| masraum |
12-01-2021 11:35 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by GH85Carrera
(Post 11534464)
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I just saw that pic a day or two ago. It was some sort of endurance flight, where they were provided fuel and food from other planes in flight, and checked things or performed maintenance while in flight. Crazy!
< edit to add more info and pics >
Not the site where I originally saw it, but...
https://maisonbisson.com/post/on-building-the-plane-while-flying-it/
https://maisonbisson.com/post/on-bui...-the-plane.jpg
https://maisonbisson.com/post/on-bui...-refueling.jpg
https://maisonbisson.com/post/on-bui...n-ole-miss.jpg
Quote:
The golden age of endurance flights
For a period of time after the introduction of any technology, people spend time exploring what they can do with it. Aircraft were no different. The desire to push boundaries led pilots to cross oceans, and eventually circumnavigate the globe by air. And after meeting those challenges, pilots continued to ask: how far, how high, how long?
Air-to-air refueling allowed pilots and their aircraft to out-fly the limits of their fuel capacity, and soon they started setting endurance records for refueled flights. On 7 January 1929, Carl Spatz and four other members of the Army Air Corps landed their Atlantic-Fokker C2A named “Question Mark” for the first time in about six days. One of the problems the crew had to overcome was communication. According to the Air Force Museum:
Due to the unreliability and extra weight of air-to-air radios, the Question Mark and refueling planes did not carry radios. The aircrews communicated with hand signals, flashlight signals, ground panels, notes dropped to the ground, and by messages written on blackboards carried in the planes.
The communication worked. Forty-two times the crew met in formation with support aircraft to take on fuel, oil, food, and water, and they were forced to land only because the engines failed after continuous operation for 150 hours, 40 minutes and 14 seconds.
To prevent foreshortened flights due to mechanical failures, pilots had to figure out how to do basic engine maintenance in the air. Reginald Robbins and James Kelly started their attempt at a record in May 1929 with the addition of an exterior catwalk that allowed Kelly to step outside the cockpit and make his way forward to the engine to grease the rocker arms in the pair’s Ryan B-1 monoplane. Despite these efforts, Robbins and Kelly were forced down shortly after seven days due to damage to the propeller caused by Kelly’s belt striking it.
The summer of 1929 saw three more records set, all in July, extending the duration to just over 17 days. At least one of those records copied the Robbins and Kelly catwalk, and by July 1930, brothers John and Kenneth Hunter were ready with their version of the catwalk for their attempt.
After three weeks in the air, the brothers were exhausted and too tired to deal with a spate of failures in the oil system:
First, a feed line broke, spurting oil all over the plane. Then the motor began to pump oil. At 6 o’clock the fliers dropped a note, saying that an oil gauge had broken, again draining the oil.
They landed on the Fourth of July and went into the record books with a duration of 23 days, one hour and 41 minutes.
It would take five more years before a new record would be set, this one by another pair of brothers, Fred and Al Key—The Flying Keys. Like many before them, the Keys used a catwalk as well:
They built a kind of scaffold on both sides of the engine so that Fred could clamber out of the cabin and perform maintenance, including servicing the crankcase with oil. After the catwalk was installed, the Curtiss Robin looked like it had collided with a jungle gym, but the idea worked.
The brothers copied the catwalk, but they introduced a lasting innovation: a fueling system that started the flow of fuel as soon as the hose was properly connected to the custom tank, and stopped it as soon as it was disconnected—even if the disconnect was a result of buffeting blowing the planes apart. The custom fueling system and check value was designed by local mechanic A.D. Hunter and has been essential to aerial refueling since1.
The pair had made two prior attempts at the record. The first was thwarted on the fifth day by a loose engine cylinder that couldn’t be repaired, even with the help of the catwalk. The second was forced down after seven days by stormy weather that made refueling too dangerous to attempt, and which they couldn’t fly above or around.
The brothers started their third attempt quietly, but national recognition started to build after their tenth day. Then 20 days into the flight, Al Key had to lance his gums to relieve swelling from an abscessed tooth. A dentist gave instructions over the radio. A few days after that, on the same day the pair surpassed the previous record, they discovered one of the tires had lost air pressure, but it was out of reach for repair and wouldn’t be needed until they attempted their landing anyway.
Twenty-five, maybe 26 days in—sources differ—the plane caught fire:
During a refueling, one of the metal oil cans came in contact with some exposed electrical wiring in the plane, which caused a short circuit. A fire broke out and the plane, newly filled to capacity with gasoline, appeared ready to go down in flames. Al was flying and he cut the engine as Fred grabbed a fire extinguisher and blasted the flames — luckily, the fire went out, leaving the plane filled with smoke. Al pulled out of the dive, restarting the engine, less than 100 feet from the ground.
The brothers and the plane had been buffeted by storms during the flight. Multiple reports say the stabilizer was weakened in the storms, but the pilots could be forgiven for just being exhausted. The pair landed safely—despite the flat tire—after 27 days in the air.
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