Rick65 wrote:
First aircraft with a two stage supercharger - Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat?
Maybe first production aircraft....?
The USN was an early user of two stage supercharging at a time when most USAAF fighters struggled at altitude.
However didn't the Bristol Type 138 altitude record setter have two stage supercharging and I am not claiming it was the first, just that it was earlier than the F4F-3?
According to the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum:
The first fighter in the world to use a two-stage supercharger was the Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat, which used the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radial engine.
Despite the above reference, I think there's a very good chance you're right. The
Wikipedia article on the Type 138 does state that it had a two-stage supercharger. I don't know if the PHAM blog post above was the source I based my claim on, but if it was I may have misread "first
fighter", as "first
aircraft". Those one word qualifiers are killer when it comes to this stuff. Thanks for the correction.
JohnB wrote:
-First bizjet...how about the French Paris? They were sold here as private jets...but may have been developed as a military aircraft.
Archer wrote:
First aircraft with a side stick could well be the Wright Flyer. It had two sticks, both positioned beside (on both sides) of the pilot.
Very interesting points! The Wright Flyer actually takes a couple of unexpected firsts when you consider that it was also the first canard and first pusher prop airplane.
The peculiarities of the Wright Flyer just made me think of another one. Since it used wing warping, what was the first aircraft to actually have control surfaces? An
article in
Air & Space magazine claims that it may have been a design by a man named Robert Esnault-Pelterie. Interestingly, Wikipedia also claims that his aircraft, the
Esnault-Pelterie R.E.P. 1, was the first aircraft to use a joystick. According to an
article in
Flight magazine, he was awarded a patent for the joystick in 1923.
JohnB wrote:
-Did ALL Meteors have afterburners?
The problem with "firsts" in aviation, rarely are the first successful. Often they're "one offs" and become a footnote, overshadowed by a later type that made a name for itself.
Likewise, the Brits (and others) were hanging jets and turboprop on a bunch of stuff post-war thus claiming many firsts...but most were proof of concept prototypes and not hugely important in the overall scheme of things.
Yeah, you could say I "cheated" a little bit with that one. The first flight use of "reheat" was in a Meteor I according to an
article in the 1957 issue of
Flight magazine. (The same article also mentions the Wellington with the first jet engine thrust reverser as well.) However, I wanted to go with what was
technically correct. It's also why I included "first
all jet aircraft with thrust reversers" as one of the unanswered questions. As you alluded to, there's also the "successful" qualifier - as in "first
successful jet airliner" - but I tend to dislike that one because it is a bit more subjective than other qualifiers like "production" or "operational".
wendovertom wrote:
A four seat Dragonfly / Tweet!? that would be cool!
Ask, and ye shall receive! Here's a link with some pictures:
History of Personal Jets: Cessna 407As one final note, according to a
post on Stack Exchange, the answer to "first aircraft with boosted controls" appears to be either the P-38, P-80, or Lockheed Constellation.
EDIT (23-03-19): On the subject of British jet engine testbeds, the Lancaster & Manchester Bomber Archive has a
page with pictures of a number of them.