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Good Sunday Morning 24 January.
I hope that you all are having a great weekend. Here is a bit of everything to scan through. Remember there is never a test at the end.
Regards,
Skip
Today in Naval History
Jan. 24
1942—During the Battle of Makassar Strait (Balikpapan), destroyers John D. Ford, Parrott, Pope, and Paul Jones attack the anchored Japanese invasion force in the harbor of Balikpapan, Borneo, sinking four of 12 transport ships.
1945—Submarine Blackfin (SS 322) sinks the Japanese destroyer Shigure in the Gulf of Siam.
1956—USS Jallao (SS 368) becomes the first U.S. Navy submarine to transit the Suez Canal traveling from the Mediterranean to Massawa, Eritrea, Ethiopia.
1991—Desert Shield/Desert Storm SEAL platoons from USS Leftwich (DD 984) and USS Nicholas (FFG 47) recaptures the island, Jazirat Qurah, the first Kuwaiti territory from Iraqis.
This Day in World History
January 24
41 | Shortly after declaring himself a god, Caligula is assassinated by two Praetorian tribunes. | |
1458 | Matthias Corvinus, the son of John Hunyadi, is elected king of Hungary. | |
1639 | Representatives from three Connecticut towns band together to write the Fundamental Orders, the first constitution in the New World. | |
1722 | Czar Peter the Great caps his reforms in Russia with the "Table of Rank" which decrees a commoner can climb on merit to the highest positions. | |
1848 | Gold is discovered by James Wilson Marshall at his partner Johann August Sutter's sawmill on the South Fork of the American River, near Coloma, California. | |
1903 | U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and British Ambassador Herbert create a joint commission to establish the Alaskan border. | |
1911 | U.S. Cavalry is sent to preserve the neutrality of the Rio Grande during the Mexican Civil War. | |
1915 | The German cruiser Blücher is sunk by a British squadron in the Battle of Dogger Bank. | |
1927 | British expeditionary force of 12,000 is sent to China to protect concessions at Shanghai. | |
1931 | The League of Nations rebukes Poland for the mistreatment of a German minority in Upper Silesia. | |
1945 | A German attempt to relieve the besieged city of Budapest is finally halted by the Soviets. | |
1946 | The UN establishes the International Atomic Energy Commission. | |
1951 | Indian leader Nehru demands that the UN name Peking as an aggressor in Korea. | |
1965 | Winston Churchill dies from a cerebral thrombosis at the age of 90. | |
1980 | In a rebuff to the Soviets, the U.S. announces intentions to sell arms to China. | |
1982 | A draft of Air Force history reports that the U.S. secretly sprayed herbicides on Laos during the Vietnam War. |
1935 |
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An interesting bit from Hal and Dutch R.
This day in history....Capture of USS Pueblo and the sinking of the USS Scorpion
thanks to Hal
Fifty years ago, today, the Navy's intelligence gathering ship USS Pueblo was captured sixteen miles off the coast of North Korea. Twelve miles is the recognized limit of International Waters. The why is interesting...
A former sailor, John Walker was selling top secret information to the Russians. He did this over a period of years. The Russians were intercepting coded messages but could not decode them. What they needed was the KW-7 encryption machine found on most US naval vessels. The Russians ordered the North Koreans to seize the USS Pueblo and get the encryption machine, and they did. With that, the Russians could not only decode stored messages, but would be able to decode real-time messages sent to ships at sea. They harvested 800 pounds of secrets from the Pueblo.
Our submarine, USS Scorpion, was preparing to depart the Mediterranean Sea to return to home port in Norfolk. She stopped at Rota, Spain, to offload two sailors and then headed home. Russian submarines usually tried to follow our subs, as we did theirs, but they were usually unsuccessful. However, our former SecNav John Lehman said with what Walker had given them, they would know where our subs were around the world. We can't be sure about that.
Scorpion then received orders to head for the Azores and observe a Russian naval exercise going on in the area. Arriving several days later, she was detected and sunk by the Russians. In their mind, this was revenge for what they believed our sinking of their sub, K-129 by USS Swordfish. But I have a friend who was an officer on the Swordfish and he said they were not even in the same ocean at that time.
Days passed without Scorpion reporting in by microburst transmission and it was feared that she was lost. SOSUS hydrophones had in fact recorded the sounds of a submarine sinking. Gordon Hamilton, an acoustics scientist had a recording station in the Canary Islands and he recorded the sounds of a sub sinking, as well.
These recordings were given to Dr. John Craven at the Naval Research Laboratory and he concluded that a depth charge had sunk our sub. Some years later I was assigned to NRL's Office of Science and Technology and I had an opportunity to talk to Dr. Craven about this. He was certain our submarine had been sunk by the Russians.
After Scorpion failed to report in, the Chief of Naval Operations send ships to search for her. The USNS Mizar and USS Compass Island found her.....because the Russians told us where to look.
John Walker, his brother Arthur and son Michael would pass information to the Russians for eighteen years. Their KGB handler was General Oleg Kalugin. John's wife Barbara would expose her husband to the FBI. John and Arthur were sentenced to multiple life sentences and both died in prison.
Years later, General Kalugin would get crossways with Russian Premier Gorbachev and came to America. He had lived and worked for years here as a journalist. He was given a teaching appointment at the Catholic University. These days he is a curator at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is sought after as a speaker. I heard him long ago when he spoke at the Fort Myer Officers Club. All is forgiven, you see.
Hal
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Thanks to Hank……..I have a few landings at Naha in that kind of weather
SEAHAWK SQUADRON SEA STORY
TONY SUCCEEDS WHERE OTHERS FAIL
F8 REALLY UNOFFICIAL RECORDS
Best Choreography on Landing - A Night Op off Okinawa on USS Kitty Hawk 1961, first WESTPAC with Hap Chandler's F4's and Bob Moore's VF 111 Crusaders. I was the F8 division leader w/ Chuck VanOrden, Phil Mickelson and Tony Longo.
Sea state about 5, Skank Remson broke a main mount on his F4, dark night arrest requiring Cherry Picker to clear the deck.
With signal Bingo Kadina, we F8 jocks contacted approach control to learn all runways closed with a B-47 burning on runways hub.
Next alternate was Marine Naha claiming 1/16th mile visibility in driving rain with 35 kts and crosswind gusting 90 degrees off duty runway (a cliff on left). I was low state a/c and instructed flight to prepare for Morest landing, if so, I'd advise once I got on deck.
Record follows - Bob Jurgens, WX conditions about as predicted, after touch down on end of runway, my F8 weather-vaned 90 degrees to runway heading just past Morest, and I slid remainder of 7,000 ft runway to a stop at the end - square tire, limp off followed with frantic UHF plea that all F8's make an arrested landing.
Chuck Van Orden, after touchdown, did a 360 degree roll-out turn to stop at end of runway with another frantic call for F8's to take the Morest.
Phil Mickelson (Yes- lefty golfers Dad,) next down, hit the runway perimeter chain link fence and carried over 100 yards of sea anchor links sparking down the runway to a successful stop mired in mud off runway end.
Tony was last down to a perfect Morest landing.
Footnote - My fitness report read "promote when due" which of course our Navy answered with an early promotion. LT. Bob "TRIGGER" Jurgens sends.
Henry's Cell
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And there is probably even more up there with more capability
Thanks to Chuck
Some very interesting tech in this article.
Under surveillance: satellites, cameras, and phones track us
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January 24
This Day in U S Military History
1908 – Boy Scouts movement begins in England with the publication of the first installment of Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys. The name Baden-Powell was already well known to many English boys, and thousands of them eagerly bought up the handbook. By the end of April, the serialization of Scouting for Boys was completed, and scores of impromptu Boy Scout troops had sprung up across Britain. In 1900, Baden-Powell became a national hero in Britain for his 217-day defense of Mafeking in the South African War. Soon after, Aids to Scouting, a military field manual he had written for British soldiers in 1899, caught on with a younger audience. Boys loved the lessons on tracking and observation and organized elaborate games using the book. Hearing this, Baden-Powell decided to write a nonmilitary field manual for adolescents that would also emphasize the importance of morality and good deeds. First, however, he decided to try out some of his ideas on an actual group of boys. On July 25, 1907, he took a diverse group of 21 adolescents to Brownsea Island in Dorsetshire where they set up camp for a fortnight. With the aid of other instructors, he taught the boys about camping, observation, deduction, woodcraft, boating, lifesaving, patriotism, and chivalry. Many of these lessons were learned through inventive games that were very popular with the boys. The first Boy Scouts meeting was a great success. With the success of Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell set up a central Boy Scouts office, which registered new Scouts and designed a uniform. By the end of 1908, there were 60,000 Boy Scouts, and troops began springing up in British Commonwealth countries across the globe. In September 1909, the first national Boy Scout meeting was held at the Crystal Palace in London. Ten thousand Scouts showed up, including a group of uniformed girls who called themselves the Girl Scouts. In 1910, Baden-Powell organized the Girl Guides as a separate organization. The American version of the Boy Scouts has it origins in an event that occurred in London in 1909. Chicago publisher William Boyce was lost in one of the city's classic fogs when a Boy Scout came to his aid. After guiding Boyce to his destination, the boy refused a tip, explaining that as a Boy Scout he would not accept payment for doing a good deed. This anonymous gesture inspired Boyce to organize several regional U.S. youth organizations, specifically the Woodcraft Indians and the Sons of Daniel Boone, into the Boy Scouts of America. Incorporated on February 8, 1910, the movement soon spread throughout the country. In 1912, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of America in Savannah, Georgia. In 1916, Baden-Powell organized the Wolf Cubs, which caught on as the Cub Scouts in the United States, for boys under the age of 11. Four years later, the first international Boy Scout Jamboree was held in London, and Baden-Powell was acclaimed Chief Scout of the world. He died in 1941.
1942 – Battle of Makassar Strait, destroyer attack on Japanese convoy in first surface action in the Pacific during World War II. Four Dutch and American destroyers attack Japanese troop transports off Balikpapan sinking five ships.
1944 – The Anzio beachhead continues to expand, albeit, slowly. To the south, along the German defenses of the Gustav Line, the Free French Corps (part of US 5th Army) attacks Monte Santa Croce. The US 2nd Corps (also part of 5th Army) continues attacking over the Rapido River, toward Caira.
1952 – Air Force Captains Dolphin D. Overton III and Harold E. Fischer Jr., both of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 24th and 25th fifth aces of the war. They flew F-86's named "Dolph's Devil" and "Paper Tiger." In addition, Captain Overton set a record for becoming a jet ace in the shortest time of four days.
1964 – Studies and Observation Group ("SOG") is created. MACV headquarters in Saigon issued General Order 6, creating a highly secret new organization to execute clandestine operations. It was euphemistically called MACV's "Studies and Observation Group," known as MACVSOG or simply SOG. The operations were approved by President Lyndon Johnson three years after President Kennedy had called for a serious program of covert actions against North Vietnam. The plan, recommended by Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk, contained a total of 72 categories of action.
1966 – In the largest search-and-destroy operation to date–Operation Masher/White Wing/Thang Phong II–the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), South Vietnamese, and Korean forces ssweep through Binh Dinh Province in the central lowlands along the coast. The purpose of the operation was to drive the North Vietnamese out of the province and destroy enemy supply areas. In late January, it became the first large unit operation conducted across corps boundaries when the cavalrymen linked up with Double Eagle, a U.S. Marine Corps operation intended to destroy the North Vietnamese 325A Division. Altogether, there were reported enemy casualties of 2,389 by the time the operation ended.
1972 – After 28 years of hiding in the jungles of Guam, local farmers discover Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant who was unaware that World War II had ended. Guam, a 200-square-mile island in the western Pacific, became a U.S. possession in 1898 after the Spanish-American War. In 1941, the Japanese attacked and captured it, and in 1944, after three years of Japanese occupation, U.S. forces retook Guam. It was at this time that Yokoi, left behind by the retreating Japanese forces, went into hiding rather than surrender to the Americans. In the jungles of Guam, he carved survival tools and for the next three decades waited for the return of the Japanese and his next orders. After he was discovered in 1972, he was finally discharged and sent home to Japan, where he was hailed as a national hero. He subsequently married and returned to Guam for his honeymoon. His handcrafted survival tools and threadbare uniform are on display in the Guam Museum in Agana.
1982 – A draft of Air Force history reported that the U.S. secretly sprayed herbicides on Laos during the Vietnam War.
1986 – The Voyager 2 space probe swept past Uranus, coming within 50,679 miles of the seventh planet of the solar system. Uranus has puzzled scientists ever since the probe Voyager 2 did the flyby and found that its magnetic field appeared to break the planetary rulebook. In 2004 scientists noted that Neptune and Uranus have an interior structure that is different from those of Jupiter and Saturn.
2002 – John Walker Lindh transported to Alexandria, Virginia, to be tried in a civilian criminal court for conspiring to kill Americans. He makes his first appearance before a U.S. District Court. A criminal complaint lists four charges, including conspiracy to kill his fellow Americans in Afghanistan..
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
GREAVES, CLINTON
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company C, 9th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Florida Mountains, N. Mex., 24 January 1877. Entered service at: Prince Georges County, Md. Birth: Madison County, Va. Date of issue: 26 June 1879. Citation: While part of a small detachment to persuade a band of renegade Apache Indians to surrender, his group was surrounded. Cpl. Greaves in the center of the savage hand-to-hand fighting, managed to shoot and bash a gap through the swarming Apaches, permitting his companions to break free .
SMITH, WILHELM
Rank and organization: Gunner's Mate First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 10 April 1870, Germany. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 202, 6 April 1916. Citation: On board the U.S.S. New York, for entering a compartment filled with gases and rescuing a shipmate on 24 January
*HANSON, ROBERT MURRAY
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Born: 4 February 1920, Lucknow, India. Accredited to: Massachusetts. Other Navy awards: Navy Cross, Air Medal. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life and above and beyond the call of duty as fighter pilot attached to Marine Fighting Squadron 215 in action against enemy Japanese forces at Bougainville Island, 1 November 1943; and New Britain Island, 24 January 1944. Undeterred by fierce opposition, and fearless in the face of overwhelming odds, 1st Lt. Hanson fought the Japanese boldly and with daring aggressiveness. On 1 November, while flying cover for our landing operations at Empress Augusta Bay, he dauntlessly attacked 6 enemy torpedo bombers, forcing them to jettison their bombs and destroying 1 Japanese plane during the action. Cut off from his division while deep in enemy territory during a high cover flight over Simpson Harbor on 24 January, 1st Lt. Hanson waged a lone and gallant battle against hostile interceptors as they were orbiting to attack our bombers and, striking with devastating fury, brought down 4 Zeroes and probably a fifth. Handling his plane superbly in both pursuit and attack measures, he was a master of individual air combat, accounting for a total of 25 Japanese aircraft in this theater of war. His great personal valor and invincible fighting spirit were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
*PARRISH, LAVERNE
Rank and organization: Technician 4th Grade, U.S. Army, Medical Detachment, 161st Infantry, 25th Infantry Division . Place and date: Binalonan, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 18-24 January 1945. Entered service at: Ronan, Mont. Birth: Knox City, Mo. G.O. No.: 55, 13 July 1945. Citation: He was medical aid man with Company C during the fighting in Binalonan, Luzon, Philippine Islands. On the 18th, he observed 2 wounded men under enemy fire and immediately went to their rescue. After moving 1 to cover, he crossed 25 yards of open ground to administer aid to the second. In the early hours of the 24th, his company, crossing an open field near San Manuel, encountered intense enemy fire and was ordered to withdraw to the cover of a ditch. While treating the casualties, Technician Parrish observed 2 wounded still in the field. Without hesitation he left the ditch, crawled forward under enemy fire, and in 2 successive trips brought both men to safety. He next administered aid to 12 casualties in the same field, crossing and re-crossing the open area raked by hostile fire. Making successive trips, he then brought 3 wounded in to cover. After treating nearly all of the 37 casualties suffered by his company, he was mortally wounded by mortar fire, and shortly after was killed. The indomitable spirit, intrepidity, and gallantry of Technician Parrish saved many lives at the cost of his own.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for January 24, 2021 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
24 January
1913: The Burgess and Curtiss Company delivered the first Curtiss tractor airplane (Signal Corps No. 21) to the Signal Corps Aviation School at San Diego, Calif. It was accepted on 20 June. (24)
1919: 1Lt Temple M. Joyce, Army Air Service pilot, made 300 consecutive loops in a Morane fighter over Issoudun, France. (20)
1925: Using the Navy airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3), 25 scientists and astronomers chased a solar eclipse across the U. S. (8: Jan 90)
1944: Twelfth Air Force provided air cover for Allied units landing on Anzio beach in Italy. US control of the air played a major role in defending the beachhead. (5)
1951: KOREAN WAR/OPERATION THUNDERBOLT. Close air support for United Nations ground troops remained a priority mission for Far East Air Forces in the Korean conflict. In the operation, a late January Eighth Army campaign designed to reach the Han River, T-6 Mosquito controllers patrolled ahead of friendly ground forces, notified ground forces of enemy strong spots, and called in air strikes by US fighter-bombers. Generals Matthew B. Ridgway and Earl E. Partridge reconnoitered the front lines in a T-6 prior to their 25 January dawn attack on Red Chinese forces. To sustain this offensive, in five days 68 C-119s dropped 1,162 tons of supplies, including fuel, oil, sleeping bags, C-rations, and signal wire, at Chunju. (17) (28)
1962: Two Navy F4H Phantoms, designated F-110A by the USAF, arrived at Langley AFB, Va., on a 120-day loan for orientation and evaluation. (24)
1965: The bulkiest object ever delivered by helicopter, the 2.5-ton 30-foot-tall Apollo spacecraft mockup, flew 1,000 miles from North American Aviation at Tulsa, Okla., to Cape Kennedy, Fla. (5)
1972: A remotely piloted vehicle flew for 21 hours continuously in a test at Edwards AFB, Calif. (3)
1973: The Spirit of '76, the VC-137 in which Lyndon B. Johnson became President in 1963, flew his body from Texas to Washington DC in a final tribute. (2) (26)
1978: The Tactical Air Command deployed eight F-15 Eagles from Langley AFB, Va., to Osan AB, Republic of Korea. This event gave the F-15 its first operational training deployment to the western Pacific. (16) (26)
1983: AHUAS TARA I. For this US-Honduran exercise, the Military Airlift Command moved 3,815 passengers and 2,528 tons of cargo on 65 C-141s, 156 C-130s, and 5 C-5s through 11 February. The exercise featured the airdrop of 516 Honduran paratroopers from nine C-130s. (2)
1985: FIRST ALL MILITARY SPACE SHUTTLE MISSION. Through 27 January, the Discovery flew the fifteenth Space Shuttle mission. Colonel Loren J. Shriver led a four-man crew on the Department of Defense's first dedicated mission to deliver an intelligence satellite. (8: Jan 90) (21)
1999: A Navy F-18 fired an AGM-154A Joint Standoff Weapon, built by Raytheon, for the first time in combat. The F-18 attacked an Iraqi air defense site. (21)
2002: An F-22 pilot from the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, Calif., fired an Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile and destroyed a target drone over the Point Mugu Test Range. The challenging shot was a look-down tail chase with the Navy target drone pulling ahead of the aircraft. (3)
2003: Due to the impending Iraq war, the Global Hawk Systems Program Office at Edwards AFB, Calif., accelerated the "Reachback" capability testing. That reachback capability involved a Mission Control Element in a remote location operating a unmanned aerial vehicle in a theater of war through a tactical field terminal. (3)
2005: Through 4 February, about 620 American servicemembers participated in Thailand's Exercise Cope Tiger. F-15s from the Hawaii Air National Guard's 154th Wing and 18th Wing at Kadena AB, Japan, traveled to Korat AB, Thailand, to join F/A-18s from the USS Abraham Lincoln for the exercise. It featured one-on-one aerial combat and large coordinated air strikes. (32)
2006 Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. The Air National Guard deployed over 400 members of Indiana's 122d Fighter Wing, including 12 F-16s and some 35 pilots, to Ballad AB, Iraq. (32)
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Thanks to Brett
Geopolitical Futures:
Keeping the future in focus
https://geopoliticalfutures.com
Daily Memo: Chinese Imports Fall Short, India's Vaccine Diplomacy
January 22, 2021
The EU-China "phase one" deal had disappointing results.
By GPF Staff
Phase one flop. Chinese imports from the U.S. in 2020 fell far short of Beijing's purchasing commitments in the "phase one" trade deal inked last January. Chinese customs data suggests China fulfilled just around 58 percent of its purchasing targets for the year. The deal was never going to fundamentally address core U.S.-China trade issues anyway.
South Asian vaccine diplomacy. India, one of the world's top producers of vaccines, is going big on vaccine diplomacy in South Asia despite its immense needs at home. Over the past few days, New Delhi announced huge donations of vaccines to several countries in its periphery, including Myanmar, the Maldives, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal. China is trying to play the same game, despite the mediocre trial data produced by Chinese jabs, with pledges to donate shiploads of shots to strategically vital countries like the Philippines and Pakistan.
Eurozone slowdown. The eurozone's purchasing managers' index fell to 47.5 in December from 49.1 the previous month, indicating a worsening economic slowdown. The German economy narrowly managed to sustain its expansion, with its PMI coming in at 50.8 (anything above 50 indicates growth), while France slipped to 47.0 and the rest of the eurozone was down at 44.7. With Europe returning to lockdowns in the fourth quarter, the slowdown was expected.
Russia-EU dialogue. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with European Council President Charles Michel. They discussed the possibility of jointly producing COVID-19 vaccines, as well as Russia's arrest of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Michel said he intended to bring up the topic of EU-Russian relations, which have been strained of late, with the European Council in March.
Cavusoglu in Brussels. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at NATO headquarters in Brussels. They discussed a number of issues, including the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean, Afghanistan and Libya – though they apparently did not discuss the S-400 dispute. Ankara said it would continue to support the alliance's missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cavusoglu also met with several EU officials during his three-day visit to Brussels.
Condemning Beijing. The European Parliament passed a resolution Thursday condemning Beijing's crackdown on protests in Hong Kong and expressing regret that EU negotiators failed to make any headway on human rights issues during recent talks on an EU-China investment deal. The resolution also called for sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials involved in the crackdown.
Russian weapons. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Myanmar on Thursday and signed a deal to provide the country with Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile and cannon systems, Orlan-10E unmanned aerial systems and radar stations. Military cooperation between the two countries has steadily increased over the past five years.
Lockdown violation. Albania declared Russian diplomat Alexei Krivosheev persona non grata for allegedly violating lockdown measures. He will have to leave Albania within 72 hours. The Russian Embassy in Albania said the allegations were unfounded, while the Russian Foreign Ministry called the move a "clear provocation."
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To All,
When I read the below from Burt and Dr. Rich I immediately thought of Fred Sage a friend of mine who I met at USC who many of the Navy F-8 guys may remember and I sent it to him because Fred took me and my son out to a place in Poway and showed us his plane that was like this in 1990 or so. Btw Fred's Dad invented many of the remote control parts that made R/C helicopters possible and designed and flew one of the first ones. Fred was also the Junior National champion
Modeler three years in a row. I remember seeing the three Trophies in his house. Each one was three feet high or so
Here is part of his answer
I'm somewhat surprised that aviation enthusiasts on this forum are so amazed by dynamic soaring. I guess it depends on where your interests lie.
I've often tried to describe to enthusiasts how an unpowered glider can soar at a faster speed than even jet powered models.
As for me,. since I was designing and manufacturing RC soaring aircraft beginning in 1990, I've been involved in all aspects of soaring including dynamic soaring. As an example, do you know there's a dynamic soaring site only a few miles from you in South Poway. With a wind out of the West, It certainly doesn't develop the wind gradient of Parker Mountain, but three hundred miles per hour isn't unusual. There's also a DS site overlooking Lake Hodges only a few miles West of you.
As for Parker Mountain, I designed and produced a special glider for Paul Naton. a pilot of some repute who set the then record for DS of almost 400 MPH in 1995. The glider was an almost off the shelf fuse married to a carbon fiber skinned wing with carbon fiber spars and a one inch carbon fiber joiner rod, so certainly not optimized compared to todays technology and materials.
BTW, there are far better videos on you tube although they aren't of the recent record speed. However, they're much better at showing the close up dynamic speed and the sound of 500+. MPH gliders. Additionally they give a better appreciation of the forces,, timing and precision required.
IAC, thanks for the link;
Fred
Thanks to Burt … Fascinating, as usual. Where does he find this stuff??
Bob,
Excellent video, even including launch and landing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eFD_Wj6dhk
This video was taken at Parker mountain, CA, a ridge-line with steeps slopes up-wind and down-wind.
The video encouraged me to write a portion of my Autobiography - Chapter 4, Model airplanes.
I have experienced world class Dynamic Soaring up close and personal. It was the most impressive thing I ever saw in aviation. Frigging unbelievable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eFD_Wj6dhk
History:
A guy showed his videos of radio controlled Dynamic Soaring at my company, during on of our "Lunch-N-Learn" events. Shocked, I outright accused him of lying - of showing faked, sped-up videos.
He invited me to see for myself.
A month later near Palm Springs the wind was perfect. I was with him and 3 others on the top of a steep ridge that had steep slopes both up-wind and down-wind. The wind at the top of the ridge was about 50 to 55 knots. Google earth view below shows the ridge line. The exact center of this photo is where we stood. The wind was blowing left to right in the photo. There was a primitive dirt road to the top of the ridge line so it had vehicle access.
He opened up the back of his enclosed pickup to reveal two precision-built models that looked like small scale of manned Open-Class competition sailplanes. With the wind shielded by his pickup and my car we managed to get the wings installed and he did his pre-flight radio control checks.
He launch this beautiful, very heavy RC glider that was stressed to take over 100—g turns, into the wind and he ridge soared it up to a very high altitude. He then announced to the four of us to stay behind him at all times, because if he lost sight of it for even a blink of an eye he would only later see scattered wreckage or never be able to find it.
He then dove it straight down to the downwind steep slope of the ridge, and flew the patterns shown on this video, gaining about 25 mph on each cycle. It was scary, knowing this slender bullet of a fuselage, weighing at least 40 pounds would splatter you if you got hit. It was also impressive to see it turn at extreme g levels without breaking the wing.
After going as fast as he could (that day about 470 mph) he let it shoot straight up to a speck in the sky, raised the full-span spoilers then circled down to land at his feet at zero ground speed. It took 3 of us to hold on to its wings and tail as he took it apart and stored it in his covered pickup…
One wonders that, since Dynamic Soaring can produce speeds of 8 to 10 times the wind speed, if it might be possible to generate an audible sonic boom from an RC glider !
While driving home to Mojave I designed in my head a manned sailplane for Dynamic Soaring. A small, very heavy, high L/D sailplane with the pilot lying flat on his stomach with arms and head supported to take 25 to 35-g turns. It was to be rail launched from a truck at the top of a Ridgeline, not far from an airport. It would have to land at 150 knots due to its high wing loading.
I never had the courage to build it, knowing it would be difficult for me to ask a friend to fly it. It does not even show up on my list of Never-Flown preliminary designs in Chapter 82.
Later I did a preliminary design of a new type of competition event for RC model flyers. Using a standard high school basketball stadium, setup plywood sheets to build two ridge lines, one at each end of the field. Use off-the-shelf fans to blow air over the plywood ridge lines.
The completion is a pylon race, in which the RC pilots must do several Dynamic Soaring cycles at one 'mountain', in order to reach the 'mountain at the other end of the field.
Now, to get someone to develop the idea into a real contest event……….
--------------------
BRAB team,
Burt
PS - Here is the guy that took me to the ridge that windy day: http://manormodels.com
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No props, no jets, no rockets – California's Spencer Lisenby just broke the world speed record for remote controlled aircraft, taking an unpowered RC glider transonic at 548 mph (882 km/h) using nothing but the wind. Well, that and an incredible degree of skill in a highly dangerous technique called dynamic soaring. And while it's more or less an extreme hobby at the moment, he's got some very interesting plans for the technique and the technology behind it.
Wind accelerates like mad when it goes up a hill, and since the 1960s, "slope soaring" radio-controlled glider pilots have used that reliable source of energy to keep their aircraft flying pretty much indefinitely – as long as they take care to avoid the wild, plane-eating turbulence of the "shear layer" on the leeward side behind the hill where that fast-moving air begins interacting with the much slower air shielded behind the ridge.
But in the last 20 years, a group of intrepid RC glider fanatics has been experimenting and perfecting the art of plunging through that shear layer in a loop, using the extreme push of high winds to accelerate the gliders on the way down, and the still air under the shear layer as a way of returning most of the way upward without losing energy flying into a crazy headwind. The aircraft gains roughly the speed of the tailwind every time it goes down, and loses much less on the way back up, picking up energy and speed on every loop.
Not that these hobbyists invented the technique; the black-footed albatross has been using exactly this flight pattern for millennia, harnessing the wind speed differentials created by ocean swells to traverse long distances, in any direction, without expending any energy.
"I've even read that they can perform this maneuver in their sleep," Lisenby told an audience at the TNG Technology Tech Day back in 2017, "with their wing tip mere centimeters from moving water. We all aspire to the skills of the albatross. But they're usually trying to go somewhere. We're going for speed."
Dynamic soaring, or DS, might sound innocent enough as a title, but these extraordinary pilots are now taking unpowered gliders up to transonic speeds, perilously close to the ground. Continue tuning and optimizing that tilted loop between the high and low air speeds, and the glider gets faster and faster, until either the pilot messes up the loop, the aircraft disintegrates spectacularly under extreme G-loading or flutter stresses, or you reach an airspeed where drag finally limits your ability to go faster.
Lisenby is a hopeless dynamic soaring addict, a passionate pilot and expert specialist airframe designer
DSKinetic
Lisenby is not just your average hobby flyer. He's absolutely obsessed with DS, and in addition to holding a swag of world records as a pilot, he's also a pioneering glider designer. Indeed, as a prototype designer at DSKinetic, he designs and develops all the huge gliders he flies, in conjunction with a local team, German aerodynamics experts and the University of Stuttgart.
Nothing off the shelf could come close to handling the constant 60-80 G-loadings these things experience, with spikes as high as 120 g as they whip around in their impossibly fast oval loops through turbulent air. For context, Formula One cars develop up to 6 g in the corners, and people tend to start passing out at around 8-9 g as the acceleration literally drains the blood from their brains.
The glider that just set the record is a 130-inch (3.3-m) DSKinetic Transonic DP, a taper-winged, heavily reinforced carbon beast with a design honed over many years to fly as fast as possible in dynamic soaring patterns without introducing the weird flight dynamics of swept wings. Theoretically, Lisenby says it should be capable of reaching 580 mph (933 km/h) in its current form.
On January 19th, 2021, Lisenby took advantage of a north-easterly wind over Parker Mountain, just north of Los Angeles, to notch his highest speed yet, a scarcely believable 548 mph. To put that in perspective, a 787 Dreamliner cruises at about 561 mph (903 km/h).
New World Record RC Airplane Speed 548mph
The feat was captured on the above video using a GoPro strapped to Lisenby's own forehead as he flew the thing. You'll thus have to forgive the quality of the cinematography – full-screen it on a large monitor and you'll get a sense of just how far and fast it's traveling, and how crazy the turning forces are as it rips a path through the air. Previous world record holder Bruce Tebo, who himself has broken the 500-mph (805-km/h) mark, was on hand to assist with the launch and operate the radar gun to track the glider's speed.
Why radar? "We decided on radar as the universal standard worldwide," Lisenby told the TNG conference. "Air speed has issues – the indicated airspeed has to be corrected for temperature, and it's hard for pilots to know the exact temperature and make those corrections. Consumer GPS loses its lock on satellites around 4 gs, we've been down that road. If anyone knows how to get their hands on military GPS, we should have a talk! Radar was the one standard thing – it doesn't depend on the wind speed, it's anchored to the ground, and it's easy for everyone across the world to compare their speeds with each other, apples to apples, fair comparison."
Watching Lisenby fly this thing is insane. Like watching a Formula One driver nailing inch-perfect laps at brain-frying speeds, it's hard to imagine any human having reflexes that fast, or any machine being capable of withstanding those forces. He's plunging that glider through turbulent air, under completely manual control in constantly-changing orientations, trying to maintain the optimal oval flight path for massive speed while instantaneously correcting for tiny roll motions that could plunge the thing into the ground at transonic speeds. One mistake, and this thing could easily turn a bystander into two neatly separated portions of bystander in the blink of an eye.
North-easterly winds gusting up to 65 mph (105 km/h) created a furious airflow over the top of Parker Mountain, and Lisenby harnessed the differential between this high-speed air and the still air on the leeward side of the mountain to create a kind of acceleration feedback loop for the glider
Spencer Lisenby
"Every time you go out there and fly faster than you have before, you get this feeling like you're in over your head, and your brain can't stay ahead of what's happening," he says. "It's a very difficult thing to keep up with. That's the human factor of dynamic soaring. The faster we go, the faster we have to think. The turbulence rolls your glider, and you have to make a choice which way to move the stick to maintain your heading. That takes almost half a second, and in that time, the plane's traveled more than 100 meters (324 ft) without even seeing an input from the pilot. At times, we're only five meters (16.4 ft) from the ground. You can see there's not much margin for error at these speeds!"
And yet it's that thrill that draws him to the sport. Asked if he's thought about automatic roll stabilization, he grimaces. "A friend of mine called Alan Ciccone in the US has been very active in this area. It works magnificently. The plane all but flies itself. You put it in the correct trajectory, you pull the elevator so it makes the right diameter circle, and you don't have to do much at all on the roll axis. I guess I'm an old-school guy, a bit of a purist. I actually savor the human aspect of soaring. We could get to a point where I could send my plane up a hill with some friends and just log in and find out how fast it went, but where's the fun in that? I value the research aspects of that, and I value the instrumentation for collecting data, but as a recreational activity it holds nothing for me. I love the adrenaline and the excitement of feeling the air. You learn by what the plane does to feel what it's encountering up there. It's really addictive, and I value that aspect of it."
This might be an odd kind of extreme adrenaline sport for the moment, but Lisenby thinks it's got a future as a long-range mode of flight for autonomous drones with minimal onboard energy storage.
"Go back to the albatross, the original inventor of DS," he says. "You can imagine a UAV which takes advantage of this flight pattern to traverse open expanses of ocean with no outside energy needed as long as the wind blows. If the wind isn't blowing, well, we could add solar panels to the top of the wing. The plane could land in the water and recharge its batteries, and when the wind picks back up, you'd use a propeller to take off again and begin your dynamic soaring circuit. It could go on indefinitely."
Previous world record holder Bruce Tebo launches the DSKinetics Transonic DP glider off Parker Mountain, California, with dynamic soaring expert Spencer Lisenby at the sticks. Tebo recorded a radar-measured 548-mph world record peak speed.
"Another concept," he continues, "is this idea of DSing the jetstream [narrow bands of strong wind up higher in altitude]. The jetstream has a vertical velocity gradient, you might have 100-mph (161-km/h) winds at 30,000 feet, but down at the ground level the wind velocity is zero. This velocity gradient, although it's not as abrupt as what we use on a ridge for RC gliders ... well, it's not enough to go fast with, but it's enough to sustain flight. You could conceivably drop a plane out of an aircraft at 30,000 feet, and have it come right back up, and keep on doing it as long as the jetstream remains active. Lehigh University's been working on that concept, it's called the Jetstreamer if you want to look into it further."
"Where can we go next? I've heard it's really windy on Mars," he laughs. "Looking at the surface of the planet, I notice it's filled with these craters. What's a crater but an ideal DS ridge, wrapped 360 degrees around? Any wind direction, you've got your DS ready to go!"
What a fascinating and extreme little slice of the RC gliding hobby – which itself is hardly a massive mainstream pursuit. To really geek out on the technology, as well as the huge passion, intricate knowledge and considerable humor Lisenby puts into dynamic soaring, I'd encourage you to watch that full hour-long TNG Technology Tech Day presentation. As somebody who's never seen an RC glider in real life, I found it riveting. It's hard not to get swept up in the energy of somebody so deeply into his niche.
Source: Spencer Lisenby via DroneDJ
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