Page 7 - Aerotech News and Review, August 20, 2021

On this date ...

Aug. 24, 1933: Construction began on a Government
Landing Field northeast of Palmdale. The 160-acre facility
was constructed by the Department of Commerce to be an
emergency landing field for commercial air traffic. A local
dirt strip on the site was replaced with four-way 3,300 foot
Aug. 23, 1954: The first of two Lockheed YC-130 Hercules oiled runways. The facility soon became the “U.S. Palmdale
Airport” and eventually evolved into Air Force Plant 42.
Aug. 21, 1961: A Canadian Pacific Douglas DC-8 commercial airliner four-engine transport prototypes made its first flight from
broke the sound barrier – the first time a civil airliner had done so. The the Lockheed Air Terminal at Burbank, Calif., to Edwards
Douglas DC-8-3, with Chief Test Pilot William Marshall Magruder, Paul Air Force Base. The flight crew consisted of test pilots
Patten, Joseph Tomich and Richard H. Edwards on board, climbed to Stanley Beltz and Roy Wimmer, with Jack G. Real (a
50,090 feet near Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Placing the DC-8 into future Lockheed vice president) and Dick Stanton as flight
a dive, it reached Mach 1.012 while descending through 41,088 feet. engineers. From a standing start, the YC-130 was airborne
The airliner maintained this supersonic speed for 16 seconds. An Air in 855 feet, and the flight lasted 1 hour, 1 minute. The
Force F-100 Super Sabre and F-104 Starfighter were chase planes for C-130 was designed as a basic tactical transport, capable
this flight. of carrying 72 soldiers or 64 paratroopers.
Aug. 23, 1948: The McDonnell XF-85 Goblin Aug. 27, 1990: The YF-
parasite fighter made its first flight. On this 23A Gray Ghost made
flight, McDonnell test pilot Edwin F. Schoch its first flight, flown by
successfully detached from a trapeze carried Northrop chief test pilot
on a Boeing EB-29B Superfortress named Alfred “Paul” Metz. The
“Monstro,” but when he tried to hook up aircraft, featuring two
after free flight, the small fighter, buffeted in sharply canted horizontal
turbulence from the bomber, swung violently tail surfaces that served
forward, smashing the canopy against the as ruddervators, was
trapeze, and knocked the pilot’s helmet off. powered by two YF119-
Schoch made a successful belly landing on a PW-100 engines.
dry lakebed at Muroc Air Force Base, Calif.,
suffering little damage.

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210010-1345 8/21

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