© 2018, Bryan R. Swopes
15 May 1942
15 May 1941
15 May 1941: Having been delayed by weather until 7:40 p.m., Gloster Aircraft Co., Ltd., Chief Test Pilot Phillip Edward Gerald Sayer taxied into position on the long, hard-surfaced runway at RAF Cranwell, stood on the brakes and advanced the throttle. When the engine reached 16,000 r.p.m., Sayer released the brakes and the little airplane began to roll forward.
Acceleration was slow. Relying on the feel of the flight controls rather than a pre-calculated airspeed, Sayer lifted off after 600–700 yards (550–640 meters), at about 80 miles per hour (129 kilometers per hour). At 1,000 feet (305 meters), he retracted the landing gear and continued to climb at reduced r.p.m. He reached a maximum 240 miles per hour (386 kilometers per hour) Indicated Air Speed at 4,000 feet (1,219 meters).
Sayer landed after a 17-minute first flight.
The Gloster E.28/39 was 25 feet, 3 inches (6.696 meters) long with a wingspan of 29 feet, 0 inches (8.839 meters) and overall height of 9 feet, 3 inches (2.819 meters). It had a fuel tank of just 81 gallons (368 liters) capacity. The prototype’s takeoff weight was 3,341 pounds (1,515 kilograms).
W4041/G was powered by a single Power Jets, Ltd., Whittle Supercharger Type W.1. The turbojet used a single-stage, centrifugal-flow compressor, ten reverse-flow combustion chambers, and a single-stage axial-flow turbine. The turbine had 72 blades. The W.1 produced 860 pounds of thrust (3,825.47 Newtons) at 16,500 r.p.m., burning paraffin (kerosene).
The E.28/39 had a single large air intake at the nose. This split into two ducts which passed around each side of the the cockpit, following the inner contours of the fuselage, and then entered a plenum chamber. Intake air was compressed approximately 4:1 and passed to the combustion chambers. Fuel was mixed with this heated, compressed air, then ignited. Flame temperatures approached 600 °C. (1,112 °F.) This very hot, expanding gas flowed through spiral ducts to the turbine blades, causing the turbine disc to spin to a maximum 17,750 r.p.m., above 4,000 feet (1,219 meters).
The turbine drove the compressor at the front of the engine through a central drive shaft. The exhaust gas left the engine and passed through a straight pipe to the rear of the fuselage. The high velocity gas exiting the tail of the aircraft—thrust—resulted in the aircraft being propelled forward at a proportional velocity.
Because of limitations in materials technology, the Whittle W.1 had a limited service life of just ten hours. To keep the most time available for flight tests, early static and taxi tests of the Gloster prototype were made using an engine built from non-airworthy parts and spare components. This engine was designated W.1X.
Over the next thirteen days, Gerry Sayer made fourteen flights, totaling ten hours. The E.28/39 reached a maximum of 25,000 feet (7,620 meters) and 300 miles per hour (483 kilometers per hour). W4041/G was restricted to 2g maneuvers because of stress placed on the cast aluminum compressor case.
Gloster test pilots conducted three series of flight tests with W.4041/G. With Gloster test pilot John Grierson in the cockpit, on 24 June 1943, W4041/G climbed to 41,600 feet (12,680 meters) in 27 minutes, and reached an absolute maximum altitude of 42,170 feet (12,853 meters). This flight completed Gloster’s flight test program and the airplane was turned over to RAE Farnborough.
A second Gloster E.28/39 was built, W4046/G. Using an improved Whittle W.2/700 turbojet engine, the second prototype reached a maximum speed of 505 miles per hour (813 kilometers per hour) in level flight at 30,000 feet (9,144 meters)—0.74 Mach.
On 30 July 1943, W4046 was lost when its ailerons jammed at high altitude. The pilot bailed out and parachuted safely, but the prototype jet airplane was destroyed.
On 27 April 1946, Gloster-Whittle E.28/39 W4041/G was placed in the National Aeronautical Collection, Science Museum, South Kensington, 27 April 1946.
Chief Test Pilot Phillip Edward Gerald Sayer, Esq., was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) on the New Years Honours list, 30 December 1941. He was killed in flying accident 22 October 1942, probably the result of a mid-air collision.
RECOMMENDED: “No Airscrew Necessary. . .” by Robert J. Blackburn, Flight and Aircraft Engineer, No. 2131, Vol. LVI., Thursday, 27 October 1949, at pages 553–558
© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes
13–15 May 1938
The airplane and its crew took off from Kisarazu Airport at 4:55 a.m., 13 May, and landed at 7:21 p.m., 15 May. The duration of the flight was 2 days, 14 hours, 26 minutes.
The crew flew 11,651.01 kilometers (7,239.60 statute miles) without landing; ¹ Speed over 10,000 kilometers (6,213.712 statute miles), 186.20 kilometers per hour (115.70 miles per hour); ² Speed Over a Given Distance of 10,000 Kilometers (6,213.712 statute miles): 186.19 kilometers per hour (115.69 miles per hour). ³
The Gasuden Long Range Monoplane (Kōken-ki) was designed by the Tokyo University Aeronautical Research Institute and was built by Gasuden, the Tokyo Gas and Electric Industry (now, Hino Motors, Ltd.) It was a single-engine, low-wing monoplane with retractable landing gear. The airplane was built primarily of metal, though the wings were covered with Egyptian cotton fabric and painted with eleven coats of red paint. The airplane was called Crimson Wing.
The airplane was 15.06 meters (49.41 feet) long with a wingspan of 27.93 meters (91.63 feet) and overall height 3.84 meters (12.60 feet). Its gross weight was 9,216 kilograms (20,318 pounds).
Crimson Wing was powered by a single Kawasaki-built version of a liquid-cooled Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) single overhead camshaft (SOHC) 60° V-12 aircraft engine with two valves per cylinder. The Kawasaki engine produced 715 horsepower. The engine drove a two-bladed Sumitomo SW-4 fixed-pitch wooden propeller with a diameter of 4.00 meters (13.12 feet).
The airplane had a maximum speed of 245 kilometers per hour (152 miles per hour) at Sea Level.
When Fujita, Takahashi and Chikaichi landed after 62 hours, 21 minutes, the airplane still had 500 liters (132 gallons) of fuel remaining.
¹ FAI Record File Number 9162: Distance Over a Closed Circuit Without Landing
² FAI Record File Number 9163: Speed Over 10,000 Kilometers
³ FAI Record File Number 9552: Speed Over a Given Distance of 10,000 Kilometers
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes
15 May 1930
15 May 1930: Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess, now more commonly titled Flight Attendant, on a Boeing Air Transport flight from Oakland, California, to Chicago, Illinois.
A registered nurse and licensed airplane pilot, Miss Church had approached Steve Simpson at Boeing Air Transport (later, United Air Lines) to inquire about being hired as a pilot. Simpson turned her down.
When her request was denied, she suggested that the airline put registered nurses aboard BAT’s airplanes to care for the passengers. She was hired to recruit and train seven additional women as stewardesses. Because of the cabin size and weight-carrying limitations of those early airliners, they were limited to a height of 5 feet, 4 inches (1.63 meters) and maximum weight of 115 pounds (52.2 kilograms). They were required to be registered nurses, but could not to be more than 25 years old. Their salary was $125.00 per month (approximately $2,271 in 2023 dollars).
Miss Church worked for BAT for about 18 months until she was injured in a car accident. After recovering, she then returned to her career in nursing.
Ellen Evalyn Church was born at Cresco, Iowa, 22 September 1904. She was the second of two children of Gaius Windsor Church, a farmer, and Isabella Johnstone Church, an immigrant from Scotland. After graduating from Cresco High School in 1921, Miss Church studied nursing at the University of Wisconsin. She also took flying lessons and became a licensed airplane pilot.
After qualifying as a Registered Nurse (R.N.), Miss Church went to San Francisco, California, where she was employed by The French Hospital. It was while there that she first met Mr. Simpson.
Following her accident in 1932, Ellen Church returned to the University of Wisconsin and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. By 1936, she had become the Supervisor of Pediatrics at the Milwaukee County Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. By 1940, she was the hospital’s Nursing Supervisor.
In May 1940, Miss Church was featured in a series of photographs comparing her 1930 stewardess’s Boeing Air Transport uniform to that of a “modern” United Air Lines stewardess. The photos included a new Douglas DC-3 airliner.
Ellen E. Church enlisted in the United States Army, 5 December 1942, entering service at Louisville, Kentucky, the location of the U.S. Army Air Force School of Air Evacuations. She trained as a Flight Nurse and was commissioned as a Lieutenant, Nurse Corps, United States Army Air Forces. She also was responsible for training nurses.
Lieutenant Church was deployed to North Africa on 8 February 1943, caring for soldiers evacuated by air from North Africa and the Mediterranean areas. She served in the combat zones of Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, the invasion of Normandy and the Rhineland. She was promoted to the rank of Captain.
Captain Church returned to the United States, arriving by air aboard a military transport at La Guardia Airport, New York City, New York, 10 September 1944. She was released from military service 18 June 1946.
For her military service, Captain Church was awarded the Air Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with seven campaign stars, and the World War II Victory Medal.
Returning to her civilian career, Miss Church became the Hospital Administrator at Union Hospital, Terra Haute, Indiana.
Miss Church was married to Leonard Briggs Marshall, a bank president, at Indianapolis, Indiana, 11 September 1964.
While riding a horse on 27 August 1965, Ellen Church Marshall fell and suffered a severe head injury. She was taken to Union Hospital, where she died about six hours later. Her remains were buried at Highland Lawn Cemetery, Terre Haute, Indiana.
Ellen Church Field (FAA Location identifier CJJ), an uncontrolled airport 1 mile southwest of her hometown of Cresco, Iowa, was named in her honor.
© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes
15 May 1918
The Packard Lepère L U.S.A. C. II was a single-engine, two-place, two-bay biplane chasseur which was designed by a French aeronautical engineer, Capitaine Georges Lepère, who had previously designed the Section Technique de l’Aeronautique Dorand AR.1 reconnaissance airplane for the Aéronautique Militaire, the military air service of France. The new airplane was built in the United States by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan. It was a two-place fighter, or chasseur, light bomber, and observation aircraft, and was armed with four machine guns.
A contemporary aviation publication reported:
Flying Qualities—The machine exhibits excellent flying qualities, with ready response of all controls. Longitudinal, lateral and directional stability of the machine is good. In taxying, starting and landing it is entirely satisfactory, and on landing it does not roll more than 300 or 400 ft. [91.4–121.9 meters] All stunt maneuvers can readily be performed, and in general, from a pilot’s point of view, the machine is excellent.
The range of vision is very good, the controls well placed, and instruments so arranged that the pilot need only move his eyes.
—AVIATION AND AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING, Vol. VI, No. 8, 15 May 1919, at Page 426, Column 1.
The Packard Lepère was 25 feet, 3⅛ inches (7.699 meters) long. The upper and lower wings had an equal span of 41 feet, 7¼ inches (12.681 meters), and equal chord of 5 feet, 5¾ inches (1.670 meters). The vertical gap between the wings was 5 feet, ⅝-inch (1.527 meters) and the lower wing was staggered 2 feet, 15/16-inch (0.633 meters) behind the upper wing. The wings’ incidence was +1°. Upper and lower wings were equipped with ailerons, and had no sweep or dihedral. The height of the Packard Lepère, sitting on its landing gear, was 9 feet, 7 inches (2.921 meters). The Packard Lepère had an empty weight of 2,561.5 pounds (1,161.9 kilograms) and its gross weight was 3,746.0 pounds (1,699.2 kilograms).
The fuselage was a wooden structure with a rectangular cross section. It was covered with three layers of veneer, (2 mahogany, 1 white wood) with a total thickness of 3/32-inch (2.38 millimeters). The fuselage had a maximum width of 2 feet, 10 inches (0.864 meters) and maximum depth of 4 feet, 0 inches (1.219 meters).
The wings were also of wooden construction, with two spruce spars and spruce ribs. Three layers of wood veneer covered the upper surfaces. Heavy bracing wires were used. These had an airfoil cross-section and actually provided additional lift. The interplane struts were unusual in that they were fully-framed units.
The Packard Lepère was powered by a water-cooled, normally-aspirated, 1,649.336-cubic-inch-displacement (27.028 liter) Liberty L-12 single overhead cam (SOHC) 45° V-12 engine with a compression ratio of 5.4:1. The Liberty produced 408 horsepower at 1,800 r.p.m. The L-12 as a right-hand tractor, direct-drive engine and it turned turned a two-bladed, fixed-pitch wooden propeller. The Liberty 12 was 5 feet, 7.375 inches (1.711 meters) long, 2 feet, 3.0 inches (0.686 meters) wide, and 3 feet, 5.5 inches (1.054 meters) high. It weighed 844 pounds (383 kilograms).
The engine coolant radiator was positioned horizontally in the center section of the Lepère’s upper wing. Water flowed through the radiator at a rate of 80 gallons (303 liters) per minute.
The Packard Lepère had a maximum speed of 130.4 miles per hour (209.9 kilometers per hour) at 5,000 feet (1,524 meters), 127.6 miles per hour (205.4 kilometers per hour) at 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), 122.4 miles per hour (197.0 kilometers per hour) at 15,000 feet (4,572 meters), 110.0 miles per hour (177.0 kilometers per hours) at 18,000 feet (5,486 meters) and 94.0 miles per hour (151.3 kilometers per hour) at 20,000 feet (6,096 meters). Its cruising speed was 112 miles per hour (180 was kilometers per hour). The airplane could climb to 5,000 feet in 4 minutes, 24 seconds, and to 20,000 feet in 36 minutes, 36 seconds. In standard configuration, the Packard Lepère had a service ceiling of 20,200 feet (6,157 meters). Its range was 320 miles (515 kilometers).
The fighter’s armament consisted of two fixed M1918 Marlin .30-caliber aircraft machine guns mounted on the right side of the fuselage, synchronized to fire forward through the propeller arc, with 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and two M1918 Lewis .30-caliber machine guns on a flexible mount with 970 rounds of ammunition.
The Air Service had ordered 3,525 of these airplanes, but when the War ended only 28 had been built. The contract was cancelled.
Six Packard Lepères were used for flight testing at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, assigned project numbers P 44, P 53, P 54, P 65, P 70 and P 80. One of these, flown by Major Rudolph W. Schroeder, set two Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Records for Altitude at 9,455 meters (31,020 feet), 18 September 1918.¹ On 6 September 1919, Schroeder flew a Packard Lepère to 8,616 meters (28,268 feet) while carrying a passenger. This set two more World Altitude Records.² Flying P 53, A.S. 40015, he set a fifth FAI altitude record of 10,093 meters (33,114 feet), 27 February 1920.³ On 28 September 1921, Captain John A. Macready flew P 53 to an altitude of 40,800 feet (12,436 meters). On 13 October 1922, 1st Lieutenant Theodore J. Koenig flew P 53 to win the Liberty Engine Builders’ Trophy Race at Selfridge Field, near Mount Clemens, Michigan. Koenig completed ten laps of the triangular racecourse in 2:00:01.54, at an average speed of 128.8 miles per hour (207.3 kilometers per hour).
The only Packard Lepère in existence, serial number A.S. 42133, is in the collection of the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
¹ FAI Record File Numbers 15463 and 15671
² FAI Record File Numbers 15464 and 15675
³ FAI Record File Number 8229
© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes