To start, I thought I would go back and respond to a question from a
previous post that was never answered:
DuxfordThunderbolt wrote:
Does anyone know when formation ("slime") lights first came into play? I'm assuming that it was a tech solution developed in a vacuum, i.e., not developed for a single airframe but for the plural "aircraft". I also wonder which was the first type to have them installed, or at least the aircraft type that did initial testing?
Apparently, slime lights were introduced partway through the F-4 production run, as later variants had them, but earlier ones did not. The first
production F-4 they were installed on was an F-4E-45-MC, 69-7579.
[1] A 1955 paper titled
Formation Lights for Fighter Aircraft cited in the aforementioned reference, suggests that interest in formation lighting began in 1945 with a conference at the Bureau of Medicine about the causes of aircraft accidents at night.
[2]Researching this question lead me down a path to consider aircraft lighting firsts more broadly. An article from the
Boeing Technical Journal claims "(i)n 1925, the first landing lights were installed on a mail plane and powered by a charged car battery".
[3] However, this likely refers to either only Boeing-built aircraft or only mailplanes, as the Flight Test Section of McCook Field was experimenting with landing lights in "the JN-4H, the USXB-1 and the Glenn Martin Bomber" as early as 1921.
[4] A DH-4B was also being used for this purpose by 1922.
[5] A "10-volt, 16[-]ampere bulb mounted in front of an 8-in parabolic reflector" was initially tested, but it was found to be inadequate and was replaced by a 12-volt, 100-ampere bulb with a 13-in parabolic reflector.
[6]Applications for a "dirigible headlight, an "aircraft lamp", and a "retractable landing light" were filed in 1918, 1922, and 1928, respectively.
[7][8][9] The famous Grimes Manufacturing Company was relatively late to the scene, with Warren Grimes only filing his first patent in 1935.
[10]United Air Lines seems to have been a pioneer in postwar rotating beacons, with the airline being mentioned in multiple articles in the early 1950s and even having been assigned a patent for one filed in 1953.
[11][12][13][14] It seems the technology started to reach the mainstream around this time, with other articles noting the need for something better than the navigation lights of the day.
[15] Interestingly, one connects the need to a 1953 mid-air collision involving a UAL Convair 340.
[16] Indeed, it may be that some of the mid-air collisions of the 1950s (e.g.
1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision) that led to the International Civil Aviation Organization adding an amendment in reference to navigation lights in 1957 and a Federal Aviation Regulation mentioning anti-collision lights being promulgated the same year.
[17]In the vein of "So You Think That's New" mentioned in a
previous post, the idea of moving the entire empennage by hinging the rear fuselage instead of just the control surfaces predates the Mooney M20 by over 35 years. (It's worth noting that this could be considered the technically correct definition of an "all-flying tail" as the modern usage generally refers to an "all-flying tail
plane" or "stabilator", where only the horizontal stabilizer itself moves. A guess at the first airplane with the latter was briefly touched on in a
previous post.) The Albree Pigeon-Fraser, which first flew in 1917, featured this design:
[Link to Oversize Image](Source:
National Archives)
Surprisingly, one of the three prototypes survives in the collection of the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.
[18]Another concept that was first used sometime before is that of the gun bay or gun port door. Although its first use (at least for me) was associated with the F-22, I recently discovered that the SAAB J 32 Lansen also used a form of shutters.
[19]Harkening back to the first use of cruise missiles on He 111s mentioned in a
previous post, I was surprised to learn that the first use of active radar homing in a missile was also in an air-to-surface missile dropped from a bomber in 1944. Beyond that, there is a bit of uncertainty:
- If I am interpreting the Wikipedia article correctly, the first examples may have technically been modified Pelican missiles and not Bats.[20]
- Most sources seem to agree that the first test of the missile (whatever its name) was on 29 July 1944, when four missiles were launched at the SS James Longstreet.[21] However, one source states "Bat Missile flight tests started in May 1944".[22]
- The type of aircraft used in the above test is not clear. Bats are usually thought of being dropped by PB4Ys, but a multitude of other aircraft were used at various points during testing.[23]
For more information about guided missile firsts, see the article "
The Birth of Guided Missiles" by Rear Admiral Delmar S. Fahrney.
As far as the first aircraft to carry an
air-to-air active radar homing missile, it may have been a B-58! A B-58, 55-665, was modified to carry the Hughes GAR-9 Falcon and test firings were conducted in May 1962.
[24][25]EDIT (22-02-15): One apparent precursor to slime lights was a system using Lucite wingtips, elevators, and ailerons developed by the Aeromedical Equipment Laboratory at NAMC Philadelphia in 1947:
Attachment:
Naval Aviation News September 1947 Page 31.png [ 138.31 KiB | Viewed 1824 times ]
Naval Aviation News wrote:
It may look like St. Elmo's fire, but it's really lucite installed on wing tips, rudder
and elevators by Aero Medical Equipment Laboratory, NAMC Philadelphia, to find
the best kind of exterior lighting for night-flying planes. Pilots often get confused by
ground lights, stars or similar single lights and fly into each other or into the ground.
The lab is also studying employment of flashing lights like commercial planes install.
(Source: “
[Untitled],”
Naval Aviation News, September 1947, 31.)
Unfortunately, the relevant report, "A Method of Exterior Aircraft Illumination Using Transparent Acrylic Plastic" is not available on DTIC.
[26]EDIT (22-03-26): Another early innovator in aircraft lighting was a Northwest Airlines captain named Bill Atkins. He apparently designed some of the first strobe lights and suggested moving them to the wingtips from the fuselage. His designs were first tested on his personal Piper Cub in 1953-1954, and later General Mills corporate DC-3 (possibly
41-18689/06095/N51F), before being installed on a DC-6B, #656.
[27]EDIT (22-11-21): I
recently learned that the very early F-86s, the F-86A-1 and some A-5s, also had such doors.
[28] The first production P-86A, 47-605, first flew on 20 May 1948.
[29] (However, in apparent
pictures of the first flight they are not visible. Nevertheless, a
picture of it on display in 1978 shows it with them in place and 47-611 is
seen with them only four months later. It's possible the gun port doors were considered secret and censored out similar to how the serial number was painted over in the
famous photograph of Mustang IA, 41-37416.) So, the use of the technology in the Lansen was apparently predated by at least four years. (It is not clear if the prototype for the Lansen, first flown in 1952, had armament. If not, then the difference would be seven years, as the production version entered service in 1955.
[19])