The prototype Douglas DC-1, X223Y, takes off from Clover Field, Santa Monica, California, 1 July 1933. (Airport Journals)
1 July 1933: 12:36 p.m., the Douglas DC-1 took off from Clover Field, Santa Monica, California, on its first flight. In the cockpit were Carl Anson Cover and Fred Herman.
Douglas DC1 X223Y. (SDA&SM)
The duration of the flight was just twelve12 minutes. during the flight both engines lost power several times. It was later determined that the engines’ carburetors had been installed backwards. This caused their floats to close when the airplane was in a climb.
Douglas DC-1 X223Y (San Diego Air & Space Museum, Michael Blaine Collection, Catalog #: Blaine_00263
The Douglas DC-1 was a prototype commercial transport, built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, Santa Monica, California. It was a twin-engine, all-metal, low-wing monoplane with conventional landing gear. It had a flight crew of two pilots, and provisions for 12 passengers.
Douglas DC-1 NC223Y. (American Aviation Historical Society, via Smithsonian Magazine)
The new airplane had been requested by Transcontinental and Western Air, Inc. It would be required to take off on a single engine from Winslow, Arizona—at 4,941 feet (1,506 meters) above Sea Level, the highest airfield in the T.W.A. route—and to climb to an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), again on only one engine. It was required to carry more passengers than the Boeing Model 247, and to have a landing speed of 55 miles per hour (89 kilometers per hour).
The Douglas DC-1, X223Y, in flight. (Larry Westin)
The DC-1 was 60 feet, 0 inches (11.288 meters) long, with a wing span of 85 feet, 0 inches (25.908 meters), and height of 16 feet, 0 inches (4.877 meters). Its empty weight was 11,780 pounds (5,343 kilograms), and gross weight, 17,500 pounds (7,938 kilograms).
The DC-1 was powered by two supercharged, air-cooled, Wright Cyclone SGR-1820-F3 nine-cylinder radial engines, These engines had a compression ratio of 6.4:1 and required 87-octane gasoline. They were rated at 700 horsepower at 1,950 r.p.m. They turned three-bladed variable-pitch propellers throug a 16:11 gear reduction. The -F3 was 3 feet, 11-3/16 inches (1.199 meters) long, 4 feet, 5¾ inches (1.365 meters) in diameter, and weighed 1,047 pounds (475 kilograms).
Douglas DC-1 X223Y at Grand Central Air Terminal, Glendale, California.
The DC-1 had a cruise speed of 190 miles per hour (306 kilometers per hour) and maximum speed of 210 miles per hour (338 kilometers per hour). Its range was 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers), and the service ceiling was 23,000 feet (7,010 meters).
Only one DC-1 was built. It was rolled out of its hangar 22 June 1933. Registered X223Y, it made its first flight, 1 July 1933, at Clover Field, Santa Monica, California, with test pilots Carl Cover and Fred Herman in the cockpit.
NC223Y was retired from passenger service in 1936. T.W.A. loaned it to the U.S. government for high altitude research. In May 1938 NC223Y was sold to The Right Honourable Vicount Forbes at Croydon, 27 May 1938, and registered G-AFIF, 25 June 1938. It was re-sold to France, in September 1938. The DC-1 was again sold, this time to Spanish Republican government, and operated by Lineas Aéreas Postales Espanolas, also known as LAPE. The airplane made a forced landing at Malaga, Spain, in December 1940. It was damaged beyond repair.
Wreck of the Douglas DC-1, Malaga, Spain. (Weird Wings)A model of the Douglas DC-1 being tested in the Guggenheim Aeronautics Laboratory (GALCIT) 10-foot wind tunnel at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) in Pasadena, California. (California Institute of Technology)
First Lieutenant James Harold Doolittle, Air Service, United States Army. “Jimmy” Doolittle is wearing an embroidered Airplane Pilot badge and the World War I Victory Medal ribbon. (U.S. Air Force)
1 July 1920: James Harold Doolittle was commissioned as a second lieutenant, Air Service, United States Army. The commission was accepted 19 September 1920. On the same date, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, Air Service. This was accepted 17 March 1921.
“Jimmy” Doolittle had enlisted as a private, 1st class, in the Aviation Section, Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps, 10 November 1917. He received a commission as a second lieutenant, Aviation Section, Signal Officers’ Reserve Corps, 11 March 1918, and was assigned to active duty the following day.
Following the passage of the National Defense Act of 1920, which established the Air Service, Doolittle’s O.R.C. commission was vacated 19 September 1920, and he was given a commission as a first lieutenant, Air Service, United States Army, retroactive to 1 July 1920.
Leutnant Kurt Wintgens, Luftstreitkräfte, wearing the Pour le Mérite (the “Blue Max”) (Postkartenvertrieb W. Sanke)
1 July 1915: German Luftstreitkräfte fighter pilot Leutnant Kurt Wintgens was flying a pre-production Fokker M.5K/MG, number E.5/15, (designated Eindecker III when placed in production), which was equipped with a single fixed, forward-firing machine gun. An interrupter gear driven off the engine stopped the machine gun momentarily as the propeller blades crossed the line of fire. This was known as synchronization.
At approximately 1800 hours, Leutnant Wintgens engaged a French Morane-Saulnier Type L two-place observation airplane east of Lunéville in northeastern France. The French airplane’s observer fired back with a rifle. Eventually, the Morane-Saulnier was struck by bullets in its engine and forced down.
Wintgens is believed to have achieved the first aerial victory using a synchronized machine gun, though because his victim went down inside Allied lines, the victory was not officially credited.
Closeup of a Fokker E.I’s Oberursel U.0 seven cylinder rotary engine, and Stangensteuerung synchronizer gear drive cam/rod unit behind engine crankcase.
The Fokker prototype was armed with an air-cooled 7.9 mm Parabellum MG14 aircraft machine gun made by Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken Aktien-Gesellschaft. This gun fired ammunition from a cloth belt which was contained inside a metal drum. It had a rate of fire of 600–700 rounds per minute. The synchronization mechanism had been designed by Anton Herman Gerard Fokker, who was also the airplane’s designer.
A Fokker advertisement in Motor, 1917.
The Fokker Aviatik GmbH M.5K/MG Eindecker III was a single-place, single-engine monoplane fighter constructed of a steel tubing fuselage with a doped fabric covering. It had a length of 6.75 meters (22.15 feet), a wingspan of 8.95 meters (29.36 feet) and height of 2.40 meters (7.87 feet). The airplane had an empty weight of 370 kilograms (815.7 pounds) and gross weight of 580 kilograms (1,278.7 pounds).
It was powered by an 11.835 liter (722.2 cubic inch) air-cooled Motorenfabrik Oberursel U.0 seven-cylinder rotary engine which produced 80 Pferdestärke (78.9 horsepower). This engine was a German-built version of the French Société des Moteurs Gnome 7 Lambda engine.
The M.5K/MG had a maximum speed of 130 kilometers per hour (80.8 miles per hour) and a service ceiling of 3,000 meters (9,843 feet). Its range was 200 kilometers (124.3 miles).
Morane Saulnier Type L (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)
The Aéroplanes Morane-Saulnier Type L was a single-engine two-place monoplane used as a scouting aircraft. The single wing is mounted above to fuselage on struts. This type is called a “parasol wing.” The airplane is 6.88 meters (22.57 feet) long with a wingspan of 11.20 meters (36.75 feet) long and height of 3.93 meters (12.89 feet). Its empty weight is 393 kilograms (866 pounds) and gross weight is 677.5 kilograms (1,494 pounds).
The Type L was powered by a 10.91 liter (665.79 cubic inch) Société des Moteurs Le Rhône 9C nine-cylinder rotary engine which produced 83 horsepower at 1,285 r.p.m.
The Morane Salunier Type L had a maximum speed of 125 kilometers per hour (78 miles per hour). It could be armed with one .303-caliber Lewis light machine gun on a flexible mount.
Kurt Hermann Fritz Karl Wintgens was born 1 August 1894 at Neustadt in Oberschlesien, Prussia. He was the son of Lieutenant Paul Wingens, a cavlary officer, and Martha gb. Bohlmann.
Wintgens entered a military academy as an officer cadet in 1913, but with the outbreak of World War I, he was appointed a lieutenant and sent to the Eastern Front. He earned the Iron Cross.
Leutnant Wintgens was transferred to the Luftstreitkräfte as an observer, but then trained as a pilot.
Wintgens was officially credited with 19 aerial victories, with three more unconfirmed. After his eighth victory he was awarded “the Blue Max,” (Pour le Mérite).
Kurt Wintgens was shot down near Viller-Carbonnel, Somme, France, 25 September 1916. He was killed in the crash.
William Willard, at left, and Harriet Quimby, just prior to takeoff at Squantum, Massachusetts, 1 July 1912. (John F. Gray)
1 July 1912: While flying her new two-place Blériot XI monoplane, at the Third Annual Boston Aviation Meet at Squantum, Massachusetts, Harriet Quimby and her passenger, William A. P. Willard, Jr., organizer of the Meet, flew out over the water:
As the pair returned from circling the Boston Light far out in the bay, the sky had turned a dazzling orange. Five thousand spectators watched as the monoplane approached over the tidal flats, strikingly silhouetted against the blazing sky. Without any warning, the plane’s tail suddenly rose sharply, and Willard was pitched from the plane. The two-passenger Blériot was known for having balance problems, and without Willard in the rear seat, the plane became gravely destabilized.
For a moment it seemed that Quimby was regaining control of the plane. But then it canted forward sharply again, and this time Quimby herself was thrown out. The crowd watched in horror as the two plunged a thousand feet to their deaths in the harbor. Ironically, the plane righted itself and landed in the shallow water with minimal damage.
Quimby was 37 years old.
—excerpt from PBS NOVA article, “America’s First Lady of the Air,” by Peter Tyson
An unidentified man at the left of this photograph is carrying the body of Harriet Quimby. (Detail from photograph by Leslie Jones, Boston Herald/Boston Public Library)
The cause of the accident is unknown and there was much speculation at the time. What is known is that neither Quimby nor Willard were wearing restraints. Also, the Blériot XI was known to be longitudinally unstable. With the nose pitched down the tail plane created more lift, which caused the nose to pitch down even further.
Massachusetts Standard Certificate of Death, Harriett Quimby.
Harriet Quimby was born 11 May 1875 at Arcadia, Michigan. She was the fourth child of William F. Quimby, a farmer, and Ursula M. Cook Quimby. The family moved to California in 1887, initially settling in Arroyo Grande, and then San Francisco. There, she worked as an actress, and then a writer for the San Francisco Call newspaper, and Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly. Quimby also wrote a number of screenplays for early Hollywood movies which were directed by D.W. Griffiths.
Harriet Quimby portrayed a fishermaiden in D.W. Griffith’s “Lines of White on a Sullen Sea,” 1911. (IMDb)
Harriet Quimby was the first American woman to become a licensed pilot. After 33 flight lessons over a four-month period at the Moisant Aviation School at Hempstead, Long Island, New York, on 1 August 1911, Harriet Quimby took her flight test and became the first woman to receive a pilot’s license, Number 37, from the Aero Club of America. She was called as “America’s First Lady of the Air.”
Harriet Quimby, September 1910. (Edmunds Bond/The Boston Globe)
Miss Quimby was well-known throughout the United States and Europe, and she wore a “plum colored” satin flying suit. But she was a serious aviator. Just twelve weeks earlier, on 6 April 1912, Harriet Quimby became only the second pilot to fly across the English Channel when she flew a Blériot XI from Dover to Hardelot-Plage, Pas-de-Calais, in 1 hour, 9 minutes. Her only instruments were a hand-held compass and a watch.
Harriet Quimby was buried at the Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.
The wreck of Harriet Quimby’s Blériot XI at Squantum, Massachussetts, 1 July 1912. Earle Lewis Ovington is standing at center, and Miss Quimby’s mechanician, Monsieur Hardy, is at the right edge of the image.
Miss Quimby’s airplane was a tandem seat variant of the Blériot XI single-seat, single-engine monoplane, designed by Raymond Saulnier and built by Louis Charles Joseph Blériot. The basic airplane was 24 feet, 11 inches (7.595 meters) long with a wingspan of 27 feet, 11 inches (8.509 meters) and overall height of 8 feet, 10 inches (2.692 meters). The wings had a chord of 6 feet (1.829 meters). The airplane had an empty weight of 507 pounds (229.9 kilograms).
In its original configuration, the airplane was powered by an air-cooled, 3.774 liter (230.273 cubic inches) R.E.P. two-row, seven-cylinder fan engine (or “semi-radial”) which produced 30 horsepower at 1,500 r.p.m., driving a four-bladed paddle-type propeller. The R.E.P. engine weighed 54 kilograms (119 pounds). This engine was unreliable and was soon replaced by an air-cooled 3.534 liter (215.676 cubic inch) Alessandro Anzani & Co., 60° (some sources state 55°) three-cylinder “fan”-type radial engine (or W-3) and a highly-efficient Hélice Intégrale Chauvière two-bladed fixed-pitch propeller, which had a diameter of 6 feet, 8 inches (2.032 meters). The Anzani W-3 was a direct-drive, right-hand tractor engine which produced 25 horsepower at 1,400 r.p.m. It was 1.130 meters (3 feet 8.49 inches) long, 1.500 meters (4 feet, 11.01 inches) high, and 0.720 meters (2 feet, 4.35 inches) wide. The engine weighed 66 kilograms (145.5 pounds).
The Blériot XI had a maximum speed of 47 miles per hour (76 kilometers per hour) and the service ceiling was (3,280 feet) 1,000 meters.
Miss Harriet Quimby, 1911, (Leslie Jones Collection, Boston Public Library)
Amy Johnson was born 1 July 1903 at Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the first of two daughters of John William Johnson and Amy Hodge Johnson. She attended The Boulevard Municipal Secondary School in Kingston before going on to the University of Sheffield in South Yorkshire. There, she majored in Economics and graduated in 1923 with Bachelor of Arts degree.
Miss Johnson worked as a secretary for a London law firm from 1925 to 1929. She joined the London Aeroplane Club at the de Havilland Aerodrome, Stag Lane, where one of her flight instructors was Captain Valentine Henry Baker, M.C., A.F.C., a World War I fighter pilot who would later co-found the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company. She trained in a de Havilland DH.60 Cirrus II Moth, and on 9 June 1929, after 15 hours, 45 minutes of dual instruction, made her first solo flight.
Amy Johnson’s application for an Air Ministry Pilot’s Licence. (The National Archives Catalogue Ref: BT 217 /1208)
Johnson was issued a Pilot’s Certificate and License by the Air Ministry of Great Britain, 6 July 1929. This was an “A” Flying Certificate, for private pilots. She was also awarded a Certificate for Navigators, and in December 1929, became the first woman to be certified as an Engineer (aircraft mechanic).
With the financial assistance of her father and of Baron Charles Cheers Wakefield, the founder of the Wakefield Oil Company (better known as Castrol), she purchased a one-year-old de Havilland DH.60G Gipsy Moth biplane, c/n 804, registered G-AAAH. It had previously been owned by Air Taxis Ltd., of Stag Lane (a company formed by G.B.H. “Rex” Mundy and Captain W. Laurence Hope) and first registered 30 August 1928. Johnson named her airplane Jason, which was the name of her father’s business.
Miss Amy Johnson with her de Havilland DH-60G Gipsy Moth, G-AAAH, at Stag Lane, 5 May 1930. (Central Press/Getty Images)
On 5 May 1929, Amy Johnson and Jason took off from Croyden Aerodrome on a 19-day, 11,000-mile (17,700 kilometer) journey to Australia. She arrived at Darwin, Northern Territory, on 24 May.
Amy Johnson lands at Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, 24 May 1930. (Fox Photo/Getty Images)
For her accomplishment, she won a £10,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail, a London newspaper. The Australian Air Ministry issued her its Pilot Certificate and License Number 1. The International League of Aviators awarded her The Harmon International Aviatrix Trophy for 1930.
Amy Johnson was awarded a prize of 10,000 by the Daily Mail for her flight. (DailyMail.com)Amy Johnson with Jason.
In the King’s Birthday Honours, announced 3 June 1930, George V, King of the United Kingdom and British Dominions, appointed Amy Johnson a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
Amy Johnson, CBE, by Sir John Longstaff, 1930. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
CENTRAL CHANCERY OF THE ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD
St. James’s Palace, S.W.1
3rd June, 1930.
The KING has been graciously pleased, on the occasion of His Majesty’s Birthday, to give orders for the following promotions in, and appointments to, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire :—
To be Commanders of the Civil Division of the said Most Excellent Order :—
Miss Amy Johnson, in recognition of her outstanding flight to Australia.
—Supplement to the London Gazette, Number 33611, Tuesday, 3 June, 1930, at Page 3481
Amy Johnson, C.B.E., July 1930. (Sasha)
Amy Johnson made a number of record setting long-distance flights, both solo and with other pilots, one of whom was James Allan Mollison. Mollison proposed marriage only a few hours after first meeting her. They married in July 1932. She soon after set a new record for a solo flight from London, England, to Cape Town, South Africa, flying a de Havilland DH.80 Puss Moth there in 4 days, 6 hours, 54 minutes, 14–18 November 1932. She broke the previous record which had been set by Jim Mollison. For this flight, she was awarded the Segrave Trophy of the Royal Automobile Club, for “the most outstanding demonstration of transport on land, sea or air.”
The couple made a transatlantic flight, another flight from Britain to India, and competed in the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race from England to Australia. She was twice elected president of the Women’s Engineering Society.
1st April 1936: English aviator Amy Mollison, nee Johnson (1903 – 1941) wearing a woollen suit from the collection of flight clothes designed by Madame Schiaparelli for her solo flight from London to Cape Town. (Photo by Sasha/Getty Images)Amy Johnson’s record-breaking Percival D.3 Gull Six, G-ADZO, at Gravesend, Kent, 4 May 1936. (Science Museum/Science and Society Picture Library)
In May 1937, Johnson, who was already a rated navigator, traveled to Annapolis, Maryland, in the United States, where she studied advanced navigation under P. V. H. Weems, the acknowledged world authority in celestial navigation. (Among other devices, Weems invented the Weems Mark II Plotter, which every student pilot the world over would immediately recognize.)
Amy Johnson, C.B.E., at Annapolis, Maryland, 3 May 1937. (Baltimore Sun)
Mr. and Mrs. Mollison divorced in 1938.
During World War II, Amy Johnson joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, ferrying Royal Air Force aircraft around the country. (Fellow record-setter Jackie Cochran also flew for the ATA before returning to America to found the WASPs.) Johnson held the civilian rank of Flight Officer, equivalent to an RAF Flight Lieutenant.
Airspeed AS.10 Oxford
On 4 January 1941, Flight Officer Johnson was assigned to take an Airspeed AS.10 Oxford Mk.II, registration V3540, from Prestwick, Scotland, to RAF Kidlington in Oxfordshire. She landed at RAF Squires Gate, Lancashire, and remained there overnight, visiting her sister.
The following morning, 5 January, although weather was very poor with falling snow limiting visibility, Johnson departed Squires Gate at approximately 10:30 a.m., to continue her assignment. Reportedly advised not to go, she insisted, saying that she would “smell her way” to Kidlington.
What took place thereafter is not known. There was speculation that she was unable to land at Kidlington due to poor weather and continued flying east, perhaps finally running out of fuel.
At approximately 3:30 p.m., Johnson bailed out of the Oxford and parachuted into the Thames Estuary. The airplane crashed into the river a short distance away and sank.
Amy Johnson’s parachute was seen by the crew of HMS Haslemere, a barrage balloon tender assigned to the Channel Mobile Balloon Barrage in the Estuary. They attempted to rescue her and in the process, the ship’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Walter Edmund Fletcher, Royal Navy, dove into the water. In the cold temperatures and rough conditions, Fletcher died. For his effort to rescue Johnson, he was awarded the Albert Medal, posthumously.
HMS Haslemere, a 220.7 foot (69.82 meter), 832 gross ton, two-engine, twin-screw cargo steamer, built at Glasgow, 1925. (Roy Thornton Collection via Dover Ferry Forums)
Amy Johnson is presumed to have drowned. Her body was not recovered. Some documents related to her flight and personal belongings were found soon after.
In recent years, stories have emerged that the AS.10 was shot down after Johnson twice gave the incorrect response to a radio challenge. Tom Mitchell, an anti-aircraft gunner of the 58th (Kent) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment, at Iwade, a small village along the shore of the Thames Estuary, said in 1999 that he shot her down under orders, firing 16 shells at the Oxford. The men of the battery were ordered to never mention the incident. There were contemporary reports that a destroyer had also fired on Johnson, though the Admiralty denied this.
More recently, former crewmen of HMS Haslemere have said that, rather than having drowned, Amy Johnson was killed by the ship’s propellers as it maneuvered to pick her up.
Official telegram notifying Amy Johnson’s parents of her death. (Royal Air Force Museum)
What is known, however, is that Flight Officer, Amy Johnson, C.B.E., died in the service of her country.
Amy Johnson, C.B.E., B.A., A.R.Ae.S., F.R.G.S., F.S.E., M.W.E.S., was a legendary pioneering aviator. Her accomplishments are far greater, and her skills as a pilot superior, to those of others who may have achieved greater public acclaim (especially in the United States). She is one of the great individuals in the history of aviation.
First Officer Amy Johnson, C.B.E., Air Transport Auxiliary, circa 1940. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
