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Sat Sep 04, 2021 10:07 pm
Maty12 wrote:Very interesting stuff, mate! Love the thread.
Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:03 pm
G. R. Duval wrote:The first recorded case of a casualty transported by a heavier-than-air machine was in 1915, when a French pilot flew a wounded Serbian airman to safety during the retreat of the Serbian Army. During World War I in Europe, the large number of field hospitals and dressing stations obviated any need for air evacuation, but individual medical officers in the Middle East used their initiative, resulting for example in the carriage of a wounded trooper to hospital from the Sinai Desert in 1917, and in the conversion of a D.H.6 trainer to carry a stretcher case at Helwan in Egypt, in 1918. During the latter year, the French used air ambulances in Morocco, the Americans experimented with a Curtiss flying-boat to carry injured seamen ashore from warships, whilst in Canada a small batch of Curtiss JN-4s were probably the first aircraft to be built as air ambulances. Also in 1918, a French Vosin X was equipped to carry a surgical unit with X-ray apparatus, and accommodation for two stretcher patients; the other French ambulances were Breguet 14s. Just before the war ended, the U.S. Army ordered that one aeroplane at each airfield was to be modified for ambulance work, although how far this was carried out is not known. [emphasis added]
G. R. Duval wrote:The R.A.F. (Canada) Curtiss JN-4(CAN) Air, the first of seven under production by Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd., and probably the first practical modification of an aircraft for this purpose.
Mike Klesius wrote:In 1910, two Army medical officers, Captain George H.R. Grosman and Lieutenant A.L. Rhodes, used their own money to design the first documented air ambulance. (On its maiden flight, in Fort Barrancas, Florida, it traveled 500 yards and crashed.) The first true evacuation of the wounded in airplanes specifically equipped for the job took place during World War I, when French medical officer Eugene Chassaing transformed military airplanes into air ambulances: In April 1918 at Flanders, Belgium, a modified Dorand II flew two patients side by side in the fuselage. By the end of the war, U.S. Army Major Nelson Driver and Captain William Ocker had converted a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny into a flying ambulance.
Frank W. Weed wrote:[D]uring the retreat of the Serbian Army in November and December, 1915, 13 wounded or sick were transported 80 to 200 kilometers. This was an emergency measure, and no special provision was made by the modification of the plane. The maneuver was successful, and not only were the patients safely transported, but they escaped otherwise inevitable capture. [emphasis added]
Frank W. Weed wrote:In France, during the World War, Doctor Chassaing, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, succeeded in inducing the aviation department to construct an airplane ambulance designed for patients in a recumbent position. The airplane was first tried out at Villacoublay in September, 1917, and later on the Aisne front.
Frank W. Weed wrote:So far as records show, the first flying field to use the airplane in transporting medical officers to the site of crashes, and also for transporting patients, was Gerstner Field, Lake Charles, La. This station was located in low swampy country surrounded by many bayous. Crashes occurred at places which could be reached by no transportation except the airplane, consequently, in February, 1918, the commanding officer at that field authorized the conversion of a JN-4 airplane into an ambulance, and it was completed and placed in commission during that month. Two officers on duty at the station made the plans and supervised the construction of this ambulance at Gerstner Field. They are entitled to the credit for first transporting patients in an airplane ambulance in this country.
Frank W. Weed wrote:FIG. 141.-Airplane ambulance, first used at Gerstner Field, La., January 28, 1918.
Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:54 pm
Wed Sep 29, 2021 5:22 pm
Sun Oct 10, 2021 8:31 pm
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?
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.
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