) and overall height of 18 feet, 1 inch (5.512 meters). The airplane had an empty weight of 37,709 pounds (17,105 kilograms) and maximum takeoff weight of 70,706 pounds (32,072 kilograms)—later increased to 92,000 pounds (41,730 kilograms).
The XB-15’s wings used a symmetrical airfoil and were very highly tapered (4:1 from root to tip). They had an angle of incidence of 4½° and 4½° dihedral. The total area was 2,780 square feet (258.271 square meters). A contemporary aeronautical publication wrote, “The airfoil provides constant center of pressure, minimum profile drag with flaps up and high maximum lift with flaps down.” The XB-15’s wings were adapted by Boeing for the Model 314 Clipper flying boat.
The experimental airplane had a cruise speed of 152 miles per hour (245 kilometers per hour) at 6,000 feet (1,829 meters), and a maximum speed of 200 miles per hour ( kilometers per hour) at 5,000 feet (1,524 meters). The service ceiling was 18,900 feet (5,761 meters) and maximum range was 5,130 miles (8,256 kilometers).
The bomber could carry a maximum of 12,000 pounds (5,443 kilograms) of bombs in its internal bomb bay, and was armed with three .30-caliber and three .50-caliber machine guns for defense .
Only one XB-15 was built. During World War II it was converted to a transport and re-designated XC-105. In 1945 35-277 was stripped and abandoned at Albrook Field, Territory of the Canal Zone, Panama.
¹ FAI Record File Number 8739
² FAI Record File Number 8740
© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes