display

Always flying in circles - can that be a challenging job for an aircraft crew?

In principle not, but in individual cases it is.

For example in the spring of 1949 on the mission of the "Lucky Lady II", a four-engine strategic bomber of the Boeing B-50 type, the further development of the tried and tested B-29 of the Second World War.

On February 26, 1949 at exactly 12.21 p.m. local time, 29-year-old Captain James G. Gallagher started his machine.

It had been converted for the mission: an additional tank had been installed in the bomb bay to increase the range;

Except for twelve machine guns in remote-controlled turrets and the rear stand with a machine gun, the machine was unarmed.

For this she had almost two crews on board, namely, in addition to Mission-Commander Gallagher, two other pilots, two navigators and two radar officers, three flight engineers and two radio operators and gunnery each.

Normally the crew of a B-50 consisted of two pilots, one flight engineer, one radar officer and one radio operator as well as five gunner.

In addition, if an atom bomb was loaded, there were two specialists who could supervise and arm it.

The crew of the Lucky Lady II were greeted by a high-caliber delegation on their return

Source: USAF

display

But this time it did not go into the airspace of an opposing state.

On the contrary: The path of the "Lucky Lady II" did not lead across countries that were on the other side during the Cold War.

The B-50 should never be put at risk.

Gallagher and his two fellow pilots, who took turns on the control stick every five to six hours, flew eastwards from their home base at Carswell Air Force Base near Fort Worth, Texas, approximately over the 35th parallel of the northern hemisphere.

They flew over the Azores, then Spain and Italy.

The "Lucky Lady II" steered a little further south over the eastern Mediterranean and reached the southern border of China via the Persian Gulf and northern India.

Here again a slight change of course took place, so that they flew over the Pacific approximately at the height of the 22nd parallel - to Hawaii.

There Gallagher went on a direct home course to Fort Worth.

On March 1, 1949, after exactly 94 hours and one minutes in the air, the "Lucky Lady II" touched down again where it had started.

She had covered a total of 37,742 kilometers at an average speed of 401 kilometers per hour.

This was the first time Gallagher's crew had ever made a non-stop flight around the world.

display

Only: why the whole thing?

And why did almost the entire top of the US Air Force (USAF) including the minister, chief of staff and several top generals appear at Carswell AFB to welcome the "Lucky Lady II"?

Why was the flight featured extensively in US newsreels and newspapers?

Because the pioneering aviation achievement was above all a demonstration of military power.

The mission came up with General Curtis LeMay, the commander of the Strategic Air Command and former head of the area bombing of Japan in 1945. At that time, his bombers were the only machines that could use nuclear weapons - the Soviets had their first bomb, the RDS-1, a replica of the Nagasaki bomb, not yet tested.

But it was clear: sooner or later the Soviet Air Force would also have the option of using nuclear weapons (incidentally, with the help of replica B-29s, which were called Tupolev Tu-4 in the USSR).

So Lemay wanted to set an example beforehand.

The mission of the "Lucky Lady II" served this.

A Tupolev Tu-4, the Soviet replica of the B-29

Source: Wikimedia / Public Domain

display

The general also said it quite openly: "The mission shows that the Air Force from the USA can send bombers to any place in the world where an atom bomb is needed." So also via the Soviet Union, at the time of the Berlin blockade and the airlift, the open enemy of the USA, or via China, communist since 1948.

The key to the success of the non-stop mission was air refueling.

The "Lucky Lady II" only had the additional tank on board in the event that a tanker aircraft would break down on one stage and a safe US base with the normal range should not be accessible.

Otherwise, the tank with its total weight of five tons (including contents) simulated a Mark 3 atomic bomb.

The very first successful in-flight refueling took place in 1923, with a line between two double-deckers.

The then US Army Air Forces, forerunners of the USAF founded in 1947, remained interested in the idea of ​​theoretically unlimited range, but there were no more deployments until the end of the war in 1945.

The Royal Air Force had also worked on the subject, while German attempts were stuck in the experimental stage.

In January 1948, the USAF Chief of Staff had declared aerial refueling of strategic bombers a top development priority, and a good year later the "Lucky Lady II" mission showed that the procedure was workable: four times, over the Azores, southern Iraq, the Philippines and Hawaii had met the B-50 with two converted B-29s that were pumping fuel over.

The process was complicated: first the tanker let a steel cable run into the air.

The B-50 approached from the side, slightly set back, and picked up the steel cable.

Then the tank hose from the B-29 was pulled into the "Lucky Lady II", which was now flying in front of the tanker, shifted slightly to port below.

Then the kerosene was pumped around.

All four air refuelings worked smoothly.

So it was no coincidence that Air Force Minister Stuart Symington said when he received the “Lucky Lady II”: “In-flight refueling can turn medium-sized bombers into intercontinental bombers.” A clear statement, with clear addressees in Moscow and Beijing.

You can also find “World History” on Facebook.

We look forward to a like.