198

UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995

1953-Contin ued

2 September Project 110, a conversion plan for

Midway-class carriers, was promulgated. Basic

changes were the same as those for the angled-deck

version of Project 27C but with the addition of a modi-

fied C-ll steam catapult in the angled-deck area.

11 September In its first successful interception, a

Sidewinder air-to-air missile, test fired at the Naval

Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern, Calif., sent an F6F

drone down in flames.

1 October Hornet completed conversion at the New

York Naval Shipyard; the last of nine Essex class carri-

ers modernized under Project 27 A.

3 October A new official world speed record of

752.943 mph over a 3-kilometer course was set by

the F4D Skyray at Muroc, Calif. Piloted by Lieutenant

Commander James F. Verdin, this was the first carrier

aircraft to establish this record in its normal combat

configuration.

16 October A Douglas F4D-l carrier fighter, flown

by test pilot R. O. Rahn, broke the 100-kilometer

closed course speed record at 728.114 mph.

19 November The Chief of Naval Operations en-

dorsed the common utilization of the Fleet Air Gun-

nery Unit by the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets and the

Marine Corps "as a step towards increased emphasis

and standardization in the combat employment of air-

craft armament."

3 December The Steam Catapult Facility, NAMC,

Philadelphia, Pa., was established by Hon. James H.

Smith, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, with the

launching of F9F and AD aircraft.

3 December The first successful test of super circu-

lation (boundary layer control) on a high-speed air-

plane, an F9F-4 Panther, took place at the Grumman

Aircraft Corporation field at Bethpage, Long Island,

N.Y. John Attinello, a BuAer engineer, was credited

with developing this practical application of the aero-

dynamic principle.

19 December The Navy and Bureau of Standards

announced that under a joint project with the code

name "Tinkertoy" methods had been developed for

the automatic manufacture of electronics equipment

and that a sonobuoy assembled by this method was in

production. Tinkertoy was a technique for utilizing

automatic machinery to attach basic electronic compo-

nents to ceramic wafers and to build the wafers up

into modules which could be readily assembled into

complete units. Its importance at the time was viewed

as breaking an electronics production bottleneck. In a

broader view it was a step towards the development

of microelectronics and solid state circuitry.

Speedster Verdin

in Skyray 630092