AVIATION HISTORY - KENYA

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CHAPTER ONE

AVIATION HISTORY

Bartholomeu Laurenco de Gusmao.

THE FIRST TRUE AERONAUT was Bartholomeu Laurenco de Gusmao. On April 19, 1709, the 44 year old Jesuit Priest pronounced an invention he called ‘an apparatus for carriage of passengers and cargo through air”

The priest finally demonstrated his invention before King John V of Portugal on August 8, 1709. It was witnessed by the royal court and a host of curious citizenry. His hot air balloon rose up and descended after a short while. The published design was more of an airship than a balloon. It had flapping wings. It was called ‘Passarola’ because it resembled a bird in flight.

Bartholomeu Laurenco de Gusmao was honored by the King. More so, he was widely acclaimed as the father of aviation as we know it today, that is, facilitating carriage of passengers and cargo through air.

Born in 1865, he died on November 19, 1724 aged 60 years.

King Bladud…863 BC.

Two hundred years earlier, 1505, Leonardo da Vinci had designed bird-like objects which he hoped would lift and fly in the sky. Popularly known as ornithorpters, none of them flew.

Most scientists still imagined flight would be accomplished through imitating the flapping motions of birds. On the other hand, Gusmao realized that it was not man who should be made to fly, but an invention where man would be carried thereupon. To do otherwise would be impractical.

Besides the Greek myths of Dedalus and Icarus who are said to have escaped captivity by flight with waxed feathers, Sumerian epics suggest extra-terrestrial flights to planet earth circa 3600 BC.

History also relates the bizarre stunt of a monarch who jumped from a raised tower to demonstrate flight to awed gathering.

In 863 BC, King Bladud of England leapt off the Temple of Apollo with a pair of feathered wings. He plummeted to the ground and died on impact. Pilots jokingly honor King Bladud as the ‘Father of air-shows’. They claim that Bladud’s death was caused by ‘airframe disintegration.’

Balloons…1783 AD.

The success of de Gusmao’s balloon revived hope. Although primitive toy kites were known to have been invented in antiquity, the goal of carrying humans into the air was ultimately pursued and vigorously so. Scientific theories were revisited and materials sought that would not only wrap hot air and hoist a balloon upwards but also be light and durable enough to withstand pressure and resistance from atmospheric elements once airborne.

Two brothers, Jacques Ettiene and Joseph Montgolfier eventually broke the jinx.

On June 5, 1783, the two Frenchmen succeeded in demonstrating what at first looked like an ordinary fabric bag filled with hot air. Once released from its hold, it rose into the air to become the most awesome invention Europe had witnessed.

Hydrogen Balloon.

In 1766, British scientist Henry Cavendish explored the method of producing the lighter –than- air gas hydrogen by mixing sulfuric acid and iron fillings. By then, non-leak materials such as muslin, waxed canvas and silk were being tested as options to fabric material.

J.A.C Charles, another French man, ably demonstrated ascent of a hydrogen balloon. Launched on August 27, 1783 – again from where the Eiffel Tower stands – it literally leapt into the air travelling with the wind out to the suburbs of Paris. It finally exploded and crashed in the town of Gonesse, 15 miles away. Tradition has it those villagers – not knowing what to makes of it – believed it to be a bad omen from the devil.

They attacked it with crude weapons and dragged it through the town. However, Gonesse, at 15 miles off Paris, must have heard of the earlier experiments of the Montgolfier brothers.
The Montgolfier brothers witnessed the splendid ascent of the J.A.C Charles’ balloon. Benjamin Franklin, a well known American inventor and diplomat, represented America during the demonstration.

The brothers nonetheless opted to design a passenger carrying balloon using hot air. Once complete, they asked for volunteers.

Jean Pilate de Rosier, and the Marquis d’Arlandes accented and fame reciprocated. On November 21, 1783, they became the first passengers ever to be carried aloft in a non-captive aircraft. Since d’Arlandes was a commissioned soldier; he is regarded as the first air force officer.

The way of aviation had finally been achieved. Interestingly, hydrogen balloons – not hot air balloons –dominated aerial work for the next 100 years in spite of advent of yet another non-flammable lighter-than-air Helium balloons, and, hydrogen having been proven dangerous as it was easily flammable.

Kenya’s first balloon demonstration was performed on 23rd September 1909 at the Parklands (Ngara) area. It is celebrated as the birth of aviation in Kenya.
The Aerofoil.

It took another one hundred years from 1783 to 1884 for the idea of an aerofoil to be published.

Many enthusiasts had long argued about one fascinating attribute of bird flight. This was the ability of birds to glide effortlessly from height toward the ground making perfect turns in any direction. It was eventually attributed to the shape of their wings.

H.F.Phillips studied and patented the resultant design of a wing-like structure famously called the airfoil. The curved upper side surface observed on most bird wings especially the dove were duplicated and tested in fast flowing air. H. F. Philips is however not a well known man though not for contempt. Fame in aviation had become exclusive to those who flew y then on balloons and kites. They were venerated as 'bird-men'.

The most famous of bird-men were two German inventors Otto Lilienthal and elder brother Gustav. They were convinced that the airfoil's ability to provide lift mainly from its cumbered top side would provide the long awaited solution for carrying man through air on a steerable aircraft.

Using waxed linen cloth and tree branches, they designed gliders which Otto Lilienthal officially demonstrated in 1884.

For two years, Otto relentlessly flew over 2,000 hours testing viability of their craft. In 1896, they concentrated on attainment of better maneuverability of their various airfoil gliders.

On August 9, 1896, Otto Lilienthal was testing one of his gliders through 360 degree turns by shifting his body to the direction he wished to turn when his aircraft was caught up in a sharp breeze and stalled from 50 feet above ground. He crashed and was badly injured. Asked whether it hadn't been fool-hardy to fly in rough winds, his answer was prophetic: ‘sacrifices have to be made’. He died shortly after.

British inventor Percy Pilcher took up the glider challenge. Gliders became bigger, that is, heavier-than-air and dangerous to fly. Big gliders required stronger headwinds to carry them to meaningful distance. On September 30, 1899, Pilcher crashed when a bamboo strut - a rod extension that braces the main structure - broke in flight. He died two days later.

Enthusiasts who studied his glider believed there was nothing aerodynamically flawed in its design. Eye witnesses claimed that he had taken off in extremely high winds - poor weather - to demonstrate flight to favoured friends. He perished.

Fixed Wing Gliders.

Octave Chanute was 63 years old when Pilcher perished in 1899. Operating from America, he gave many young American enthusiasts the commission to test fly his gliders built on the European model.

The passing away of Lilienthal and Pilcher within three years of each other created a technological shift. While Europe chose to refine work on steerable airships, American designers were already considering adding engines to fixed wing gliders to create sustained thrust through air.

It was during this time that 75 year old Bishop Wright taught his two son’s Orville and Wilbur to build gliders based on the Chanute design. Believing that existing gliders were fated to be dangerous when steered in veering and backing unpredictable gusts of wind, the brothers designed their gliders on the assumption that creation of continuous lift would eventually be provided by propulsion of the glider through air by an engine.

Powered flight was not a new experiment though. It was known that birds used flapping (muscles) for propulsion, feather lock pockets to trap air for buoyancy, and, wing or tail (airfoil) movements for turns, acceleration and deceleration.

Fifty years earlier, 1842, William Henson, and, John Stringfellow in 1848, had attempted to build steam powered airplanes. Not only was steam power insufficient, the engines proved too heavy.

Power Flight..1903

Professor S.P. Langley tried to solve the problem by inventing an aeroplane propelled by rubber band action. OnDecember 3, 1903, his test aircraft crashed into the Potomac River after being launched from a boat platform. Although Langley failed at launching a powered flight, he succeeded in inventing one of the most lethal weapons of naval power, the aircraft carrier. An aircraft carrier – also known as a flat-top – is a floating aerodrome.

Wright Brothers.

Wilbur and Orville worked on the known to achieve the probable. Encouraged by Octave Chanute, they added twisted wing tips to their gliders which allowed them agility of smaller body shifts to make turns in flight.

They in vented a 112 horsepower engine which was attached to a propeller. The propeller – itself a smaller airfoil section designed to pull an airplane forward through air – was the ultimate innovation toward fulfillment of flight as a transport agent.

On the morning of December 17, 1903, Orville Wright climbed onto their completed airplane named Flyer 1. The engine was started up. Away went the history making Flyer 1 covering a distance of 120 feet in twelve seconds.

This world record time was broken later that same day when Wilbur flew the airplane for 30 seconds. To understand Wilbur’s achievement pilot instructors used to ask trainee pilots to inhale and hold breath for thirty seconds! It was later to appear that Wilbur was the better of the two pilots.

The challenge of designing a fail-proof engine had to be pursued. Likewise the study off how wings provide better lift while acknowledging that an opposite force to thrust called drag had to be reduced by streamlining the whole body surface proved tenuous. There was gravitational force – load – that inhibited flight upwards no matter what formula was used to increase engine power.

Yet to increase lift and thrust and lessen drag was what would make long range travel viable. More airfoils and airframes had to be refined per engine power to lift a given load the ultimate goal being to sustain flight to a safe mention that would translate into passenger transport. It was man who wanted to fly not cargo. It was quite obvious that a doctor traveling with medicines was better than sending a catalogue of ‘trial and error’ prescriptions.

Designers realized that the higher airplanes flew, the less drag was encountered resulting in greater air speed. Sadly, at great height, the more fearful it became for civilian passengers.

First Passengers.

Charles Furnas became the first aeroplane passenger on May 4, 1908. The flight was piloted by Wilbur Wright. In other words, the first pilot to fly a passenger by air was Wilbur Wright.

The first woman passenger to fly by air was Mrs. Edith Hart O. Berg. Again it was Wilbur Wright who flew that flight. She was wife to a prominent businessman who sacrificed his personal income to fund enhancement of the pioneer Wright brother’s airplanes.

Mrs. Berg did not become famous for being the first woman to be carried by airplane. (There was a rumor that another lady Ms.Pottelsberg in Belgium had been carried by air by another well known airman Henry Farman.) There was something else to Mrs. Berg’s flight. It was aimed at proving a fact about air safety.

Twenty days earlier – September 17, 1908, Lt. Thomas Selfridge had become the first passenger to die of an aeroplane crash. Orville Wright piloted that fateful flight. He barely escaped death coming out the worse for a broken leg. Thus the first airplane pilot to be involved in a fatal accident was Orville Wright.

That Mrs. Berg dared - three weeks later October 7,1908 – to board and fly in another of the Wright brothers’ airplanes dispelled any myth that air flight was not for the faint hearted especially women. This one flight opened the way to family transport.

Bishop Wright – aged 82 years – also flew May 21, 19910 on an airplane piloted by his son Orville. Aviation, hitherto ridiculed as a hobby preserve of youthful daring, came to invite whoever was courageous enough to embark and travel to whatever destination regardless of gender or age.

Aerophobia.

The primitive airplane was nonetheless a noisy, rickety open cockpit contraption. Once airborne, engine vibrations, air buffeting from unrefined airframe sections, skidding for lack of ailerons and sudden disintegration of fatigued body materials – torn out by gales while parked at aprons but unnoticed at takeoff – all contributed to poor safety record. Even on a perfect day on a near perfect machine, pilots knew that the fear of flying on such aircraft was not just psychological.

Lt. Thomas Selfridge had been killed only four months after the Charles Furnas flight. Another accident happened right at the time airplanes were receiving a vibrant following in Europe and America. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that airplane.

On April 3, 1912, an airplane and a bird collided in flight. The bird died and the airplane crashed. The pilot, Calbraith Perry Roger, became the first documented airplane pilot to perish from a bird strike. Perry Roger was only 33 years when he died.

Most people could not understand how a small bird could bring down an airplane. Obviously, low powered engines meant aeroplanes were constructed with very light materials. What people called a small dent or rapture on a wing or tail plane section was enough to disrupt airflow causing the airplane to spin or dive out of control. An engine hit would clog out a vital part with disastrous result. Perry died thus.

A notable bad publicity accident happened on June 20, 1913. Pilot W. D. Billingsley had been tossed out of his seat by rough wind known as turbulence. This death is what made seat belts be introduced into basic design of aircraft seats.

It is around this time 1913 that the first airplanes were spotted in East Africa in the then German colony of Tanganyika.

The Great War: 1914 – 18.

The Great War – World War 1 – was an accident of history that brought concerted effort to explore how aeroplanes could be used in war to gain strategic and tactical advantage. With government support, manufacturers designed airplanes for greater speed, versatility and endurance. Aeroplanes flew faster, higher and carried heavier payloads.

Advance surveillance aircraft helped select targets while reconnaissance airplanes were needed to fly over bombed targets to ascertain extent of damage. While surveillance could be carried out by high flying aircraft including slow balloons, reconnaissance required fast low flying and extremely maneuverable airplanes. Every airplane henceforth was designed to achieve a specific role in flight. It was during this period that two military airplanes landed at Kenya’s Mwakitau aerodrome 150 miles North-West of the coastal port of Mombasa in 1915. Unlike Europe, Asia and America where newspapers and county pamphlets had aroused interest in aviation progress, the landing of two noisy airplanes must have confirmed natives’ tales of other aeroplanes that had been sighted further south in Tanganyika then known as German East Africa as early as 1913.

Unknown to them, aeroplanes were acquiring a stain as angles of death in Europe and the Far East where World War 1 was being furiously fought out. Notorious bomb raids and aerial dog fights served as a reminder of the human race’s atavistic nature. It was with a sigh of relief when the war ended abruptly in 1918.

Never again – so the world thought – would death be delivered so viciously through air.


War surplus.

At the end of that war, governments were left with hundreds of old and new aeroplanes formerly designed for specialized military expedience. It was decided that such planes should be sold out to former war pilots on condition that they would commit themselves to promoting civilian air transport.

Officially branded as war surplus, decommissioned pilots who bought them found it difficult to reconcile their military training with the modest civilian role as agents of peacetime transport. They were coaxed into it with a promise that their success was to be the ultimate ‘technical victory over war’.

A pilot’s first handicap was to help townsfolk build confidence against aerophobia. They performed daring aerobatic and aerial parachute stunts from town to town. This was called barn storming because it imitated the tradition of stage actors who went round villages performing for a fee mostly in warehouses or barns.

After demonstrating how safe an aeroplane was even in unorthodox turns, they endeared aviation to rural folk by charging very minimal fees for joy rides and short haul flights. Eventually they demonstrated flight over un-surveyed territories, mountain passes, swamps, deserts and dangerous forests ferrying mail, cargo and occasional passengers. They called their first carriers ‘unusual airlines’.

People simply viewed them as heroic bush pilots.

Effective Distance.

Intercontinental transport was proven in May 1919 when Captain John Alcock and Lt. Athur Brown made the first trans-Atlantic crossing in 16 hours 12 minutes.

Going by the old adage that time is money, people could en vision mail and cargo being delivered faster across the American and Europe transatlantic divide.

Whether over land or water, the airplane had reduced the effect – measured in hours – of covering the same sea journeys from days to hours, or, months to days. To celebrate the Alcock and Brown flight, aviation promoters went around trumpeting that the effective distance of the Earth from America to Europe had been reduced to a single day hop! In any case, slow bulk ocean liners had to be complemented with faster cargo airliners.

On May 21, 1927, 25 year old American Charles Lindberg in an airplane named ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ crossed the Atlantic solo. Flying West to east, tail winds helped him arrive over Europe slightly ahead of his estimated time of arrival.

USA President Coolidge honored him with a Distinguished Flying Cross. Americans – who had refused to provide funds for the development of the Wright Brothers’ aeroplane but for the war – celebrated Lindberg’s feat as a technological triumph over European attempts. Many senior pilots had perished over that ocean trying to accomplish what the young lad had demonstrated.


Kenyan Triumphs.

Kenya’s first resident airplane was imported by John Carberry in 1926. On April 4, 1926, Carberry’s DH-51 single engine two seat bi-plane flew in Kenya for the first time. It bore British registration mark G-EBIR (pronounced Golf –Echo Bravo India Romeo).

Though captive balloon flight had been demonstrated in Kenya on 23rd September 1909 by American William Dickson Boyce - during the former USA President Eisenhower’s safari – Carberry (formerly the 10th Baron of Carberry, Ireland – is regarded as the father of true Kenyan aviation.

A well known temperamental man of prodigal pedigree, he migrated to Kenya after forfeiting his title as the Lord of Carbery. Hence forth his name was spelt with a double ‘r’. Settlers called him Carberry of Nairobi - locals nicknamed him whip. For his daring, commitment and eccentric flying Carberry did for Kenya what Harold Gilam did for Alaska. G-EBIR was the first aircraft to be registered in Kenya as G-KAA and later became VP-KAA. It still flies to this day under a British flight museum ownership.

Beryl Markham.. 1936

Tom Campbell Black was another migrant pilot who put Kenya on the elite aviators' podium. He attempted and won the international London to Melbourne air race in 1934.

Kenya's most famous pilot was Beryl Markham. She became the first person to fly across the Atlantic East to West against dreaded winds and at night. On September 5, 1936, she crash landed - due to carburetor icing - at Nova Scotia on the eastern shores of the American continent. Most significantly, she accomplished it on a Kenyan registered aeroplane VP KCC.

As the world feted Beryl, fate robbed Kenya the very pilot who had taught her to fly. On September 19, 1936 - fourteen days into the celebrations - Tom Campell Black died in a ground collision runway incursion at Speke Airport, Liverpool. A landing RAF bomber hit his aeroplane which was taxying for take off. So devastated was Beryl Markham that most people believe she lost the will to fly professionally again. She was henceforth feted for horse training not least winning many a race at the Nairobi and Nakuru racecourse circuits.

Beryl Markham died in 1986 aged 83. Cremated, her ashes were scattered at the famous Ngong racecourse.

The first person to die of a private aeroplane accident in Kenya was Maia Carberry. A pilot of repute, she was giving flight training instruction to a student when the aeroplane crashed. Both perished on March 12, 1928. That Beryl Markham had dared cross the Atlantic alone after the Maia tragedy tells as much about the courage of these two pioneer women pilots.

In 1939, World War II broke out. Designers and manufacturers were again recalled to conceed nascent aviation to production of weapons of destruction on a massive scale. Junior Cadets from the previous war - 1915 - 18 - found themselves fated to shoulder command of enormous weight and guilt as death was again delivered viciously over the same European skies to target cities and doomed frontlines. From Japan to Russia, Europe to America, Africa to Alaska, the sky was dotted with high flying pursuit, cargo and bomber airplanes.

Aviation came of age. Aircraft proliferated.


CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER 2


AIRCRAFT


‘An aircraft is any machine that can derive support in the atmosphere from the reaction of the air other than the reaction of the air against the earth’s surface and includes all flying machines, aeroplanes, gliders, seaplanes, rotorcraft, airships, balloons, gyroplanes, helicopters, ornithopters and other similar machines.’

AN AEROPLANE IS AN AIRCRAFT but an aircraft is not necessarily an aeroplane.

Balloons are aircraft but are not aeroplanes. If the terms classification of aircraft and categories of aeroplanes were used in any text, or speech, seasoned aviators would know that the reference to aircraft is generic while that of aeroplanes is specific.

An aeroplane is any power driven heavier than air aircraft deriving its lift in flight chiefly from aerodymic reactions on surfaces which remain fixed under given conditions of flight.

Classification of aircraft.

Aircraft are either mechanically or non-mechanically driven. These are the two main classifications of aircraft.

The next qualification is whether such aircraft is heavier than air or lighter than air. Aircraft are thus classified under four sub-domains.

.Mechanically driven - heavier than air.
.Mechanically driven - lighter than air.
.Non-Mechanically driven - heavier than air.
.Non-Mechanically driven - lighter than air.

Non Mechanically Driven

Heavier that air
Glider
Kite

Lighter than air.
Free Balloon
Captive Balloon



Mechanically Driven.

Heavier than air.
Land plane
Sea plane
Amphibian
Self launching motor gliders
Gyro plane
Helicopter.

Lighter than air

Airship


Categories of Aeroplanes.

Aeroplanes are categorized as light, medium, or heavy. This categorization is based on wake turbulence not weight.

When airplanes move through air, they displace and disturb air along their flight path. As air tries to return or reclaim its former position, a turbulent state ensues. Since the aeroplane is then in constant forward motion, a trail of disturbed air is created. This is called wake turbulence.

Balloons and airships create little turbulence despite their size. They are designed to be carried along in the direction of an airmass’ movement.

Wake turbulence can be violent when caused by fast moving wide bodied airplanes. However, one should always note that a small jet fighter may produce little turbulence on a subsonic flight yet create a dangerous sonic boom at supersonic speed.

Aeroplanes weighing less than 7,000 kilograms produce light turbulence.

Medium turbulence is attributed to airplanes weighing beyond 7,000 kg to about 136,000 kg.

Heavy turbulence accrues to airplanes weighing more than 136,000 kilograms.

If a light aircraft is caught in the wake of a heavy category airplane, the streamline flow of air over its wings and tail plane is disturbed. The upper and lower pressure differentials are distorted resulting in loss of lift.

When the first Cosmonaut in space Yuri Gagarin fatally crashed near Moscow in a MiG15, initial suspicions pointed to another heavier category aeroplane which had flown near his flight path. This was later discredited.

Turbulence moves with the surrounding air mass. It can descend, ascend or remain at the same altitude or more than three minutes. Light aircraft taking off after medium or heavy category airplanes are delayed for two or fie minutes. An aeroplane can take off only to slam back onto the runway if caught up in the wake of a preceding departure.
Engine ingestion of floating dust and pebble particles and light materials such as polythene bags are dangerous to succeeding flights.

American Dominance.

Sociologists state that the industrial revolution hanged Europe from nominal theocracies to scientific states. Sectarian bigotry was also superseded by nationalist appeal. Hence, scientific research was pursued as a patriotic duty.

The first settlers in American migrants left Europe to trade or escape spiritual intolerance. 150 years later, third generation America sued for the declaration of independence to protest monarchical tyranny and to purge, one and or all, the colonial tag. Beyond this tenet lay a strong resolve toward self determination as a new nation. America of the 18th century desired not only total emancipation but full self-actualization.

It was then that Alexander Hamilton – America’s first Secretary of Finance – stated that America’s future lay in industrialization not Agrarian policy. Benjamin Franklin amplified this theory o thrift in his famous publication ‘Poor Richard’s Almanack’.

Thus America learnt its self determination from men who imbibed a culture of aesthetic, agrarian and scientific advance. Traditions, innovations and inventions soon became a way of life by the time subsequent generations took the reins.

By 1903 - when the Wright brothers invented the aeroplane - Americans had surprised Europeans on the industrial race, to be fully independent across the Atlantic divide, the new nation had vowed to be self reliant. Forlornly, Europe was then preoccupied with consolidating its African colonies.

Unfortunately, Americans chose to gallop away this advantage with comparative spite of the slow European trot. For lack of purpose, America became complacent. Racial polemic rose to dominate its social political tedium.

NACA

Impatient but committed enthusiasts realized that their government was not interested in funding civil aviation research. As they are wont to say, America had lost initiative.

In January 1913, a motion was brought to the Congress imploring the government to form an aviation research body to help advise the way forward in aircraft design and manufacturing. It was as expected defeated because it dealt with private enterprise, a role that called for public spending on non-tangible research that could not be justified to the tax-payer.

In 1914, World War 1 broke out. Prophetically, allied air cover, tactical and advance surveillance disadvantages glared. Even then, American hardliners dithered to fund military aviation arguing that a European war was not essentially an American problem. Except for the Navy.
Nave Assistant Secretary F.D. Roosevelt successfully sneaked back the defeated motion albeit as a military contingency. On March 3, 1915 under President Woodrow Wilson, an A ct of Congress established the National Committee on Aeronautics, NACA) pronounced En -Aye - See - Aye)

It consisted of twelve eminent committee members who worked without pay.


The NACA’s terms of reference were to promote aeronautical research and aircraft flight in particular. With an initial budget of $5,000 per year, the volunteer team avowed itself to provide expertise, time and occasional pfenings from committed industrialists to support a commission they believed would put America on the aeronautics forefront.

The NACA hired scientists and engineers.

Their role was to design and test new implements of flight. OrvilleWright – the man who along with his brother had had to emigrate to Europe to solicit support to perfect their airplanes – was recalled to sit on the NACA board.

For the next 43 years, the NACA relentlessly pursued aviation as a scientific and patriotic duty. World War II brought home a realization that aviation was a crucial aerial offence and defense tool in any war theater. Though Army commanders initially shunned it, emergence of the German Luftwaffe proved many a traditionalist wrong. The period of 1939 – 45 was the defining moment in aircraft manufacturing and assembly techniques.

The war culminated in arrest and debriefing of German scientists by Allied powers who were left with no options but to offer remission for the cooperation in decoding the surprise capture of rocketry blue prints. Between 1945 and 1960, both Eastern Soviet block and Western American protagonists used their German captives to graduate from passive to proactive airplane designers. It didn’t take long for Americans to dominate not only the aircraft manufacturing sector but civil aviation in general.

On October 1, 1958, the NACA was disbanded and replaced with NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Agency.
Aeroplane Design

Aeroplanes are designed to order. This means that every aeroplane is an investment dictated by the role it is being designed to perform. Passenger cabins, cargo bays, spray nozzles for crop dusters and a host of other specific products are well thought out and flight tested before mass production starts.

Generally, aircraft shapes, component mainframe and airfoil sections remain universally similar. Aerodynamically, an aeroplane can only be designed for pitch, yaw and roll in flight. Every passenger walking down the apron to board an aerolane believes his or her aeroplane to have a cabin (fuselage), wings, tail and engines. Pilots only combine a dexterous genius to fly the aeroplane to its destination.

Basic aeroplane parts.

Although aeroplane design is complex, aviation students should be encouraged to learn at least the main characteristics of an aircraft. College and aviation school syllabus should always include aircraft recognition an examinable subject. Digital photographs hosted on a presentation projector screen or desktop monitors can be shown with the student subjected not only to state the classification, category or type of aircraft but also describe its basic design characteristics.

Therefore, beyond the basic classifications (mechanically or non-mechanically driven) and category (light, medium or heavy turbulence), the term ' type ' must be understood to refer to the model of the particular aeroplane or aircraft. Model types are named by the manufacturer. Aircraft type designators are then filed with the international civil aviation organization ICAO for publication.
Aircraft Type Designators.

Most model type designators are a combination of a single or double letter followed by numerical extensions. For each designator, a phonetic name is used to complement sentimental identification.

Some aircraft are also named for their designers or, for military airplanes, presiding officers who commissioned the order. Likewise a military airplane may spot a type designator during its operational watch only to be rebranded for civilian service acquiring a more identifiable designator.

Type designators help aviators second guess the use and performance limits of an airplane simply by requesting its designator profile. It is most helpful confirming accuracy of performance details upon receipt by any aviator or field officers requiring aerial services and during coordination of air traffic given that the designator has to be stated on a flight plan or during initial radio or data-link contact with an air traffic control unit before entry into a sector or controlled airspace.

Military aircraft.

The most predictable designator on an airplane is the prefix 'X'. This denotes an experimental model which is yet to be commissioned for production. Such aircraft are called prototypes. Airforce’s Major Charles Yeager flew the first supersonic flight on a jet craft designated XS 1 meaning Experimental Supersonic One.

In America, designators A, B, C, P and F were common with most military airplanes. Letter ‘A’ initially denoted Amphibian craft or airplanes designed to operate both on land and water aerodromes. The first American navy airplane was designated A1 and called ‘Hydro-Terra’ (water/land).

B and C stood for Bomber and Cargo. Their prototype versions would have been XB1 or XC1 which would simply proclaim to all and sundry that they were experimental bomber and cargo aircraft respectively the first in such design trials.XB2 or XC2 would follow as improvements of the original. B29 and C5A were well known bomber and cargo airplanes.

When war was fought with propeller airplanes, pursuit airplanes were designed specifically to intercept and kill enemy aircraft. When jet engines were introduced to replace propeller designs, the jet versions were called fighters. Fighters are therefore designed to intercept, chase, scuttle or shoot down enemy airplanes. Hence the oft repeated training mantra that fighters are jet propelled pursuit airplanes. Their corresponding type designators are P and F for pursuit and fighter respectively at least within the American system.

Letter G was exclusive to gliders. An XCG and TG5 would imply ‘Experimental Cargo Glider’ and ‘Training Glider model 5’ respectively.

Designation is usually a country to manufacturer preference hype. For example, the famous Soviet MiG fighter series denote Mikolay Gurevich, the celebrated designer who perfected a Russian jet fighter to counter western models.................


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AVIATION DEFINITION & HISTORY

For a basic appraisal of aviation, try the following links.

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation
www.icao.org