EXTINCT SPECIES - Airplanes that flew, but not one example exists today!

some aircraft never leave the drawing board others never make it past the mock-up stage still others are flown but never go into production and finally airplanes are designed built flown successful in service pioneering in their own ways and yet all these aircraft that we just talked about have one thing in common not one survives intact anywhere in the world today and we're gonna bring you thirty different aircraft that are now called extinct species in this episode of celebrating aviation with mike michat let's start with the x-planes of the late 40s and early 1950s these were exotic designs uh unique in some cases one-of-a-kind aircraft that were only for one purpose and that was research exploring speeds and altitudes and flight regimes different configurations it was just an amazing time of exploration and uh progress in aviation uh after world war ii but what's really amazing is that all the airplanes you see in this photo still exist to this day in museums and other venues from lower left the x1a series although the the 1a in particular was lost in an accident but the advanced bell x-1 series does survive uh next the douglas sky streak the one of a kind convair xf92a the variable geometry bell x5 the douglas skyrocket first airplane to mach 2 the x4 bantam at lower right and in the center the x3 stiletto as dangerous as these flights were and as risky as these missions were all these airplanes survived but let's look at 30 different designs that didn't and we're going to start with the proposals for the strategic bomber at the beginning of the cold war now to get right to it this was the winner of that whole process the boeing b-47 boeing test pilot tex johnston considered this one of the most significant airplanes ever designed it was the uh great grandfather of literally every jet transport flying today 35 degrees swept back wing potted engines advanced uh construction techniques a revolutionary airplane 600 mile per hour bomber in 1947. but let's look at the designs that didn't make it these were the competitors and these were straight wing airplanes and so they just didn't have anywhere near their performance let's start with the consolidated xb46 the martin xb48 the martin xb51 and uh this is an overview tonight i'm i'm not going to be getting into all the political stories and reasons we'd have an hour-long video if i did that but uh this is as i say an overview of the airplanes that were designed and built and flown but never survived the curtis xp 87 was actually an interceptor design uh the northrop f-89 scorpion won this contract but this was the last airplane that curtis built we talked about the republic xr12 rainbow this is a photo recon prototype two were built and competed for an air force contract with the hughes xf-11 in both cases one prototype was lost in an accident and the other was scrapped so none of these airplanes survived and why weren't these machines saved if they were so rare and so unique well the short answer is that the air force museum and other military museums hadn't been established yet when these airplanes were flown and uh and then came to the end of their uh service life so although the roots of the air force museum go back to 1923 it was essentially a storage facility after world war ii it opened to the public in 1955 and the current facility that's at wright-patterson air force base in dayton ohio as you see here opened in 1971. so the answer was other than davis-monthan air force base which is the boneyard there really was no facility for preserving or saving any of those airplanes and that led to the scrapping of all these different machines now there were differences uh here you have the converse sea dart four were built three were flown two survived and there are museums today but then you had 12 martin xp6m and p6m seamasters the world's fastest flying boat a nearly 600 mile an hour airplane a revolutionary machine but it was a water-based flying boat powered by four jet engines and yet the navy's strategic bomber mission uh gave it was given to the air force and there's a whole political story with that and all 12 martin seamasters were scrapped the navy had ideas of getting into the troop transport business as well and here you have the convair trade wind but it was powered by the uh problematic allison t-40 turbo props with counter-rotating propellers and that was really the achilles heel of the airplane and 11 were built and they were all scrapped same with the lockheed constitution two prototypes were built and again this is when the navy had visions of large troop transports something different in the performance realm the grumman xf-10f jaguar which was an experimental airplane to test variable geometry wings on a carrier-based airplane that was kind of a tubby design and again just a prototype two were built both were scrapped but it led to a very interesting airplane grumman's f-111b which was the navy version of the f-111 series in 1962 and this was not suitable for carrier operations it was just too large but grumman came back and hit it out of the park with the f-14 tomcat one of the greatest naval fighters ever and here you see it with the wings extended and here's the f-14 with the wing swept back so sometimes a prototype that's not successful leads to ultimately leads to airplanes that are speaking of flyoff competitions the vaught xf-8u3 super crusader or crusader 3 was the navy's fastest single-engine airplane at mach 2.39 but it competed against the mcdonald f4 phantom which ultimately uh won the contract and more than 5000 of those airplanes were built but the crusader 3 was an amazing looking airplane and three prototypes were built and flown and none were saved they were all scrapped looking at airplanes from foreign lands we have one of the most elegant one of the most beautiful machines ever flown the avro canada cf-105 arrow which was going to be a cold war interceptor a number of airplanes were completed and were flown in canada and due to some very interesting political maneuvering uh the royal canadian air force did not go with the airplane uh beaumark missiles were substituted and the cf-104 uh starfighter from lockheed was built under license so the cf-105 was not to be from great britain you had the world's largest airliner after world war ii really the first wide body airliner and that's the bristol brabazon but it was too much airplane for the market at that time and so the one uh one-of-a-kind prototype was was scrapped all right show of hands how many of you built a ravel fairy rhododyn kit that you see here you ever seen a picture of the real one there it is it was a one-of-a-kind uh hybrid helicopter turboprop commuter and the whole point was to go from city center to city center without having to go out to an airport and get on an airplane and go through that whole process uh it flies it flew successfully but it was extremely loud and very expensive to operate and so the one-of-a-kind prototype was scrapped although parts of it existed in museums in great britain the saunders road princess flying boat a huge uh transport flying boat like the brabazon just too much airplane at the time two were built and both were scrapped now we get to a very interesting airplane the de havilland dh108 swallow this is believed to be europe's first supersonic airplane and a dive three were built and sadly all three were lost in accidents that claimed the lives of their pilots but the most notable uh was the uh prototype that was lost in a dive at mach uh 0.9 and it was flown by jeffrey de havilland jr the son of jeffrey de havilland the founder of the company what's interesting is the date of this accident was september 27th 1946. ten years later to the day on september 27 1956 the second of two bell x2 rocket airplanes crashed at edwards claiming the life of captain mel apt and it just goes to show that with a total of five of these research airplanes and the loss of all five with uh the loss of five pilots uh the flight test business in those days was was uh pretty dangerous and pretty risky but what came out of it was knowledge and progress in aviation in later years the flying wings are uh you know deserving of special uh consideration in this topic and let's take a look the xb35 flew uh just before the end of world war ii contra rotating propellers the yb35 was the single propeller version of the flying wing wingspan was 172.0 ft the same exact wingspan of the b2 stealth bomber today the yb-49 was a jet conversion of the b-35 and the yrb-49 with the additional two engines slung under the wing and pods there was the was the reconnaissance and e-lind version of the airplane it was ahead of its time but all the flying wings that were built were scrapped at hawthorne at the plant where they were constructed and sadly by the same people who built the machines the consolidated b-32 dominator flew at the end of world war ii it was used in the pacific 113 of these airplanes were constructed it was kind of a backup to the b-29 and uh it did fly in service and all of all the b-32s were scrapped the xb19 the hemisphere bomber built by douglas in santa monica the world's largest airplane at the time one-of-a-kind prototype that you see here in hangar one at santa monica here it is at march air force base uh it held a lot of promise for a giant army bomber but it was again just too too big and uh just not as advanced and developed the boeing b-17 took the role and obviously that was a classic in world war ii douglas dc-5 12 of these were built it was the dc3 replacement it didn't go into mass production because of the beginning of world war ii but all 12 were wound up being scrapped douglas c-74 the first globe master with the twin bug-eye canopy here this airplane was used in the berlin airlift and uh 14 of these were built and all were subsequently scrapped but it led to the c-124 glowmaster ii and ultimately the c-17 glow master iii and now we come to the flying boats and for me personally as a historian this is the most amazing part of this story and so i'm going to wind up with a look at all the pan am flying boats that were used from the early and mid 1930s well into the late 1940s and let's take a look at some of these machines they revolutionized air travel it opened up the pacific and ultimately the atlantic to airline travel we started with the consolidated commodore the sikorsky s40 which opened up routes to south america the sikorsky s42 used in the pacific and of course the famed martin m130 the famed china clipper three of these were built and the boeing 314 the yankee clipper seen here which flew across the atlantic from laguardia airport in new york to points in europe an amazing airplane 12 of these were built of these flying boats were either lost in accidents sank or were scrapped not one survives to this day so there you have it a look at more than 30 different aircraft that were flown some successfully in service but not one airframe exists in the world to this day thank you for celebrating aviation with mike machad and i'd like to dedicate this program to the memory of john k lewis john lewis worked for me when i had wings in air power magazine he was an air force pilot and a corporate pilot and a wonderful airman and the the extinct species idea was his concept and i wanted to honor that in this program i hope you've enjoyed this presentation and until next time take care

Channel: Celebrating Aviation with Mike Machat

Views: 103,713

Rating: 4.9155641 out of 5

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Id: mbmtpEecGio

Length: 14min 54sec (894 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021