1946-Contin ued
31 December Special Unit Project Cast was disestab-
lished and its personnel, material and functions trans-
ferred to the Air Support Division, National Research
Laboratory (NRL), which had been established 1
September at NATC Patuxent River, Md., to provide the
NRL with flight test services as necessary to its elec-
tronics equipment research and development program.
1947
2 January Unit identification letters, assigned in
November, were ordered displayed on both sides of
the vertical fin and rudder and on the upper right and
lower left surfaces near the wing tips. This placement
required relocation of several standard markings on
aircraft.
2 January A new specification for aircraft color was
issued providing for the use of glossy sea blue on all
shipboard and water based aircraft and all helicopters;
aluminum was retained for landplane transports, utility
planes and advanced training planes; and glossy
orange yellow was similarly retained for primary train-
ers. Special color schemes included land camouflage
(olive drab above and light gray below) for Marine
observation planes; glossy insignia red for target
drones; target towing aircraft were to have glossy
orange-yellow wings, and glossy sea blue fuselage
with glossy insignia-red wing bands and rudder.
14 January A horizontal red stripe, centered on the
white horizontal bar, was added to the National Star
Insignia.
29 January From a position 660 miles off the
Antarctic Continent, Philippine Sea launched to Little
America the first of six R4D transport aircraft which
she had ferried from Norfolk, Va., as a part of
Operation Highjump. The first plane off, which was
also the first carrier takeoff for an R4D, was piloted by
Commander William M. Hawkes and carried Rear
Admiral Richard E. Byrd as a passenger.
2 February Colonel Bernard L. Smith, second
Marine and sixth naval aviator, died from injuries
received when his car was hit by a train at Coral
Gables, Fla. From 18 September 1912, when he report-
ed for flight training at Annapolis, Md. until his resig-
nation on 20 January 1920, he served with Marine and
Navy aviation elements in a variety of duties including
intelligence assignments overseas. For six years
1931-37, he was a member of the Naval Reserve, then
transferred to the Marine Corps Reserve and returned
UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995
167
to active duty in World War II, during which he again
served with distinction until his retirement in
December 1946.
12 February The Loon guided missile was launched
from Cusk (SS 348) off Point Mugu in the first firing of
a guided missile from a submarine.
1 March The development of titanium alloys for
aeronautical applications was initiated by a Bureau of
Aeronautics contract with P. R. Mallory & Co. for study
of methods of producing titanium metal and alloys
and of determining their essential properties.
4 March Operation Highjump-Air operations in the
Antarctic ended. From 24 December 1946, six PBMs,
based on seaplane tenders, operated in the open seas
around the continent of Antarctica, and from 9
February, six R4Ds operated ashore from the airstrip at
Little America. Together these aircraft logged 650
hours on photographic mapping flights covering
1,500,000 square miles of the interior, and 5,500 miles
of coastline, or the equivalent of about half the area of
the United States and its entire coastline-Atlantic,
Pacific, and Gulf coasts combined.
30 April A standard system of designating guided
missiles and assigning them popular names was
adopted for use by the Army and Navy. The basic des-
ignation adopted was a two-letter combination of the
three letters A (Air), S (Surface), U (Underwater), in
which the first letter indicated the origin of the missile
and the second letter its objective; followed by the let-
ter M for missile. Thus a surface-to-air missile was des-
ignated SAM. This basic designation was followed by a
model number; odd for Army and even for Navy. For
popular names, it was agreed that ASMs would be
named for birds of prey, AAMs for other winged crea-
tures, SAMs for mythological terms, and SSMs for
astronomical terms or bodies.
20 May The Secretary of the Navy directed that
within the period 1 June-1 August 1947, the U.S. Navy
Pre-Flight at NAS Ottumwa, Iowa, be relocated and
redesigned U.S. Naval School, Pre-Flight, NAS
Pensacola.
4 June The Chief of Naval Operations approved
new aircraft carrier characteristics to be incorporated
in an improvement program titled "Project 27A", by
which Essex Class carriers were modified to meet the
new operating requirements resulting from develop-
ments in aircraft and weapons. The principal changes
involved in the program were directed toward a capa-
bility for operating aircraft of up to 40,000 pounds,

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