Nautilus Landing

The Forgotten First for America’s first nuclear-powered ship.

by Ed Manuel, Professor Emeritus, SUNY College of Technology at Farmingdale, N.Y.

"On the NAUTILUS men's hearts never fail them, No defects to be afraid of, for the double shell is as firm as iron, no rigging to attend to; no sails for the wind to carry away; no boilers to burst; no fire to fear , for the vessel is made of iron, not of wood; no coal to run short, for electricity is the only power; no collision to fear, for it alone swims in deep water; no tempest to brave, for when it dives below the water, it reaches absolute tranquility. That is the perfection of vessels."

JULES VERNE

When you reach an age where your future is behind you, you find yourself occasionally reflecting upon the past. Such a reflection was triggered for me recently when I saw a newspaper article that said the submarine USS Nautilus was located in Groton, CT, and that the public was invited to tour the world’s first nuclear-powered ship. Jules Verne created the “Nautilus” name in 1869 in his novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas”, a fitting name to give the world’s first submarine that could actually accomplish that feat. But that came later.

The article triggered for me the memory of working with the Nautilus in the summer of 1955, and one of the early world records set by the Nautilus that no one knows about. The USS Nautilus established many well-documented records almost half a century ago*, and changed the face of naval warfare forever. Here’s the story of the undocumented record:

The monumental event took place on a summer morning in 1955, in the North Atlantic Ocean. Let me first tell you what we were all doing on a North Atlantic cruise. The Nautilus submarine set to sea for the first time on January 17, 1955. The navy was understandably anxious to evaluate the attack potential of this extraordinary new and very, very fast submarine. So in July, 1955, they assembled an evaluation force that included the aircraft carrier USS Leyte, along with somewhere around 20 destroyers, and two submarines – the Nautilus and, for comparative tests, a conventional submarine.

Plus every ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare) system the navy had in its arsenal.

My squadron – Helicopter Utility Squadron 2, [HU2], based at Lakehurst, New Jersey – furnished all helicopters & crews to the entire Atlantic Fleet, for such things as plane guard rescue for aircraft carriers, ice breaker guidance through “leads” in the ice, cruisers, battleships, and anything else that needed a helicopter. For this operation, we furnished 3 helicopters & 5 pilots, an unusually large number, for three principle activities:

1. To pick up & deliver guard mail to all the ships.

2. To furnish plane guard rescue for the aircraft operating off the USS Leyte.

3. And, uniquely, to deliver all the skippers, execs, and others from the destroyers and the Leyte, who wanted to visit the extraordinary submarine Nautilus. For ships where we couldn’t land (meaning all except the Leyte), we would use the helicopter hoist to make a pickup from a destroyer, fly to the Nautilus and deliver the passenger by hoist to the afterdeck of the Nautilus. And reverse the procedure to get them back home.

Now, before I go on, to understand fully what happened, I need to tell you a little about the aviator makeup of HU2 , a large squadron of 98 pilots - 96 of whom were commissioned USNR (U.S.Navy Reserve). The only two that were career navy USN-commissioned were the squadron Commanding Officer & the Executive Officer, and they never went to sea. The 96 who did go to sea consisted of the new, 1^st tour pilots – like myself – and a large number of older pilots who had served earlier in the navy, who had been released to inactive duty, returned to civilian life, began their civilian careers, and who had chosen not to have any further direct connection to the U.S. Navy, such as participation in an organized Reserve unit (generally known as “weekend warriors”).+

Now, you may know that during the entire Korean War period no organized Reserve aviation units were ever activated. Who they did recall were the aviators that were not part of any organized Reserve units, probably to make sure they grabbed them when they could.

And this disgruntled bunch served as my example of proper, military decorum!

Which explains why, one night aboard the USS Leyte, there were 5 pilots discussing if it would be possible to land a helicopter on the very narrow deck of the Nautilus. Especially a helicopter as difficult to control precisely as the HUP-2 helicopter (see accompanying photos). We, of course, along with everyone else knew the eyes & ears of the world were on the Nautilus at that time – but that just made it more interesting! And, besides, most of us were scheduled to be returning to civilian life in a few short weeks (one possible alternative - the brig - never occurred to us).

And thus it was that we decided to have a contest to see who could be the first to land successfully on the deck of the USS Nautilus. Our definition of “successfully” landing was (1) first, the collective stick control had to be on the down stop – meaning no lift from the rotor system – and, (2) second, we weren’t allowed to fall off the deck into the sea - or, to put it another way, the landing had to be accompanied by a “successful” takeoff.

“And the winner was!”

The pilot assigned the first flight to the Nautilus the next morning was LTjg Marvin W. (Alex) Alexander, from Odessa, Texas. I drew the second flight, and LTjg Dave Bowling drew the third flight. Alex returned from his flight several minutes before I took off, just enough time to yell up to me that he had done it.

So there’s the record! LTjg Marvin W. Alexander was the first ever to land a naval aircraft aboard a nuclear-powered ship. After that we knew it could be done, so we at least could be sure that our landing gear was not wider than the deck!

I followed Alex and delivered my passenger to the deck of the Nautilus by hoist, where - in the usual procedure - a sailor helped him out of the sling and accompanied him forward to the conning tower. When they were clear of what I will now call the “landing area”, I let down, landed on the deck, grinned up at the conning tower, and lifted off and left. It must have been at that point that the skipper of the Nautilus knew he was under “attack”, and that the first helicopter didn’t just have some sort of temporary problem.

The pilot who drew the third flight to the Nautilus that day, LTjg Dave Bowling, knew before he took off that Alex and I had both landed successfully. Dave’s attempt was perhaps the most eventful, certainly for one sailor aboard the submarine.

When Dave was over the deck of the Nautilus, and his crewman was preparing to lower the passenger by hoist, Dave failed to observe the novel solution by the Nautilus’ skipper to the attack he was under. Dave failed to notice that two sailors (instead of the usual one) came back from the conning tower to assist his passenger out of the hoist, & most importantly only one returned to the conning tower with the passenger. When Dave thought the deck under him was clear, he started to descend to a landing – until he heard the rather desperate voice of his crewman over the intercom: “Mr. Bowling, you better not go any lower.” Dave stopped descending, asked his crewman why, and got the response: “There’s a sailor below us lying flat on the deck and he can’t get any lower!”

So Dave reluctantly surrendered, and flew back to the Leyte.

After that, it seemed that anytime a helicopter flew even near the Nautilus there was at least one sailor cluttering up what-I-will-now call our landing area, thereby making whatever pilot landed first on the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise - commissioned in 1961 - the third pilot to land a naval aircraft on a nuclear-powered ship!

End of story… almost.

In discussing with Senior Chief Syring of the Nautilus Museum** the dimensions of the Nautilus afterdeck, and judging where on the deck the main landing gear would have touched down, and after researching the HUP-2 landing gear width, here are the dimensional conclusions:

Width of Nautilus deck: 9.0 feet

Width of HUP-2 landing gear: 8.5 feet

Glad I didn’t know that then!

Postscript

What you’ve just read is based upon my recollections of events that occurred almost half a century ago. You may have noticed, as I did, that there is one important missing piece of historical information - what was the exact date of the first landing on a nuclear-powered ship? My Aviator Log Book shows only that there were 14 active flying days, from July 12^th through August 6^th, 1955, with no indication of the specific landing date. Each logged flight, however, does contain much information about that flight, including the date, length of flight in hours and tenths, aircraft serial number, type of flight (plane guard rescue; general utility in support of ships - such as guard mail; or passenger transport), and name of crewman. I realized if I could also examine the Aviator Log Books of LTjgs’ Marvin Alexander and Dave Bowling, perhaps it would be possible to determine the exact date of the landing. So that’s what I set out to do!

It would have been a formidable task just a few short years ago, before computers and the internet entered our lives, but it turned out to be relatively simple. And the results surprised me, because the actual facts - to put it generously - don’t exactly agree with all my recollections.

After just a few phone calls I located Marvin Alexander in Georgia, and he knew how to get in touch with Dave Bowling. Turns out that they both “survived” careers in Naval Aviation, and retired from the Navy years ago. And I now know the exact date of the landing!

But first the surprises.

In my first conversation with Alex (known now as “Marvin”, befitting the dignity of a higher-ranking officer), he told me that when he made his historic landing he was not delivering a passenger to the Nautilus. He was delivering guard mail to them, and when he arrived at the designated location the sub was on the surface but no one was on the deck and he didn’t see anyone in the conning tower. Alex said that we (the helicopters) did not have any radio contact with the sub, probably because our electronic equipment was so limited, so he got their attention by landing on the sub! Which means that he could claim a legitimate reason for being there. Which means the brig was never an alternative for him - only for me!

Glad I didn’t know that then (maybe).

The second big surprise to me from examining the logbooks was to learn that Alex and I both flew the same serial number helicopter (130024) when we made our landings. Which means that he didn’t “yell up to me” that he had landed on the sub, but probably told me as he was getting out of the helicopter and I was getting in.

The third surprise for me from examining the logbooks was to learn that not only had we both flown the same helicopter, but that while doing so we both had the same crewman when we landed, AE3 John H. Fenlon. So there’s an interesting record - Mr. Fenlon was the crewman on the first two landings of an aircraft on a nuclear powered ship.

The landing date? Thursday, August 4^th, 1955 … an unusually calm day on the ocean!

* See “Nautilus: The Story of Man Under the Sea” by Roy Davies; Publisher: United States Naval Inst.; (July 1995)

** You can take the same tour of the historical submarine Nautilus as the ships’ Captains & Executive Officers in this story, without having to be delivered by helicopter! For hours & directions to the Nautilus museum in Groton, CT, check out: http://www.ussnautilus.org/index.html

Someone once described the helicopter as "a collection of rotating parts going round and round, and reciprocating parts going up and down - all of them trying to become random in motion." Which helps to explain why the development of the helicopter lagged behind the airplane by approximately four decades.

To compare the two aircraft at similar stages of their development would match the helicopters of the early 1950s to the World War I airplanes of 1914 - each approximately a decade after first successful configuration flights (see page 9). The Wright brothers were not the first to fly a heavier-than-air machine; they were the first to create and fly a fully controllable heavier-than-air machine, which first flew in 1903. Four decades later, In the early 1940s, Igor Sikorsky was not the first to fly a helicopter; he was the first to create and fly a fully controllable helicopter - the now ubiquitous single rotor/tail rotor configuration. Shortly before that flight Sikorsky tested a helicopter configuration that, as described in the literature, "could fly backward, and sidewards in either direction, but not forward!" Thankfully, he kept trying!

The tandem helicopter configuration of the HUP-2 in the article was developed by Frank Piasecki in the late 1940s, to meet a then new Navy requirement for "a utility helicopter to be based aboard aircraft carriers and other large warships of the U.S. Navy for search and rescue, plane guard and general transportation duties."

What we see today, as I write this in 2005, are helicopters of relatively incredible capability, and a comparison of helicopters then and now may give a better appreciation of LTjg Alexander's landing the 8 1/2 foot wide landing gear (not visible from the cockpit) on the Nautilus (unknown width then) 9 foot wide deck.

To compare now with then, I recently visited a modern hospital helicopter rescue unit at Dartmouth Hospital in NH, to learn just how far helicopters have come since my day. And my "day" is a good place to start, because we could only fly during daylight hours. Why? Two reasons - (1) basic aircraft stability (or, for helicopters, instability), and (2) no navigation means other than see-the-ground contact flying, sometimes called "dead reckoning”.

Stability first. Unlike airplanes, helicopters are inherently unstable, and to fly one requires constant attention and frequent control inputs. The best analogy for comparing airplane and helicopter stability is a playground swing and a very large ball. Imagine you're sitting on a swing that's not in motion. If someone pushes it, the swing will move back and forth, but because of gravity the swing will settle back to its original position. Gravity creates the vertical reference for the swing the same way it does for a stable airplane. Now, instead of a swing, imagine yourself standing on top of the ball. That's helicopter stability! If you did nothing but stand there, you and the ball would quickly tumble. Maybe a circus performer could stay on top of the ball by putting in body movements at just the right time, but mortal folks would quickly be on the ground. And since gravity works against you, how would you know what body movements to use? And when? The only guide you'd have for controlling the ball is your view of a vertical or horizontal reference, which for a helicopter pilot in those days meant only a visual 'horizon'. Through seeing very small attitude changes the pilot is constantly moving his controls to "stay on top of the ball."

Airplanes then (and helicopters now) had autopilot systems which - using vertical and directional gyroscopes and altimeters - can automatically maintain whatever flight attitude, direction, and altitude the pilot commands. Or you on top of the ball (scrap the altimeter). But not fifty years ago on a HUP helicopter!

Because of helicopter's inherent instability, one of the most difficult things I can recall doing at sea was making a passenger pickup from the conning tower of the Nautilus, because the water was rough and the deck awash (which meant the sub was rolling). To do so required "flying formation" on the sub directly above the moving conning tower, where the only part of the submarine visible from the pilot’s seat was the top of the conning tower itself. And that only by looking downward through the open hatch under what normally was the copilot seat. All the while keeping one eye on the horizon for attitude information! With autopilot stabilization that would have been a piece of cake. It wasn't!

For airplanes the Navy had two categories of pilot instrument rating cards, a white card and a green card, which designated the instrument flight experience level of the holder. We in helicopters jokingly claimed that we had a special helicopter instrument card. Ours was blue, with a hole in the middle. We'd hold it up to the sky, and if we couldn't see the hole it was OK to fly!

Comparing navigation means is simple. Our navigation over land was pretty much what those World War I pilots used, sometimes called the "3 Rs" - rail, river, and road. Over water, without the rails & roads, it was a bit more difficult.

The hospital helicopter? They have several backup electronic navigation systems, some of which came into being (and achieved obsolescence) within the last fifty years! Backup to what? Ground Positioning Systems (GPS), of which they have two (for the safety of redundancy)! Punch in a few numbers and they can go anywhere they want in the world (fuel permitting) with almost pinpoint accuracy. No more rail, river, or road!

Two other things deserve comment, (1) engines) and, (2) the peculiar control characteristics of the HUP tandem rotor configuration.

ENGINES ~ Almost all significant aircraft improvements are engine-driven, more so for the helicopter because - other things being equal - a helicopter needs more engine power. The HUP used an old (even then) 9-cylinder radial piston former Army tank engine, designed in the 1930's by Wright Aircraft. It's my understanding that the engine underwent numerous modifications prior to 1953 in an attempt to correct whatever was causing engine failures - partly because all failed engines were at the bottom of the ocean and all modifications were just guesses.

1. We were aware of the questionable reliability, to the extent that we tried to minimize the time in transition from over-only water to over-only deck. We didn't want to be partly over both if the engine failed.

2. After a short rescue operation in New England hurricane floods in 1955, where we operated five helicopters for about a week at heavier than normal loads, when we returned to Lakehurst all five engines were replaced.

3. In 1954 or '55 there was a big celebration at the Piasecki factory in Philadelphia because we had the first HUP helicopter to accumulate 1,000 flight hours. No mention was made of the fact that it took 5 engines to get there.

The hospital helicopter? A very reliable gas turbine engine, scheduled for 3500 hours between engine overhauls. But there's more. They also have a second gas turbine engine, and the helicopter can fly its entire flight envelope with either engine alone! And there's even more. Because they have complete engine redundancy, they also don't have to give a thought to the helicopter "Dead Man's Curve"! (Too complicated to describe here, but important.)

If you've ever looked at a 'conventional' single rotor/tail rotor helicopter rotor mast closely, you've seen the rotating rods, the non-rotating rods, rotating and non-rotating swashplates, and various cranks & rods and other non-rotating components. f it all looked complex to you it's because it is complex. All those parts are linked to the cyclic control stick (which controls the tilt of the rotor) and to the collective pitch stick (which controls the lift of the rotor). Additionally, rudder pedals control the 'lift' on the tail rotor (which controls the direction the fuselage points in).

Now, imagine trying to design a control system for a tandem rotor helicopter, where the cyclic control stick has to control the tilt of both rotors at the same time in the same direction (forward; rearward; left or right). And to make it even more interesting, because there is no tail rotor, the rudder pedals have to put opposite-direction tilts into the front & rear rotors (left turn tilts the front rotor left & the rear rotor right; right turn opposite tilts). Succeed and you have a HUP!

One result from that control system was difficulty in making precision landings. To avoid side loads on the wheels at landing, the procedure was to position the helicopter at a steady hover about 6 feet off the deck, get it settled where you want it, and then without moving the rudder pedals get on the deck quickly. In a 'conventional' single rotor/main rotor you should be able to write your name in the sand with a skid! Or hold it precisely at any height you want for as long as you want, with plenty of time to check clearances - such as which is wider, the deck or the landing gear?