Excerpts on the Grasshoppers, Sentinel and Vigilant, book by Reed Kinert GRASSHOPPERS EVEN THE light plane has gone to war. These small planes now follow their civilian pilots into uniform. They have proved their worth under grueling field tests and in the face of considerable skepticism.The War Production Board has now ordered manufacturers to deliver…
Excerpted from The Field Artillery Journal, July, 1942 By Lieutenant Colonel Lowell M. Riley, FA [- Commentary #1] The six-week tests which have been conducted at Fort Bragg, Camp Blanding, and Fort Sam Houston with the light Piper Cub plane, L-57 [L-4, 57 H marking], have now been completed. The crews of these airplanes were…
Excerpted from a letter to The Commandant, Field Artillery School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, August 4, 1941, from William W. Ford, Major, Field Artillery In January 1941 this writer presented his views on the above subject in an article entitled “Wings for Santa Barbara“. This article, published in the April 1941 issue of the Field Artillery…
An airplane of the Piper Cub class is entirely suitable for use in observation of artillery fire Excerpted from A Treatise on the Fast Airplane versus the Slow-Flying Light Airplane for Observation of Artillery Fire, July 31, 1941, by Dudley B. Howard, Colonel, Air Corps Problems to be solved How may a slow-flying airplane having a top…
Reprinted from Infantry Journal, by Private John Wolbarst, July 1941. Six thousand airplanes of less than 100 horsepower produced in 1940 attest recognition of the great sport to be found in a lightplane. That the same lightplane is potentially a military instrument of real value is less well recognized. There have been proposals for the…
Excerpted from The Field Artillery Journal, April 1941, by Major William W. Ford, Field Artillery. It is perhaps unfortunate that most of our field artillery officers have learned their gunnery at Fort Sill! Before the author of that statement is shot as a heretic, he wishes to explain. He doesn’t mean the School, he means…
A 1940s Film on Civil Aviation in the U.S. Sport flying and “pleasure planeing… along the limitless highways of the skies. Compact little monoplanes, ranging in price from $1,200–2,000.” 6-Ship Formation Takeoff Flying a plane like this is not a rich man’s sport. Flying club members cut upkeep costs by doing most of their own…
Reprinted from Air Corps News Letter, March 15, 1940. “Emulation of our seniors,” says the News Letter Correspondent at the Ryan School of Aeronautics, San Diego, Calif., “had always seemed a pretty good adage that has paid certain appreciable dividends in our flying progress at Ryan School. “We are now facing a very critical situation,…
Excerpted from The Field Artillery Journal, May–June 1939, Michael V. Gannon, Captain, Field Artillery, Editor Over the past few years our consciousness has been thoroughly awakened to the import of “blind flying,” but during the same period little or nothing has been said or done about “blind firing” in Field Artillery. Parenthetically, it should be…
Quandary Memorandum for the Deputy Chief of Staff [Maj. Gen. Hugh Drum], June 18, 1938, by General Malin Craig, Army Chief of Staff There is no doubt about the value of controlling fire of field artillery from the air. This requires rapid and accurate transmission of information from the Artillery Observer to the firing unit…