Page 7 - Aerotech News and Review, April 15, 2022

On this date ...
April 16, 1949: With test pilot Tony LeVier and flight test engineer Glenn Fulkerson on board, the Lockheed YF-94 prototype made its first flight at Van Nuys Airport in California. The aircraft was the first jet-powered all-weather interceptor in service with the U.S. Air Force and was the first production aircraft powered by an afterburning engine.
April 17, 1970: Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean southwest of American Samoa. With their spacecraft crippled by an internal explosion on April 13, the planned lunar landing mission had to be aborted. Astronauts James A. Lovell, Jr., John L. Swigert, Fred W. Haise, Jr., worked continuously with engineers at Mission Control, Houston, Texas, to overcome a series of crises that threatened their lives.
April 18, 1942: The U.S. Army Air Corps bombed Tokyo and other locations on Honshu during World War II in what was known as the Doolittle Raid. It was the first air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. Although the raid caused comparatively minor damage, it demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attacks. It served as retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and provided an important boost to American morale. The raid was planned by, led by, and named after Lt. Col. James Doolittle. Left: Lt. Col. James “Jimmy” Doolittle performs a full-throttle takeoff from the USS Hornet 650 miles from Japan. Right: James Doolittle receives the Medal of Honor from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Looking on (left to right) are Lt. Gen. H.H. Arnold, Chief of Army Air Forces, Mrs. Josephine Doolittle, and then Chief of Staff, Gen. George C. Marshall.
April 19, 1946: The Bell X-1 made its first glide flight. Originally designated the XS-1, the program was a joint NACA-U. S. Army/U.S. Air Force supersonic research project and the first of the so-called X-planes. The X-1 was conceived during 1944 and designed and built in 1945. It achieved a speed of nearly 1,000 miles per hour in 1948. A derivative of this same design, the Bell X-1A, having greater fuel capacity and hence longer rocket burning time, exceeded 1,600 miles per hour in 1954. The X-1, piloted by Capt. Chuck Yeager, was the first manned airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight on Oct. 14, 1947.
April 17, 1969: Air Force Maj. Jerauld Gentry flew the Martin Marietta X-24A lifting body on its first unpowered glide flight. The X-24 was an American experimental aircraft developed from a joint U.S. Air Force-NASA program. Technology developed with the program was later used by the Space Shuttle.
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