The L33 Raid: A game changer

On afternoon hours of September 23rd 1916, one of the ‘next generation’ super-Zeppelins, L33, took to the air for its first operational mission: the bombing of downtown London. Just a few months before, L33 was on the ground, getting its final fittings and adjustments. The L33 was truly a remarkable piece of engineering. She was 649′ long, with a 78 feet diameter and with a total gas capacity of 1,949,000 cubic feet. Six powerful Maybach 240hp Hslu engines gave the lumbering giant a top speed of 59 mph at a maximum operational ceiling of 13,500 feet. Beside its sheer size, what separated the L33 from its predecessor was its bomb load capacity. An impressive five tons of ordnance could be stored.

That fateful afternoon, L33 was accompanied by ten additional super-Zeppelins of the Imperial German Navy. The mission called for the eleven to reach the British coastline at the same time. After which, each craft will take off to its pre-designated target area. Eight Zeppelins were assigned to strike targets around the Wash. The remaining three units were to hit the British capital. Taking part in the London raid was L31 under the command of Heinrich Mathy, L32, lead by the enigmatic Werner Peterson and the L33, controlled by Alois Bocker.

L33, which departed Nordholz, was fitted with almost three tons of free fall bombs. At approximately ten o’clock GMT, L33 flew over Britain’s coast. The huge dirigible was spotted by some local boys near the Thames Estuary. From the Estuary, it moved on towards the north east in order to avoid the heavily saturated British defenses on the east. At the same time, L31 and L32 were crossing the coast headed towards Dungeness, a path seldom explored by German and British planners.

At 11:48 pm, Bocker ordered L33′s bombs to be dropped. Six high explosive bombs landed on Hornchurch. Twenty minutes later, the 33 craft was seen passing West Ham by a couple of street policemen. They promptly alerted the authorities. Searchlights blanketed the pass between Ham and London. After five intensive minutes of search, no Zeppelin was discovered, thus, the search was called off, for the time being.

A little over 12:05 in the morning, London’s powerful searchlights were turned on. The spotters must have seen the undisputed sight of the German slow moving dirigible, because an intense ground attack commenced shortly afterwards. Bocker’s airship was cruising at 12,000 feet following the Ham’s banks when fire erupted. Despite it all, he and his crew kept L33′s attack direction all the way up to Bromley-by-Bow, where the gas giant dropped its main ordnance. One 100kg bomb and five small, incendiary bomblets landed on St. Leonard’s and Empress Streets.

Four urban houses were damaged and six people were killed in this early stage of the raid. L33 went on to deliver several more bombs in and around Bow. But by this time, the airship was shadowed by British defenses. Low trajectory shells began to find their mark. Several fragments of high detonation shells exploded only a few feet away from the ship’s skin puncturing one gas cell. Now the big air platform was in trouble. It began losing altitude fast. At 12:20 am, L33 was seen crossing Buckhurts Hill, leaking gas. Besieged by heavy ground fire, and declining altitude, Bocker decided to dump water from the ship’s ballast tanks, which caused the L33 to regain some of the height it had lost. But the damage was done.

Near Kelvedon Common, a new and more ominous treat arrived: a British pursuit airplane. Second Lieutenant Alfred de Bathe Brandon was ready for the opportunity to engage the German ship. He had gained valuable experience in March 1916, when he almost single-handedly severely damaged L15. Brandon met L33 head on, emptying his Lewis gun, fifty explosive incendiary bullets, into the airship’s stern section. He swung around to hit the stern again, but his gun jammed forcing him to call off the engagement. L33 escaped, at least for the moment.

It was now 12:45 and the dirigible was passing by Chelmsford, still losing precious high. In an attempt to steam the decline, all non-essential materials aboard were jettisoned. Twenty five minutes after, at 1:10, Bocker’s ship passed over the Essex coastal area near Mersea Island. Its destination was the security of the Belgium skies. Unfortunately for Bocker and his crew, L33 was doomed. The Zeppelin was almost out of gas, losing altitude fast and its structure was compromised. It would go down, the only question for Bocker was where.

A crash landing at sea, at that hour, was deemed too risky. Better off, the commander thought, to make a semi-controlled decent in British territory, then deal with the imprisonment issue. Immediately, the ship began to turnaround, now headed back to Essex. She managed to enter the coast. Two and a half miles inland, at 1:20am, L33 went down on a deserted field near Peldon and Little Wigborough church. The crew managed to escape before the gas giant was engulfed in a fire storm.

Soon after the fire died down, and with the metal frame still standing, Bocker ordered his men to climb back into what was left of the super-Zeppelin to destroy any classified material. Despite their best efforts, the British still were able to gather many essential documents and systems out of the wreck. Data that would be later incorporated on the R33 platform.
When the crew saw the first police cars arriving on the field, they promptly left the area. But the trip back to the coast was short lived. Specialist, Edgar Nicholas, apprehended the entire crew without even taking a shot.

The crew of L33 was questioned extensively by British military and scientific personnel. Even psychologists were brought in to examine the men’s mental profile. Such was the depth of the debriefing phase. As for the dirigible’s debris, they were studied by engineers for days. After authorities were satisfied that every drop of information was collected, the ship’s frame was burn to the ground.

In the final analysis, the end of L33 did not alter the rate of Zeppelin attacks, but what it did was to enforce a view held by many German commanders, Zeppelins alone would not defeat Great Britain. A new weapon was needed. One year later, that weapon would make its present felt.

- Raul Colon

References:

World War I, HP Willmott, Covent Gardens Books 2003
The First World War, Hew Strachan, Penguin Books 2003
The Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft, Robert Jackson, Parragon Publishing Book 2002

The very first raid on England: LZ38 Bomb Run

“If one could set fire to London in thirty places, then what in a small way was odious would retire before something fine and powerful”, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, January 1915. With those words, the world was ushered into the age of aerial bombardment.

When the Great War broke in Europe on August 1914, the Imperial German Army, as well as the Navy, had their own Luftschiff Zeppelin airship fleets. The first German air attack against England was carried out in December 21st 1914, and, contrary to some accounts, it was not done by a dirigible. A Heinkel-designed Albatross sea plane dropped a pair of twenty pound, fragment bombs in and around the Dover area that fateful day. Although no injuries, and only a minor infrastructure damages were reported, the idea of a German-lead, massive air assault on the British Isles, an idea already sheared by many Brits, rapidly achieved almost mythological status.

From late 1914 to the early spring of 1915, there was profound discussion inside the German military and political establishment regarding the effectiveness of an all out bombing campaign against Great Britain. Not that there were doubts about attacking the British Empire, the question was more precisely: how to do it? On the one hand, there were those, mostly civilian leaders, who were in favor of an all out bombing campaign on military targets only. The other side of the isle belonged to the military which desired a truly universal campaign designed on infrastructure and moral attacks. In order to achieve both of those objectives, Germany must be willing to attack population centers without remorse, the thinking went. As with many major political decision, a compromise was reach were the Zeppelins would indeed operate against both military and civilian targets with the caveat that any attack on populated areas must be short in nature.

German Chancellor, Theodore von Bethmann-Hollweg, fearing a public backlash if civilian causalities started to mount do to the Zeppelin raids, added a clause to the newly adopted air doctrine. “Any attack on civilian centers must be undertaken by a few ships with long intervals between raids”.

On February 12th, German Kaiser Wilhelm II issued an Imperial Order that permitted attacks to take place on oil, petroleum and dock facilities in London. Although the order did not specifically called for the bombing of civilian, because of the inaccuracy of the dirigibles and the close integration in the British capital of civilian houses near the pre-selected target sectors, the decree, for all purposes, permitted airships formations to unleash terror from the skies upon the population of London.

On the afternoon of May 31st 1915, Luftschiff Zeppelin 38 took off from its pen at Brussels-Evere. Its mission profile called for a short bomb run of the important industrial east side of London. After encountering a brief, southwest thunder storm, LZ-38′s commander, Hauptmann Karl Linnarz, ordered a sharp east turn towards England’s south east coast. The massive airship was first sighted over Southend at around 9:15pm. By 10:50pm it was over the storied British capital. Flying at around 10,000 feet, at 10:59, Linnarz gave the order to ‘release bombs’. One hundred and twenty high explosive and incendiary bombs rained down on Stoke Newington and Dalston. Also hit were Hoxton, Whitechapel and Leytonstone.

At 11:01pm, members of the Home Guard, utilizing rudimentary anti-aircraft, commence to fire at Linnarz’s ship. Search lights pounded the London night sky in search of the intruder. Fighters took off in search and destroy missions. In a nut shell, all of the British anti air raid assets were deployed in a matter of just a few minutes. Unfortunately for the defenders, their turn of the century guns were completely ineffective falling to land a single shoot near the huge air platform. Search lights could not locate the ship either and the fighters took so much time getting into the Zeppelin altitude profile that by the time they arrive on one spot, the ship was surely to be somewhere else. Bottom line, no one that fateful night would find LZ-38.
On the ground, the effects of the bombing, seven Londoners perished and twenty five were reported injured, were minimal if compared to the carnage of the now dreaded Western Front, but, unlike the fields of northern France, this was the heart of the British Empire. For the first time since the Dutch raids of 1667, London was subject to bombardment.

The consequences of the attack were profound, not only in England but in Germany as well. England fell uncomfortably vulnerable while the German Reich was emboldened with a new sense of omnipotence. Omnipotence also carried out a felling of wondering. As a pure military operation, the LZ-38 was, at best, a side show. A distraction. No military target was hit during the fifteen minute raid. And although the civilian casualties were relative low for such an inaccurate attack, it did happen.

The image the world took out of LZ-38′s attack was that of a ‘Hun barbarians’. Germans attacking innocent civilians while praying, as was the case with a middle age couple who perish during the Stoke Newington raid while doing its night prayers, was the image British newspapers sold to the world. An image that was only enhanced a few moths later during the battles for Flanders.
Even if it was a military failure, the 38′s attack, German leaders though, proved to Britain, and to rest of the world one thing: that German technical superiority will help win the war for the Central Powers.

Back on England, the reaction assumed a more somber tone. As late as 1913, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, mocked the value of ‘these gaseous monster’ as tools of war. By June 1915, no one in the Admiralty was ridiculing the Zeppelins. As the summers months drag along, the British shifted resources to the development of long range anti aircraft guns, pure interceptors and the establishment of a coordinated airship detection units along the English Channel coast.

On July 11th 1915, Wilhelm lifted what ever constraints the German armed forces operated. Now ‘Huns’ Zeppelins were free to roam the London skyline. All targets around the venerable British capital were to be subjected to bombardment, all of them except St. Paul Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. Historic structures that was closely associated with the Kaiser’s English royal relatives.

- Raul Colon

References:

Fire Over England: The German Air Raids in World War I, HG Castle, Secker & Warburg, 1982
Zeppelins Over England, EK Poolman, Evan Brothers 1960

The Supermarine Sea Otter

The Supermarine Sea Otter was a British designed biplane amphibian intended to replace the once venerable Supermarine Walrus in the Royal Air Force reconnaissance and search and rescue missions. It had the distinctions of being the last biplane flying boat to achieve front line service in Great Britain armed forces.

The Otter was a result of an Air Ministry’s specification request codenamed S.7-38 (Stingray). There was a considerable effort placed on the development of Project Stingray’s power plant. The original S.78-38 called for a Bristol Perseus XI engine configuration with a two bladed propeller arrangement. The Bristol Perseus configuration did not gave the platform the necessary thrust. A new arrangement was develop with a four blade propeller mechanism set at an angle of 35 degrees. A sharp departure from the frequently use 90 degree sets.

The first prototype, unit K8854, took to the air for its maiden flight on the morning of September 23rd 1938. Designed to take the place of the 1933-designed Walrus, the Otter differed from its predecessor in many characteristics. Most noticeable was its engine tractor configuration. The Walrus utilized a pusher system. The new aircraft was also faster, could fly farther and handled better in the water that its predecessor.

F-15 71-0290 in flight. (photo, via author)

Production was carried out by the front runner of British flying boats designs, Saunders Roe who acted as the only subcontractors to the Otter project. By the spring of 1939, the Royal Air Force (RAF) and much of the British air industry was gear up to produce badly needed fighters and bombers, so the production of the Otter was delayed by almost three full years.
The first production Otter was delivered to the RAF on January 1943. The original Air Ministry order was for 592 aircraft, but due to the tardiness of production and the end of World War II, only 290 were ever built. Production ran well into 1946 (July) before the halt order arrived.

The first operational Sea Otters were assigned to the RAF No. 277 Squadron. The Royal Navy (RN) also got into the act and acquired a number of Otters for costal recon operations. During WW II, Otters fielded nine RAF squadrons: No. 277, 278, 279, 281, 282, 292, No. 1350 Flight, 1351 and 1352. Other countries also operated the Otter. The Royal Australian Navy utilized the type to patrol the vastness of the Coral Sea. The Royal Danish Air Force, the Duct Naval Aviation Services and the French Colonial Service on Indochina; also employed the biplane.

After the Second World War was over, the RAF and RN promptly retired the Otter from front line service. This did not mean that the plane was useless. The RN Fleet Air Arm units remained in service until the spring of 1952.

Two versions of the Otter were produced, the Mk I and II. The amphibious Mk I carried bombs and depth charges while the Mk II was employ only as an air rescue platform. Of the 290 Otter built, only 40 were of the Mk II variety.

Today, only a nose section of a Royal Australian Navy Otter remains. Currently the section sits on permanent display at an Australian Naval Museum.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Supermarine Sea Otter
Sea Otter

NASA’s F-15s

There are few fighters that capture the imagination in the same way that the F-15 Eagle does. Almost all the pilots who flew the Eagles in peace and in war, acknowledge that it was a completely ‘different beast’. Its handling capability and its sheer power will be difficult to duplicate in a platform-era bases. To resume, the F-15 will most likely end up in history as the most feared and respected fighter of all time.

The Eagles had been guarding the peace now for more than a quarter of a century. It forms the backbone of, not only the United States Air Force, but most of the Allies, air dominance capability. The majestic ‘Bird’ has also been a fixture on NASA’s flying circles since the mid 1970s. The National Air and Space Administration had and still operate a small fleet of modified F-15s most of them for experimental purposes.

The first F-15 operated by the Administration was serial number 71-0281. The unit was utilized in December 1975 to test the thermal tiles implemented on the Shuttle program. The unit was sent back to the USAF in the spring of 1983. Sample 74-0141, an F-15B version, was use by NASA as an Aerodynamic Flight Facility from the summer of 1994. Those ‘B’ platforms were known inside the space agency as NASA 836 units. Their primary function was to carry a Flight Test Fixture (FTF) on its center pylon.
Inside each FTF were research systems, materials for testing and advance instrumentation. An example of this was the X-33 Thermal Protection System which was tested in FTF-II. The system calibrated, monitored and instrumented the many materials destined for the X-33 flight experimentation profile.

On January 5th, 1976 NASA acquired an F-15A (71-0287), the eight ‘A’ ever produce, designated NASA 835. The 835, which is NASA’s top operating Eagle, served as a test bed for futuristic propulsion systems, aerodynamics, control mechanism, flight techniques and fly-by-wire integrated computers. In 1982, the unit was modified to test the highly advance DEEC Engine Control System (ADECS). The ADECS was a platform utilized to evaluate and to achieve stall control of the engine’s margin under different operational parameters.

F-15 71-0290 in flight. (photo, via author)

After completing the evaluation with ADECS, the 835 was fitted with the Highly Integrated Digital Electronic Control (HIDEC), a new system intended to use computer power to detect loss of, or degradation of control surfaces. It was expected that after the problematic area was identified, HIDEC would re-configured the remaining control sections to compensate. At the same time, it would alert the pilot of the problem and generate a new, real time flight package to assist the pilot in keeping the plane flying.
NASA 835 also tested the controversial Self Repairing Flight Control System (SRFCS) in the autumn of 1989. The SRFCS was, in some ways, very similar to the HIDEC, but one thing that the Self Repairing system offered was an in depth analysis of failures other that that of the control surfaces. Hydraulics, mechanical and electronic systems were all monitored by SRFCS, which will make any correction needed to failing systems in order to keep the aircraft airborne.

In the summer of 1991, the 71-0287 was redesigned to be part of the Performance Seeking Control (PCS) program. The program main function was to optimize engine performance and assure safe operation of the power plants through digital monitoring of failures and digital control of the inlets, nozzles and flight control sections.

835 ended its long and distinguished NASA career flying as a Propulsion Controlled Aircraft (PAC). PAC was initiated because a series of crashed caused by loss of flight control prompted the agency to commence a program to determine whether was possible that a system could be design to maintain control of an aircraft by altering thrust parameters on a single power plant.
Initial results with PAC showed promise as it proved the concept of control through pitch with one engine, though asymmetric application of thrust from two engines was needed to alter heading and induce roll. NASA 835 was the only aircraft using PAC. In one test flight, the unit flew down to less than 10 feet above a runway at 150 KIAS utilizing thumbwheels. Successful landings at Edwards AF base in California proved the soundness of the concept.
The last PCA flying program attached to the 835 was that of the Landing/Maneuvering Technology Demonstrator (S/MTD) for testing emerging technologies for suitability to the USAF’s Advance Tactical Fighter program. Technologies used on the F-22 Raptor and the new F-35 Lighting II.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Jane’s Aircraft Recognition Guide, Gunter Endres and Mike Gething, HarperCollins Publishing 2002
Skunk Works, Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos, Back Bay Books, 1994
Concept Aircraft: Prototypes, X-planes and Experimental Aircraft, Jim Winchester, Editor; Thunder Bay Press, 2007

Air power in Venezuela’s 1992 coup attempt

If compared to the rest its South American counterparts, Venezuela enjoyed a relative stable form of government for much of the 1970s and 80s. As with the rest of the country’s military arms, the Fuerza Aerea Venezolana (FAV) suffered from a prolong period of budgetary restrictions and limitations that started in the mid 70s and lasted until the early mid-to late 80s. This period of stagnation left the once powerful FAV in a state of flux. During that time, most of the FAV assets became non-operational. But by 1987, the situation was commencing to improve with the acquisition by the Venezuelan government of top shelf equipment such as powerful United States’ build F-16A Falcon. The FAV also began a crash program to upgrade its Mirage units to 2000′s standards.
On February 24th, 1992, the paratroop units of Grupo Paracaidista Aragua, lead by Lieutenant Colonel, and current president of the republic, Hugo Chavez; staged a coup attempt. Although the coup was quickly squashed, feelings inside the air force remained high and volatile. So much so that on the 27th of November, a further attempt to rest power from the civilian government was made. Lead by the charismatic Brigadier General Francisco Visconti, lead elements of the FAV used the Air Force Day preparations to move units into the El Libertador Air Force Base at Palo Negro, Aragua.

The units included a sole NF-5B, five T-2Ds, six OV-10As, three OV-10Es and two A-27s. At 0330 on the morning of the 27th, Visconti’s forces seized the control of the important base. Supported by the vaunted 10th Special Operations Group, which operated most of the air force’s helicopter fleet, and the Grupo de Caza 11, Visconti’s men meet little opposition. But this does not mean that all base personnel were inboard with the coup. Two QRA aircraft from Grupo de Caza 16, managed to escape to Barquisimeto. A base that remained loyal to the republic’s president. The rest of Caza 16′s assets were captured. While the El Libertador operation was underway, supplemental units of the 10th were capturing the near by Mariscal Sucre air force base at Boca Del Rio, Maracay. Mariscal Sucre was the home of the FAV’s training fleet of EMB-312 Tucanos and T-34As trainers.

Mirage 50DV 2473 at El Libertador. (photo, via author)

That same morning in Caracas, three French-built Mirage 50EVs from Grupo 11 began strafing the Army’s barracks. Another force composed of Broncos, Tucanos and Buckeyes; attacked the presidential palace, the foreign ministry building, the police headquarters and the Presidential Guard barracks. Unlike previous attacks on El Libertador and Sucre, this time the attacking force meet resistance. Suddenly ad almost out of nowhere, the two F-16 Falcons that escaped Libertador appeared over the skies of the Venezuelan capital. It did not take long before the modern Falcons chased away the Tucanos and Broncos. Then, the heavily armed F-16s moved to Sucre and Libertador strafing anything that moved on the ground with their powerful 20mm cannons.

Also in the morning of the 27th, and while forces loyal to the government started to counterattack the rebel positions, insurgence Mirages and Broncos took off from Sucre to commence their attacks on Barquisimeto. There they proceeded to destroy three CF-5As and a civilian MD-80 airliner. Unfortunately for the attackers, Grupo de Caza 12 managed to scramble one F-16 and a NF-5A. They were able to shoot down two of the OV-10s. The F-16 also downed a sole Tucano without much effort.

When the afternoon hit, the once promising coup attempt stared to unravel. Another slow moving Bronco was downed over Caracas, most likely by small caliber ground fire. By 1300, with La Carlota Air Force Base, one of the main targets of the rebels, completely secure, government forces began their countermove. Elite elements of the Army and some paratroop formations loyal to the government began their ground assault on Libertador and Sucre. Supported by two tanks columns, the Army regulars entered the bases almost without firing a shoot.

Visconti knew the attempt was over and at 1400 ordered a complete evacuation of the bases. He and 92 co-conspirators took off of a Grupo 6′s C-130H Hercules transport bound for Peru, where they sought political asylum. Two Mirage 50Es from Grupo 11 made their way to the Island of Aruba in the Caribbean Sea. Only one rebel operated Bronco escaped. This OV-10 landed on another Caribbean Island, Curacao.

Almost one thousand officers, non commissioned officers and enlisted men where rounded up and arrested by Army police units. By the late hours of the evening, the November 27th coup attempt was history.

- Raul Colon

More information:
Air Power: The men, machines and ideas that revolutionized War; from Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II, Stephen Budiansky, Penguin Books 2004
Americas’ Wars, Joseph Thomas and Gregory Henn, Herms Publishing, 2000