Air Power III

Air Power III

The Men, Machines, and Ideas Which Revolutionized War from Kitty hawk to Iraq.

Air Power

By Stephen Budiansky

The end of the Great War brought changes in the participating countries. Germany, having lost the war had gained much knowledge about making planes and their use. Even though they had to turn them over to the Allies, the winners, they had much knowledge to carry forward with them to the next war.

The other war participants, the allies, had to cycle down their war production and try to recover their economies. The war had seen advances in construction and usage of air power. Having entered the war as a fledgling part of the fighting force, the proponents of air power had to fight to keep it viable in the ensuing years. The popularization of civil air travel was one factor moving forward aviation. Many improvements in the machines and process, such as artificial horizon, gyrocompass, flying down, through fog to the runway while following a radio beam. These are things the RFC did not get to in the interwar period. Jimmy Doolittle was a central figure in developing flying with the use of instruments. Artificial horizon, Gyro compass, Auto pilot are some of the instruments making this possible. This method is used when the pilot cannot view the ground for navigation.

The British found that they could use air power to regain power in their empire. Its use caught on and saved lots of money in the process. Air power gained prestige and popularity in the process. Budiansky names the key figures in air leadership. In his opinion they were not the best people for the job but things progressed anyway.

The French had bourn the load of the manufacturing during the war and, of course, things needed to be throttled back after the war.

In the USA several figures took center stage creating mayhem and agitation as well as moving things onward. Mitchell and Arnold being strong supporters of air power came to the forefront during that interwar era. Mitchell was so outspoken, vehement and abusive of leadership not to mention media manipulative that he was removed from leadership and demoted to Texas and ground operations. He was eventually court-martialed for insubordination. With all his negative activity, he put air power solidly into contention against the navy. He arranged a combat trial to show how the AAC could sink battleships. Many Naval devotees disagreed on that point! He used a trick to get the navy in the public eye so they would have to agree to the experiment.

Ostfriesland (Public Domain)

 

The Navy had an obsolete German Battleship, Ostfriesland from the war. The experiment started out as a scientific experiment but later it became a push to get it to sink. Mitchell ignored his agreement with the navy on procedure. He had his bombers line up to bomb the ship without time for observers to go aboard and assess damage. He had a way of crossing everyone who disagreed with his way.

Arnold was almost court-martialed for supporting Mitchell in his endeavors.

Another technological advancement which should be mentioned was the shape of the wing. This occurred at The University of Goettingen, in Lower Saxony, Germany and was aerodynamic research relating to the airfoil of the wing. Von Karman did the research which showed they needed to fill the joint between wing and fuselage to smooth airflow. Ludwig Prandtl did the research at Goettingen which showed that a thicker airfoil generated less drag than did thin ones. As a side benefit this allowed the wings to be self-supporting, not requiring wires. The Fokker D. VII had this airfoil and no wires.

Fokker D. VII (public domain)

Another advancement, the variable pitch propeller was useful because the blades, wings in rotation, could be rotated adjusting their angle of attack to the oncoming air. I have thought of the concept as being a gear shift for the airplane. At takeoff the blades would be adjusted to take a small bite, having high speed of rotation. At cruising speed the blades would be adjusted to take a large bite, having a lower speed of rotation. The Douglas DC 3 and Boeing 247D were among the first aircraft to utilize this advancement. The feature was soon designed to make the pitch changes automatic.