Today in 1929, Lieutenant James H. Doolittle did what no other pilot had done before: take off, fly and land only using instruments and radio.
Jimmy Doolittle was trying to solve what to that point had been one of the biggest problems in aviation.
Pilots relied on what they saw and heard outside the cockpit to make decisions in the air.
Which is logical, except there are times when a pilot’s senses can actually misinterpret a situation, especially when flying through clouds or bad weather.
That led to a number of plane crashes and tragedies.
There was an effort in the 1920s to develop better instruments so that pilots had accurate information no matter what they encountered in the air.
The Air Corps sent Jimmy Doolittle to serve as its test pilot, and over time, he and the team perfected the instruments that could get a pilot up in the air and back on the ground safely.
In particular they worked on a system that used radio beacons to sense whether the plane was in the right position to land.
If it was out of whack, the pilot would know and could make adjustments.
On a very foggy morning in New York state, Doolittle put the instruments through their paces.
It was a ten minute flight that was successful in every way but one: the guy who had funded the project hadn’t made it to the airfield yet!
No problem, Doolittle took off again after he arrived.
He flew with a hood over his cockpit, so he couldn’t see even in clear weather.
There was a safety pilot on board just in case, but he held his arms in the air to show he wasn’t doing any flying.
Doolittle claimed his approach and landing on that flight had been quote “sloppy,” but once again he’d proven that flying by instruments worked.
And today, airplane cockpits are full of systems and sensors that help a pilot know what’s happening around their planes in ways that eyes can’t always pick up on their own.
Today in 2021, Japan’s Narita Airport had to delay a flight because of a turtle on the runway.
Not only that, but the plane that had to wait had a turtle design on its exterior!
Fortunately they moved the turtle along and all was well.
Flying Blind (Air & Space Forces Magazine)
Errant turtle closes runway, delays turtle-themed plane at Japan’s Narita Airport (The Mainichi)
Back our show on Patreon and we’ll keep flying high together
Photo by NASA via Wikicommons
