May 27, 1943: The final GM A-1 drone flew for 80 minutes. Although U.S. Army Air Force officials deemed the flight successful, the persistent problem of ineffective control throughout the first and second test series never got completely solved, and the project was terminated six months later. The GM-A-1 possessed a maximum range of 400 miles. However, its maximum speed topped at 200 miles per hour, making it vulnerable to the high-performance fighters that emerged during World War II. In comparison, the German V-1 Flying Bomb flew a distance of 130 miles at 415 miles per hour, while carrying a 1,870-pound explosive charge. According to Army officials, the relatively small warhead reduced the tactical value of the drone. The need for a mother ship to steer it toward a target also hindered its combat effectiveness. However, the deal breaker dealt with the issue of unstable performance due to inadequate flight controls, an ongoing problem from day one of the project.
May 27, 1958: The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II made its first flight with Robert C. Little at the controls. The Phantom II was an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the U.S. Navy. Proving highly adaptable, it first entered service with the Navy in 1961 before the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force adopted it, and by the mid-1960s it had become a major part of their air arms. Phantom production ran from 1958 to 1981 with a total of 5,195 aircraft built, making it the most produced American supersonic military aircraft in history, and cementing its position as an iconic combat aircraft of the Cold War.
The F-4 was used extensively during the Vietnam War. It served as the principal air superiority fighter for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps and became important in the ground attack and aerial reconnaissance roles late in the war. During the Vietnam War, one U.S. Air Force pilot, two weapon systems officers, one U.S. Navy pilot, and one radar intercept officer became aces by achieving five aerial kills against enemy fighter aircraft. The F-4 continued to form a major part of U.S. military air power throughout the 1970s and 1980s, being gradually replaced by more modern aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon in the U.S. Air Force, the F-14 Tomcat in the U.S. Navy, and the F/A-18 Hornet in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.
The F-4 Phantom II remained in use by the U.S. in the reconnaissance and Wild Weasel (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) roles in the 1991 Gulf War, finally leaving service in 1996. It was also the only aircraft used by both U.S. flight demonstration teams: the United States Air Force Thunderbirds (F-4E) and the United States Navy Blue Angels (F-4J). The F-4 was also operated by the armed forces of 11 other nations.
May 28, 1956: The Ryan X-13 Vertijet made its first flight in vertical mode at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., reaching a height of 50 feet. The Vertijet was an experimental vertical take-off and landing jet aircraft. The main objective of the project was to demonstrate the ability of a pure jet to vertically takeoff, hover, and transition to horizontal forward flight, and vertically land.
May 29, 1940: The U.S. Navy’s new prototype fighter, the XF4U-1 made its first flight with Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft Division test pilot Lyman A. Bullard, Jr. at the controls. The prototype would be developed into the famous F4U Corsair. The F4U Corsair was a single-place, single-engine fighter, designed for operation from the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers. The prototype had a maximum speed of 378 miles per hour at 23,500 feet. Before the design was finalized for production, however, several changes were made. Fuel tanks were removed from the wings to make room for six Browning AN-M2 .50-caliber machine guns and ammunition. A new tank was placed in the fuselage ahead of the cockpit. This moved the cockpit rearward and lengthened the nose. The Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft Division (F4U-1), Goodyear Aircraft Corporation (FG-1D), and Brewster Aeronautical Corporation (F3A-1) manufactured a total of 12,571 Corsairs. The Corsair served the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in World War II and the Korean War.
May 29, 1951: Flying a North American Aviation P-51C Mustang, Excalibur III, Pan Am World Airways Capt. Charles F. Blair flew from Bardufoss, Norway, to Fairbanks, Alaska via the North Pole. This was the first solo flight over the North Pole, and Blair flew the 3,260 miles, non-stop in 10 hours, and 27 minutes. Blair had to navigate by using a system of pre-plotted sun lines, as a magnetic compass was useless near the Pole and there were no radio navigation aids available. For this flight, Blair was presented the Harmon International Trophy by President Harry S. Truman, in a ceremony at the White House, Nov. 18, 1952. The Harmon awards are for “the most outstanding international achievements in the art and/or science of aeronautics for the previous year, with the art of flying receiving first consideration.”
May 29, 1956: The Chance Vought Regulus II (XSSM-N-9) made its first flight after a 2.3 mile takeoff run from the lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. This test version of the Navy jet-propelled cruise missile was fitted with a tricycle landing gear and, according to the Edwards history office; it tended to outrun its chase and airborne control aircraft.
May 29, 1963: Lockheed Test Pilot Anthony W. “Tony” LeVier and his 18-year-old daughter, Toniann LeVier, flew the company’s two-place TF-104G Starfighter demonstrator from Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, Calif., to Andrews Air Force Base, Md. They made fuel stops at Kirtland AFB, N.M., Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., and Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Toniann earned the title of World’s Fastest Teenager after the aircraft hit Mach 2. The aircraft was being flown to Washington, D.C., where it was handed over to a Lockheed team for a series of demonstrations to Air Force officials.
“I’m still tingling. That sudden surge of power made me feel like we were taking off for outer space, but it’s just as easy to fly as a light plane,” said Toniann.
May 29, 1981: The Bell X-14B was damaged beyond repair in a landing accident. The X-14 first flew on Feb. 19, 1957, as a vertical takeoff, hover, and then vertical landing aircraft. The first transition from hover to horizontal flight occurred on May 24, 1958. In 1959, its Viper engines were replaced with General Electric J85 engines. That year the aircraft was delivered to the NASA Ames Research Center, Calif., as the X-14A. The X-14 project provided a great deal of data on VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) type aircraft and flight control systems. In 1971, the X-14A was fitted with new engines and redesigned the X-14B.
An onboard computer and digital fly-by-wire control system were also installed to enable the emulation of landing characteristics of other VTOL aircraft. The X-14B was used in this test role until the crash. At the time, there were plans to develop an X-14C with an enclosed cockpit. There were also plans for an X-14T trainer. None of these further versions got beyond the planning stage.
May 30, 1942: The Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress makes its first flight. B-17F-1-BO 41-24340 was the first of a new series of the famous World War II bomber. While visually like the B-17E, it had more than 400 improvements based on early wartime experience with the B-17D and B-17E. The Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress was a four-engine heavy bomber operated by a flight crew of 10.
The B-17 Flying Fortress first flew in 1935, and was in production from 1937 to 1945. A total of 12,731 B-17s were built by Boeing, Douglas Aircraft Company, and Lockheed-Vega. Of that number, 3,405 were B-17Fs, with 2,000 built by Boeing, 605 by Douglas, and 500 by Lockheed-Vega.
May 30, 1948: The Martin P5M Marlin made its first flight. The Marlin, built by the Glenn L. Martin Company, was a twin piston-engine flying boat that entered service in 1951, and served into the late 1960s with the U.S. Navy performing naval patrols. It also served with the U.S. Coast Guard and the French Navy. A total of 285 were produced.
May 30, 1958: Douglas Aircraft Company DC-8 passenger plane took off from Long Beach, Calif., on its first flight. On the aircraft were flight operations manager and engineering test pilot Arnold G. Heimerdinger, with co-pilot William M. Magruder and systems engineer Paul H. Patten.
The DC-8 climbed over the Pacific, made a pre-planned set of flight maneuvers and systems checks, before heading to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where the full flight test program was to take place. From 1959 and 1972, the company built 556 DC-8s, in both passenger and freight configurations.
May 30, 1972: The Northrop YA-9A Cobra specialized ground attack aircraft made its first flight, flown by company test pilot Lew Nelson. The aircraft subsequently lost the A-X competitive prototype fly-off against the A-10, and never went into production. Criticism that the U.S. Air Force did not take close air support seriously prompted service senior leadership to seek a specialized attack aircraft.
During the Vietnam War, large numbers of ground-attack aircraft were shot down by small arms, surface-to-air missiles, and low-level anti-aircraft gunfire, prompting the development of an aircraft better able to survive such weapons. Fast jets such as the North American F-100 Super Sabre, Republic F-105 Thunderchief, and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II proved, for the most part, to be ineffective for the close air support combat mission. Members of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) took responsibility for the two Cobra prototypes and continued flight-testing before retiring the airframes. During retirement, the YA-9As’ custom-built engines were removed and later mated to a C-8 Buffalo aircraft as part of the NASA-Boeing joint Quiet Short-haul Research Aircraft study into the development of a quiet short-haul commercial aircraft.
May 31, 1935: The Fairchild Model 45 made its first flight. The Model 45 was a 1930s American five-seat cabin monoplane aircraft designed and built by Fairchild. In 1934, the Fairchild Company designed a business or executive aircraft with five seats, designated the Model 45. The Model 45 was a low-wing cantilever monoplane with a conventional cantilever tail unit and a retractable tail wheel landing gear.
Flight-testing showed that the aircraft performed well, although it was described as sedate. The company predicted that the Model 45 would have only limited market appeal in that form, therefore only the prototype was built. Fairchild then upgraded the prototype with a larger engine. In this configuration, it was designated the Model 45-A.
This configuration was placed in production, with about 16 units being completed. The U.S. Navy as the JK-1 bought one aircraft as an executive transport. After the United States entered World War II, two aircraft were pressed into service with the U.S. Army Air Forces as the UC-88.
May 31, 1993: The 410th Test Squadron was assigned to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif., and assumed responsibility for the F-117 test program. The aircraft and personnel of Detachment 1, 412th Test Wing, were transferred to the 410th.
June 1, 1951: Air Force aeromedical research Maj. John P. Stapp was strapped into a rocket sled which was poised on a 2,000-foot deceleration track at North Base, Edwards AFB, Calif. Moments later, 4,000 pounds of rocket thrust blasted him down the track and into the braking system (from 88.6 mph to a full stop in 18 feet). For a brief instant, he endured 48 G’s, with a rate of onset of about 500 Gs per second. In other words, his body had absorbed an impact of more than four tons. Before Stapp’s sled experiments, conventional medical wisdom had maintained that the human body could probably survive no more than 17-18 instantaneous Gs.
June 1, 1953: The U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Team, the Thunderbirds, was officially activated June 1, 1953, as the 3600th Air Demonstration Team at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. Their first aircraft was the straight-winged F-84G Thunderjet, a combat fighter-bomber that had seen action in Korea. Early in 1955, the team transitioned to the swept-winged F-84F Thunderstreak.
June 1, 1964: At Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Jackie Cochran flew a Lockheed F-104G Starfighter over a 100 kilometer closed circuit without payload, averaging 1,303.18 mph. This new Fédération Aéronautique Internationale speed record broke the one set a year earlier by Cochran’s friend and competitor, Jacqueline Auriol, who flew a Dassault Mirage IIIR delta-winged reconnaissance fighter at Istres, France.
Designed by the legendary Kelly Johnson as a Mach 2 interceptor, the Starfighter was used as a fighter-bomber by Germany. The F-104G was the most-produced version of the Lockheed Starfighter. It had a strengthened fuselage and wings, with hard points for carrying bombs, missiles, and additional fuel tanks. Built by Lockheed, they were also licensed for production by Canadair, Dornier, Fiat, Fokker, Messerschmitt, and SABCA.
June 2, 1923: The Boeing Model 15 made its first flight. The Model 15 was a single-seat open-cockpit biplane fighter aircraft of the 1920s. The Model 15 saw service with the U.S. Army Air Service (as the PW-9 series) and with the U.S. Navy as a carrier-based fighter (as the FB series). The design of Model 15 was based on studies of the Fokker D.VII, of which 142 were brought back to the U.S. for evaluation as part of the Armistice Agreement ending World War I, and many of the features were similar.
June 2, 1958: The Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III, the “Super Crusader,” made its first flight. The Crusader III was developed by Chance Vought as a successor to the successful Vought F-8 Crusader program and as a competitor to the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. Though based in spirit on the F8U-1 and F8U-2, and sharing the older aircraft’s designation in the old Navy system, the two aircraft shared few parts.
Fly-offs against the Crusader III’s main competitor, the future F-4 Phantom II, demonstrated that the Vought design had a definite advantage in maneuverability. John Konrad, Vought’s chief test pilot, later stated that the Crusader III could fly circles around the Phantom II. The combat thrust-to-weight ratio was almost unity (0.97), while early F4H was only 0.87. However, the pilot in the XF8U-3 was easily overwhelmed with the workload required to fly the intercept and fire Sparrows, which required constant radar illumination from the firing aircraft, while the Phantom II had a radar intercept officer to share the workload.
In addition, with the perception that the “age of the gun” was over, the Phantom’s considerably larger payload and the ability to perform air-to-ground as well as air-to-air missions, won over Vought’s fast but single-purposed fighter. For similar reasons, the Phantom would replace the Navy’s F-8 Crusader as the primary daylight air superiority fighter in the Vietnam War, although it was originally introduced as a missile-armed interceptor to complement day fighters like the Crusader.
The F8U-3 program was cancelled with five aircraft built. Three aircraft flew during the test program, and, along with two other airframes, were transferred to NASA for atmospheric testing, as the Crusader III could fly above 95 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. NASA pilots flying at NAS Patuxent River, Md., routinely intercepted and defeated U.S. Navy Phantom IIs in mock dogfights, until complaints from the Navy put an end to the harassment.
June 2, 1989: The B-1B Lancer Combined Test Force completed the bomber’s development, testing, and evaluation program after 592 test flights totaling 3,015 flying hours, utilizing a total of nine different aircraft. The DT&E program began in March 1983.
The Rockwell B-1 Lancer is a supersonic variable-sweep wing, heavy bomber used by the U.S. Air Force. It is commonly nicknamed the “Bone” (from “B-One”). It is one of three strategic bombers in the Air Force fleet as of 2020, the other two being the B-2 Spirit and the B-52 Stratofortress.
Air Force officials envisioned the bomber in the 1960s as a platform that would combine the Mach 2 speed of the B-58 Hustler with the range and payload of the B-52, the bomber was meant to replace both bombers.
After a long series of studies, Rockwell International (now part of Boeing) won the design contest for what emerged as the B-1A. This version had a top speed of Mach 2.2 at high altitudes and the capability of flying for long distances at Mach 0.85 at very low altitudes. The combination of the high cost of the aircraft, the introduction of the AGM-86 cruise missile, and early work on the stealth bomber all significantly affected the need for the Lancer.
The program was restarted in 1981, largely as an interim measure due to delays in the B-2 stealth bomber program, with the B-2 eventually reaching initial operational capability in 1997. This led to a redesign as the B-1B, which differed from the B-1A by having a lower top speed at a high altitude of Mach 1.25, but improved low-altitude performance of Mach 0.96. The electronics were also extensively improved during the redesign, and the airframe was improved to allow takeoff with the maximum possible fuel and weapons load.
