Air America helicopter evacuates refugees during the Fall of Saigon. (Hubert van Es/Corbis)
This iconic photograph was taken 29 April 1975 by Dutch photographer Hubert van Es. A Bell Model 204B helicopter operated by Air America is shown parked on the roof of the Pittman Apartments at 22 Gia Long Street in Sài Gòn, the capital city of the Republic of Vietnam.
Although commonly described as the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy, the actual embassy was a much larger building several blocks away. This building was a residence for U.S. diplomatic personnel.
Air America Bell 205D N47004 (s/n 3211) picking up evacuees from the Pittman Apartments in Saigon, 29 April 1975. (Phillipe Buffon/Corbis)
After this helicopter took off, hundreds of people waited on the roof, but no one else came for them.
The United States government’s decision to abandon the people of South Vietnam after propping up their government for over ten years led to the deaths of many thousands at the hands of the Communist invaders.
This is one of the most shameful events in the history of my country.
Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster “Princess Patricia” of No. 514 Squadron at RAF Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, England, being loaded with food for Operation Manna, 29 April 1945. (Pilot Officer Penfold, Royal Air Force Official Photographer/Imperial War Museum)A Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster heavy bomber drops food packages over The Netherlands.
29 April 1945: With the defeat of Nazi Germany imminent, millions of Dutch citizens were still under the control of the occupying German army. Food was very scarce. The Allies tried to negotiate a cease fire so that American and British airplanes could fly into The Netherlands and drop food to the people.
The truce had not yet been agreed to by Germany, but on 29 April, Operations Manna and Chowhound began.
The first night, to test the feasibility of the project, two Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster four-engine long range heavy bombers of No. 101 Squadron—Bad Penny, crewed by Canadians, and a second ship flown by an Australian crew—were loaded with food at RAF Ludford Magna and flew into The Netherlands at barely 50 feet (15 meters) above the ground.
To drop the food they simply opened the bomb bay doors and the bags and packages fell to the starving people below.
A Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster drops bundles of food in The Netherlands during Operation Manna, 1945. (International Bomber Command Center)
With Flight Sergeant Robert Fairful Upcott, D.F.M., Royal Canadian Air Force, [service number R187858] leading with Bad Penny, the two Lancasters ¹ dropped their food on the Racetrack Duindigt at Wassernaar, near The Hague, then returned along the same corridor they had flown on the way in. At 2:00 p.m. that afternoon, another 200 Lancasters followed.
Flight crew of Avro Lancaster, “Bad Penny.” Standing, left to right: Wireless Operator Stan Jones; Flight Engineer John Corner, D.F.M.; Aircraft Commander, Flight Sergeant Robert F. Upcott, D.F.M.; and Navigator Bill Walton. Kneeling, Aerial Gunner Bill Demo; Mid-Upper Gunner Ossie Blower; and Bomb Aimer Bill Gray. (Canadian Historical Aircraft Association)
Over the next ten days, approximately 11,000 tons (9,979 Metric tons) of food were dropped by Royal Air Force Lancasters and U.S. Army Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.
A Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster drops food packages from its bomb bay while flying at very low level over The Netherlands during Operation Manna.
¹ The second Lancaster was commanded by Flight Officer P. G. L. Collett, Royal Australian Air Force (A424149).
Lieutenant Edward V. Rickenbacker, 94th Aero Squadron, with a Nieuport 28 C.1 fighter. (U.S. Air Force)
29 April 1918: Lieutenant Edward Vernon Rickenbacker, 94th Aero Squadron, Air Service, American Expeditionary Force, while flying a Nieuport 28 C.1, scored his first aerial victory when he shot down a Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte Pfalz D.III fighter near Saint-Baussant, France. He was awarded the first of eight Distinguished Service Crosses. By the end of World War I, he had destroyed 26 enemy aircraft.
1st Lieutenant Edward V. Rickenbacker in the cockpit of a Nieuport 28 C.1 fighter, France, 1918. (U.S. Air Force)
The Nieuport 28 C.1 ¹ was a single-place, single-engine, single-bay biplane fighter built by Société Anonyme des Éstablissements Nieuport for the French military. It was rejected, however, in favor of the SPAD S.XIII C.1. The new United States’ Air Service was in great need of fighters. There were none available of American manufacture, and because the new SPAD was in great demand, 297 Nieuport 28s were acquired by the American Expeditionary Force and assigned to the 94th and 95th Aero Squadrons.
U.S. Air Service Nieuport 28 C.1, N6215. (U.S. Air Force)
The Nieuport 28 C.1 was 6.30 meters (20 feet, 8 inches) long with an upper wingspan of 8.160 meters (26 feet, 9¼ inches), lower wingspan of 7.79 meters ( 25 feet, 6-2/3 inches) and height of 2.30 meters (7 feet, 6½ inches). The upper wing had a chord of 1.30 meters (4 feet, 3.2 inches), and the lower, which was staggered behind the upper, had a chord of 1.00 meters (3 feet, 3.4). The upper wing had very slight dihedral, while the lower wing had none. Its empty weight was 399 kilograms (880 pounds) and loaded weight was 626 kilograms (1,380 pounds).
Nieuport 28 C.1, serial number 6215.
The Nieuport 28 C.1 was powered by an air-cooled, normally-aspirated 15.892 liter (969.786-cubic-inch-displacement) Gnome Monosoupape 9 Type N nine-cylinder rotary engine with a compression ratio of 5.45:1. The Monosoupape had a single overhead exhaust valve actuated by a pushrod and rocker arm. As the pistons reached the bottom of their exhaust strokes, a series of intake ports near the bottom of the cylinder were uncovered. The intake charge was drawn from the engine crankcase. The Type N produced 160 horsepower at 1,300 r.p.m. and turned a two-bladed fixed-pitch wooden propeller with a diameter of 2.50 meters (8 feet, 2.4 inches). The engine weighed 330 pounds (150 kilograms).
The Nieuport 28 had a top speed of 198 kilometers per hour (123 miles per hour) at 2,000 meters (6,562 feet) and 1,380 r.p.m., a range of 290 kilometers (180 miles) and a service ceiling of 5,300 meters (17,388 feet). Duration at full power was 1 hour, 45 minutes.
Two .303-caliber Vickers machine guns were mounted on the cowling, firing forward through the propeller arc.
Pfalz D.III (SDASM)
The Pfalz D.III was a single-seat, single-engine, single-bay biplane fighter built by Pfalz Flugzeugwerke. The fuselage was built of two layers of plywood strips laid over a mold to form one half. The two halves were glued together. This was then covered with doped fabric. The wings were made of fabric-covered wood spars and ribs, with wooden ailerons.
It was 6.95 meters (22 feet, 9½ inches) long with a wingspan of 9.4 meters (30 feet, 0 inches) and height of 2.67 meters (8 feet, 9 inches). Empty weight was 695 kilograms (1,532 pounds) and gross weight was 933 kilograms (2,057 pounds).
The fighter was powered by a 14.778 liter (901.812 cubic inches) water-cooled Mercedes D.IIIa single overhead cam inline six-cylinder engine with two valves per cylinder and a compression ratio of 4.64:1. It produced 174 horsepower at 1,400 r.p.m. The D.IIIa weighed 660.0 pounds (299.4 kilograms).
The maximum speed of the Pfalz D.III was 185 kilometers per hour (115 miles per hour) at Sea Level, and the service ceiling was 5,200 meters (17,060 feet).
It was armed with two 7.92 mm LMG 08/15 Spandau machine guns.
Approximately 1,010 Pfalz D.IIIs were built.
Pfalz D.IIIa 8413/17
¹ “C.1” was the French designation for a single-place chasseur, their World War I term for what we now consider to be a fighter.
28 April 1988: Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a Boeing 737-297 airliner, FAA registration N73711, named Queen Liliuokalani, was enroute from Hilo International Airport (IPO) to Honolulu International Airport (HNL) with a crew of 5 and 89 passengers.
Captain Robert Schornstheimer in the cockpit of an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737. (Honolulu Star Bulletin)
The aircraft commander was Captain Robert L. Schornstheimer, an Airline Transport Pilot with 8,500 flight hours, of which 6,700 hours was in the Boeing 737. First Officer Madeline Lynn Tompkins also held an Airline Transport certificate. She had flown 8,000 hours, with 3,500 in the B-737. A Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controller was on the flight deck as an observer.
First Officer Tompkins made the takeoff at 1:25 p.m. and climbed in visual conditions to Flight Level 240 (24,000 feet/7,315 meters), reaching that altitude at about 1:48 p.m.
Captain Madeline Lynn Tompkins, Hawaiian Airlines, was the first officer aboard Aloha Flight 243. She was awarded the Air Line Pilots Association 2010 Pilot Assistance Award for her exceptional leadership in supporting airline pilots who experience serious psychological trauma. (ALPA)
As the airliner leveled at FL240, a portion of the fuselage tore loose and caused an explosive decompression of the aircraft. The flight deck door blew away and Captain Schornstheimer could see “blue sky where the first-class ceiling had been.” The captain took the controls, deployed the speed brakes and began an immediate descent at 280–290 knots (322–334 miles per hour/519–537 kilometers per hour), with a rate of descent as high as 4,100 feet per minute (20.83 meters per second). He turned toward the nearest airport, Kahalui Airport (OGG) on the island of Maui. First Officer Tompkins handled all communications as well as assisting the captain flying the airplane. Captain Schornstheimer described the flight controls as loose and sluggish.
Descending through 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) he began to slow the airliner, but below 170 knots (195.6 miles per hour/314.8 kilometers per hour), it became less controllable so he maintained that speed for the approach to the runway. At the normal point in the approach, the crew lowered the landing gear but the green light for the nose gear did not illuminate. The manual system was activated. The green light did not come on, but neither did the red light. Captain Schornstheimer felt that it was imperative to get the airliner on the ground, so there was no time to troubleshoot the landing gear.
At this time Flight 243 began to yaw and roll. The number one engine had failed. (Both engines were damaged from ingested debris.) An unsuccessful attempt was made to restart.
The Boeing 737 landed on Runaway 02 at Kahalui Airport at 13:58:45, just over ten minutes since the emergency began. The thrust reverser of the number two engine was used to slow the airplane and when it rolled to a stop, the emergency evacuation was begun.
Passengers and crew of Flight 243 begin to evacuate the damaged airliner at Kahalui Airport, Maui. (Unattributed)Chief Flight Attendant Clarabelle Ho Lansing. “C.B.” had been a flight attendant with Aloha Airlines for 37 years.
When the fuselage decompressed, Chief Flight Attendant Clarabelle Ho Lansing had been standing in the aisle at Row 5. She was thrown out of the airplane and fell to the ocean, 24,000 feet (7,315 meters) below. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Cape Corwin coordinated a three-day search along with Coast Guard and Marine Corps helicopters, airplanes and other ships. Her body was never recovered.
Flight Attendant Jane Sato-Tomita sustained serious head injuries and was unconscious. Flight Attendant Michelle Honda and many passengers were also injured by flying debris and the effects of decompression.
Boeing 737-297 N73711 was damaged beyond repair. It was scrapped in place. At the time of the accident, the airframe had accumulated 35,496 hours (TTAF) with 89,680 cycles. The cause of the fuselage failure was fatigue cracking around rivets as a result of the vast number of pressurization/depressurization cycles it had experienced, as well as operation in a salty coastal environment. During the NTSB investigation, a passenger reported having seen a crack in the fuselage when boarding the flight, but did not say anything about it to the crew.
Captain Schornstheimer remained with Aloha Airlines until he retired in 2005. Mimi Tompkins also stayed with Aloha and rose to the rank of captain. When Aloha Airlines ceased operations in 2008 she went to Hawaiian Airlines.
Queen Liliuokalani, Aloha Airlines’ Boeing 737-297 N73711, at Kahalui Airport (OGG), Maui, Hawaii. (Unattributed)
The Boeing 737-200 series was a short-to-medium range narrow body twin-engine civil transport. The -200 first flew 8 August 1967. It had a flight crew of two and could carry a maximum of 136 passengers.
The 737-200 is 100 feet, 2 inches (30.531 meters) long with a wingspan of 93 feet, 0 inches (28.346 meters) and overall height of 36 feet, 10 inches (11.227 meters). The wing is swept 25.00° at ¼ chord, and there are 6° dihedral. Its empty weight is 69,700 pounds (31,615 kilograms). Flight 243’s actual takeoff weight was 93,133 pounds (42,224 kilograms). (Its maximum certificated takeoff weight was 100,000 pounds (45,359 kilograms).
Boeing 737-200 three-view illustration with dimensions.
The airliner is powered by two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-9A low-bypass axial-flow turbofan engines, each producing 14,500 pounds of thrust (64.499 kilonewtons) at Sea Level. JT8D-9A was a two-spool engine with a 2-stage fan section, 11-stage compressor (4 low- and 7 high-pressure stages), nine combustion chambers and a 4-stage turbine (1 high- and 3 low-pressure stages). The JT8D-9A was 42.5 inches (1.080 meters) in diameter, 123.5 inches (3.137 meters) long, and weighed 3,196 pounds (1,450 kilograms).
Maximum speed is 0.82 Mach (544 miles per hour/780 kilometers per hour) and the service ceiling is 35,000 feet (10,700 meters).
The 737-200 first flew 8 August 1967. 1,095 –200s were built. The last one in service with an American airline, Aloha Airlines, was retired 21 March 2008.
Aloha Airlines’ Boeing 737-297, N73712, King Kamehameha, c/n 20210. (NASM-9A 10180)
28 April 1961: Colonel Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov, Hero of the Soviet Union, flew a prototype Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21F interceptor, the Ye-6T/1, 31 Red, to a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Altitude of 34,714 meters (113,891 feet).¹ This exceeded the record set five months earlier by Captain Joe B. Bailey, U.S. Air Force, with a Lockheed F-104C Starfighter, by 3,201 meters (10,502 feet).²
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-6T/1 prototype, “31 Red”. (Wings of Russia)
The Ye-6T/1 and Ye-6T/3 were converted from the first and third MiG-21F prototypes. These experimental airplanes were built to test various missiles, engines and canard/wing configurations.
Ye-6T/1 was powered by a Tumansky R-11F2-300 afterburning turbojet engine and carried a liquid-fueled Sevruk S3-20M5A rocket engine mounted under the fuselage. The rocket produced 29.42 kilonewtons (6,614 pounds of thrust) at Sea Level. The prototype carried sufficient rocket fuel for 100 seconds burn time.
Mosolov set two world speed records with the Ye-6T/1 on 31 October 1959, with a performance of 2,388.00 kilometers per hour over a straight 15/25 kilometer course,³ and a 100 kilometer closed course.⁴
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-6T, prototype MiG-21-F-13
Major General Vladimir Konstantinovich Kokkinai had also set a world speed record with 31 Red. On 16 September 1960, Kokkinaki flew the Ye-6T/1 to 2,148.66 kilometers per hour (1,335 miles per hour) around a 100 kilometer closed course.⁵
Ye-6T/1 and Ye-6T/3 became the prototypes for the MiG-21-F-13 short range supersonic interceptor (NATO designation: Fishbed-C)
A Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21-F-13, “63 Red,” at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
The Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21-Ф-13 (Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21F-13) is a short-range supersonic interceptor with a “tailed-delta” configuration. The MiG-21-F-13 is 13.46 meters (44 feet, 1.9 inches) long, with a wingspan of 7.154 meters (23 feet, 5.7 inches), and height of 4.71 meters (15 feet, 5.4 inches). It has an empty weight of 4,871 kilograms (10,739 pounds), and a normal takeoff weight of 7,100 kilograms (15,653 pounds).
The MiG-21-F-13 was powered by a single Tumansky R-11F-300 engine. This is a dual-spool, axial-flow turbojet with afterburner. It has a 6-stage compressor section (3 low- and 3 high-pressure stages) and a 2-stage turbine (1 high- and 1 low-pressure stage). The R-11F-300 is rated at 8,600 pounds of thrust (38.26 kilonewtons), and 11,200 pounds (49.82 kilonewtons) with afterburner. It is 4.600 meters (15 feet, 1.1 inches) long, 0.907 meters (2 feet, 11.7 inches) in diameter, and weighs 1,124 kilograms (2,477 pounds).
The MiG-21-F-13 had a maximum speed of 1,200 kilometers per hour (746 miles per hour) at Sea Level, and 2,175 kilometers per hour (1,351 miles per hour) at high altitude. It could reach its service ceiling of 19,000 meters (62,334 feet) in just over 13 minutes. Its range is 1,300 kilometers (808 miles).
The -F-13 was armed with one Nudelman-Rikhter NR-30 30 mm autocannon with 30 rounds of ammunition, and two Vympel R-3S infrared-homing air-to-air missiles (NATO: AA-2A Atoll).
Colonel Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov, Hero of the Soviet Union
Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov was born 3 May 1926 at Ufa, Bashkortostan, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was educated at the Central Aviation Club, where he graduated in 1943, and then went to the Special Air Forces School. In 1945 he completed the Primary Pilot School and was assigned as an instructor at the Chuguev Military Aviation School at Kharkiv, Ukraine.
In 1953 Mosolov was sent to the Ministry of Industrial Aviation Test Pilot School at Ramenskoye Airport, southeast of Moscow, and 6 years later, to the Moscow Aviation Institute. He was a test pilot at the Mikoyan Experimental Design Bureau from 1953 to 1959, when he became the chief test pilot.
Georgy Mosolov set six world speed and altitude records. He was named a Hero of the Soviet Union, 5 October 1960, and Honored Test Pilot of the Soviet Union, 20 September 1967. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale awarded him its Henry De La Vaulx Medal three times: 1960, 1961 and 1962. The medal is presented to the holder of a recognized absolute world aviation record, set the previous year.
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-8/1, 81 Red. This is the airplane Mosolov flew on 11 September 1962. (Mikoyan)
On 11 September 1962, an experimental Mikoyan Ye-8 that Colonel Mosolov was flying suffered a catastrophic compressor failure at Mach 2.15. Engine fragments heavily damaged to prototype and it began to break apart. Severely injured, Mosolov ejected from the doomed airplane at Mach 1.78. He had suffered a severe head injury, two broken arms and a broken leg during the ejection and became entangled in the parachute’s shroud lines. His other leg was broken when he landed in a forest. The following day he suffered cardiac arrest. During a surgical procedure, he went in to cardiac arrest a second time.
Georgy Mosolov recovering in a hospital, 1962. (Мужская работа)
Mosolov survived but his test flying career was over. His recovery took more than a year, and though he was able to fly again, he could not resume his duties as a test pilot.
Georgy Mosolov served as an international representative for Aeroflot until 1992. He was also a department head at the Higher Komsomol School (Moscow University for the Humanities).
Mosolov was Chairman of the USSR Hockey Federation from 1969 to 1973. He was an Honored Master of Sports of the USSR.
Colonel Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov, Soviet Air Forces, Hero of the Soviet Union, died 17 March 2018, at Moscow, Russia, at the age of 91 years. He was buried at the Vagankovsoye cemetery in Moscow.
