Virginia Aviation
By Roger Connor
()
About this ebook
Roger Connor
Roger Connor curates several aeronautical collections for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He is an experienced aviator with 4,000 hours logged as a flight instructor and commercial pilot.
Related to Virginia Aviation
Related ebooks
Naval Air: Celebrating a Century of Naval Flying Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNaval Station Norfolk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Naval Air Station Norfolk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Brooklyn Navy Yard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5McConnell Air Force Base Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Navy in Puget Sound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wreck Hunter: Battle of Britain & The Blitz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Emotional Gauntlet: From Life in Peacetime America to the War in European Skies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRecollections of a Rebel Reefer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHatteras Blues: A Story from the Edge of America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNavy Wings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Accidental Agent: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Bombsight View of Wwii Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Always Wanted to Fly: America’s Cold War Airmen Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Battleship Marine-A Combat History of the USS Wisconsin in Desert Storm Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAunt Phil’s Trunk : Volume Four Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSouth: A Two-Step Odyssey on the Backroads of the Enchanted Land Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Black Sun Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Upon These Steps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Place Called Kalaloch Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBones of My Grandfather: Reclaiming a Lost Hero of World War II Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5McGuire Air Force Base Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reminiscences of a Rambling Railroader Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFort Campbell in Vintage Postcards Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPhantom Warriors--Mission Two--North Korea: North Korea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Old Peninsula Days: Tales and Sketches of the Door Peninsula Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hostile Sky: A Hellcat Flyer in World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEastern Shore Railroad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Photography For You
Bloodbath Nation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Conscious Creativity: Look, Connect, Create Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Photography Exercise Book: Training Your Eye to Shoot Like a Pro (250+ color photographs make it come to life) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExtreme Art Nudes: Artistic Erotic Photo Essays Far Outside of the Boudoir Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Book Of Legs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Haunted New Orleans: History & Hauntings of the Crescent City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Betty Page Confidential: Featuring Never-Before Seen Photographs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wisconsin Death Trip Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Portrait Manual: 200+ Tips & Techniques for Shooting the Perfect Photos of People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Workin' It!: RuPaul's Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Photography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The iPhone Photography Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Photography 101: The Digital Photography Guide for Beginners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Advancing Your Photography: Secrets to Making Photographs that You and Others Will Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5David Copperfield's History of Magic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fucked at Birth: Recalibrating the American Dream for the 2020s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Photography Bible: A Complete Guide for the 21st Century Photographer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Humans of New York: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Collins Complete Photography Course Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cinematography: Third Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5San Bernardino, California Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeclutter Your Photo Life: Curating, Preserving, Organizing, and Sharing Your Photos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRocks and Minerals of The World: Geology for Kids - Minerology and Sedimentology Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jonesboro and Arkansas's Historic Northeast Corner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How the Other Half Lives Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Virginia Aviation
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Virginia Aviation - Roger Connor
it.
INTRODUCTION
This is the story of a state and its people undergoing one of the most remarkable technological transformations in recorded history. The 100 years between 1861 and 1961 were witness to amazing achievements that ranged from the deployment of balloons in the Civil War to the advent of manned spaceflight. They represent profound revolutions in transportation, communication, and warfare—and Virginia had a ringside seat.
North Carolina lays claim to the tagline First in Flight,
while Ohio does the same with Birthplace of Aviation
—both for their mutual association with the Wright brothers. Likewise, California has long been the heart of the American aerospace industry, and most other states can make significant claims to shaping the nation’s aeronautical heritage. However, no state can claim a richer and more diverse aerospace history than Virginia. From the first balloon flight in the commonwealth in 1801 (near Williamsburg) to satellites launched from Wallops Island, the state has witnessed an astounding number of transformative milestones in civil and military aviation. However, like much of Virginia’s history, the military component of the commonwealth’s aeronautical legacy merits special distinction relative to other states.
Geographically, there are many reasons for Virginia’s aeronautical prominence. The sheltered waters and ocean access of Hampton Roads have made Norfolk and the Tidewater region a cornerstone of national defense for the East Coast. The Army’s Langley Field and the Navy’s Naval Air Station Norfolk quickly assumed responsibility for defending the Mid-Atlantic region in the middle decades of the 20th century, rendering the grand coastal fortifications at Fort Monroe obsolete. Northern Virginia provided demonstration and landing fields for Washington, DC, while the spacious grounds of nearby Quantico served as a laboratory for the exotic new aerial technologies of the Marine Corps.
The Civil War marked the first American experience with aeronautics in warfare—one that occurred almost entirely within the confines of the commonwealth. Union balloonist Thaddeus S.C. Lowe’s demonstrations captured the imagination of President Lincoln, leading to the establishment of a small balloon corps, as well as prompting a competing Confederate balloon program. However, the realities of operations in the Peninsula Campaign did not decisively demonstrate the military value of aerial observation to the degree that Lowe might have liked, and he disbanded the Balloon Corps in 1863, while the Confederate balloon was captured in 1862.
American military interest in aeronautics did not reemerge in a substantive way until the first decade of the 20th century, when the Army Signal Corps began evaluating a series of new technologies for observation, including balloons, Thomas Scott Baldwin’s airship, and the Wright brothers’ airplane. The Signal Corps’ demonstration ground for these new technologies was Fort Myer in Arlington. The Wright brothers’ demonstrations of 1908–1909 were successful in convincing the military of the airplane’s potential, but they also showcased the risks, as Lt. Thomas Selfridge became the first casualty of powered heavier-than-air flight in 1908.
Glenn Curtiss, the Wright’s chief competitor, also found Virginia to be an exemplary proving ground. With Thomas Scott Baldwin, he established a factory and one of the nation’s first flight schools in Hampton Roads—the Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station. As America entered into World War I, the Aviation Section, Signal Corps (forerunner of today’s Air Force) discovered an ideal test site at the location of several old plantations near Hampton. The National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics (NACA, the forerunner of NASA) piggybacked on the construction to establish one of its principal aeronautical laboratories. Across the waters of Hampton Roads, the Navy began aircraft operations at a new site, known as Naval Air Station Hampton Roads (soon to become Naval Air Station Norfolk).
Though American participation in World War I was brief, the aeronautical facilities of the Tidewater had an outsized impact on the region and, more broadly, on aeronautics. Many of the aerospace innovations of the last century may be connected in some way to the highly significant aerodynamic research undertaken there. Most American combat aircraft through the World War II era were validated in part by testing at Langley, as were many civil and commercial aircraft. The space age also had its dawn at Langley and on Wallops Island, where the early space capsules underwent aerodynamic and atmospheric testing and Americans prepared to land on the Moon.
One of the most significant aeronautical events of the early postwar years occurred at Langley Field in 1921 when Brig. Gen. William Mitchell attempted to persuade his superiors, and the country at large, that the bomber had made the battleship obsolete and that only airpower could be decisive in future wars. His aircraft bombed a fleet of captured German and obsolete American warships anchored in the Virginia Capes off the mouth of the Chesapeake. Though the experiment was more like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel, Mitchell’s experiments provoked a debate in the American military that ultimately had profound implications for the way the nation fights its wars. During the interwar years, the Marine Corps also established its own center of innovation at Quantico, where it could develop new aerial tactics. This paid off significantly in the Cold War, when the concept of using helicopters for air mobility was fleshed out with the aircraft of squadron HMX-1 that would eventually become synonymous with transporting the president by helicopter.
The attempts by Germany’s U-boat force to sever the seagoing lifeline between the United Kingdom and the United States during the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942–1943 placed Langley Field and Naval Air Station Norfolk on the front lines of combat operations. Norfolk also served as the birthplace of America’s carrier force, as home to the first shipboard flight of an airplane in 1910 by Eugene Ely, as well as the construction of the USS Langley (CV-1), the Navy’s first carrier.
The Cold War brought new threats and new opportunities. Jet aircraft required larger facilities, ultimately culminating in Dulles Airport, which substantially shaped the built landscape of Northern Virginia. More ominous infrastructure appeared in the commonwealth as well, with nuclear-tipped antiaircraft missile batteries proliferating in Northern Virginia to defend the nation’s capital against Soviet bomber formations.
Virginia was also an ideal way station on the emerging aerial highways connecting north and south on the eastern seaboard. Washington and Richmond quickly grew as aviation terminals, first