In the space of an average lifetime, American military aircraft changed beyond recognition. General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold, chief of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, had learned to fly in 1911 in the Wright brothers’ pioneering aviation school. By the time he died in 1950, his successor could call on a new generation of jet-powered fighters, together with bombers capable of delivering an atomic bomb all the way to the Soviet Union. How was this transformation achieved, and what obstacles had to be overcome along the way?
Uncertain beginnings
Military aviation before World War I was primitive, underfunded, and dangerous. The fledgling air service was part of the Army Signal Corps – a subordinate status resented by some pilots, while others lacked the confidence to demand institutional independence. A more pressing issue was the hazardous nature of pilot training in the early years. The first aircraft trialled by the Army was a wood, canvas and wire-braced Wright Flyer biplane, powered by a frail 35hp engine with a skid undercarriage. For much of the year, the planes were based at the Wright brothers’ flying school at Dayton, Ohio, but in winter they had to be disassembled and moved by rail to the gentler climate of Georgia.
The early years of flight saw a debate between advocates of alternative positions for the plane’s engine. In the ‘pusher’ mode, typical of the first airframes, the pilot and passenger sat together in front of the engine – a potentially dangerous configuration, since, in a nose-down crash, they were likely to be crushed as the engine fell forward on to them. By 1914, the tractor design, in which the propeller pulls the plane through the air, was being recognised as broadly safer and more efficient.
