Bird of Paradise (aircraft)
Encyclopedia
The Bird of Paradise was a military airplane used by the United States Army Air Corps
in 1926-1927 to experiment with air navigation
by the use of radio beacon aids. On June 28–29, 1927, the Bird of Paradise, crewed by 1st Lt. Lester J. Maitland
and 1st Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger, made the first nonstop transpacific flight from California
to Hawaii
, a feat for which the crew received the MacKay Trophy
.
The aircraft selected for the project was the Atlantic-Fokker C-2 trimotor transport plane developed from the civilian Fokker F.VII airliner. Its two-ton carrying capacity gave it the ability to carry sufficient fuel for the 2,500-mile flight, and its three motors provided an acceptable safety factor in the event one failed. Moreover, although modified for the long distance flight, the C-2 was a widely used standard design, demonstrating the practicality of flying long distances.
Although the recognition accorded Maitland and Hegenberger was less in comparison with the adulation given Charles Lindbergh
for his transatlantic flight
only five weeks earlier, their feat was arguably more significant from a navigational stand point.
Planning for transoceanic flight began in February 1919 at McCook Field
in Dayton, Ohio
, when 2nd Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger, an MIT graduate aeronautical engineer formed the Instrument Branch as part of the Air Service
's Engineering Division. Under Hegenberger's direction, the Instrument Branch studied "ideas in air navigation, or avigation, turning their inventiveness toward new developments in compass
es, airspeed meters, driftmeters, sextant
s, and maps." Hegenberger attended a U.S. Navy course in navigation at Pensacola, Florida
, that included flights over the Gulf of Mexico
practicing dead reckoning
and celestial navigation
.
What eventually evolved into the Air Corps's Materiel Division
The Materiel Division was created in October 1926 out of the Engineering Division at McCook as a result of the Air Corps Act of 1926, under the command of new Assistant Chief of Air Corps Brig. Gen. William E. Gillmore. broke ground engineering a multitude of flight and air navigation instruments that enabled civil as well as military aviation to reach its potential. In perfecting the equipment in hundreds of tests, the McCook engineers and test pilots also created new navigation methods in collaboration with other agencies, including the Navy. A program for a transpacific flight from California to Hawaii over a distance officially considered by the Army to be 2407 miles (3,873.7 km) was developed in February 1920 by the Instrument Branch and simulated many times during testing.
While the primary goal of the Instrument Branch was effective instrumentation, development of an all-weather and night navigation capability contributed to a larger goal, as espoused by Assistant Director of Air Service Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell: extending the Air Service's mission beyond its "auxiliary" ground support support role. Mitchell's strategy was to generate public support for growth of military aeronautics and funding of the Air Service by a publicity campaign using air shows, flight demonstrations and the setting of aviation records. Among those participating in the varied events was 1st Lt. Lester J. Maitland, assigned to the Testing Squadron at Wilbur Wright Field. Maitland was soon transferred to Hawaii, where he submitted a request to the Chief of the Air Service to organize a transpacific flight between Hawaii and the mainland using the new two-engined Martin NBS-1 bomber, a prototype of which had been at McCook. When his first request was refused, he renewed the request in 1924 from the Fairfield Air Intermediate Depot (FAID), while on temporary duty as a staff officer for Major Augustine Warner Robins
.
At McCook Field in 1923, Hegenberger (who had become another Robins protegé) worked closely with engineer Bradley Jones, a leading authority on air navigation, to test and adapt for military purposes an earth inductor compass
developed by the Pioneer Instrument Company
in conjunction with the National Bureau of Standards.In Fiscal Years 1921-1923, the Air Service had allocated $4,000 of its experimental funds to the Bureau of Standards to develop specifications for the earth inductor compass, then contracted with two manufacturers to purchase nine, delivered in December 1922 and January 1923. The first earth inductor compass in history was flight tested at McCook Field on May 26, 1923. (Air Corps News Letter June 3, 1927; Vol. XI No. 7, pp. 167-169). Hegenberger designed an instrument panel that incorporated the earth inductor compass, a driftmeter, and a magnetic compass at a navigation station in which sextant readings could also be taken, and a cockpit panel with a dial connected to the navigation station that indicated to the pilot if her was steering to the right or left of the course set by the inductor compass. On September 6, 1923, Hegenberger and Jones successfully tested the equipment by navigating from Dayton to Boston, Massachusetts in a DH-4, above unbroken clouds that completely prevented them from seeing any landmarks on the ground.
Hegenberger transferred to Hawaii later that year, where he repeatedly submitted written requests for a transpacific flight that, like Maitland's, were refused.Of their numerous requests to him (which he quipped "bored me to death"), Major General Mason Patrick
, Chief of the Air Corps, explained that his refusals had been because "the time was not yet ripe" for the attempt. (Air Corps News Letter August 9, 1927; Vol. XI No. 10, p. 240; reprinted in ) In October 1926 Hegenberger returned to McCook as chief of the Equipment Branch, where he worked with the Signal Corps Aircraft Radio Laboratory at FAIDThe lab had formerly been the Radio Branch at FAID, where it first tested the direction-finding concept as part of the Air Service's "Model Airway System," an experimental airline (and the first regularly scheduled cargo and passenger air system in the United States) begun in June 1922 between McCook, Bolling, Mitchel, and Langley Fields. Radio was used to guide aircraft between McCook; Chanute Field, Illinois; and Langin Field, West Virginia
, where beacon stations were situated. The last was a small field next to the Ohio River in Moundsville, West Virginia
, used between 1921 and 1932 as a midway refueling point between Dayton and Washington, D.C. It was surveyed by Jimmy Doolittle
in 1920 and built at Air Service request the next year. in testing an "interlocking" navigation system that used signals from radio beacons to define an airway. He was authorized to plan a transpacific test flight from California
to Hawaii
to demonstrate the more difficult task of navigating not to a land mass but to "a tiny island in a big ocean," using radio beacons as a navigational aid. Hegenberger described the method:
The navigation equipment developed at McCook Field took the concept one step further by wiring the RDF receiver into the cockpit instrument panel. Three lights provided visual cues to the pilot: a red light indicated that the aircraft was left of the airway, a green light that it was to the right, and a white light between them that indicated on course when steadily lit.
In the meantime, in November 1926, Maitland was sent to Washington D.C. from FAID to be Assistant Executive Officer to Assistant Secretary of War for Air F. Trubee Davison
. There he was tentatively granted authorization for a flight to Hawaii with Hegenberger as navigator, radio operator, flight engineer and relief pilot, pending the results of field trials to be run on the aircraft selected for the task.
transport, a distance equal to that of the flight to Hawaii. With the setting of an endurance record of more than 36 hours aloft (and seven other world records as well) during a single flight on April 17, 1923, the T-2 had proven itself capable of transoceanic flight, but only had a single motor.
In 1926 the Atlantic Aircraft Company
(Fokker's U.S. subsidiary) produced a development of the internally braced high-wing monoplane design, the F.VIIA, that used three 220 horsepower air-cooled Wright J-5 motors instead of the single 400 horsepower water-cooled Liberty 12
of the T-2. The Army ordered three "Transport Airplanes" in September 1926, to be designated C-2, and earmarked the first to be sent to the Materiel Division at McCook to be the test bed for the radio navigational aid testing about to be authorized. This aircraft, Air Corps serial number 26-202, was diverted at Teterboro Airport
, New Jersey, for modifications and became the last to be delivered. The center section of the wing mounts for the XLB-2 bomberThe XLB-2 was Atlantic's prototype for a two-engined bomber, 26-210, and would have been the Army's first monoplane bomber had it been accepted. It was a development of the same cantilever monoplane as the transports. replaced the wing mounts for the transport's standard 63-foot wings, and it received a larger 71-foot metal wing fabricated by Atlantic.
From there the C-2 was delivered to FAID, where it underwent further modifications, installing Hegenberger's instrument panels, other navigation and radio equipment,In addition to the radio compass and the earth inductor compass, FAID installed four Type B-5 aircraft magnetic compasses, a drift sight, an SC-155 interphone, an SC-134 radio transmitter and BC-138 radio receiver, a sextant, and smoke bombs for measuring drift. ( and Air Corps News Letter May 12, 1928; Vol. XII No. 7, p. 213) and auxiliary fuel tanks to bring its fuel capacity to approximately 1,100 gallons (4,164 liters). Unnecessary equipment, including the passenger seats, were removed to save weight. A passageway to the cockpit was created over the top of the forward auxiliary fuel tank to allow Hegenberger to periodically relieve Maitland at the controls. A team of aviation experts was assembled to oversee the modifications that included Jones, L. B. Hendricks (Assistant Chief of the Materials Laboratory, McCook Field), Fred Herman (aeronautical engineer), Victor E. Showalter (navigation engineer), radio engineers Ford Studebaker and Clayton C. Shangraw (who was also a Reserve officer), and James Rivers, a plane mechanic and foreman. Sometime during the modification process the C-2 also picked up a nickname: Bird of Paradise.
After the aircraft was acquired, Hegenberger prepared the flight plan using a Great Circle
route, which Charles Lindbergh later characterized as "the most perfectly organized and carefully planned flight ever attempted." Maitland prepared for the flight by practice flying one of the Bird of Paradises sister ships, accruing approximately 6,000 miles (roughly 60 hours of flight time) in the C-2 by the time the transpacific flight took off.
, Illinois, on the first leg of final flight tests of the airplane's performance. Jones, Herman and Rivers of the FAID support team also flew aboard the Bird of Paradise to monitor fuel consumption and the reliability of the equipment. From Scott they continued to Muskogee, Oklahoma
, where the aircraft stayed overnight at Hatbox Field, a portion of a general aviation airport leased by the Army and a stop on the 1924 Around the World Flight
. The next day the quintet continued to Kelly Field, stopping at Dallas en route, where they found that the transpacific attempt had been announced by the War Department. During a layover at Kelly repairs were made to the earth inductor compass, one of the Type B-5 compasses, and the radio. From Kelly they flew to San Diego on June 20, stopping at El Paso
and Tucson's Davis-Monthan Field along the way.The original register page is viewable at the Davis-Monthan Register site, and shows that Maitland also flew a C-2, probably a sister aircraft based at Bolling, on the same route a month earlier on May 23, carrying Secretary Davison, Porter Adams (president of the National Aeronautic Association
), and several others that included Sgt. Roy Hooe, crew chief of the C-2A Question Mark
in its record-breaking 1929 flight.
They arrived at Rockwell Field
in San Diego on the afternoon of June 20. At Herman's recommendation, an additional 70-gallon fuel tank was installed in the C-2. Maitland conferred with Navy Lieut. Byron J. Connell, the pilot of a September 1925 transpacific attempt by Commander John Rodgers
in a PN-9 flying boat
.Rodgers had been killed in a plane crash nine months earlier. The Navy attempt failed when the seaplane ran out of fuel 460 miles (740.3 km) short of Hawaii. On June 24, the results of the cross country tests were reported to Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis
and he approved the flight to Hawaii, pending a final inspection of the aircraft by the Chief of the Air Corps, Gen. Mason Patrick
. The next day they flew to Crissy Field
in San Francisco, California
. When they were 125 miles (201.2 km) south of Crissy their receiver picked up the signal of the Signal Corps beacon installed there. They completed the 2,815 mile journey from Wright Field to Crissy in slightly more than 33 hours flying time over ten days and were satisfied with the performance of the Bird of Paradise.
An air of competition resembling that surrounding the Charles Lindbergh
solo transatlantic flight greeted the Army flyers in San Francisco. Between the first tentative approval of the transpacific flight in December and its full approval the day before, the excitement generated by Lindbergh's feat inspired a prize of $25,000 to be posted by James D. Dole for the first aviator to make a similar transpacific flight between California and Hawaii. Hollywood stunt flyer Richard V. "Dick" Grace
was in Hawaii preparing to fly solo to the West Coast, and two civilians, Ernest L. Smith and Charles R. Carter, were across the bay in Oakland, California
, nearly ready for a flight to Hawaii. The War Department, in disclaimers issued by Secretary Davis, Assistant Secretary Davison, and the two aviators themselves, professed no interest in a "race," and insisted that the timing of the flight was a "coincidence" with the prize and aspirations by civilian flyers. The Air Corps announced that the purpose of its flight was testing of the radio beacon navigational aids at Crissy Field and at Paia, Maui. Hegenberger and Maitland, ineligible for the Dole prize in any case, also turned down $10,000 for publication of their story. Nevertheless, Smith and Carter intensified their preparations to be able to take off first.
The runway of Crissy Field, approximately 3000 feet (914.4 m) in length and situated beside the bay on the grounds of the Presidio
, was too short for a fully loaded C-2 to acquire lift speed during its takeoff roll. On June 27, Maitland and Hegenberger made the short hop across San Francisco Bay
to the newly opened Oakland Municipal Airport
, whose 7000 foot (2,100 meter) runway was acceptable for the Bird of Paradises anticipated gross weight of 13500 pounds (6,123.5 kg) with full fuel load. The aircraft was parked near the Travel Air
5000 of its ostensible competitors (see photograph) and given a final service check by its support crew. Patrick also inspected the C-2 and approved a takeoff for the next day. The airplane took on 1,134 gallons (4,293 liters) of gasoline, 40 gallons (151 liters) of oil, and had an inflatable rubber raft, tinned beef and hardtack, and five gallons of water stowed on board for survival if they came down in the ocean as had the PN-9.
The three motors of the Bird of Paradise started without problem and they took off at 7:09 a.m. with a takeoff roll of 4600 feet (1,402.1 m) and an airborne speed of 93 mph (150 kmh). Their destination was Wheeler Field, an Army airfield on the island of Oahu
. The Bird of Paradise climbed to an altitude of 2000 feet (609.6 m), escorted by other Army aircraft, and crossed the Golden Gate
. The C-2's initial cruise speed, in light winds and clear conditions, was 108 mph (174 kmh). Smith and Carter took off soon after but returned to Oakland to repair damage to their plane, then abandoned the attempt entirely. In Hawaii, Grace never took off at all.
The earth inductor compass failed soon after takeoff and after an attempt to fix it, Hegenberger abandoned the instrument. At 7:45 a.m. he picked up the Crissy beacon as planned, but within an hour the receiver failed. Hegenberger seemingly repaired the radio by switching out batteries, but the signal was lost again after another half hour, forcing Hegenberger to navigate by dead reckoning using the magnetic compass and driftmeter. As part of his pre-flight planning, Hegenberger had computed azimuth and altitude for the sun, as well as selecting stars for sighting, for various points along the route. He used these figures for celestial observations to supplement his dead reckoning.
Hegenberger attempted to check wind drift by launching smoke bombs carried for that purpose over the tail, but was hindered by glare. Strong crosswinds that lasted all morning and rough water made the use of smoke bombs below the aircraft ineffectual. Hegenberger was able to visually confirm their course by a planned sighting of the Army transport ship Chateau Thierry
approaching California. By 9:00 a.m., however, the clear weather gave way to increasing cloud cover. Maitland held the Bird of Paradise at 1500 feet (457.2 m), just above the overcast, to enable Hegenberger to attempt intermittent drift readings through holes in the clouds, but by 9:30 a.m. he was forced to cruise at just 300 feet (91.4 m) altitude to be able to see the ocean's surface. Strong winds and rain hampered the effort and obscured the horizon. Hegenberger took drift readings through the floor of the airplane and used the sextant to shoot the sun when it occasionally broke through the clouds.
Five hours into the flight, Hegenberger decided to alter course to confirm his calculations with another visual checkpoint. Using its noon position, he plotted an intercept of the Matson
passenger liner SS Sonoma, passing the ship at 2:45 p.m. when both were 724 miles (1,165.2 km) from San Francisco. Hegenberger recorded that the C-2 had picked up a strong tail wind around noon that pushed them the remainder of the flight at an average speed of 115 mph (185 kmh), and plotted a new course parallel to the original.
A final checkpoint contact by daylight was attempted with the Dollar Line steamship SS President Cleveland
. However, with visibility impossible in the numerous squalls, Hegenberger had to settle for establishing radio contact, which he did at 7:10 p.m. The ship reported its current position as 1157 miles (1,862 km) from San Francisco and northeast winds of 30 mph. However, when Hegenberger tried to obtain a position fix by radio direction finding, the transmitter signal from the Bird of Paradise was too weak for the ship to obtain a bearing.
Before dark, and approximately halfway through the flight, the crew attempted to eat their inflight meal, but neither was able to locate the sandwiches or themos bottles. One of them was later quoted as saying the missing food was "the only mishap of the flight", and that they eventually concluded (incorrectly) that the food had never been placed aboard.
At approximately 2:00 a.m. (19 hours into the flight) the center engine on the Bird of Paradise ran rough and quit, causing the C-2 to slowly lose altitude. After an hour and a half on two engines, the C-2 was at 4000 feet (1,219.2 m) when Maitland concluded that ice had formed over the carburetor intake of the center engine in the extreme cold of high altitude, cutting off the flow of fuel. Heaters for the air-intake had been removed for the flight to conserve power because the flight plan did not anticipate cold temperatures. The warmer air at lower altitude melted the ice and allowed the engine to be restarted. He climbed to 7000 feet (2,133.6 m) where scattered breaks in the clouds allowed star sightings to be made.
Approximately two hours later, Hegenberger's final star sights indicated that they were again "well north" of the planned route and that a 90 degree turn to the left was indicated. Maitland, "after some persuasion," agreed and altered course. Just before 6:00 a.m. (3:20 a.m. Hawaii time), 23 hours into the flight and at their estimated time of arrival
, the crew observed the lighthouse beam of the Kilauea Point Light Station
on Kauai
five degrees to the left of the nose of the aircraft.The sighting of the lighthouse has created a myth that the pair were lost but were saved when they spotted its beam. Particularly fanciful is an assertion in an article in the September 24, 1999 Honolulu Star-Bulletin that they "missed the islands by hundreds of miles. Luckily, at dawn Hegenberger caught the last flashes of a lighthouse on Kauai and they were able to change course." The 1978 nomination form for placing the lighthouse on the National Registry of Historic Places also claims that they were lost but is rife with careless errors and self-contradictions, among them that the flight "embarked" on June 29 (it arrived that date), that the fliers "heard" a signal (they observed the light beam), that they "utilized the radio beacon" (the Kauai radio beacon had not yet been installed—a fact stated later in the same document), that they landed at Hickam Field (it was Wheeler—Hickam did not open until 1938), that they were "low on fuel" (they had 250 gallons remaining of an original 1,120—enough to fly 800 more miles), and that they "glanced back" (the light was seen 5 degrees left of the nose) "and recognized the unique double flash" (contradicting the earlier assertion that they heard a signal and calculated their position from it).
Still in rain and complete darkness a hundred miles from Wheeler Field, Maitland decided to cut his airspeed to about 70 mph and circle until daybreak, about two hours away, so that he could visually transit the mountainous terrain of Oahu in daylight. The Bird of Paradise crossed the Kauai Channel just below the cloud bottoms at an altitude of 750 feet (228.6 m), then dropped to 500 feet (152.4 m) to approach Wheeler Field from the northwest. Maitland observed what appeared to be thousands of spectators, and then the smoke from a salute by a field artillery gun. He made a low pass over the field to acknowledge the crowd and then landed at 6:29 a.m. Hawaii time.
The Bird of Paradise completed its flight to Hawaii in 25 hours and 50 minutes. A detachment of military police, including mounted M.P.s from nearby Schofield Barracks, surrounded the C-2 to protect it from the crowd. The flyers climbed out of their airplane and among the dignitaries greeting them were the base commander of Wheeler Field Major Henry J.F. Miller, Hawaiian Department commanding general Edward M. Lewis, Territorial Governor Wallace R. Farrington, the stunt man Dick Grace, and their mutual friend 1st Lt. John Griffith, who found the misplaced food under a tarpaulin beneath Hegenberger's plotting board when he inspected the aircraft.
, a stay that included a traditional Hawaiian banquet. On July 6, they boarded the liner SS Maui
to return to San Francisco after Patrick refused their request to fly the Bird of Paradise back to the mainland. The C-2 was instead assigned to the 18th Pursuit Group
at Wheeler and provided inter-island air transport for the Army for approximately a decade.To provide seating for passengers, wicker chairs were installed in the C-2. It made its first flight on July 20, 1927, flying to the "Big Island"
and back to test its radio. (ACNLs XI No 12, p. 287, and XII No. 2, p. 59) Upon their return to the United States on July 12, the officers made a flying tour of the country in a C-2 sister ship that included stops in Milwaukee (Maitland's home town; July 18), McCook Field (July 20), Washington D.C. (July 21), and Boston (Hegenberger's home town; July 23). In Boston they met Commander Richard E. Byrd and the crew of America
, a civilian-owned C-2 that made a transatlantic air mail flight nearly concurrent with the flight to Hawaii.
Ernest Smith and new navigator Emory B. Bronte made a second attempt to fly the Travel Air 5000 to Hawaii on July 14. A radio receiver was installed in their airplane to steer on the Army's Maui beacon, but they received the signal only part of the time. They ran out of fuel and crash-landed in a tree on Molokai
. The $25,000 Dole prize was won in August by a pair of civilian aviators participating in the "Dole Air Race
", in which only two of the eight participating aircraft reached Hawaii, using the Maui beacon as a guide. Three other aircraft were missing and seven people killed.
Maitland remained an aide to Secretary Davison until January 1930, when he became a flight instructor at Kelly Field. In 1928 he and Charles Lindbergh were invited together to the White House to meet President Calvin Coolidge
.
Maitland was eventually promoted to colonel and commanded a B-26 Marauder
bomb group in combat in 1943, then retired from the Air Corps. In the 1950s he became an Episcopal
minister. Hegenberger returned to his work with the Materiel Division and won the 1934 Collier Trophy
for developing the first blind flying
landing system. He was promoted to major general and assigned command of the Tenth Air Force
in China at the end of World War II. The Bird of Paradise was taken out of service in 1937-38, disassembled, and shipped back to Wright Field for storage. In 1944, despite its obvious historic value, it was reported as intentionally destroyed "because of a critical shortage of storage space needed for the war effort." The navigation and communications configuration of the Bird of Paradise was recreated and upgraded in the second C-2 assigned to the Materiel Division and used for several years as a "flying radio laboratory". Hegenberger and Bradley Jones instituted a four-month course in air navigation for six rated pilots at Bolling Field in January 1929 using a similarly equipped C-2A variant.
In becoming the first to make the transpacific crossing to Hawaii, Maitland and Hegenberger earned the third awarding of the Distinguished Flying Cross
by the Air Corps and received the MacKay Trophy
for that year. Immediately after the flight, Secretary Davison said of the feat, "The flight is unquestionably one of the very greatest aerial accomplishments ever made." 70 years later, the official history of the United States Air Force stated:
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. Renamed from the Air Service on 2 July 1926, it was part of the United States Army and the predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces , established in 1941...
in 1926-1927 to experiment with air navigation
Air navigation
The basic principles of air navigation are identical to general navigation, which includes the process of planning, recording, and controlling the movement of a craft from one place to another....
by the use of radio beacon aids. On June 28–29, 1927, the Bird of Paradise, crewed by 1st Lt. Lester J. Maitland
Lester J. Maitland
Lester James Maitland was an aviation pioneer and career officer in the United States Army Air Forces and its predecessors. Maitland began his career as a Reserve pilot in the U.S. Army Air Service during World War I and rose to brigadier general in the Michigan Air National Guard following World...
and 1st Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger, made the first nonstop transpacific flight from California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, a feat for which the crew received the MacKay Trophy
MacKay trophy
The Mackay Trophy was established on 27 January 1911 by Clarence Hungerford Mackay, who was then head of the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company and the Commercial Cable Company. Originally, aviators could compete for the trophy annually under rules made each year or the War Department could award the...
.
The aircraft selected for the project was the Atlantic-Fokker C-2 trimotor transport plane developed from the civilian Fokker F.VII airliner. Its two-ton carrying capacity gave it the ability to carry sufficient fuel for the 2,500-mile flight, and its three motors provided an acceptable safety factor in the event one failed. Moreover, although modified for the long distance flight, the C-2 was a widely used standard design, demonstrating the practicality of flying long distances.
Although the recognition accorded Maitland and Hegenberger was less in comparison with the adulation given Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
for his transatlantic flight
Transatlantic flight
Transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean. A transatlantic flight may proceed east-to-west, originating in Europe or Africa and terminating in North America or South America, or it may go in the reverse direction, west-to-east...
only five weeks earlier, their feat was arguably more significant from a navigational stand point.
Background
| "For several months the Army Air Corps has been considering the possibility of having one of its most recent models of transport airplanes fly from California to Hawaii. The object of the flight primarily is to subject navigation instruments to a thorough test in practical use. The flight to Hawaii necessitates traversing the air for 2,407 miles over water and, therefore, presents unusual problems." |
| Air Corps News Letter June 27, 1927 |
Planning for transoceanic flight began in February 1919 at McCook Field
McCook Field
McCook Field was an airfield and aviation experimentation station operated by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps and its successor the United States Army Air Service from 1917-1927...
in Dayton, Ohio
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton is the 6th largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, the fifth most populous county in the state. The population was 141,527 at the 2010 census. The Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 841,502 in the 2010 census...
, when 2nd Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger, an MIT graduate aeronautical engineer formed the Instrument Branch as part of the Air Service
United States Army Air Service
The Air Service, United States Army was a forerunner of the United States Air Force during and after World War I. It was established as an independent but temporary wartime branch of the War Department by two executive orders of President Woodrow Wilson: on May 24, 1918, replacing the Aviation...
's Engineering Division. Under Hegenberger's direction, the Instrument Branch studied "ideas in air navigation, or avigation, turning their inventiveness toward new developments in compass
Compass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...
es, airspeed meters, driftmeters, sextant
Sextant
A sextant is an instrument used to measure the angle between any two visible objects. Its primary use is to determine the angle between a celestial object and the horizon which is known as the altitude. Making this measurement is known as sighting the object, shooting the object, or taking a sight...
s, and maps." Hegenberger attended a U.S. Navy course in navigation at Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
, that included flights over the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
practicing dead reckoning
Dead reckoning
In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating one's current position by using a previously determined position, or fix, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, and course...
and celestial navigation
Celestial navigation
Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is a position fixing technique that has evolved over several thousand years to help sailors cross oceans without having to rely on estimated calculations, or dead reckoning, to know their position...
.
What eventually evolved into the Air Corps's Materiel Division
Air Force Logistics Command
Air Force Logistics Command was a United States Air Force command. Its headquarters was located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio...
The Materiel Division was created in October 1926 out of the Engineering Division at McCook as a result of the Air Corps Act of 1926, under the command of new Assistant Chief of Air Corps Brig. Gen. William E. Gillmore. broke ground engineering a multitude of flight and air navigation instruments that enabled civil as well as military aviation to reach its potential. In perfecting the equipment in hundreds of tests, the McCook engineers and test pilots also created new navigation methods in collaboration with other agencies, including the Navy. A program for a transpacific flight from California to Hawaii over a distance officially considered by the Army to be 2407 miles (3,873.7 km) was developed in February 1920 by the Instrument Branch and simulated many times during testing.
While the primary goal of the Instrument Branch was effective instrumentation, development of an all-weather and night navigation capability contributed to a larger goal, as espoused by Assistant Director of Air Service Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell: extending the Air Service's mission beyond its "auxiliary" ground support support role. Mitchell's strategy was to generate public support for growth of military aeronautics and funding of the Air Service by a publicity campaign using air shows, flight demonstrations and the setting of aviation records. Among those participating in the varied events was 1st Lt. Lester J. Maitland, assigned to the Testing Squadron at Wilbur Wright Field. Maitland was soon transferred to Hawaii, where he submitted a request to the Chief of the Air Service to organize a transpacific flight between Hawaii and the mainland using the new two-engined Martin NBS-1 bomber, a prototype of which had been at McCook. When his first request was refused, he renewed the request in 1924 from the Fairfield Air Intermediate Depot (FAID), while on temporary duty as a staff officer for Major Augustine Warner Robins
Augustine Warner Robins
General Augustine Warner Robins is often credited as the Father of Logistics in the modern United States Air Force, then known as the Army Air Corps...
.
At McCook Field in 1923, Hegenberger (who had become another Robins protegé) worked closely with engineer Bradley Jones, a leading authority on air navigation, to test and adapt for military purposes an earth inductor compass
Earth Inductor Compass
The Earth inductor compass is a compass that determines directions using the principle of electromagnetic induction, with the Earth's magnetic field acting as the induction field for an electric generator. The electrical output of the generator will vary depending on its orientation with respect...
developed by the Pioneer Instrument Company
Pioneer Instrument Company
The Pioneer Instrument Company was started by Morris Titterington and Brice Herbert Goldsborough in Brooklyn, New York in 1919. Charles H. Colvin was the president. They specialized in aeronautical instruments including a bubble sextant and the Earth Inductor Compass...
in conjunction with the National Bureau of Standards.In Fiscal Years 1921-1923, the Air Service had allocated $4,000 of its experimental funds to the Bureau of Standards to develop specifications for the earth inductor compass, then contracted with two manufacturers to purchase nine, delivered in December 1922 and January 1923. The first earth inductor compass in history was flight tested at McCook Field on May 26, 1923. (Air Corps News Letter June 3, 1927; Vol. XI No. 7, pp. 167-169). Hegenberger designed an instrument panel that incorporated the earth inductor compass, a driftmeter, and a magnetic compass at a navigation station in which sextant readings could also be taken, and a cockpit panel with a dial connected to the navigation station that indicated to the pilot if her was steering to the right or left of the course set by the inductor compass. On September 6, 1923, Hegenberger and Jones successfully tested the equipment by navigating from Dayton to Boston, Massachusetts in a DH-4, above unbroken clouds that completely prevented them from seeing any landmarks on the ground.
Hegenberger transferred to Hawaii later that year, where he repeatedly submitted written requests for a transpacific flight that, like Maitland's, were refused.Of their numerous requests to him (which he quipped "bored me to death"), Major General Mason Patrick
Mason Patrick
Mason Mathews Patrick was a U.S. Army general and air power advocate.Patrick was born in Lewisburg, West Virginia and graduated from West Point in 1886. For three years he was at the Engineer School of Application, Willets Point, New York, graduating in 1889...
, Chief of the Air Corps, explained that his refusals had been because "the time was not yet ripe" for the attempt. (Air Corps News Letter August 9, 1927; Vol. XI No. 10, p. 240; reprinted in ) In October 1926 Hegenberger returned to McCook as chief of the Equipment Branch, where he worked with the Signal Corps Aircraft Radio Laboratory at FAIDThe lab had formerly been the Radio Branch at FAID, where it first tested the direction-finding concept as part of the Air Service's "Model Airway System," an experimental airline (and the first regularly scheduled cargo and passenger air system in the United States) begun in June 1922 between McCook, Bolling, Mitchel, and Langley Fields. Radio was used to guide aircraft between McCook; Chanute Field, Illinois; and Langin Field, West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, where beacon stations were situated. The last was a small field next to the Ohio River in Moundsville, West Virginia
Moundsville, West Virginia
Moundsville is a city in Marshall County, West Virginia, along the Ohio River. It is part of the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 9,998 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Marshall County. The city was named for the Grave Creek Mound. Moundsville was settled in...
, used between 1921 and 1932 as a midway refueling point between Dayton and Washington, D.C. It was surveyed by Jimmy Doolittle
Jimmy Doolittle
General James Harold "Jimmy" Doolittle, USAF was an American aviation pioneer. Doolittle served as a brigadier general, major general and lieutenant general in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War...
in 1920 and built at Air Service request the next year. in testing an "interlocking" navigation system that used signals from radio beacons to define an airway. He was authorized to plan a transpacific test flight from California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
to demonstrate the more difficult task of navigating not to a land mass but to "a tiny island in a big ocean," using radio beacons as a navigational aid. Hegenberger described the method:
An electric current is sent through the air at a set wave length and forms an airway along which the plane travels to its destination. The airway has three parallel zones—the T, N, and A zones. The T zone is the center of the road. It is about two miles wide at its maximum. While his ship stays in the center zone the pilot gets the (Morse) codeMorse codeMorse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
letter T (— "dash") through his receiving set. If he veers to the right the T changes to an A (· — "dot-dash"); if he swings to the left the T gives way to N (— · "dash-dot"). All the pilot has to do when he hears N or A is to correct his course.
The navigation equipment developed at McCook Field took the concept one step further by wiring the RDF receiver into the cockpit instrument panel. Three lights provided visual cues to the pilot: a red light indicated that the aircraft was left of the airway, a green light that it was to the right, and a white light between them that indicated on course when steadily lit.
In the meantime, in November 1926, Maitland was sent to Washington D.C. from FAID to be Assistant Executive Officer to Assistant Secretary of War for Air F. Trubee Davison
F. Trubee Davison
Frederick Trubee Davison , usually known as F. Trubee Davison, or Trubee Davison, was an American World War I aviator, Assistant US Secretary of War, Director of Personnel for the Central Intelligence Agency, and President of the American Museum of Natural History.Davison was the brother-in-law of...
. There he was tentatively granted authorization for a flight to Hawaii with Hegenberger as navigator, radio operator, flight engineer and relief pilot, pending the results of field trials to be run on the aircraft selected for the task.
Aircraft acquisition, modification and planning
In 1923 the Air Service established many distance and endurance records, including the first non-stop transcontinental flight across the United States on May 2, in a modified Fokker T-2Fokker F.IV
|-References:...
transport, a distance equal to that of the flight to Hawaii. With the setting of an endurance record of more than 36 hours aloft (and seven other world records as well) during a single flight on April 17, 1923, the T-2 had proven itself capable of transoceanic flight, but only had a single motor.
In 1926 the Atlantic Aircraft Company
Atlantic Aircraft
Atlantic Aircraft Corporation, also known as Fokker-America and Atlantic-Fokker, was a US subsidiary of the Dutch Fokker Company, responsible for sales and information about Fokker imports, and eventually constructing various Fokker designs....
(Fokker's U.S. subsidiary) produced a development of the internally braced high-wing monoplane design, the F.VIIA, that used three 220 horsepower air-cooled Wright J-5 motors instead of the single 400 horsepower water-cooled Liberty 12
Liberty L-12
The Liberty L-12 was a 27 litre water-cooled 45° V-12 aircraft engine of 400 horsepower designed both for a high power-to-weight ratio and for ease of mass production.-History:...
of the T-2. The Army ordered three "Transport Airplanes" in September 1926, to be designated C-2, and earmarked the first to be sent to the Materiel Division at McCook to be the test bed for the radio navigational aid testing about to be authorized. This aircraft, Air Corps serial number 26-202, was diverted at Teterboro Airport
Teterboro Airport
Teterboro Airport is a general aviation relief airport located in the Boroughs of Teterboro, Moonachie, and Hasbrouck Heights in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. It is owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey...
, New Jersey, for modifications and became the last to be delivered. The center section of the wing mounts for the XLB-2 bomberThe XLB-2 was Atlantic's prototype for a two-engined bomber, 26-210, and would have been the Army's first monoplane bomber had it been accepted. It was a development of the same cantilever monoplane as the transports. replaced the wing mounts for the transport's standard 63-foot wings, and it received a larger 71-foot metal wing fabricated by Atlantic.
From there the C-2 was delivered to FAID, where it underwent further modifications, installing Hegenberger's instrument panels, other navigation and radio equipment,In addition to the radio compass and the earth inductor compass, FAID installed four Type B-5 aircraft magnetic compasses, a drift sight, an SC-155 interphone, an SC-134 radio transmitter and BC-138 radio receiver, a sextant, and smoke bombs for measuring drift. ( and Air Corps News Letter May 12, 1928; Vol. XII No. 7, p. 213) and auxiliary fuel tanks to bring its fuel capacity to approximately 1,100 gallons (4,164 liters). Unnecessary equipment, including the passenger seats, were removed to save weight. A passageway to the cockpit was created over the top of the forward auxiliary fuel tank to allow Hegenberger to periodically relieve Maitland at the controls. A team of aviation experts was assembled to oversee the modifications that included Jones, L. B. Hendricks (Assistant Chief of the Materials Laboratory, McCook Field), Fred Herman (aeronautical engineer), Victor E. Showalter (navigation engineer), radio engineers Ford Studebaker and Clayton C. Shangraw (who was also a Reserve officer), and James Rivers, a plane mechanic and foreman. Sometime during the modification process the C-2 also picked up a nickname: Bird of Paradise.
After the aircraft was acquired, Hegenberger prepared the flight plan using a Great Circle
Great circle
A great circle, also known as a Riemannian circle, of a sphere is the intersection of the sphere and a plane which passes through the center point of the sphere, as opposed to a general circle of a sphere where the plane is not required to pass through the center...
route, which Charles Lindbergh later characterized as "the most perfectly organized and carefully planned flight ever attempted." Maitland prepared for the flight by practice flying one of the Bird of Paradises sister ships, accruing approximately 6,000 miles (roughly 60 hours of flight time) in the C-2 by the time the transpacific flight took off.
Final testing and approval
At 10:50 a.m. of June 15, 1927, Maitland and Hegenberger took off from FAIDOne week later, on June 22, the acronym changed to FADR, standing for Fairfield Air Depot (Reservation), as the eastern half of Wright Field was named until it became Patterson Field in 1931. in the Bird of Paradise and flew it to Scott FieldScott Air Force Base
Scott Air Force Base is a base of the United States Air Force in St. Clair County, Illinois, near Belleville.-Overview:The base is named after Corporal Frank S. Scott, the first enlisted person to be killed in an aviation crash...
, Illinois, on the first leg of final flight tests of the airplane's performance. Jones, Herman and Rivers of the FAID support team also flew aboard the Bird of Paradise to monitor fuel consumption and the reliability of the equipment. From Scott they continued to Muskogee, Oklahoma
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Muskogee is a city in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, United States. It is the county seat of Muskogee County, and home to Bacone College. The population was 38,310 at the 2000 census, making it the eleventh-largest city in Oklahoma....
, where the aircraft stayed overnight at Hatbox Field, a portion of a general aviation airport leased by the Army and a stop on the 1924 Around the World Flight
First aerial circumnavigation
The first aerial circumnavigation of the world was conducted in 1924 by a team of aviators of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force...
. The next day the quintet continued to Kelly Field, stopping at Dallas en route, where they found that the transpacific attempt had been announced by the War Department. During a layover at Kelly repairs were made to the earth inductor compass, one of the Type B-5 compasses, and the radio. From Kelly they flew to San Diego on June 20, stopping at El Paso
El Paso
El Paso, a city in the U.S. state of Texas, on the border with Mexico.El Paso may also refer to:-Geography:Colombia:* El Paso, CesarSpain:*El Paso, Santa Cruz de TenerifeUnited States:...
and Tucson's Davis-Monthan Field along the way.The original register page is viewable at the Davis-Monthan Register site, and shows that Maitland also flew a C-2, probably a sister aircraft based at Bolling, on the same route a month earlier on May 23, carrying Secretary Davison, Porter Adams (president of the National Aeronautic Association
National Aeronautic Association
The National Aeronautic Association of the United States is a non-profit 501 organization and a member of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale , the international standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics. NAA is the official record-keeper for United States...
), and several others that included Sgt. Roy Hooe, crew chief of the C-2A Question Mark
Question Mark (aircraft)
The Question Mark was a modified Atlantic-Fokker C-2A airplane flown by aviators of the United States Army Air Corps to experiment with aerial refueling in 1929. It was used to establish new world records in aviation for sustained flight , refueled flight, sustained flight , and distance...
in its record-breaking 1929 flight.
They arrived at Rockwell Field
Rockwell Field
Rockwell Field was an Army air base located in Coronado, California, near San Diego. It shared the area known as North Island with Naval Air Station North Island from 1912 to 1935. Its functions were eventually moved to March Field so that the naval air station could take over the whole area...
in San Diego on the afternoon of June 20. At Herman's recommendation, an additional 70-gallon fuel tank was installed in the C-2. Maitland conferred with Navy Lieut. Byron J. Connell, the pilot of a September 1925 transpacific attempt by Commander John Rodgers
John Rodgers (naval officer, World War I)
John Rodgers was an officer in the United States Navy and an early aviator.-Biography:Rodgers was the great-grandson of Commodores Rodgers and Perry. He was born in Washington, D.C. and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1903...
in a PN-9 flying boat
Naval Aircraft Factory PN
The Naval Aircraft Factory PN was a series of open cockpit American flying boats of the 1920s and 1930s. A development of the Felixstowe F5L flying boat of the First World War, variants of the PN were built for the United States Navy by Douglas, Keystone Aircraft and Martin.-Development and...
.Rodgers had been killed in a plane crash nine months earlier. The Navy attempt failed when the seaplane ran out of fuel 460 miles (740.3 km) short of Hawaii. On June 24, the results of the cross country tests were reported to Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis
Dwight F. Davis
Dwight Filley Davis was an American tennis player and politician. He is best remembered as the founder of the Davis Cup international tennis competition.-Biography:...
and he approved the flight to Hawaii, pending a final inspection of the aircraft by the Chief of the Air Corps, Gen. Mason Patrick
Mason Patrick
Mason Mathews Patrick was a U.S. Army general and air power advocate.Patrick was born in Lewisburg, West Virginia and graduated from West Point in 1886. For three years he was at the Engineer School of Application, Willets Point, New York, graduating in 1889...
. The next day they flew to Crissy Field
Crissy Field
Crissy Field is a former airfield, now a part of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in San Francisco, California, United States. Historically a part of the Presidio of San Francisco, Crissy Field was closed as an airfield and eventually the National Park Service took control over it...
in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. When they were 125 miles (201.2 km) south of Crissy their receiver picked up the signal of the Signal Corps beacon installed there. They completed the 2,815 mile journey from Wright Field to Crissy in slightly more than 33 hours flying time over ten days and were satisfied with the performance of the Bird of Paradise.
An air of competition resembling that surrounding the Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
solo transatlantic flight greeted the Army flyers in San Francisco. Between the first tentative approval of the transpacific flight in December and its full approval the day before, the excitement generated by Lindbergh's feat inspired a prize of $25,000 to be posted by James D. Dole for the first aviator to make a similar transpacific flight between California and Hawaii. Hollywood stunt flyer Richard V. "Dick" Grace
Dick Grace
Dick Grace was born in Morris, Minnesota and was an early stunt pilot who specialised in crashing planes for films. Grace was one of the few stunt pilots who died of old age. He was the author of several books including Squadron of Death, Crash Pilot, I am still alive, and Visibility Unlimited...
was in Hawaii preparing to fly solo to the West Coast, and two civilians, Ernest L. Smith and Charles R. Carter, were across the bay in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, nearly ready for a flight to Hawaii. The War Department, in disclaimers issued by Secretary Davis, Assistant Secretary Davison, and the two aviators themselves, professed no interest in a "race," and insisted that the timing of the flight was a "coincidence" with the prize and aspirations by civilian flyers. The Air Corps announced that the purpose of its flight was testing of the radio beacon navigational aids at Crissy Field and at Paia, Maui. Hegenberger and Maitland, ineligible for the Dole prize in any case, also turned down $10,000 for publication of their story. Nevertheless, Smith and Carter intensified their preparations to be able to take off first.
The runway of Crissy Field, approximately 3000 feet (914.4 m) in length and situated beside the bay on the grounds of the Presidio
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...
, was too short for a fully loaded C-2 to acquire lift speed during its takeoff roll. On June 27, Maitland and Hegenberger made the short hop across San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
to the newly opened Oakland Municipal Airport
Oakland International Airport
Oakland International Airport , also known as Metropolitan Oakland International Airport, is a public airport located south of the central business district of Oakland, a city in Alameda County, California, United States...
, whose 7000 foot (2,100 meter) runway was acceptable for the Bird of Paradises anticipated gross weight of 13500 pounds (6,123.5 kg) with full fuel load. The aircraft was parked near the Travel Air
Travel Air
The Travel Air Manufacturing Company was an aircraft manufacturer established in Wichita, Kansas in the United States in January 1925 by Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman.-Company history:...
5000 of its ostensible competitors (see photograph) and given a final service check by its support crew. Patrick also inspected the C-2 and approved a takeoff for the next day. The airplane took on 1,134 gallons (4,293 liters) of gasoline, 40 gallons (151 liters) of oil, and had an inflatable rubber raft, tinned beef and hardtack, and five gallons of water stowed on board for survival if they came down in the ocean as had the PN-9.
Daylight checkpoints
Weather conditions appeared favorable on the morning of Tuesday, June 28, 1927. An in-flight meal of chicken sandwiches and coffee and soup in thermos bottles was placed aboard the Bird of Paradise, along with drinking water and chocolate bars but not parachutes. Maitland and Hegenberger shook hands with their support team and Gen. Patrick, who reportedly told them, quoted in Aero Digest: "God bless you, my boys, I know you'll make it."The three motors of the Bird of Paradise started without problem and they took off at 7:09 a.m. with a takeoff roll of 4600 feet (1,402.1 m) and an airborne speed of 93 mph (150 kmh). Their destination was Wheeler Field, an Army airfield on the island of Oahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
. The Bird of Paradise climbed to an altitude of 2000 feet (609.6 m), escorted by other Army aircraft, and crossed the Golden Gate
Golden Gate
The Golden Gate is the North American strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Since 1937 it has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge...
. The C-2's initial cruise speed, in light winds and clear conditions, was 108 mph (174 kmh). Smith and Carter took off soon after but returned to Oakland to repair damage to their plane, then abandoned the attempt entirely. In Hawaii, Grace never took off at all.
The earth inductor compass failed soon after takeoff and after an attempt to fix it, Hegenberger abandoned the instrument. At 7:45 a.m. he picked up the Crissy beacon as planned, but within an hour the receiver failed. Hegenberger seemingly repaired the radio by switching out batteries, but the signal was lost again after another half hour, forcing Hegenberger to navigate by dead reckoning using the magnetic compass and driftmeter. As part of his pre-flight planning, Hegenberger had computed azimuth and altitude for the sun, as well as selecting stars for sighting, for various points along the route. He used these figures for celestial observations to supplement his dead reckoning.
Hegenberger attempted to check wind drift by launching smoke bombs carried for that purpose over the tail, but was hindered by glare. Strong crosswinds that lasted all morning and rough water made the use of smoke bombs below the aircraft ineffectual. Hegenberger was able to visually confirm their course by a planned sighting of the Army transport ship Chateau Thierry
USS Chateau Thierry (AP-31)
Chateau Thierry was a troop transport that served with the US Army and US Navy. Originally built for service during the First World War, the ship arrived too late to see service in that war, but operated as an army transport, USAT Chateau Thierry, between the wars...
approaching California. By 9:00 a.m., however, the clear weather gave way to increasing cloud cover. Maitland held the Bird of Paradise at 1500 feet (457.2 m), just above the overcast, to enable Hegenberger to attempt intermittent drift readings through holes in the clouds, but by 9:30 a.m. he was forced to cruise at just 300 feet (91.4 m) altitude to be able to see the ocean's surface. Strong winds and rain hampered the effort and obscured the horizon. Hegenberger took drift readings through the floor of the airplane and used the sextant to shoot the sun when it occasionally broke through the clouds.
Five hours into the flight, Hegenberger decided to alter course to confirm his calculations with another visual checkpoint. Using its noon position, he plotted an intercept of the Matson
Matson Navigation Company
The Matson Navigation Company, a subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, is a private shipping company with roots extending into the late 19th century...
passenger liner SS Sonoma, passing the ship at 2:45 p.m. when both were 724 miles (1,165.2 km) from San Francisco. Hegenberger recorded that the C-2 had picked up a strong tail wind around noon that pushed them the remainder of the flight at an average speed of 115 mph (185 kmh), and plotted a new course parallel to the original.
A final checkpoint contact by daylight was attempted with the Dollar Line steamship SS President Cleveland
USS Tasker H. Bliss (AP-42)
USS Tasker H. Bliss was a Tasker H. Bliss-class transport. She was acquired from the United States Army by the United States Navy for use in World War II, and was assigned the task of transporting troops to and from battle areas...
. However, with visibility impossible in the numerous squalls, Hegenberger had to settle for establishing radio contact, which he did at 7:10 p.m. The ship reported its current position as 1157 miles (1,862 km) from San Francisco and northeast winds of 30 mph. However, when Hegenberger tried to obtain a position fix by radio direction finding, the transmitter signal from the Bird of Paradise was too weak for the ship to obtain a bearing.
Before dark, and approximately halfway through the flight, the crew attempted to eat their inflight meal, but neither was able to locate the sandwiches or themos bottles. One of them was later quoted as saying the missing food was "the only mishap of the flight", and that they eventually concluded (incorrectly) that the food had never been placed aboard.
Darkness and daybreak
At sunset Maitland climbed the Bird of Paradise to an altitude of 10000 feet (3 km) to place it above the clouds, where Hegenberger could frequently check their position by star sightings. At 1:00 a.m. Hegenberger made another attempt to acquire a radio compass reading and picked up the signal from the Maui transmitter. He found that the Bird of Paradise was south (left) of course, instead of north (right) as they had thought. The Maui signal guided them for 40 minutes before cutting out entirely.At approximately 2:00 a.m. (19 hours into the flight) the center engine on the Bird of Paradise ran rough and quit, causing the C-2 to slowly lose altitude. After an hour and a half on two engines, the C-2 was at 4000 feet (1,219.2 m) when Maitland concluded that ice had formed over the carburetor intake of the center engine in the extreme cold of high altitude, cutting off the flow of fuel. Heaters for the air-intake had been removed for the flight to conserve power because the flight plan did not anticipate cold temperatures. The warmer air at lower altitude melted the ice and allowed the engine to be restarted. He climbed to 7000 feet (2,133.6 m) where scattered breaks in the clouds allowed star sightings to be made.
Approximately two hours later, Hegenberger's final star sights indicated that they were again "well north" of the planned route and that a 90 degree turn to the left was indicated. Maitland, "after some persuasion," agreed and altered course. Just before 6:00 a.m. (3:20 a.m. Hawaii time), 23 hours into the flight and at their estimated time of arrival
Estimated time of arrival
The estimated time of arrival or ETA is a measure of when a ship, vehicle, aircraft, cargo, emergency service or computer file is expected to arrive at a certain place...
, the crew observed the lighthouse beam of the Kilauea Point Light Station
Kilauea Light
Kīlauea Lighthouse is located on Kīlauea Point on the island of Kauai, Hawaii in the Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge.-History:Kīlauea Point, a narrow, lava peninsula protruding from the northern shore of Kauai, was purchased from the Kīlauea Sugar Plantation Company in 1909 for one US...
on Kauai
Kauai
Kauai or Kauai, known as Tauai in the ancient Kaua'i dialect, is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. With an area of , it is the fourth largest of the main islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, and the 21st largest island in the United States. Known also as the "Garden Isle",...
five degrees to the left of the nose of the aircraft.The sighting of the lighthouse has created a myth that the pair were lost but were saved when they spotted its beam. Particularly fanciful is an assertion in an article in the September 24, 1999 Honolulu Star-Bulletin that they "missed the islands by hundreds of miles. Luckily, at dawn Hegenberger caught the last flashes of a lighthouse on Kauai and they were able to change course." The 1978 nomination form for placing the lighthouse on the National Registry of Historic Places also claims that they were lost but is rife with careless errors and self-contradictions, among them that the flight "embarked" on June 29 (it arrived that date), that the fliers "heard" a signal (they observed the light beam), that they "utilized the radio beacon" (the Kauai radio beacon had not yet been installed—a fact stated later in the same document), that they landed at Hickam Field (it was Wheeler—Hickam did not open until 1938), that they were "low on fuel" (they had 250 gallons remaining of an original 1,120—enough to fly 800 more miles), and that they "glanced back" (the light was seen 5 degrees left of the nose) "and recognized the unique double flash" (contradicting the earlier assertion that they heard a signal and calculated their position from it).
Still in rain and complete darkness a hundred miles from Wheeler Field, Maitland decided to cut his airspeed to about 70 mph and circle until daybreak, about two hours away, so that he could visually transit the mountainous terrain of Oahu in daylight. The Bird of Paradise crossed the Kauai Channel just below the cloud bottoms at an altitude of 750 feet (228.6 m), then dropped to 500 feet (152.4 m) to approach Wheeler Field from the northwest. Maitland observed what appeared to be thousands of spectators, and then the smoke from a salute by a field artillery gun. He made a low pass over the field to acknowledge the crowd and then landed at 6:29 a.m. Hawaii time.
The Bird of Paradise completed its flight to Hawaii in 25 hours and 50 minutes. A detachment of military police, including mounted M.P.s from nearby Schofield Barracks, surrounded the C-2 to protect it from the crowd. The flyers climbed out of their airplane and among the dignitaries greeting them were the base commander of Wheeler Field Major Henry J.F. Miller, Hawaiian Department commanding general Edward M. Lewis, Territorial Governor Wallace R. Farrington, the stunt man Dick Grace, and their mutual friend 1st Lt. John Griffith, who found the misplaced food under a tarpaulin beneath Hegenberger's plotting board when he inspected the aircraft.
Aftermath and legacy
Hegenberger and Maitland remained in Hawaii at the four-month-old Royal Hawaiian HotelRoyal Hawaiian Hotel
Royal Hawaiian Hotel, also known as the Pink Palace of the Pacific, is a hotel located at 2259 Kalākaua Avenue in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. One of the first hotels established in Waikiki, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel is considered one of the flagship hotels in Hawaii tourism...
, a stay that included a traditional Hawaiian banquet. On July 6, they boarded the liner SS Maui
USS Maui (ID-1514)
The first USS Maui was a troop transport that served in the United States Navy from 1918 to 1919.-Construction, acquisition, and commissioning:...
to return to San Francisco after Patrick refused their request to fly the Bird of Paradise back to the mainland. The C-2 was instead assigned to the 18th Pursuit Group
18th Operations Group
The 18th Operations Group is the operational flying component of the United States Air Force 18th Wing, stationed at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan....
at Wheeler and provided inter-island air transport for the Army for approximately a decade.To provide seating for passengers, wicker chairs were installed in the C-2. It made its first flight on July 20, 1927, flying to the "Big Island"
Hawaii (island)
The Island of Hawaii, also called the Big Island or Hawaii Island , is a volcanic island in the North Pacific Ocean...
and back to test its radio. (ACNLs XI No 12, p. 287, and XII No. 2, p. 59) Upon their return to the United States on July 12, the officers made a flying tour of the country in a C-2 sister ship that included stops in Milwaukee (Maitland's home town; July 18), McCook Field (July 20), Washington D.C. (July 21), and Boston (Hegenberger's home town; July 23). In Boston they met Commander Richard E. Byrd and the crew of America
America (aircraft)
The America was a trimotor Fokker C-2 monoplane that was flown in 1927 by Richard E. Byrd, Bernt Balchen, George Otto Noville, and Bert Acosta on their transatlantic flight. For eight years after the first non-stop heavier than air Atlantic crossing by a British Vickers Vimy in 1919, there were no...
, a civilian-owned C-2 that made a transatlantic air mail flight nearly concurrent with the flight to Hawaii.
Ernest Smith and new navigator Emory B. Bronte made a second attempt to fly the Travel Air 5000 to Hawaii on July 14. A radio receiver was installed in their airplane to steer on the Army's Maui beacon, but they received the signal only part of the time. They ran out of fuel and crash-landed in a tree on Molokai
Molokai
Molokai or Molokai is an island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is 38 by 10 miles in size with a land area of , making it the fifth largest of the main Hawaiian Islands and the 27th largest island in the United States. It lies east of Oahu across the 25-mile wide Kaiwi Channel and north of...
. The $25,000 Dole prize was won in August by a pair of civilian aviators participating in the "Dole Air Race
Dole Air Race
The Dole Air Race, also known as the Dole Derby, was a tragic air race to cross the Pacific Ocean from northern California to the Territory of Hawaii in August 1927. Of the 15-18 entrant airplanes, 11 were certified to compete but three crashed before the race, resulting in three deaths...
", in which only two of the eight participating aircraft reached Hawaii, using the Maui beacon as a guide. Three other aircraft were missing and seven people killed.
Maitland remained an aide to Secretary Davison until January 1930, when he became a flight instructor at Kelly Field. In 1928 he and Charles Lindbergh were invited together to the White House to meet President Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...
.
Maitland was eventually promoted to colonel and commanded a B-26 Marauder
B-26 Marauder
The Martin B-26 Marauder was a World War II twin-engine medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe....
bomb group in combat in 1943, then retired from the Air Corps. In the 1950s he became an Episcopal
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
minister. Hegenberger returned to his work with the Materiel Division and won the 1934 Collier Trophy
Collier Trophy
The Collier Trophy is an annual aviation award administered by the U.S. National Aeronautics Association , presented to those who have made "the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space...
for developing the first blind flying
Instrument flight rules
Instrument flight rules are one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other are visual flight rules ....
landing system. He was promoted to major general and assigned command of the Tenth Air Force
Tenth Air Force
The Tenth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Reserve Command . It is headquartered at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas....
in China at the end of World War II. The Bird of Paradise was taken out of service in 1937-38, disassembled, and shipped back to Wright Field for storage. In 1944, despite its obvious historic value, it was reported as intentionally destroyed "because of a critical shortage of storage space needed for the war effort." The navigation and communications configuration of the Bird of Paradise was recreated and upgraded in the second C-2 assigned to the Materiel Division and used for several years as a "flying radio laboratory". Hegenberger and Bradley Jones instituted a four-month course in air navigation for six rated pilots at Bolling Field in January 1929 using a similarly equipped C-2A variant.
In becoming the first to make the transpacific crossing to Hawaii, Maitland and Hegenberger earned the third awarding of the Distinguished Flying Cross
Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
The Distinguished Flying Cross is a medal awarded to any officer or enlisted member of the United States armed forces who distinguishes himself or herself in support of operations by "heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight, subsequent to November 11, 1918." The...
by the Air Corps and received the MacKay Trophy
MacKay trophy
The Mackay Trophy was established on 27 January 1911 by Clarence Hungerford Mackay, who was then head of the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company and the Commercial Cable Company. Originally, aviators could compete for the trophy annually under rules made each year or the War Department could award the...
for that year. Immediately after the flight, Secretary Davison said of the feat, "The flight is unquestionably one of the very greatest aerial accomplishments ever made." 70 years later, the official history of the United States Air Force stated:
A month after Charles Lindbergh flew nonstop from New York to Paris...(Maitland and Hegenberger)...flew...some 2,400 miles from Oakland to a landfall on the island of Kauai, then to a safe landing on Oahu. The flight...tested not only the reliability of the machine but the navigational skill and the stamina of the two officers as well, for had they strayed even three-and-a-half degrees off course, they would have missed Kauai and vanished over the ocean.
External links
- "Critical Past" video of newsreel coverage of Bird of Paradise flight
- Atlantic Fokker C-2 Transport 26-202, Davis-Monthan Aviation Field register page
- Motion Pictures: Lester Maitland, Albert Hegenberger and the "Bird of Paradise" at Tucson, high-quality film clip