You can't fly like that

This is the story of how one aviation legend performed a short flight that proved flying can become safer, and what this flight meant to the airline industry.

Transcript

Paula: 0:00

For the Best Aerospace Era this is mansplaining. Here is the host Anthony L. Sealey

0:08

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Many advancements in aircraft engineering occurred in the first two decades after the Wright Brothers first a successful flight of the Wright Flyer in 1903. But for airplanes to take the next step and become the awesome and reliable mode transportation that it is today. One major problem needed to be solved. How can a pilot fly in adverse weather conditions? Someone was going to have to prove that it could be done. Someone had to take off and land safely in terrible weather conditions and essentially fly blind. Our subject today was a man willing to prove it could be done, and he was already one of the greatest American aviators in history. His name, James Harold Doolittle. As someone who has worked in the airline industry for many years, I can tell you that working in bad weather conditions is far from ideal for anyone in the airline industry, but more so for those who work below the wing. My least favorite is when it's about 40 degrees with strong winds and a constant downpour of rain. One positive thing that is cool to see is an airplane emerge out of thick clouds, mist, or fog on approach for landing. Just recently I saw a dark figure become larger and larger in the sky before a Boeing 7 4 7 emerge from a dark cloud. Seeing the nose gear light pierce through thick fog just before landing is like something out of the movies, but better because it's actually real. In the early days of aviation flying was strictly a fair weather operation even during wartime. I mean, would you wanna fly in an open cockpit of an airplane in the rain, cold, or fog? Yes, you might be able to take off, but how are you gonna land safely without seeing the ground? This brings us to Jimmy Doolittle as he is more commonly called. Jimmy Doolittle was born in Alameda, California on December 14th, 1896. He grew up in Southern California where he had a tendency to get into fights at school. one of his teachers, decided if he liked to throw his fist so much he should learn to box, and taught him how to fight in the ring. He became really good at it. Doolittle won the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship at the Los Angeles Athletic Club in 1912. He still had a tendency to get in fights outside the ring, though even landing him in jail on occasion. I don't know what it is about boxing back then, but for some reason, many of the early aviators I've read about took up boxing at one point or another. I may need to explore this. Topic further, he became infatuated with a classmate named Josephine Daniels. However he needed to prove he was more than just a brawler to winter heart. Doolittle figured enrolling in college to study engineering was the ticket he transferred to the engineering school at the University of California Berkeley in 1916. Doolittle continued to box on the team there and was undefeated in April, 1917. The US joined the greatest conflict the world has ever known, and Doolittle, like millions of others, wanted to join the war effort. He wanted to fly, so he enrolled in the US Army Signal Corps Aviation section. But before he went into training, he married his love interest Josephine on Christmas Eve 1917. Josephine at the time had a promising career, organizing a filing system at a shipyard with many women under her watch. Evidently joining the Army was a ticket to our heart. On one of Doolittle's first days of flight training, he witnessed the bleak reality of early aviation. He and his instructor were in a Curtis JN 4 commonly nicknamed Jenny, when two other Jennys crash into each other, the solo pilot in one. Was dead and the pilot and instructor in the other were badly injured. After helping the injured men in the crash Doolittle's instructor told him to get back in the plane for his lesson, and so he did an army report of this time. Stated, teaching men to fly is probably the most dangerous occupation in the world. The risk did not deter Doolittle. He said after his first flight. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, my love of flying began on that day. At that hour, the Great War ended before he could secure a transfer to the front. I don't get to talk about the Great War here today Doolittle became a flight instructor himself for the US Army. He also became a stunt performer in flying circuses. Pilots and air shows were known at the time as Barnstormers Doolittle served under General William Billy Mitchell. He was a major advocate for aviation. He encouraged any accomplishment by man and machine in the air that would demonstrate that aviation was the future. Doolittle was all too willing to answer Mitchell's call. Crossing the continental US in an airplane will bringing a lot of publicity right after some failed attempts, Doolittle was able to cross the country. In September, 1922, he took off from a beach near Jacksonville, Florida and landed on a beach in San Diego, California. 22 hours and 30 minutes later, one beach to the other. What is one of the worst things for an early pilot to hear in the air? Yes, before stopping in San Antonio, Texas for fuel, he bravely flew through rain that pelted his face as lightning strikes lit up the sky. He relied on his compass to keep him going in the right direction. Doolittle enrolled at MIT for a master's degree in aeronautical engineering. During this time, he did something that most anyone would consider to be suicide. Doolittle wanted to find out how fast the plane can go before it breaks apart. The same question was being asked of airplanes. As early automobiles and motorcycles, how fast can it go? Let's race'em. Early airplanes were made of wood wire and canvas. Doolittle push these airplanes in dives exceeding 200 miles an hour. As they began to break apart. To see at one point the structure of the wings would start to crack. Now, if you were thinking if only they had a wind tunnel back then that could do this without risking ones life, the Wright brothers experimented with wind tunnels all the way back around 1900. This was Doolittle's way. He also performed these death defying dives. To find out at what point a pilot would blackout at certain speeds. He did this for his master's thesis at MIT and lived to write about it. Air races became a very popular and competitive event in the 1920s college football fans know that the Army Navy football game. It's a big event every year. A competitive rivalry whose first game was played all the way back in 1890. This competitive rivalry made its way to the sky. Army and Navy pilots competed against each other in air races to prove who had the best pilots. Doolittle was entered in the Schneider Cup race. This was a seaplane race. He was entered in the race even though he had never flown a seaplane before or landed on water. The race course was a 31.7 mile triangle marked with tall pylons in the Chesapeake Bay between Maryland and Virginia. He flew a Curtis R three C racer, fitted with pontoons that had 610 horsepower. It's a sleek and very cool looking biplane. After some qualifying races, two Navy pilots, one Italian pilot, and Doolittle remained. Thanks in part to his maneuver to climb, dive and bank around the pylons. He won the race and set a record for the average speed. Being the famous pilot that he was, Doolittle was hired by the Curtis Airplane and motor company to demonstrate and market their new Curtis P one Hawk Fighter to countries in South America., the Curtis Airplane and Motor Company was founded in part by a man named Glen Curtiss, a very interesting man who I'd like to talk about in the future. He along with pilots representing countries from Italy, England, and Germany. Arrived in San Diego, Chile, Germany sent World War veteran Karl A von Schoenebeck and Ace, a former member of Red Baron's Flying Circus to show off a Dorner fighter. days before the aerial demonstrations, a party was thrown by Chilean pilots for the fellow aviator guest. A party with many pilots with big egos. What could go wrong at this party? Doolittle showed off his acrobatic gymnastic skills. He was a gymnast. In addition to being a boxer in his youth, one stunt led him to fall about 20 feet out of a window. He landed on his feet however, but in doing so, he broke both of his ankles. I believe alcohol was involved here. This did not stop him from demonstrating the Curtis P one Hawk. He and Karl A von Schoenebeck even performed a mock dog fight. Doolittle proved that he and the Curtis P-1 Hawk were superior that day. He went on to push airplanes in more extreme acrobatics, in air demonstrations and in air races throughout the 1920s. However. He wanted to accomplish one major feat. He wanted to successfully take off and land an airplane without seeing the sky or the ground. I read in multiple sources that early pilots were trained and told to trust their own instincts and their eyes. Early aircraft like this Spad 13. The Fokker T 2 or the Lockheed 5 B Vega had instruments. However, they were not accurate enough to be trusted. Pilots were taught to trust their eyes and their own instincts in the air. How can a pilot do that? In low visibility conditions, more accurate instruments were needed. Notably, someone needed to make a better altimeter. I would not get technical here, but an altimeter function is to measure in feet the altitude of an aircraft in relation to the ground. A man named Paul Kollsman just happened to be working on this very project in the late 1920s. He was a German American living in New York City. Kollsman's Drive to make a more accurate altimeter. Led him to leave his job at the Pioneer Instrument Company of Brooklyn and start his own company out of his garage. Early Altimeters had a dangerous tendency to give their pilots false indications because they were affected by the air pressure and weather conditions. Kollsman's new sensitive altimeter promised to not be affected as such because it could be adjusted to the weather conditions. Also, it was smaller and accurate to around 20 feet. Doolittle would put it to the test. As I said before, Doolittle relied on a compass to fly across the country. Even flying through a storm, conventional encompasses performed well. But only when an airplane's orientation is level. The Sperry Gyroscopic company of Brooklyn, New York, promised to solve this problem with two instruments. The new gyroscopic compass or gyro compass will remain on point during aerial maneuvers. The artificial horizon or altitude indicator. Would indicate how level the aircraft is in relation to the horizon. These instruments gave pilots the information they needed, how high off the ground they were, if the plane was level with the horizon, and in what direction they were flying. Far better than before. But what good are these instruments if a pilot can't see the runway to land? This is where radio signals come into play. The radio frequency laboratory of Boonton, New Jersey, installed a homing indicator or localizer that would send signals to indicate to a pilot If they are on the right approach to the runway. So we have one of the greatest pilots in the world, and a test plane, the NY 2 Husky installed with the most advanced instruments of the 1920s. A plane he did not really care for because it was very slow, but it would do the job as a test plane. Now we need some bad weather. The year is 1929. Herbert Hoover is president. The Philadelphia Athletics won the World Series over the Chicago Cubs, ray Keech won. The Indianapolis 500 and tragically died just two weeks later in a racing accident. The Ford Model A was a bestselling car. Vatican City home to the Catholic Church, broke up from Italy and became its own country. The famous and violent mob hit the St. Valentine's Day massacre happened in Chicago and Jimmy Doolittle woke up in the early morning hours one day to try something new in the air. On the morning of September 24th, a thick fog engulfed Michel Field in Long Island, New York. By the way, this is about a month before the stock market crashed for early aviators. This is a no-fly situation. But for Doolittle, this was exactly what he was looking for. Doolittle said, I decided to make a real fog flight. He took off in the NY 2 and disappeared into the fog, Doolittle said, coming through the fog at about 500 feet and making it wide swing. I came around into a landings position by the time I landed. 10 minutes later, after takeoff, the fog has started to lift. So there you have it. Ladies and gentlemen. Doolittle made history and now it's time to go hit downtown and celebrate. Right? No, Doolittle was not the type of guy to just leave it at that. He was gonna take flying blind a step further. A cover or hood was installed over the rear seat of Doolittle's, NY two, Husky biplane. This is where he would pilot the next flight from inside. He would only be able to see his flight gauges as he attempted to fly. I bet someone watching him prepare for this flight say, you can't fly like that. I mean, why wouldn't you? A second lieutenant named Ben Kelsey was assigned to ride in the front seat. He was instructed to hold his hands and arms straight up in the air and to only take over the controls in case of an emergency. How would you like that job? Members of the full flight laboratory team, along with a man. Named Harry Guggenheim, who funded this entire project, watched anxiously waiting for them to take off with only a small light to illuminate his gauges under the cover. Doolittle and Kelsey took off and the NY 2 Husky Doolittle leveled out the NY 2 at 1000 feet. He knew this because the altimeter was adjusted to compensate for the air pressure of the atmosphere under the hood. Doolittle looked at the gyro compass and the artificial horizon to get an idea of the NY twos orientation. He also listened for the vibrating radio signals to guide him back to the runway. He performed a sequence of 90 degree left turns until the radio signal indicated he was in a landing pattern. He maneuvered until the radio signal was read at an equal rate, meaning he was on approach descending to 400 feet according to the new and improved altimeter, and using his artificial horizon instrument to level the aircraft out. Doolittle confidently knew his position, even though he could not see where he was. The NY 2 continued to descend 200 feet, 100 feet. As the team watched Kelsey still riding in the front seat with his hands in the air. What must have been going through his mind after passing over a fence at 30 feet? The NY 2. Landing gear bounced once before landing a flight lasted only about 15 minutes. Doolittle was not happy about the small bounce during landing, but can you blame him? He couldn't even see the ground. Doolittle made a little mate aviation history twice in one day, even though he only spent 30 minutes in the air. Aviation, as I will continue to tell you in mansplaneing, is a very dangerous occupation, especially in the first decades of the 19 hundreds. This monumental achievement demonstrated landing can be safely done in low visibility or no visibility. This was a major step in the best aerospace era. The instruments used on these flights would be incorporated to make flying safer for the military and the civilian sectors Future aerospace legends from the best aerospace era, perform blind or Insturment flights to complete their training for the military. And according to the internet, this type of flight is still being performed today. With aviation becoming safer. A new air transportation business venture could finally take shape. Airplanes advanced to a great extent during the 1920s, but as I said before, Doolittle's blind flight took place about a month before the stock market crashed and the great depression was on the horizon. Now there is something to think about here. Before I talked about barnstormers, who performed different stunds in the air for air shows, is it possible one of them blindfolded themselves and took off and landed? Possibly. But who's to say they couldn't see through those blindfolds or took a peek under the blindfold while they were in the air? As I said before, Jimmy Doolittle was one of the greatest pilots to ever live, and I really want to go into more detail about Jimmy Doolittle's life and some other achievements he made in the air. One thing in particular that I would like to cover here is a mission that Doolittle organize and led during World War ii. This was known as the Doolittle Raid. Standby for that. It was an amazing achievement. During the best aerospace era. Now for my listeners that are passengers, I do not want you to go yell at an airline employee in the event that your flight got canceled or delayed due to bad weather. And say. I heard on this podcast that airplanes could fly in bad weather. Please do not be that person. Safety is the first priority of every airline and every airline employee. Airline cannot operate during ice storms, tornadoes, cloud to ground lightning or other extreme weather conditions, In all my years in the airline industry, I have not found one airline employee who could control the weather, as far as I know. And just because the weather is clear at the airport you're flying out of that does not mean the weather is agreeable where your plane is coming from or going to. Now, for my listeners that do work in the airline industry, and you're one of the good ones. Keep being awesome. I believe in you. there is one other vital instrument that early aviators use that was extremely valuable. However, it was not actually attached to the airplane itself, but rather the pilot's wrist. That's the subject for a future episode. Until then, remember, there's always a light at the end of the runway.

Paula: 28:18

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