Author: Don Lake

Significant American Military Aircraft: 1861-2020, tells the story of flight from the perspective of the country’s most important airplanes.  Presented in order of first flight, the book profiles aircraft firsts … first to go to war, first vertical flight, first jet, first stealth, among many others.  Also included are those airplanes whose achievements make them all-time icons of American Military aircraft.  The book covers every category of airplane … reconnaissance, fighter, bomber, VTOL, trainer, cargo, stealth, and drone.  The reader meets engineers and pilots, learns all aspects of aviation technology, and relives unique flying experiences, all told in a lively manner.

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Kettering Bug
– First flight: 1918
– Manufacturer: Dayton Wright Airplane Company
– Significance: First unmanned airplane

Kettering Bug

Modern day cruise missiles trace their lineage to Charles Kettering’s Bug. Developed during WWI as an unmanned aerial torpedo, its cruising speed was just fifty miles per hour and maxed out at around seventy-five miles per hour. Even after two successful test flights, the Bug never reached the battlefield despite hundreds of thousands of dollars sunk into forty-five aircraft.

Most people think unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, colloquially referred to as drones, as a relatively recent invention, especially as weapons of war. They first flew over a century ago, when the airplane itself was less than a decade and a half old. It was an unmanned guided aircraft, aimed by aligning it to a target, its range controlled by an ingenious device designed by its creators. The weapon, intended for launch behind the trenches of World War I Europe, flew over the men huddled within them, and then detonated at targets otherwise unreachable behind enemy lines. It was a flying bomb.
Hesitant generals among the Allies questioned the wisdom of an unmanned bomb flying over the heads of their men, with no means of controlling it once launched. Its development proved too late for use in the European War, but subsequent testing showed its promise as a weapon. Despite its never being mass produced, the Kettering Bug brought together some of the leading industrialists and inventors of the day, Charles Kettering, Elmer Sperry, Orville Wright, and others, and their ingenuity created a device which was the forerunner of today’s drones and cruise missile.
Development of the Kettering Bug, formally called the Kettering Aerial Torpedo, started in April 1917 in Dayton, Ohio after the U.S. Army asked inventor engineer Charles F. Kettering, one of the premier technologists of his time, to design an unmanned flying bomb with a range of forty miles. Between 1904 and 1909 the patent office awarded Kettering twenty-three patents for inventions, including a system which preceded the modern credit card, as well as for an electric cash register. Later he invented the electric starter and the generator for automobiles. Kettering assembled his team, including Orville Wright, one of the famous Wright brothers, and Elmer Sperry, widely considered the world’s foremost authority on navigational instruments and control systems which used servo motors to respond to signals from gyroscopic sensors, and Thomas Midgley, the man who developed leaded gasoline, as well as Freon, and got to work.
Kettering’s vision for the aircraft was an expendable bomb, used once, rather than a device for delivering a bomb and returning to from whence it came. In his opinion, landing such an aircraft with existing technology was impossible, and there were time constraints to consider. He proposed the aircraft carry fuel and explosives, and little else. Since it wasn’t going to land at the end of its mission it would have no undercarriage. Instead it launched from reusable sleds. His team agreed with the proposals, as did the Army when he relayed his concepts to General George Squier, the man responsible for procuring aircraft for the Army. General Squier used Kettering’s recommendations when he wrote the contract specifications.
Cost was a concern. The Kettering team was engineering a giant artillery shell, and the costs of the deliverable were to be in line with those. The airframe itself was wood and fabric, but the guidance components were costly. Kettering also feared the costs of the engines for his aerial weapons would be prohibitive. In 1918, aircraft engines were large, heavy, expensive, and temperamental. Kettering needed an engine which was small, inexpensive, and reliable. It also had to be simple to install, given that the planned weapon assembly was in the field just prior to launch. Kettering turned to Ralph DePalma, the winner of the 1915 Indianapolis 500, and the owner of DePalma Manufacturing Company. DePalma designed a lightweight, two stroke motor, four cylinders and air cooled, which was perfect for Kettering’s needs.
They designed an airframe which was blunt nosed to accommodate the DePalma engine, about twelve feet in length. They designed the wings for field attachment, making shipping easier. Overall, the wing span was about fifteen feet. The airframe could hold sufficient fuel for a range of about fifty miles. It was an ungainly looking contraption. Its fuselage consisted of papier mache reinforced with wood laminate and its smooth twelve foot wings made of cardboard. Kettering’s invention looked like a propeller driven torpedo with wings. It had a small gyroscope which kept its heading true. A small aneroid barometer, so sensitive it triggered when moving it from the desk top to the floor, controlled elevation. An ingenious arrangement of cranks and bellows produced by the Aeolian Company of New York City, the nation’s largest manufacturer of pump organs and player pianos, controlled its flight. It took off from a small four wheeled carriage, which rolled down a portable aiming track. There were three factors needed to set flight duration to target, wind direction, wind speed, and actual distance to target. Using these figures, the number of engine revolutions necessary to carry the Bug to its destination was calculated and a cam was set. When the engine had made that number of revolutions, the cam dropped, shutting off the engine and releasing the wings. The Bug’s torpedo shaped fuselage, carrying high explosive, would then plunge to earth. It was a technical marvel for its time.
Kettering launched the first Bug into the air on Saturday, September 14, 1918. It crashed after a flight of about 300 feet. Engine problems were determined to be the culprit. In early October another test resulted in a flight of less than fifteen seconds, with the Bug circling after launch and diving upon the launchers. One of the witnesses, General Arnold, said, “After a balky start before the distinguished assemblage, it took off abruptly, but instead of maintaining horizontal flight, it started to climb. At about 600 to 800 feet, as if possessed by the devil, it turned over, made Immelmann turns, and, seeming to spot the group of brass hats below, dived on them, scattering them in all directions. This was repeated several times before the Bug finally crashed without casualties.”

Kettering Bug on Launch Rails
After several adjustments a second demonstration took place. The Bug was set to fly at fifty miles per hour and the dignitaries piled into cars to give chase so they could witness it crashing into the ground. Unfortunately, instead of flying straight, it went off course and circled the city of Dayton, cars in pursuit. The main concern wasn’t what might happen if it crashed in the city, but whether the enemy might get wind of the Kettering Bug. The entourage searched the vicinity where they thought it had come down and came upon some excited farmers who reported a plane crash, but they couldn’t find the pilot. One of the passengers in the pursuit team was a flying officer, General Arnold, dressed in a leather coat and goggles. A quick thinking colonel explained that he was the pilot who jumped out of the plane in his parachute. General Arnold said, “Our secret was secure. The awed farmers didn’t know that the U.S. Air Corps had no parachutes yet.”
On October 22nd, another test of the aircraft took place. This time the Bug achieved its programmed altitude, flew its programmed distance, and descended on its preselected target. The power to fly and operate the controls was a forty horsepower Ford engine, which cost fifty dollars, putting the total price per Bug at only $400. Including 300 pounds of explosive, its total weight was just 600 pounds. The government was impressed and ordered 20,000 Kettering Bugs, but production reached only fifty before World War I ended on November 11, 1918 and none found use in combat.
Through the rest of October and into November Kettering and his team built and flew Bugs in a test and evaluation program, assisted by Army personnel. When the war in Europe ended, all testing of the Bug immediately halted. Construction of new Bugs also stopped. In late November Kettering and Orville Wright went to Washington for a meeting with the Secretary of War. Secretary of War Newton Baker who needed to advise the President, Woodrow Wilson, on weapons and potential weapons which were subject to discussion at the upcoming peace conference. Though the Bug was still a secret program, Wilson made several oblique references to its existence in public speeches, calling it one of the most destructive weapons yet devised by the military for use in war.
The plan to rapidly develop and deploy a new type of weapon, designed and built jointly and in secrecy between a small Army team and civilian engineers and scientists, can rightly be called America’s first black program. James Doolittle wrote the Army’s final report on the test and evaluation of the Kettering Bug eight years after testing halted. The report contained several recommendations which stressed the desirability of continuing research into unmanned flying vehicles, using radio signals to control the flight from the ground.
Kettering Bug specifications
• Armament: 180 lbs. of high explosive
• Engine: One De Palma 4-cylinder of 40 hp
• Maximum speed: 120 mph
• Range: 75 miles
• Span: 14 ft. 11 1/2 in.
• Length: 12 ft. 6 in.
• Height: 4 ft. 8 in.
• Weight: 530 lbs. loaded

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B-2 Spirit
– First flight: 1989
– Manufacturer: Northrop Corporation
– Significance: First stealth bomber

B-2 Stealth Bomber

Northrop created the first unique looking B-2 stealth bomber in 1988 and sent it into flight the following year. By 1993 the first Spirit Bomber had joined the Air Force’s fleet, demonstrating its ability to defeat anti-aircraft defense systems. It can carry out attacks at altitudes of 50,000 feet and house up to 40,000 pounds of nuclear or conventional armament.

The Northrop B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is a heavy strategic bomber, featuring low observable stealth technology designed for penetrating dense anti-aircraft defenses. It requires only a crew of two. The B-2 is a flying wing aircraft, meaning that it has no fuselage or tail. It has significant advantages over previous bombers due to its blend of low observable technologies with high aerodynamic efficiency and large payload. Low observability provides a greater freedom of action at high altitudes, thus increasing both range and field of view for onboard sensors.
The bomber can deploy both conventional and thermonuclear weapons, such as up to eighty 500 pound class Mk 82 JDAM Global Positioning System guided bombs, or sixteen 2,400 pound B83 nuclear bombs. The B-2 is the only acknowledged aircraft that can carry large air to surface standoff weapons in a stealth configuration.
Development started under the Advanced Technology Bomber, ATB, project during the Carter administration, and its expected performance was one of the President’s reasons for the cancellation of the Mach 2 capable B-1 bomber. The ATB project continued during the Reagan administration, but worries about delays in its introduction led to the reinstatement of the B-1 program. Program costs rose throughout development. Designed and manufactured by Northrop, the cost of each aircraft averaged $737 million, in 1997 dollars. Total procurement costs averaged $929 million per aircraft, which includes spare parts, equipment, retrofitting, and software support. The total program cost, which included development, engineering, and testing, averaged $2.1 billion per aircraft in 1997. Because of its considerable capital and operating costs, the project was controversial in the U.S. Congress. The winding down of the Cold War in the latter portion of the 1980s dramatically reduced the need for the aircraft intended for penetrating Soviet airspace and attacking high value targets. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Congress slashed plans to purchase 132 bombers to twenty-one. In 2008, a B-2 was destroyed in a crash shortly after takeoff, though the crew ejected safely. Twenty B-2s are in service with the United States Air Force.
The B-2 is capable of all altitude attack missions up to 50,000 feet, with a range of more than 6,900 miles on internal fuel and over 11,500 miles with one midair refueling. It entered service in 1997 as the second aircraft designed to have advanced stealth technology after the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk attack aircraft. Though designed originally as primarily a nuclear bomber, the B-2’s first combat saw it dropping conventional, non-nuclear ordnance in the Kosovo War in 1999. It later served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.
By the mid-1970s, military aircraft designers had learned of a new method to avoid missiles and interceptors, known today as stealth. The concept was to build an aircraft with an airframe that deflected or absorbed radar signals so that little reflected back to the radar unit. An aircraft with radar stealth characteristics flew nearly undetected and attacked only by weapons and systems not relying on radar. Although other detection measures existed, such as human observation, infrared scanners, and acoustic locators, but their relatively short detection range or poorly developed technology allowed most aircraft to fly undetected, or at least untracked, especially at night.
In 1974, DARPA requested information from U.S. aviation firms about the largest radar cross section of an aircraft that would remain effectively invisible to radars. A key improvement was the introduction of computer models used to predict the radar reflections from flat surfaces where collected data drove the design of a faceted aircraft. By the summer of 1975, when DARPA started the Experimental Survivability Testbed project, Northrop’s plans were maturing. Northrop had a classified technology demonstration aircraft, the Tacit Blue in development in 1979 at Area 51. It developed stealth technology, LO, low observables, fly by wire, curved surfaces, composite materials, electronic intelligence, and battlefield surveillance. The stealth technology developed from the program found its way into other operational aircraft designs, including the B-2 stealth bomber.
By 1976, these programs had progressed to a position in which a long range strategic stealth bomber appeared viable. President Carter became aware of these developments during 1977, and it appears to have been one of the major reasons for cancelling the B-1. Further studies occurred in early 1978, by which point the Have Blue, F117, platform flew and proved the concepts. During the 1980 presidential election campaign in 1979, Ronald Reagan repeatedly stated that Carter was weak on defense, and used the B-1 as a prime example. In response, on Aug. 22, 1980, the Carter administration publicly disclosed that the United States Department of Defense was working to develop stealth aircraft, including a bomber. The Advanced Technology Bomber program began in 1979. Full development of the black project followed under the code name Aurora. After the evaluations of the companies’ proposals, the ATB competition narrowed to the Northrop/Boeing and Lockheed/Rockwell teams with each receiving a study contract for further work. The Northrop proposal was code named Senior Ice.
The Northrop team’s ATB design won over the Lockheed/Rockwell design on Oct. 20, 1981. The Northrop design received the designation B-2 and the name Spirit. The bomber’s design changed in the mid-1980s when the mission profile changed from high altitude to low altitude, terrain following. The redesign delayed the B-2’s first flight by two years and added about $1 billion to the program’s cost. The secret research and development on the B-2 cost an estimated twenty-three billion dollars by 1989. MIT engineers and scientists helped assess the mission effectiveness of the aircraft under a five year classified contract during the 1980s.
Both during development and in service, considerable effort took place to maintain the security of the B-2s design and technologies. Staff working on the B-2 required a level of special access clearance, and underwent extensive background checks carried out by the Air Force.
For the manufacturing, Northrop acquired and heavily rebuilt a former Ford automobile assembly plant in Pico Rivera, Calif. The plant’s employees swore to complete secrecy regarding their work. To avoid the possibility of suspicion, components purchase typically went through front companies, military officials would visit out of uniform, and staff members routinely subjected to polygraph examinations. The secrecy extended so far that access to nearly all information on the program by both Government Accountability Office and virtually all members of Congress itself was severely limited until the mid-1980s. Northrop was the B-2’s prime contractor, major subcontractors included Boeing, Hughes Aircraft, GE, and Vought Aircraft.
In 1984the FBI arrested Thomas Cavanaugh, a Northrop employee, for attempting to sell classified information from Northrop’s Pico Rivera factory to the Soviet Union. Cavanaugh received a life sentence to life in prison and released on parole in 2001.
The B-2’s first public demonstration occurred on Nov. 22, 1988, at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif. This viewing was heavily restricted, and all guests prohibited seeing the rear of the B-2. However, Aviation Week editors found that there were no airspace restrictions above the presentation area and took aerial photographs of the aircraft’s then secret rear section with suppressed engine exhausts.

B-2 Spirit

On July 17, 1989, the Northrop B-2 Spirit made its first flight, a two hour sortie from U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif., to Edwards Air Force Base. Northrop test pilot Bruce Hinds and Col. Richard S. Couch, the B-2 Combined Test Force director, flew the stealth bomber. This marked the first time that a flying wing aircraft had flown over the Mojave Desert in nearly four decades.
In October 2005, the FBI arrested Noshir Gowadia, a design engineer who worked on the B-2’s propulsion system, for selling B-2 related classified information to foreign countries. Gowadia received a sentence of thirty-two years in prison for his actions.
The development and construction of the B-2 required pioneering use of computer aided design and manufacturing technologies, due to its complex flight characteristics and design requirements to maintain very low visibility to multiple means of detection. The B-2 bears a resemblance to earlier Northrop aircraft, the YB-35 and YB-49, both flying wing bombers that canceled in development in the early 1950s, allegedly for political reasons. The resemblance goes as far as B-2 and YB-49 having the same wingspan. The YB-49 also had a small radar cross section. The leading edges of the wings angle at thirty-three degrees and the trailing edge has a double W shape.
Approximately eighty pilots fly the B-2. Each aircraft has a crew of two, a pilot in the left seat and mission commander in the right, and has provisions for a third crew member if needed. For comparison, the B-1B has a crew of four and the B-52 has a crew of five. The B-2 is highly automated, and unlike most two seat aircraft one crew member can sleep in a camp bed, use a toilet, or prepare a hot meal while the other monitors the aircraft. Extensive sleep cycle and fatigue research improved crew performance on long sorties. Advanced training is at the U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.
There are two internal bomb bays in which munitions are stored either on a rotary launcher or two bomb racks. The carriage of the weapons loadouts internally results in less radar visibility than external mounting of munitions. The B-2 is capable of carrying 40,000 pounds of ordnance. Nuclear ordnance includes the B61 and B83 nuclear bombs, and the AGM-129 ACM cruise missile.
Because of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Air Force decided to equip the B-2 for conventional precision attacks as well as for the strategic role of nuclear strike. The B-2 features a sophisticated GPS-Aided Targeting System that uses the aircraft’s APQ-181 synthetic aperture radar to map out targets prior to deployment of GPS aided bombs, GAMs, later superseded by the Joint Direct Attack Munition, JDAM. In the B-2s original configuration, the B-2 carried up to sixteen GAMs or JDAMs. An upgrade program in 2004 raised the maximum carriable capacity to eighty JDAMs.
The B-2 has various conventional weapons in its arsenal. It is able to equip Mark 82 and Mark 84 bombs, CBU-87 Combined Effects Munitions, GATOR mines, and the CBU-97 Sensor Fuzed Weapon. In July 2009, Northrop Grumman reported the B-2 was compatible with the equipment necessary to deploy the 30,000 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, MOP, intended to attack reinforced bunkers. Up to two MOPs could be equipped in the B-2s bomb bays with one per bay, the B-2 is the only platform compatible with the MOP.
One B-2 avionics system is the low probability of intercept AN/APQ-181 multi-mode radar, a fully digital navigation system that integrated with terrain following radar and Global Positioning System guidance, NAS-26 astro-inertial navigation system, and a Defensive Management System, DMS, to inform the flight crew of possible threats. The onboard DMS is capable of automatically assessing the detection capabilities of identified threats and indicated targets. The DMS detects radar emissions from air defenses to allow changes to the auto-router’s mission planning information while in flight so it can receive new data quickly to plan a route that minimizes exposure to dangers.
The cockpit accommodates two crew members. It is equipped with a color, nine tube, Electronic Flight Instrumentation System, EFIS, which displays flight, engine, and sensor data and avionics systems and weapons status. The pilot can choose to activate the appropriate selection of flight and mission equipment for take off mode, go to war mode and landing mode by using a simple three way switch.
For safety and fault detection purposes, an on board test system links with the majority of avionics on the B-2 to continuously monitor the performance and status of thousands of components and consumables. It also provides post-mission servicing instructions for ground crews. Many of the B-2’s 136 standalone distributed computers, including the primary flight management computer, changed to a single integrated system. Thirteen EMP resistant MIL-STD-1750A computers control the avionics, all interconnected through 26 MIL-STD-1553B busses. Other system elements connect via optical fiber. Due to the B-2’s composite structure, it is required to stay forty miles away from thunderstorms, to avoid static discharge and lightning strikes damaging the electronics.
In order to address the inherent flight instability of a flying wing aircraft, the B-2 uses a complex quadruplex computer controlled fly by wire flight control system that can automatically manipulate flight surfaces and settings without direct pilot inputs in order to maintain aircraft stability. The flight computer receives information on external conditions such as the aircraft’s current air speed and angle of attack via pitot static sensing plates, as opposed to traditional pitot tubes which would impair the aircraft’s stealth capabilities. The flight actuation system incorporates both hydraulic and electrical servo-actuated components. It features a high level of redundancy and fault diagnostic capabilities.
Northrop investigated several means of applying directional control that would not infringe on the aircraft’s radar profile, eventually settling on a combination of split brake rudders and differential thrust. Engine thrust became a key element of the B-2s aerodynamic design process early on. Thrust not only affects drag and lift but pitching and rolling motions. Four pairs of control surfaces are located along the wing’s trailing edge. While most surfaces are used throughout the aircraft’s flight envelope, the inner elevons are normally only in use at slow speeds, such as landing. To avoid potential contact damage during takeoff and to provide a nose down pitching attitude, all of the elevons remain drooped during takeoff until a high enough airspeed occurs.
The B-2s low observable, stealth characteristics enable the undetected penetration of sophisticated anti-aircraft defenses and to attack even heavily defended targets. This stealth comes from a combination of reduced acoustic, infrared, visual and radar signatures, multi-spectral camouflage, to evade the various detection systems that used to detect and direct attacks against an aircraft. The B-2s stealth enables the reduction of supporting aircraft required to provide air cover, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, SEAD, and electronic countermeasures, making the bomber a force multiplier. The B-2 has a radar cross section of one and one-tenth square feet.
To reduce optical visibility during daylight flights, the B-2 uses an anti-reflective paint. The undersides are dark because it flies at high altitudes, 50,000 feet, and at that altitude a dark grey painting blends well into the sky. There is an upward facing light sensor which alerts the pilot to increase or reduce altitude to match the changing illuminance of the sky. The aircraft includes contrail sensor that alerts the crew when they should change altitude. The B-2 is vulnerable to visual interception at ranges of twenty miles.
The bomber does not always fly stealthily. When nearing air defenses pilots stealth up the B-2, a maneuver whose details are secret. The aircraft is stealthy, except briefly when the bomb bay opens. The B-2s clean, low drag flying wing configuration not only provides exceptional range but is also beneficial to reducing its radar profile. The flying wing design most closely resembles a so called infinite flat plate, as vertical control surfaces dramatically increase RCS, the perfect stealth shape, as it would lack angles to reflect back radar waves. Without vertical surfaces to reflect radar laterally, a reduction of side aspect radar occurs. Radars operating at a lower frequency band, S or L band are able to detect and track certain stealth aircraft that have multiple control surfaces, like canards or vertical stabilizers, where the frequency wavelength can exceed a certain threshold and cause a resonant effect. The B-2 is composed of many curved and rounded surfaces across its exposed airframe to deflect radar beams. This technique, known as continuous curvature, made possible by advances in computational fluid dynamics, and first tested on the Northrop Tacit Blue.
Burying the engines, four General Electric F118-GE-100 turbofans, deep inside the fuselage minimizes the thermal visibility or infrared signature of the exhaust. At the engine intake, cold air from the boundary layer below the main inlet enters the fuselage mixes with hot exhaust air just before the nozzles. According to the Stefan–Boltzmann law, this results in less energy, less thermal radiation in the infrared spectrum, and a reduced heat signature. The resulting cooler air flows over a surface composed of heat resistant carbon fiber reinforced polymer and titanium alloy elements, which disperse the air laterally, in order to accelerate cooling. The B-2 lacks afterburners as the hot exhaust would increase the infrared footprint. Breaking the sound barrier would produce an obvious sonic boom as well as aerodynamic heating of the aircraft skin which would also increase the infrared footprint.
The use of various radar absorbent materials to absorb and neutralize radar beams delivers additional reduction in the radar signature. The majority of the B-2 consists of a carbon graphite composite material that is stronger than steel, lighter than aluminum, and absorbs a significant amount of radar energy. Northrop Grumman developed a radar absorbent coating to preserve the B-2’s stealth characteristics while drastically reducing maintenance time. Four independently controlled robots apply the new material, known as Alternate High Frequency Material, AHFM.
The B-2 uses unusually tight engineering assembly tolerances to avoid leaks that could increase its radar signature. Innovations such as alternate high frequency material and automated material application methods improve the aircraft’s radar absorbent properties and reduce maintenance requirements. In order to protect the operational integrity of its sophisticated radar absorbent material and coatings, each B-2 parks inside a climate controlled hangar large enough to accommodate its 172 foot wingspan. The need for specialized hangars arose in 1998 when the Air Force found that B-2s passing through Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, did not have the climate controlled environment maintenance operations required.
The first operational aircraft, christened Spirit of Missouri, arrived at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., on Dec. 17, 1993. The B-2 reached initial operational capability on Jan. 1, 1997. Depot maintenance for the B-2 uses U.S. Air Force contractor support and managed at Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.
The B-2s combat debut was in 1999, during the Kosovo War. It was responsible for destroying thirty-three percent of selected Serbian bombing targets in the first eight weeks of U.S. involvement in the War. During this war, six B-2s flew non-stop to Kosovo from their home base in Missouri and back, totaling 30 hours. Although the bombers accounted fifty sorties out of a total of 34,000 NATO sorties, they dropped eleven percent of all bombs.
In response to organizational issues and high profile mistakes made within the Air Force, all of the B-2s, along with the nuclear capable B-52s and the Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missiles, moved to the newly formed Air Force Global Strike Command on Feb. 1, 2010.
Being a B-2 pilot means experiencing the rush of takeoff and the pressure of weapons drops while flying in the nation’s only stealth bomber. But it also involves having to manage nap times with your co-pilot during daylong plus flights. “After you do a few, anything under twenty hours doesn’t seem like a big deal,” said Capt. Chris Thunder Beck.
At the outset of a B-2 mission, most pilots will spend a lot of time planning missions as well as learning how to balance obligations like takeoff, weapons activity, and aerial refueling with rest, said Lt. Col. Niki Rogue Polidor, a B-2 pilot. “When you’re faced with a twenty-four hour mission, or a long duration mission, you really get into the details of who is going to do what task, and how we’re going to manage our sleep,” she said. The timing of every task needs to be set in advance “so that we’re both prepared to be in the seat, ready to go, for all the air refueling and the weapons activity, and then of course landing.”
Usually, pilots can work in naps, each numbering a couple hours, but “it depends on our route of flight, where our refuelings are place along that route, and where our weapons activity is,” Polidor said.
Whiteman Air Force Base maintains a staff of doctors and physiologists that specialize in how protracted flying can impact the human body. These officials help pilots learn techniques to improve their performance over long endurance missions, and update experienced pilots with new information about how to prevent fatigue.
“There is a way you can shift that circadian rhythm back and forth by getting the appropriate amount of sleep, shifting your sleep schedule and even modifying diet,” said Capt. Caleb James, a doctor with the 509th Medical Group. For especially long missions, James said doctors will prescribe medication “in the event that those members need that little bit of extra push to help them stay focused on the mission.”

B-2 specifications

• Crew: 2: pilot (left seat) and mission commander (right seat)
• Length: 69 ft 0 in
• Wingspan: 172 ft 0 in
• Height: 17 ft 0 in
• Wing area: 5,140 sq ft
• Empty weight: 158,000 lb
• Gross weight: 336,500 lb
• Max takeoff weight: 376,000 lb
• Fuel capacity: 167,000 pounds
• Powerplant: 4 × General Electric F118-GE-100 non-afterburning turbofans, 17,300 lbf thrust each
• Maximum speed: 630 mph at 40,000 ft altitude / Mach 0.95 at sea level
• Cruise speed: 560 mph at 40,000 ft altitude
• Range: 6,900 mi
• Service ceiling: 50,000 ft
• Wing loading: 67.3 lb/sq ft
• Thrust/weight: 0.205
• Armament
2 internal bays for ordnance and payload with an official limit of 40,000 lb maximum estimated limit is 50,000 lb
80× 500 lb class bombs (Mk-82, GBU-38) mounted on Bomb Rack Assembly (BRA)
36× 750 lb CBU class bombs on BRA
16× 2,000 lb class bombs (Mk-84, GBU-31) mounted on Rotary Launcher Assembly (RLA)
16× B61 or B83 nuclear bombs on RLA
Standoff weapon: AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) and AGM-158 Joint Air to surface Standoff Missile (JASSM)

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It’s a simple idea.  Begin at Cabrillo National Monument, then proceed around the Bay until you reach North Island, as close to the Southern entrance to San Diego Bay as the Navy will let you, and at the same time, as close to San Diego Bay you can get.  Along the way, see, hear, smell, and learn about the big, little and interesting things nestled next to the bay.  The included pictures are monochrome.

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Old Point Loma Lighthouse

On September 28, 1850, just 19 days after admitting California to the Union, Congress appropriated $90,000 to construct lighthouses along the California coast.  A second appropriation of $59,434 made in 1854 completed the job.  Lighthouses were designated for Alcatraz Island, Point Conception, Battery Point, Fararon Island, Point Pinos and Point Loma.  A site chosen in 1851 was near the summit of Point Loma.  Construction began in April 1854, when a shipment of materials arrived from San Francisco.  The lantern and lens came from Paris and arrived in August 1855.  The lighthouse, completed by October 1855, and lighted for the first time at sunset November 15, 1855.  It was designated light number 355, of the Twelfth United States Lighthouse District.

While in operation the lighthouse had the highest elevation of any lighthouse in the United States.  However, the location on top of a 400-foot cliff meant that fog and low clouds often obscured the light from the view of ships.  On foggy nights the lighthouse keeper would sometimes discharge a shotgun to warn ships away.  On March 23, 1891, the flame was permanently extinguished and the light replaced by the New Point Loma Lighthouse at a lower elevation at Ballast Point.

When the lighthouse was constructed, an additional small structure arose next to it.  This building, originally used as a storehouse for oil, wood, and other supplies, became a two-room apartment for the assistant lighthouse keeper in 1875.  Originally built with rough lumber and the inside lined with cloth and paper, cracks would frequently develop in the walls.  The walls are now tongue and groove boards.  Today this building serves as a museum.

The Old Point Loma Lighthouse was not just the housing for a light; it was also the home of the people who took care of the light.  The keepers and their families lived in the lighthouse.  Visitors can now view some of the rooms to see what their life was like.  The lighthouse was a bustling family home.  The Israel family, including their three surviving boys and a niece, all grew up there.  They gardened, kept horses, and raised chickens, pigs and goats.  The children rowed across the bay to Old Town each day for school.  People from town would sometimes drive by horse and buggy over a dirt road (now Catalina Boulevard) to picnic and visit the lighthouse and its keeper.

After deactivation the old lighthouse fell into disrepair.  In 1913, the Army proposed to tear down the dilapidated lighthouse.  By 1935 the metal lantern room and the lighthouse returned to their original condition.  A concessionaire lived in the lighthouse, offering tours of the building and operating a tea room in the southern room on the main floor.

With the outbreak of war in 1941, the lighthouse, now painted camouflage green, became as a signal tower to direct ships into San Diego Harbor.  After the war the lighthouse returned to the National Park Service.  During the 1980s restoration filled it with period furnishings to resemble its appearance when the Israel family lived there.  In 2003–2004 restoration extended to the surrounding area giving it a more authentic look.  It now includes native plants, a vegetable garden, and a water catchment system.  The lantern room currently houses the third-order lens from the Mile Rocks Lighthouse.

Today the lighthouse is no longer in service but stands as a landmark and museum.  Visitors may enter the lighthouse and view parts of the living quarters there.  Visitors are sometimes greeted by volunteer historical reinactors including “Captain Israel,” a real historical figure who was lighthouse keeper from 1871 to 1892.

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Hotel Del Coronado

The Hotel del Coronado, the center of all things Coronado, a national historic landmark, delivers  breathtaking ocean views, displays whimsical Victorian era architecture, provides its visitors endless activities, caters to famous celebrities, harbors ghostly haunts, and is a world class tourist attraction.  It’s all at the world famous, 32-acre, Hoteldel Coronado, known affectionately as “The Del.” 

Elisha Babcock and H.L. Story built the Hotel del Coronado in 1888.  The Del was the first structure built on Coronado on what was then an uninhabited barren land accessible only by boat.  The railroad had not yet made it to San Diego, but the plans were in the works.  So, these two visionaries bought the entire island for $110,000.  Building a giant hotel in the middle of nowhere was challenging.  Electricity didn’t exist in Coronado, or most of California either, so their first step was to build one of the state’s first power plants to provide electricity to the Hotel del Coronado and to the entire Coronado Island.

Across the street from the hotel is a restaurant that looks quite similar to the Hotel del Coronado.  That’s no accident.  This was their “practice” building.  The architects were not moving very fast so as the Hotel Del was being built, without a blue print, the workers were left to their own creative devices to build the hotel. 

To build the Hotel del Coronado, they had to bring in workers who didn’t  live there.  The building on property near the parking lot was the Oxford hotel that housed the workers who built the hotel 24 hours a day.  This hotel was not then on the property, it was down the road.  After the Hotel del Coronado no longer had a need for it, it had other uses through the years including a brothel.  In the 1970s it when scheduled for tear it down, the Hotel Del purchased it because it’s a key part of its history.  They basically cut the building down the middle and moved it in two pieces to the Hotel Del Property, and put it back together.  Today it houses many of the Hotel Del’s 1400 employees.  Right next to the Oxford Building is a series of unassuming buildings.  More employees work here.  These buildings were the stables for the horses since horse and buggy travel was all that was available in 1888.

The first thing you’ll notice about the Del is the whimsical Victorian era architecture.  The style is called “Queen Anne Revival” and it’s known for these iconic turrets, asymmetrical designs (some parts of the building have three floors and other have five), and freestyle design that leads you down maze-like hallways with unanticipated dead ends.  Babcock and Story built the Hotel Del for a total of $1,000,000, $600,000 for the hotel itself, and $400,000 for all the decor and furniture.

At the front stands a tree, the Dragon Tree, brought over from the Canary Islands, with red blood like sap if you cut into it.  It was set in the backdrop of Some Like it Hot starring Marilyn Monroe who stayed at The Del for a month while filming.  The Hotel Del treasured this tree, but while the movie was filming the producers saw a large limb in their way.  Not realizing how treasured this tree was, they took it upon themselves to cut off the offensive limb.  When the Hotel Del owners discovered this they were so angry them almost kicked them off the set.  Today there are several other pruned limbs to clear the passage way for the millions of visitors every year.

 In the lobby, sits an old fashioned elevator.  This is Otis elevator #61.  #61 representing the 61st elevator that Otis ever made.  It is the original elevator from 1888, one of the oldest in existence, and still run by an employee who is the elevator operator and takes guest up and down all day long.

Off of the lobby is the famous Crown Room.  This room currently serves as a meeting space and room for The Del’s famous Sunday brunch.  When The Del opened it had the “American Plan” and all the guests ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner here.  Charles Lindbergh had a celebratory dinner here after his 1927 solo flight from New York to France.  L. Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz who spent months at the Hotel del Coronado writing, designed the still original crown shaped lobby chandeliers.  Many believe that the Hotel del Coronado was his inspiration for the Land of Oz.  The ceiling is also original, designed with a “tongue and groove” method which means no nails at all keeping it together.  Over the years the Hotel del Coronado has had many psychics stay at the hotel, and one of them shared that this room is the most “haunted” of all.  Because this was where all the guests gathered for three meals a day, the psychic said she could see hundreds of ghosts just partying and having a grand time up in the ceiling of the Crown Room.

The Hotel del Coronado boasts a beautiful courtyard inside the hotel.  Kate Sessions, a local botanist, known for being the “Mother of Balboa Park,” designed the courtyard and all its greenery.

He was supposed to meet her at The Del a few days later, but never did, and 5 days later they found her dead body on the stairway leading to the beach with a gunshot to her head.  It was ruled a suicide, but theories prevail that it was her husband.  Regardless of what happened, she still walks the hallways of the 3rd floor in her Victorian dress, and has some fun with visitors who stay in “her” room 3327.  Many request that room especially on Halloween night.  Guests who stayed in that room shared many stories such as getting the covers ripped off at night, the TV turning on randomly, and door handles shaking.  The room itself is not one of The Del’s finest, it’s small and has a view of the dumpsters. 

The stairs from the lobby are quite uneven.  While some may look at this as an old flaw, it is part of the the Del’s charm.  When built in 1888 the wood was installed “green” meaning still a little damp.  This was intentional, because fire ruined many of the construction projects in that era.  So installing the wood “green” meant it would resist fire, but when the wood dried out, it warps, leading to uneven floor boards and stairs. 

In 1888 the prime rooms were on the first floor, and the lower end rooms were on the 5th floor.  At the time everyone traveled with their maids and servants.  Therefore, the 5th floor was where the maids and servants slept.  The ceilings are very low, and the rooms much smaller.  Many years ago the hotel decided to break the walls down between some of the rooms because they were just so tiny they were hard to make guests happy.  There is a room on the 5th floor that has many more guests reporting “incidents” and many more psychics reporting paranormal activity.  The belief is that this haunted room was where Kate Morgan’s maid stayed.

The staff removes beautiful lobby chandelier once a year, when The Del displays its incredibly ornate and tall Christmas tree that attracts thousands of visitors over the holiday season.  When The Del opened, the land in Coronado was still barren.  The men would leave in the morning to hunt and fish.  Their ladies would sit in rocking chairs on this second level knitting or reading, just waiting for them to return, clapping when their husbands returned and displayed their fresh kill and show it off. 

There is a staircase near the ballroom leading to The Del’s shops and dining.  These same stairs tend to be avoided by the night employees, as they have reported smelling a strong perfume and getting a gentle push as they walk down these stairs in the wee hours of the morning. 

Outside the Hotel del Coronado towards the backside, near the beach, a mecca of activities awaits.  While only hotel guests get to enjoy the pool area, a day visitor can enjoy almost everything else.  The Windsor lawn, which is now astroturf, becomes an ice skating rink every holiday season so visitors can skate by the beach.  Nearby stands a random looking house used as meeting space called the Windsor cottage.  This cottage is the setting of one of the most famous love stories of all time.  In 1920, England’s Prince of Wales visited The Del.  He would later become King Edward VIII who eventually gave up his throne to marry the twice divorced Wallis Simpson because the English rules did not permit a king to marry a divorced woman.  During his visit in 1920, Wallis Simpson was living a few blocks away from The Del.  The Prince of Wales met Wallis Simpson during his stay at The Del.  Sometime much later, like the Oxford Building, the city scheduled the demolition of the building in which Simpson lived.  Eager to hold onto this part of The Del’s storied past, the owners purchased and moved the building onto the property where it has remained ever since.

A big draw of the Hotel del Coronado is its lengthy and beautiful beach, but that beach was not always the size it is today.  Coronado has increased in size due to dumping dredge material on its shoreline and through the natural accumulation of sand.  The “Country Club” area on the northwest side of Coronado including the Hotel Del, the “Glorietta” area, and golf course on the southeast side of Coronado, most of the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, most of the Strand Naval housing, and most of the Coronado Cays all stand on material dredged from San Diego Bay.

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 “One Lap Around San Diego Bay” gives San Diegans and visitors a guide to San Diego Bay along with the background to understand and appreciate their experience.    San Diego boasts world class attractions: USS Midway, Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego Maritime Museum, San Diego National Wildlife Refuge, Hotel del Coronado, that every first time San Diego visitor must experience.  San Diego Bay has miles of shoreline parks, some with swimming beaches, some with fishing piers, even one with wading pools and fountains for children.  Marinas dot the bay, including America’s Cup harbor, the world famous San Diego Yacht Club, and the largest US Navy facility in the world.  Art takes center stage everywhere) from the tip of Shelter Island through the murals of Barrio Logan.  Much of the art pays homage to great men and women from Juan Cabrillo to Bob Hope to the tuna fisherman who risked their lives to make San Diego the tuna capital of the world.  Present too are arts and entertainment, from the performing arts of the San Diego Symphony Bandstand, to Petco Park, voted the nation’s best major league baseball stadium, to the San Diego Convention Center, itself an architectural master piece to an antique merry go-round.  Walkers and bicycle enthusiasts have tens of miles of trails to pick from.  Museums cover ships from aircraft carriers, to submarines, to sailing vessels to Portuguese fisherman to light houses.

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Silver Strand Bikeway

Just across the bay from downtown San Diego lies one of the county’s most secluded beaches, and 12 miles of a classic cycling pathway.  Coronado, is best known for its resort hotels and naval aviation, but it is the sandy tombolo connecting the island to the mainland that merits every bikers attention.  Here lies the Silver Strand Bikeway, a stretch of segregated asphalt that follows State Route 75 from the Coronado Ferry Landing in the north all the way around the southern tip of the San Diego Bay.

For the most part, the trail is relatively straight, flat and impeccably well maintained, making it ideal for riders of all skill levels.  To the west, cyclists are afforded occasional prolonged glimpses of the Pacific Ocean above the native SoCal shrubs and sand dunes, while to the east the calm waters of the city’s National Wildlife Refuge offer a scenic, watery backdrop to the ride.  Bikers can even supplement their adventure with a quick saltwater swim, thanks to a pedestrian-friendly intersection at the entrance to Silver Strand Beach.

Once in Coronado, the path continues along the eastern edge of the island, albeit through significantly more upscale surroundings.  A series of well marked on and off-street bike lanes guides cyclists past luxurious homes, the city’s municipal golf course, and up close and personal views of the Coronado Bridge along the way.

The biker must pay close attention to logistics on the Silver Strand Bikeway.  There is parking all along the pathway for rack equipped cars.  In addition, there is a forty mile there and back again loop through Chula Vista.  Perhaps the best option is the ferry.  Bikes are welcome on board at no additional cost.

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Guardian of the Water

The “Guardian of Water” sculpture fountain began as a separate project prior to completion of the Civic Center.  Local resident Helen Towle willed more than $30,000 to the San Diego Fine Arts Society, $6,000 for purchasing “works of art of a permanent nature, for the people of San Diego.”  The society decided that the funds be used for the creation of a public sculpture.  The Works Progress Administration supplied the remaining $14,000 necessary to fund a commissioned sculpture by prominent local artist Donal Hord.

In July 1937, Hord’s studio received a 22-ton granite block from a Lakeside quarry.  Hord labored over the sculpture for two years, shaping the block into a figure of a pioneer woman holding a water jug, symbolic of San Diego’s guardianship over one of its most precious resources, water.

Mosaic tiles, also designed by Hord, cover the base of the statue.  The mosaic symbolizes clouds in the form of kneeling nudes, who pour water from jars over a dam which flows into a conventionalized citrus fruit orchard.  Hord carved shapes of dolphins and fish into the interior base.  The circumference of the basin bears a design of sea snails.  When asked to explain the meaning behind the mosaic patterns, Hord claimed that it was his idea to produce these different areas almost as though a pebble were dropped in the water; the water first coming from the clouds, giving life to the land, then spilling over into the sea, which was represented by fish forms, and finally ending on a shoreline in the drawing of sea snails.  The combined statue and base rise 22 feet, 3 inches, with the statue itself reaching a height of 13 feet, 3 inches.  The “Guardian of Water” was dedicated on June 10, 1939, in a ceremony at the new Civic Center.

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A teenage boy’s high school year’s are difficult, no matter who the boy, where the school, or when they occurred.  His attending during the depression ending years – 1936 through 1940 – added unique economic conditions.  Going to school on the ethnically mixed South side of Chicago posed other problems for a Polish boy, particularly a technically gifted, but socially inexperienced one.  Looming over everything was the threat of war, a potentially huge war where everyone his age was sure to be intimately involved.  Alex Lakowsky had his own special help through it all, his scrapbook.  Every item published in the newspaper that concerned anything about flying, Alex carefully saved, reviewed, referred, and spent special moments when he needed comfort.  This is Alex’s story, told with the help of pictures from his scrapbook.

[toggle title_open=”Close Excerpt 1″ title_closed=”View Excerpt 1″ hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Tuesday, June 9, 1936, graduation day throughout the entire Thornton School District, including Ted’s high school and Alex’s elementary school. For Theodore Lakowsky, it represented his crowning educational success. He’d finished his twelve years of schooling, he’d learned his trade, and he had a job. Frank and Anna were justifiably proud parents. Anna brought Mike and Connie to Ted’s ceremony. Betty arranged her schedule so she could come and cheer for her little brother. Frank went to work as usual that morning, but did give his oldest son his congratulations at breakfast.

Everyone piled into the Hupmobile early that morning. On the way to Ted’s ceremony they took Alex, his shoes shined, pants pressed, shirt buttoned all the way to the neck, bow tie carefully tied around his neck, and carrying his folded robe and mortarboard hat, to his school, Lowell elementary. They dropped him off in plenty of time for him to participate in his eighth-grade graduation ceremony. Alex marched down the aisle between the folding chairs in the gym, alongside his best friend, Ray Tomsheck, accepted his diploma in turn, threw his hat when everyone else did, and then turned in his cap and gown, and walked home thinking how proud he was of his big brother. He arrived home first, so he changed out of his only set of “good” clothes, and went outside to finish his morning chores.

When the rest of the family returned, there was soda pop and a cake Anna made for her two, newly graduated, sons. Ted left just as soon as he could to be with his girlfriend. There was only a single present, from Betty, to her little brother Alex. When he unwrapped it, he recognized it as an unused scrapbook left over from Betty’s wedding. A large, maroon-covered, bound book, it held perhaps a hundred blank pages waiting between the covers. The word “Scrapbook” in gold, filled the entire front cover. Alex opened the cover to the first page, and read the words his sister wrote for him. “Save your favorite dreams in these pages, and they will come true.” Alex tried to hold back the tears. He failed.

The following morning, Ted drove off at six forty-five for the first day of his new, full time job. Mike took over Ted’s farm responsibilities, which included delivering the day’s flowers and produce to the far-south-side collection point by five in the morning. Alex stepped into Mike’s old job of tending the plants. Because Anna personally selected and cut all the flowers, and all the greenhouse-started seeds were in the ground, Alex spent his time picking vegetables, weeding, and spraying a soap solution on any plants that attracted insect pests. It only took him a few days to discover he had his mother’s natural way with plants. By the fourth of July, he had the entire two and a half acres thriving like never before. Mike even reported that people started asking for “Lakowsky Grown” flowers and produce, but no one offered to pay more for it.
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That Sunday’s paper, in the weekly Science and Industry section, ran a picture and an accompanying article about the latest advances in Kellett autogiros. Alex stared at the odd looking machine. He knew it flew, but it had no wings or tail. The engine and propeller in front made the fuselage look like an airplane, but the front wheels appeared added as an afterthought. Sticking out the top was a huge three blade propeller.

Mike’s afternoon and evening part-time job, made it imperative that Alex learn how to drive the family’s Model T pickup. At first, the trio of pedals, the two levers on the floor, the spark advance, the throttle behind the steering wheel, and the rear-wheel only brakes, seemed daunting. But Alex soon mastered them all, along with keeping the fuel tank adequately full, the oil within proper limits, the transmission bands serviceable, the tire pressure right, and the cooling fluid topped off. It seemed that fifty miles was about the maximum distance between adjustment and repair of something or another. Because the state of Illinois didn’t begin licensing drivers until 1939, the Lakowskys simply paid the yearly registration fee, and let Alex drive where ever and whenever he needed to.

The Chicago Daily News didn’t publish another aviation article until late July, when, nestled in a collage of other naval themed pictures, they ran a photograph of the brand new Grumman J2F Duck just as it cleared the catapult launcher of the USS West Virginia. Alex carefully cut out the oddly shaped photograph, and taped it on the page opposite the autogiro.

The J2F Duck was classified as a “single bay” bi-winger with only a single set of struts and a single set of bracing wires between the wings on each side. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-1830-62 “Twin Wasp” engine ultimately delivering 1,050 hp, the Duck could reach 190 mph, boasted a cruising range of 875 miles, and a service ceiling of 25,750 ft. It carried a crew of two, a pilot, and a rear gunner, and had provision for two passengers. Some said the Duck could be more aptly named the “Ugly Duckling.” A true utility aircraft, when no other bomber could be found, it carried bombs; when no other transport could be found, it transported; when no other photo plane could be found, it photographed; and when no other rescuer could be found, it rescued. When it came to “Utility Craft,” the J2F was the definitive example.

The USS West Virginia, one of five Colorado class battleships, was laid down in 1920, commissioned in 1923, and served until she was decommissioned in 1947. The USS West Virginia was 624 ft. long, displaced 33,590 tons, and carried 8 – 16 in guns at a speed of 21 knots. Sunk at Pearl Harbor, she was rebuilt and returned to service in July of 1944.

Alex lay open his scrapbook and studied the two pictures, now side by side, staring back at him. They showed two very different flying machines, two very different environments, yet both solutions to a single common problem, how to get aircraft into and out of spaces far too small to accommodate a normal runway. The pictures showed a roof of a downtown skyscraper and the deck of a naval capital ship, surely both as confining as possible, yet both environments with clear cut needs that aviation could fulfill. Alex intuitively felt that, given enough power from an airplane’s engine, someone would solve the small space problem. All he knew about engines, so far, was how to keep an old Ford four-banger running, and that air-cooled radials were aviation’s state-of-the-art power plants. He’d also seen the Buck Rogers serials at the Saturday matinees, laughed at the rocket ships, but knew that someday, some kind of totally new and novel engine would power future aircraft. The more he stared at the two pictures, the more the words “Learn What It Takes” rattled around in his head.[/toggle]