"Readers of black newspapers around the country followed the exploits of the Tuskegee airmen with an intensity that bordered on the obsessive. Who said a Negro couldn't fly! Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr. and the 332nd Fighter Group took the war to the Axis powers from 30,000 feet. The papers sent special correspondents to shadow the pilots as they served in the skies over Europe , each dispatch from the European front producing shivers of delight. 'Flyers Help Smash Nazis!' 'Negro Pilots Sink Nazi Warship!' '332nd Bags 25 Enemy Planes, Breaks Record in Weekend Victories!' No radio serial could compete with the real life exploits of the men who were the embodiment of the Double V.
"The 'Tan Yanks ' as the black press dubbed the black GIs fighting overseas, loved their planes as passionately as any other American pilots. Their lives and the bomber crews they escorted , depended on knowing the plane 's every strength and weakness, its peccadilloes and eccentricities, on coaxing it and coercing it and waltzing with it through the sky. Initially serving in Bell P-39 Airacobras, they moved on to Republic P-47 Thunderbirds, and by the summer of 1944 the 332nd was flying North American P-51 Mustangs. 'The assignment of the terrific P-51 Mustang planes to all of the Negro pilots foreshadows important missions and sweeps ahead of them as the war enters its decisive stage,' wrote the 'Norfolk Journal and Guide.'
"'It's best described as a 'pilot 's airplane,' said an American military official in a front-page article in the 'Washington Post.'...Once aloft, it soared for an eternity , pushing up against 400 miles per hour with the ease of a family sedan out for a Sunday drive. And it was a damn fierce contender in a dogfight. As far as the Tuskegee airmen were concerned, it was the best plane in the world....
"Certainly the Tan Yanks would have marveled to know that supporting the performance of their beloved Mustang was a group of Colored Computers. But whereas every maneuver executed by the 332nd in their red-tailed Mustangs fed the headlines, the daily work of the West Computers and the rest of the laboratory employees was sensitive, confidential or secret."
Human dynamics also precisely refract the arcane science of aerodynamics.
"For a wing moving through the air, the slower - moving air on the bottom of the wing exerts a greater force than the faster-moving air on the top. This difference in pressure creates lift, the almost magical force that causes the wing, and the plane (or animal) attached to it, to ascend into the sky. Smooth air flowing around the wing means the plane can slip through the sky with minimum friction , the way efficient swimmers cut through the water. Turbulent flows, like the swirl and churn of rapids in the water, resist the plane, slowing it down and making it harder to maneuver. One of NACA's great contributions to aerodynamics was a series of laminar flow airfoils, wing shapes designed to maximize the flow of smooth air around the wing... The P-51 Mustang was the first production plane to use one of NACA's laminar airfoils, a factor that contributed to its superior performance ."
P.51-52, 54-55, "War Birds," HIDDEN FIGURES, by Margot Lee Shetterly (2016)
Friday, February 3, 2017
HIDDEN FIGURES
"Readers of black newspapers around the country followed the exploits of the Tuskegee airmen with an intensity that bordered on the obsessive. Who said a Negro couldn't fly! Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr. and the 332nd Fighter Group took the war to the Axis powers from 30,000 feet. The papers sent special correspondents to shadow the pilots as they served in the skies over Europe , each dispatch from the European front producing shivers of delight. 'Flyers Help Smash Nazis!' 'Negro Pilots Sink Nazi Warship!' '332nd Bags 25 Enemy Planes, Breaks Record in Weekend Victories!' No radio serial could compete with the real life exploits of the men who were the embodiment of the Double V.
"The 'Tan Yanks ' as the black press dubbed the black GIs fighting overseas, loved their planes as passionately as any other American pilots. Their lives and the bomber crews they escorted , depended on knowing the plane 's every strength and weakness, its peccadilloes and eccentricities, on coaxing it and coercing it and waltzing with it through the sky. Initially serving in Bell P-39 Airacobras, they moved on to Republic P-47 Thunderbirds, and by the summer of 1944 the 332nd was flying North American P-51 Mustangs. 'The assignment of the terrific P-51 Mustang planes to all of the Negro pilots foreshadows important missions and sweeps ahead of them as the war enters its decisive stage,' wrote the 'Norfolk Journal and Guide.'
"'It's best described as a 'pilot 's airplane,' said an American military official in a front-page article in the 'Washington Post.'...Once aloft, it soared for an eternity , pushing up against 400 miles per hour with the ease of a family sedan out for a Sunday drive. And it was a damn fierce contender in a dogfight. As far as the Tuskegee airmen were concerned, it was the best plane in the world....
"Certainly the Tan Yanks would have marveled to know that supporting the performance of their beloved Mustang was a group of Colored Computers. But whereas every maneuver executed by the 332nd in their red-tailed Mustangs fed the headlines, the daily work of the West Computers and the rest of the laboratory employees was sensitive, confidential or secret."
Human dynamics also precisely refract the arcane science of aerodynamics.
"For a wing moving through the air, the slower - moving air on the bottom of the wing exerts a greater force than the faster-moving air on the top. This difference in pressure creates lift, the almost magical force that causes the wing, and the plane (or animal) attached to it, to ascend into the sky. Smooth air flowing around the wing means the plane can slip through the sky with minimum friction , the way efficient swimmers cut through the water. Turbulent flows, like the swirl and churn of rapids in the water, resist the plane, slowing it down and making it harder to maneuver. One of NACA's great contributions to aerodynamics was a series of laminar flow airfoils, wing shapes designed to maximize the flow of smooth air around the wing... The P-51 Mustang was the first production plane to use one of NACA's laminar airfoils, a factor that contributed to its superior performance ."
P.51-52, 54-55, "War Birds," HIDDEN FIGURES, by Margot Lee Shetterly (2016)
