Chasing the Demon

by Dan Hampton

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  Notes

  Chapter 1: Flying Monks to Mud Ducks

  Dr. Bob Van der Linden and Dr. Alex Spencer of the National Air & Space Museum were both very helpful with procuring the relatively obscure information needed for this chapter. There is a Ba-349 Natter file that I was permitted to sift through, including the original NATTER INTERCEPTOR REPORT (July 1945) compiled by Dr. Clark Millikan for the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee. This mainly focuses on tactical applications and armament, though there is also an excellent photograph of the one Natter procured by the United States—incidentally, the same aircraft I was able to examine in Washington at the Air & Space Museum’s Paul Garber Facility storage facility.

  “Erich Bachem’s Snake in the Sky” by Dr. Alfred Price (Air International, July 1996) is an excellent expansion of technical sources and organization of Natter field units. Price’s article also details the launch, flight, and pilot separation sequence.

  The Ministère de la Marine report (July 1939) from France’s Technical and Industrial Second Bureau is an interesting intelligence evaluation of Germany’s pre-war jet engine development.

  Igor Witkowski’s “The Truth About the Wunderwaffe” has a short section concerning the Natter (pp. 177–178).

  The original writings of aviation pioneers are, of course, primary sources yet they are relatively inaccessible and sometimes challenging to read. These include Leonardo da Vinci’s On Floating Bodies and Codex on the Flight of Birds where lift is truly discussed for the first time. Early treatises from Archimedes reveal his thoughts on pressure, which will continue to plague aerodynamicists through the early jet age. Excellent secondary sources, which encompass many ancient or renaissance works, include Dr. John Anderson’s A History of Aerodynamics and The Airplane: A History of Its Technology. For those interested in the little known yet crucial early development of aviation, see Chapter 3, “Starts and Stops,” of Anderson’s The Airplane.

  The U.S. Air Force Academy McDermott Library also has a comparatively small but eclectic assortment of aviation artifacts and writings. In particular, the Gimbel collection, a 1970 bequest from the famous department store family, is well worth perusing. Dr. Mary Elizabeth Ruwell, Chief of Special Collections, is extremely knowledgeable, amiable, and she was willing to let me sift through the material while answering my pesky questions.

  Though usually resulting: See Anderson’s A History of Aerodynamics, pp. 17–21. This contains an interesting summary of Archimedes’ work on fluid statics that will, centuries later, significantly impact the study of pressure.

  In the early eleventh century: Test Pilots (Hallion), pp. 2–11.

  On a moonlit summer night: Lords of the Sky (Hampton), pp. 9–11.

  George Cayley, a self-educated baronet: Richard Dee’s The Man Who Discovered Flight: George Cayley and the First Airplane is an excellent source of information as is J. Lawrence Pritchard’s 1954 summary in Flight magazine, also Anderson’s The Airplane, pp. 28–32.

  Dr. Anderson says of Henson’s monstrosity: Anderson, The Airplane, p. 37.

  He ingeniously adapted the Pratt: Octave Chanute’s realization that “spreading the load” was essential to manned, human flight had a profound impact on the science of aerodynamics as this was a deliberate, thoughtful progression from the emulation of birds or bats. Humans are built differently, are much heavier, and use vastly different types of muscles, therefore copying flying creatures could only take our science of flight so far.

  On May 9, 1896: Langley AFB obviously has prodigious archives related to decades of fascinating work there. Mr. Michael Dugre and Ms. Gayle Langevin were helpful with much of Samuel Langley’s background information. See also Richard Hallion’s highly informative Test Pilots: The Frontiersmen of Flight, pp. 23–26.

  a handful of mortar: Washington Post, October 8, 1903.

  As with their predecessors: Written histories of the Wrights is as voluminous as it is varied. Much of the older information is distinctly biased and paints the brothers in an unrealistically favorable light. I am not detracting from their achievements, but their failures were just as significant and rarely mentioned until more modern times. These shortcomings and their impact are discussed in some detail in Chapter Two.

  with great distinction: Aeronautical Annual, “Wheeling and Flying.” 1896.

  Chapter 2: The Cauldron

  Ken Chilstrom was born during: Personal interview at Ken’s home in Virginia. This was the first in a series of dozens of conversations where he related his fascinating firsthand accounts of the last nine decades.

  By the time Ken’s father: The happier aspects of the first few years following the Great War can be found in a number of sources. Among my top choices are Allen’s Only Yesterday, David Kyvig’s Daily Life in the United States, and specifically the first five chapters of Last Call, by Daniel Okrent. See also a previous work of mine, The Flight, Chapter Two. for those truly wishing to delve deep, Margaret Macmillan’s superb Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World takes the reader through the unsettled time following the war, and the far-reaching consequences from the Treaty of Versailles.

  The decade got off to: Aviation was an exciting, integral aspect of life in the 1920s, and I detailed several early transatlantic crossings in The Flight, pp. 53–55. Part One of Philipp Blom’s Fracture, specifically “The End of Hope” and “Men Behaving Badly” are well worth reading for insight into the emerging social fabric of the United States.

  This was the first nonstop: The Flight, pp 121–122.

  Most early engines were: Lords of the Sky, pp. 57–59.

  All early forms of control: A pivotal advance in one regime that opens up a series of metaphorical doors in adjacent areas is a pattern in aviation development. In this case, the aileron made it possible to control faster and more maneuverable aircraft, which, in turn, was a catalyst for powerful engines. These together made it possible for aircraft to be used as weapons, thus necessitating advances in structure, design, weapons and tactics, and so on.

  For this reason the French: Alberto Santos-Dumont is another figure often overlooked, at least in the United Sta
tes, for his contributions to early flight. Paul Hoffman’s Wings of Madness, and the monograph Santos-Dumont and the Invention of the Airplane are both excellent sources.

  Some designers like Glenn Curtiss: Curtiss is well worth researching for those intrigued by the early days of aviation, especially in the United States. An astute businessman, Curtiss was well aware of the value of publicity and promoted aviation till his dying day. Setting an unofficial speed record of 136.36 mph on a custom V-8 motorcycle, he was the world’s fastest man from 1906 to 1911. Curtiss designed and built the NC (Navy Curtiss) class of flying boats that first crossed the Atlantic in 1919. He was also responsible for a number of aviation firsts—retractable landing gear and aircraft pontoons—and was the original licensed U.S. manufacturer of aircraft. See Studer’s Sky Storming Yankee and Roseberry’s Glenn Curtiss: Pioneer of Flight for more information.

  Post could also see: Augustus Post is well worth further research for aviation enthusiasts. A unique and eccentric man, there are numerous articles, court records, and writings concerning Post, but a good central source is his own papers in the Benson Ford Research Center of Dearborn, Michigan. Post also published poetry, authored a book called Skycraft, and composed an opera.

  A perfect storm of: Without the turbulence of the 1920s it would certainly have been more difficult, but certainly not impossible, for fascism, national socialism, and imperialism to take hold as they did in Italy, Germany, and Japan, respectively. Though the economic collapse in the United States played a significant role in triggering the subsequent global recession, it was not a standalone event. The dominoes had been set up to fall through a tragic, albeit interesting set of miscalculations, incompetence, and rank ambition. See Allen’s Only Yesterday, Chapters XII, XIII, and XIV; Martin Pugh’s We Danced All Night, pp. 1–20; and The Long Week-End by Graves and Hodge.

  After a brief postwar: Read Blom’s Fracture, pp. 97–215, for a year-by-year synopsis of the early to mid-1920s. Though the language is a bit stilted, Only Yesterday remains a highly readable account of the same period, specifically pp. 137–195.

  By 1925 the radio: The Statistical Abstracts of the United States, published by the U.S. Census Bureau, remain a wealth of painstakingly compiled hard information. Easily accessible through the Bureau’s website, there are data and summaries for virtually every aspect of American life.