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Ray Bourque

Raymond Jean Bourque (born December 28, 1960) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player. He holds records for most career goals, assists, and points by a defenceman in the National Hockey League (NHL). He won the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the NHL's best defenceman five times, while finishing second for that trophy a further six times. He also twice finished second in the voting for the Hart Memorial Trophy, a rarity for a defenceman. He was named to the end-of-season All-Star teams 19 times, 13 on the first-team and six on the second-team.

Bourque was also an Olympian with Canada and became nearly synonymous with the Boston Bruins franchise, for which he played 21 seasons and became Boston's longest-serving captain. Bourque finished his career with the Colorado Avalanche, with whom he won his only Stanley Cup championship in his final NHL game. In 2017, he was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players.

Early life
Bourque was born in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, the son of Raymond Bourque Sr. and Anita Allain. Both of his parents were originally from New Brunswick, and moved to Montreal in the 1950s. His mother died from cancer when he was 12 years old, while his father died in 2009. Bourque was raised bilingual, speaking both English and French at home, though he went to a French school.

Early career
Bourque was the third-round pick of the Trois-Rivières Draveurs of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL; now known as the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League). Halfway through his rookie season, head coach and general manager (GM) Michel Bergeron traded Bourque to Sorel for high-scoring Benoît Gosselin. After a stellar junior career with Sorel and Verdun of the QMJHL, in which he was named the league's best defenceman in 1978 and 1979, Bourque was drafted eighth overall by the Bruins in the 1979 NHL Entry Draft, with a first-round draft choice obtained from the Los Angeles Kings in a 1977 trade for goaltender Ron Grahame. Boston GM Harry Sinden had intended to select defenceman Keith Brown, but Brown was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks immediately prior to Boston's selection. Panicking, the Bruins settled on Bourque, allegedly against their better judgment.

Boston Bruins
Bourque made an immediate impact in Boston during his rookie season of 1979–80, scoring a goal in his first game while facing the Winnipeg Jets. Bourque asserted himself from the start as one of the best defensemen in the league, winning both the Calder Memorial Trophy as Rookie of the Year and a First Team All-Star selection, the first time in NHL history a rookie non-goaltender had ever achieved the distinction. His 65 points that season was a record at the time for a rookie defenseman.

In 1985, upon the retirement of Bruins' captain Terry O'Reilly to coach the club, Bourque and veteran Rick Middleton were named co-captains of the team, Middleton to wear the "C" during home games and Bourque for road games. Upon Middleton's retirement in 1988, Bourque became the team's sole captain, and retained the position for the remainder of his Bruins' tenure. In so doing, he passed Dit Clapper as the longest-tenured Bruins' captain in history, as well as passing Alex Delvecchio of the Detroit Red Wings as the longest-serving team captain in NHL history, a mark since surpassed by Steve Yzerman of the Red Wings.

Bourque proved a solid force for Boston for 21 seasons (1979–2000), famous for combining offensive prowess at a level that few defencemen in league history had ever achieved—he was a perennial shot accuracy champion at All-Star Games—and near-unparalleled defensive excellence. Bourque won five Norris Trophies as the league's top defenceman and finished second to Mark Messier in 1990 in the closest race ever for the Hart Memorial Trophy, the league's Most Valuable Player award. The Bruins' reliance on Bourque's on-ice mastery was so total that—while Bourque was very durable throughout much of his career—the team was seen by many to flounder whenever he was out of the lineup.

During Bourque's tenure with the Bruins, the team continued what would be a North American professional record twenty-nine consecutive seasons in the playoffs, a streak that lasted through the 1996 season. In the playoffs, Bourque led the team to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Edmonton Oilers in both 1988 and 1990, where the Bruins lost in both series. In the 1996–97 season, Bourque missed the playoffs for the only time in his career, when the Bruins finished with the NHL's worst record that season.

Bourque was also popular among Bruins fans because of his willingness to re-sign with Boston without any acrimonious or lengthy negotiations. He passed over several opportunities to set the benchmark salary for defencemen; instead, he usually quietly and quickly agreed to terms with the Bruins, and this stance irritated the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA), which had been pushing to drive up players' wages.

Colorado Avalanche
The Bruins' record for most consecutive seasons in the playoffs by any team in North American professional sports was ended at 29 seasons in the 1996–97 season. The next two seasons, the Bruins returned to the playoffs and in 1999, they won a playoff series for the first time since 1994.

Despite a nucleus of young talent and high expectations for 1999–2000, injuries caused the Bruins to plummet to the bottom of their division, and they went on track to miss the playoffs. This was further exacerbated by negative attention over teammate Marty McSorley's hit on Donald Brashear. With his career nearing an end and the team going in the wrong direction, Bourque requested a trade from the fading Bruins so he would have a chance to win the Stanley Cup. Bourque and fellow veteran Dave Andreychuk were sent to Colorado in exchange for Brian Rolston, Martin Grenier, Samuel Påhlsson and a first-round draft pick (2000 draft, 27th overall, Martin Samuelsson).

Although Bourque played just one-and-a-half seasons with the Avalanche, he proved to be a force both on the ice and in the locker room. In 2000, he helped the struggling Avalanche improve their form and capture their division. During the playoffs, they advanced to the conference finals, where they lost to the Dallas Stars in a hard-fought series, with Bourque hitting the post in the last minutes of Game 7, which would have tied the game after his team rallied from a 3–0 deficit in the third period to 3–2.

Bourque returned to the Avs for the 2000–01 season and was named as an alternate captain. He led all Colorado defencemen in scoring and formed a solid defensive pairing with Adam Foote and Rob Blake, the latter of whom the Avs received from the Los Angeles Kings in a trade. Bourque was named to the post-season First All-Star team, finishing as runner-up to the Detroit Red Wings' Nicklas Lidström for the Norris Trophy.

The Avalanche advanced all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, where Bourque scored the game-winning goal in Game 3 against the New Jersey Devils. Colorado took the series in seven games to win their second Stanley Cup. During the post-game presentation that followed the Avalanche's victory in the decisive seventh game, team captain Joe Sakic broke with tradition and gave the Cup to Bourque so he could skate with it first. Colorado goaltender Patrick Roy, whose fourth championship had come the same day as Bourque's first, said of the Stanley Cup and his teammate, "A name was missing from that [Cup], and today it is back to normal." Bourque had waited longer to win his first Cup than any other Cup-winning player had in the 108-year history of the Stanley Cup, having played 1,612 regular season and 214 playoff games before winning the ultimate prize.

On June 12, 2001, three days after the Cup victory, Bourque brought the Cup back to Boston for an emotional rally attended by some 20,000 fans at Boston's City Hall Plaza. Bourque retired shortly thereafter, having set defensive regular-season records in goals (410) and assists (1169) for 1579 points. During the 2000–01 season, which would be the last for both players, Bourque surpassed Paul Coffey (intended to be Bourque's replacement on his former team, the Bruins) to become the all-time leader in goals, assists and points for a defenceman at any senior professional level.

International play
Bourque played for Team Canada in the Canada Cup in 1981, 1984 and 1987. However, he did not play in the 1991 edition, despite attempts by Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier to persuade him to take part. Bourque also played for the NHL All-Stars in Rendez-vous '87 against the Soviet Union, and played for the Canadian team in the 1998 Winter Olympics, leading all defencemen in scoring with one goal and two assists in six games.

Jersey number
For a majority of his NHL career, Bourque wore jersey number 77. After he retired following the 2000–01 season, both the Bruins and the Avalanche honored him by retiring number 77.

When he was initially called up to the Bruins, Bourque was assigned the number 7, which had been worn by former Bruins star forward Phil Esposito from the time he was acquired by the team in 1967 until he departed in 1976 via trade. Bourque was the third player to be issued the number following Esposito's departure, following Sean Shanahan and Bill Bennett.

In 1987, six years after Esposito's retirement, and three years after he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Bruins decided to retire number 7 in his honor. Bourque, thus, would be the last Bruin to wear #7 and was permitted to do so as long as he desired to even after Esposito's retirement ceremony, which was scheduled for December 3 of that year. Bourque, however, came up with his own way to honor the veteran Bruin and did so at the ceremony.

As the Bruins were dressing for that night's game, Bourque put on two jerseys with his normal #7 as the top layer. When the team came out for the retirement ceremony, Bourque skated over to Esposito just before he was about to speak to the Boston crowd. He removed his #7 jersey and handed it to Esposito, a move that was seen as "surrendering" the number to him. In doing this, Bourque also revealed his new number to the crowd, as the jersey he had been wearing underneath his #7 bore the number 77 he would wear for the remainder of his career.

Retirement
Bourque was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2004, his first season of eligibility. His uniform number 77 has been retired by both the Bruins and the Avalanche; he is one of only nine players whose jersey has been retired by more than one club. His birthplace of Saint-Laurent named the "Aréna Raymond-Bourque" in his honour.

Bourque and his wife Christiane still live in Massachusetts, where they are active in several local charities. Bourque was named a Bruins team consultant on November 3, 2005. He is also the co-owner of an Italian restaurant called Tresca in Boston's North End. Bourque founded the Bourque Family Foundation in the summer of 2017.

Bourque's younger brother Richard was also a hockey player and was drafted by the Bruins in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft in the tenth round, but never played professional hockey. Bourque's eldest son, Christopher, was drafted by the Washington Capitals in 2004. Christopher played for the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League (AHL) in the 2007 season and made his NHL debut for the Capitals in 2007. Chris then joined the Boston Bruins on May 26, 2012, and has his number retired by the Bears. His younger son, Ryan, was a third-round draft choice of the New York Rangers in 2009, and was a member of the USA's 2010 gold-medal, World Junior Championship team, earning three assists during the tournament. and was an alternate captain for the USA's 2011 World Junior Championship team, in which he again earned three assists as the team won the bronze medal.

Since retiring, Bourque has worked in the restaurant industry as the owner of Tresca, an Italian restaurant in Boston's North End neighborhood, and manages the Bourque Family Foundation, which supports charitable events around the Boston area.

Awards and achievements
Bourque's exceptional talent as a player has led him to become one of the most honored players in hockey history. During his career, he was selected to thirteen NHL First Team (the most in history) and six Second Team All-Star squads, second in total in league history only to Gordie Howe and most amongst defencemen. He won the Norris Trophy as the top defenceman in the league five times, fourth all-time after Bobby Orr, Doug Harvey and Nicklas Lidström. Among his numerous other records and honors are the following:

Career

 * 11th all-time (4th among defencemen) in career games played with 1,612.
 * 4th all-time in career assists with 1,169; a record for defencemen.
 * 11th all-time in career points scored (1,579).
 * 1st in career points scored by a defenceman (1,579).
 * 1st in career goals scored by a defenceman (410).
 * Career leader in shots on goal by a defenceman(6,206).
 * Is third in career plus-minus with 528, behind Larry Robinson and Orr.
 * Bruins' all-time career leader in games played (1,518), assists (1,111) and points (1,506), also ranking fourth in goals and first in assists with a single team (any position).
 * 3rd all-time in playoff assists and 10th all-time in playoff points.
 * In 1998, three years before the end of his career, he was ranked number 14 on The Hockey News' list of the one hundred greatest hockey players of all time. He was the highest-ranking player who had not yet won a Stanley Cup, the next highest being No. 38-ranked Marcel Dionne.
 * In 2017, he was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players.

NHL records

 * Holds the NHL record for most shots on goal in one game with 19 (Mar. 21, 1991)

Trophies and leaders

 * Won the Calder Memorial Trophy in 1980
 * Won the Norris Trophy in 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991 and 1994
 * Won the King Clancy Memorial Trophy in 1992
 * Received the Lester Patrick Trophy in 2003
 * Stanley Cup champion in 2001
 * Led the NHL in shots in 1984, 1987 and 1995

NHL All-Star teams

 * NHL first team All-Star in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 2001.
 * Second Team All-Star in 1981, 1983, 1986, 1989, 1995 and 1999.

NHL All-Star Game

 * Named to play in the All-Star Game for the 19th consecutive season, 2001; Bourque also appeared in the All-Star Game in every season that it was held during his career (there was no game in 1987 or 1995).
 * Most Valuable Player of the All-Star Game in 1996.
 * Won the NHL All-star Game Shooting Accuracy Competition in 1990, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001.

title: Ray Bourque


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Aero L-39 Albatros

The Aero L-39 Albatros is a high-performance jet trainer designed and produced by Aero Vodochody in the Czech Republic. In addition to performing basic and advanced pilot training, it has also flown combat missions in a light-attack role. Unusually, the aircraft never received a NATO reporting name.

The L-39 Albatros was designed during the 1960s as a successor to the Aero L-29 Delfín, an early jet-powered principal training aircraft. Performing its maiden flight on 4 November 1968, it became the first trainer aircraft in the world to be equipped with a turbofan powerplant. Quantity production of the L-39 Albatros proceeded in 1971; one year later, it was formally recognized by the majority of the Warsaw Pact countries as their preferred primary trainer. Accordingly, thousands of L39s would be produced for various military customers in Eastern Europe. Additionally, it was exported to a range of countries across the world both as a trainer and a light attack aircraft. Since the 1990s, it has also become popular among civilian operators. By the end of the century, in excess of 2,800 L-39s had served with over 30 air forces.

Several derivatives of the L-39 Albatros were developed. During the 1980s, Aero Vodochody used it as the basis for the L-59 Super Albatros, an enlarged and updated model. Furthermore, the L-39 lineage would be extended to the L-139, a prototype L-39 fitted with a Western-sourced Garrett TFE731 engine. A combat-oriented development of the aircraft, designated as the L-159 ALCA, entered production in 1997, and has since been procured by a range of export customers. Production of the original L-39 came to an end during the mid-1990s, orders having declined substantially following the end of the Cold War. At the Farnborough Airshow in July 2014, Aero Vodochody announced the launch of the L-39NG, an upgraded and modernised version of the L-39; this programme is set to produce new-build aircraft alongside the extensive rebuilding of existing aircraft. In 2023, production of the L-39NG resumed, with 34 aircraft on order.

Development
In 1964, the Czechoslovak aircraft manufacturer Aero Vodochody embarked on a new design project to meet the specified requirements for a "C-39" (C for cvičný – trainer), setting up a design team under the leadership of Jan Vlček. This aircraft was to serve as a replacement for the Aero L-29 Delfín, an early jet-powered trainer, as a principal training aircraft. Vlcek envisioned the type, a twin-seat single-engine aircraft, being adopted as the primary trainer throughout the Warsaw Pact nations.

On 4 November 1969, the L-39 (under the designation "Prototype X-02" – the second airframe to be built) conducted its maiden flight, for which it was piloted by Rudolf Duchoň, the factory's test pilot. Serial production of the initial model of the L-39, designated L-39C, commenced in 1971. During 1972, the L-39 Albatros was formally recognized by the majority of the countries comprising the Warsaw Pact as their preferred primary trainer, after which point, sizable orders from military customers throughout the bloc proceeded, many of which were from the Soviet Air Forces. In 1974, the first L-39 trainer entered service with the Czechoslovak Air Force.

Several specialised variants of the base L-39 design were quickly introduced. In 1972, a purpose-built target tug variant, the L-39V, conducted its initial flight. During 1975, the first L-39ZO training/light combat model, which was equipped with four underwing hardpoints as well as a strengthened wing and modified landing gear, performed its first flight. In 1977, the first L-39ZA light combat variant, which was fitted with a single Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-23 cannon mounted underneath the fuselage in addition to the four hardpoints and strengthening of the L-39ZO, made its maiden flight.

According to aerospace publication Flight International, roughly 200 L-39s were being sold each year in the jet trainer market during the late 1980s. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 1993, the total export orders gained for the L-39 represented 80 per cent of the value of all Czech military product export sales made for that year. During the 1990s, shortly following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Aero Vodochody decided to develop versions of the Albatros equipped with Western-sourced avionics, engines, and weapon systems. Around the same time, Aero Vodochody formed an active partnership with Elbit Systems of Israel, under which a number of L-39s were delivered to Elbit to be equipped with modern electronics and onboard systems before being re-exported to end users such as the Royal Thai Air Force.

Sales of the L-39 declined during the 1990s. This downturn has been attributed to the loss of the captive Warsaw Pact trainer market, to which a substantial proportion of the total aircraft manufactured had been historically sold; allegations about Czechoslovak banks being unable to finance the defense industry and inaction on the part of the Czechoslovak government; and concerns over the quality of manufacturing standards. In 1996, production of the L-39 came to an end. Since the end of production, Aero Vodochody has developed several improved variants of the L-39 to take its place, and has continued extensive support and overhaul operations for existing L-39 customers.

One of the replacements for the L-39 Albatros was the Aero L-159 Alca, a modernised version of the L-39. Originally, Aero Vodochody had intended to develop the L-159 in partnership with Elbit, but the Czech Ministry of Defense instead selected Rockwell Collins to partner on the program. The limited success of the L-159 led Aero to announce at the 2014 Farnborough Airshow that it was developing an upgraded version of the L-39, designated L-39NG, to compete with the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 and British Aerospace Hawk. The L-39NG replaces the AI-25 turbofan with a Williams FJ44 engine; the airframe is modified, the wingtip fuel tanks being eliminated, and a new suite of avionics will be provided. The first flight of the L-39NG was in December 2018, and final military type certification was granted by the Czech Military Aviation Authority in 2022. The first production L-39NG is expected to fly by the end of 2022.

Design
The L-39 Albatros was designed to be a cost-effective jet-powered trainer aircraft, which is also capable of performing ground attack missions. For operational flexibility, simplicity, and affordability, the majority of onboard systems have been simplified to avoid incurring high levels of maintenance, as well as to minimize damage caused by mishandling when flown by inexperienced air crew. It could be readily flown from austere airstrips such as frozen lakebeds, enabled through the rugged design of the landing gear and favourable low landing speeds. The aircraft's flying qualities are reportedly simple, which is made easier by way of a rapid throttle response, making it easier for students who had never previously flown a jet aircraft before to successfully control. As a training platform, the L-39 itself comprised part of a comprehensive system which also used flight simulators and mobile ground test equipment.

The low-set, straight wing has a double-taper planform, 2½-deg dihedral from the roots, a relatively low aspect ratio, and 100 L fuel tanks permanently attached to the wingtips. The trailing edge has double-slotted trailing edge flaps inboard of mass-balanced ailerons; the flaps are separated from the ailerons by small wing fences. An automatic trimming system was present, the flaps and the trim system being connected in order to counteract the potentially large pitch changes that would otherwise be generated by vigorous movements of the flaps. The tall, swept vertical tail has an inset rudder. Variable-incidence horizontal stabilizers with inset elevators are mounted at the base of the rudder and over the exhaust nozzle. Side-by-side airbrakes are located under the fuselage ahead of the wing's leading edge. The flaps, landing gear, wheel brakes and air brakes are powered by a hydraulic system. Controls are pushrod-actuated and have electrically powered servo tabs on the ailerons and rudder. Operational g-force limits at 4,200 kg are +8/-4 g.

A long, pointed nose leads back to the tandem cockpit, in which the student and instructor sit on Czech-built VS-1 ejection seats under individual canopies, which are opened manually and are hinged on the right. The rear seat, typically used by the instructor, is elevated slightly to readily enable observation and guidance of the student's actions in the forward position. The design of the cockpit, panel layout and many of its fittings resemble or are identical in function to those of other commonly-used Soviet aircraft; for example, the procedure for deploying the ejection seat is exactly the same as for the Mikoyan MiG-29. The cockpit is partially pressurized, requiring the air crew to wear oxygen masks when flying in excess of 23,000 feet. A gyro gunsight for weapon-aiming purposes is typically present in the forward position only.

A single turbofan engine, an Ivchenko AI-25TL (made in the Soviet Union) is positioned in the rear fuselage, fed through shoulder-mounted, semi-circular air intakes (fitted with splitter plates) just behind the cockpit and the tailpipe below the horizontal tailplane. The engine has a time between overhaul (TBO) of 1,000 flight hours; however, it is allegedly cheaper than the majority of turbine engines to overhaul. Five rubber bag fuel tanks are located in the fuselage behind the cockpit. Several heavy radio units are typically installed in an aft avionics bay; these are often removed on civilian-operated aircraft and replaced with a 70-gallon fuel tank. Additional fuel tanks can be fitted in the rear cockpit position and externally underneath the wings; the tip-tanks can also be expanded for a greater fuel capacity.

The aircraft is fitted with a hydraulically-actuated retractable nosewheel undercarriage which is designed to allow operation from grass airfields. The main landing gear legs retract inward into wing bays while the nose gear retracts forward. The basic L-39C trainer has provision for two underwing pylons for drop tanks or practice weapons, but these are not usually fitted. It can be armed with a pair of K-13 missiles to provide a basic air defense capability. Light-attack variants have four underwing hardpoints for ground attack stores, while the ZA variant also has an underfuselage gun pod. Mock UB-16 rocket pods can also be installed for visual appearance only.

Abkhazia
During the War in Abkhazia (1992–1993), Abkhaz separatist forces received several L-39s from Russia and Chechnya, which were used in combat against Georgian forces. On 10 January 1993, an Abkhaz L-39 was shot down by a Russian SA-11 Buk during a friendly-fire incident. The pilot, Oleg Chanba, who was commander of the Abkhaz separatist air force, was killed during the incident. On 1 April 1993, during the attack on civilian targets in Sokhumi, Georgian forces managed to damage an L-39, which fell into the sea.

In the spring of 2008, a number of Georgian drones were shot down by Abkhazian separatist forces over the Abkhazia region. The Abkhazian separatist forces claimed that one of its missile-equipped L-39s had shot down a Georgian Hermes 450 unmanned reconnaissance drone. However, footage released later by Georgian authorities clearly shows a drone being brought down by a heat-seeking missile fired from a MiG-29. A UN investigation also concluded that the footage was authentic and that the drone was shot down by a Russian MiG-29 using a Vympel R-73 heat seeking missile.

Afghanistan
The Taliban Air Force had managed to obtain around five L-39C aircraft from the remnants of the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force; with foreign technical support and pilots, these were placed into combat operations during the later stages of the 1996–2001 phase of the Afghan civil war against the Northern Alliance. In early 2001, only two of these reportedly remained operational. Following the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, a number of L-39s were inducted into the Afghan Air Force.

Azerbaijan
A quantity of L-39s, along with older L-29s, were used extensively by Azeri forces to perform ground attack missions during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in the 1980s and early 1990s. A number of these were reportedly shot down by air defenses employed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army. In September 2015, Aero Vodochody sought a large order for the latest model of the L-39 to Azerbaijan; by this point, Azerbaijan had a total of 24 airworthy L-39s remaining in service.

Chechnya
The newly de facto independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria found itself with dozens of L-39s (as well as several L-29s, three MiG-17s, two MiG-15UTIs, helicopters and other transport and civilian aircraft) left at Khankala and Kalinovskaya airbases by the Soviet Air Force in 1992. Most of these, however, were reportedly abandoned or not in flyable condition, but during the August–November 1994 conflict between nationalist and pro-Russian forces L-39s were deployed and were possibly one of the few air attack (and possibly reconnaissance) elements on Dzhokar Dudayev's forces. At least one was reported as shot-down near Goragorsk on October 4 by a Strela-2 MANPADS fired by Doku Zavgayev's pro-Russian militia. The pilot, Col. Ali Musayev and the co-pilot Dedal Dadayev were killed.

One of the main reasons that prompted the first Su-25 air raids that destroyed the Chechen air force on the ground, and started the Russian intervention, were preparations being performed by Dudayev's air force, which had been spotted by reconnaissance Sukhoi Su-24MRs. There were fears that these aircraft could slow or deter the Russian air and ground campaign, as well as the capability of several aircraft to conduct kamikaze attacks on Russian nuclear power plants (specifically via means of the ejection seat in most aircraft, notably the L-39, by filling them with explosives to act as improvised cruise missiles).

Iraq
Iraq became the first export customer for the L-39 Albatros. By mid 1970, the Iraqi Air Force had procured a considerable number of L-39 trainers, having transferred the bulk of their training activities onto the Czechoslovak aircraft. During the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, on 14 April 2003, a pair of United States Navy McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornets attacked several L-29 and L-39 aircraft on the ground at an airfield near the city of Tikrit; these had been believed to have been modified to perform as delivery platforms for weapons.

Libya
Libya acquired some 180 L-39ZOs around 1978 which served at Sabha and Okba Ben Nafi flying schools along with Yugoslav-made G-2 Galeb for advanced jet training and Italian-made SF.260s (for primary training).

The L-39s were deployed during the Chadian-Libyan conflict, mainly to Ouadi Doum air base. During the final Chadian offensive in March 1987, the Chadians captured Ouadi Doum along with several aircraft (11 L-39s included) and Soviet SAM systems and tanks. A Chadian report to the UN, reported the aforementioned capture on 11 L-39s and the destruction (or downing) of at least four of them.

In the midst of that conflict, on 21 April 1983, three LARAF Ilyushin Il-76TDs and one Lockheed C-130 Hercules landed at Manaus Airport, Brazil after one of the Il-76s developed technical problems while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The aircraft were then searched by the Brazilian authorities: instead of medical supplies – as quoted in the transport documentation – the crate of the first of 17 L-39s bound for Nicaragua together with arms and parachutes, to support the country's war against US-backed Contras, were found. The cargo was impounded for some time before being returned to Libya, while the transports were permitted to return to their country. During the 1990s and 2000s, Libya made multiple attempts to get components and services for its air force in spite of an embargo placed upon the country by United Nations Security Council Resolution 748; by 2001, only half of Libya's L-39s were serviceable as a consequence.

Russia
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Russian Air Force in 1991, the newly formed service found itself with hundreds of L-39 aircraft, the majority of which were surplus to their training requirements. According to author Stephan Wilkinson, by 2005, Russia was seeking to potentially sell up to 800 of their L-39s, which were receiving only a basic level of maintenance once per month while their fate was being decided. Starting in the early 1990s, the Russian Air Force has pursued the development of a domestically-built jet trainer, for which the Yakovlev Yak-130 was selected; the Yak-130 shall eventually replace the L-39 in Russian service within its operational roles.

Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, a Ukrainian L-39 from the 39th Tactical Aviation Brigade piloted by Dmytro Kolomiyets was shot down by a Russian aircraft in Khmelnytskyi during the opening hours of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 9 August 2022, Dmytro Kolomiyets was posthumously awarded with the Order of the Gold Star.

On 25 August 2023, two Ukrainian L-39s collided during a combat mission over Zhytomyr, killing three pilots. Among those killed was combat pilot Andrii Pilshchykov, an Order of Courage recipient more commonly known by his callsign "Juice", who had become famous in the west for his articulate appeals early in the war for allies to supply F-16s to Ukraine.

Syria
The Syrian Arab Air Force has operated a number of armed L-39ZA light attack variants. Since the early stages of the Syrian civil war, the Syrian Air Force's L-39 aircraft have been routinely deployed in counter-insurgency operations against various rebel ground forces, a number of these aircraft have also been shot down by ground fire. They were first used operationally during the Battle of Aleppo, launching several strikes upon rebel-held positions. It has been claimed the L-39 was the first fixed-wing aircraft to be employed against the rebels.

In February 2013, insurgents successfully captured a number of intact L-39s, along with their support equipment, after raiding and later taking over the Al-Jarrah airbase. In late 2013, reports emerged of claims by Islamist fighters that they had successfully flown two of the captured L-39s. In October 2014, the Syrian Government claimed that at least two rebel-held L-39s had been airworthy and had recently been destroyed by Syrian Air Force aircraft.

According to Reuters, by 2014, the L-39 had allegedly become one of the favoured platforms of the Syrian Air Force for performing ground attack missions due to its slower speed and higher agility over other aircraft in its inventory. In December 2015, following the securing of the Kweiris airbase by government forces, the resumption of ground-attack missions by L-39s in the vicinity of Aleppo commenced shortly thereafter.

On 26 December 2017, a Syrian L-39 was shot down near Hama airport.

On 3 March 2020, a Syrian Arab Army Air Force L-39 was shot down by a Turkish Air Force F-16 over Idlib province. Both Syrian and Turkish forces confirmed the downing.

Civilian use
While newer versions are now replacing older L-39s in service, thousands remain in active service as trainers, and many are finding new homes with private warbird owners all over the world. It has been claimed that the L-39's desirability stems from the fact that it is "the only available second-generation jet trainer". This trend is particularly evident in the United States, where their $200,000–$300,000 price puts them in range of moderately wealthy pilots looking for a fast, agile personal jet. Their popularity led to a purely L-39 Jet class being introduced at the Reno Air Races in 2002, though it has since been expanded to include other, similar aircraft.

In September 2012, there were 255 L-39s registered with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and four registered with Transport Canada. Several display teams use the L-39 such as the Patriots Jet Team (6 L-39s), the Breitling Jet Team (7 L-39s) and the Black Diamond Jet Team (5 L-39s). There are also several L-39s that have been made available for private jet rides by various operators in Australia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain and the US. These L-39s are mostly in private hands, but some also belong to government agencies, such as those in Vyazma, Russia. In March 2018 there were five L-39s on the civilian register in New Zealand. One registered as an L-39 and four others registered as L-39C.

Since 2004, the Defence & MRO Division of Aero Vodochody has performed a general maintenance, repair and modernisation program of civil-operated L-39s, as well as performing the demilitarisation of ex-military aircraft. Services offered to civil operators include life-extension programs, support for civil registration/certification, training of ground/flight crew, logistics and analysis, customization, routine inspection, condition-based maintenance support, and providing general expertise/consultancy work.

Variants

 * L-39X-01 – X-07
 * Five prototypes plus two static test airframes.

 * L-39C (C for Cvičná – training)
 * Standard basic trainer for Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and export. Originally designated L-39, but renamed L-39C when later variants appeared. Two pylons under wing. Approximately 2,260 built.

 * L-39CM (CM for Cvičná modernizovaná – modernised training)
 * Slovak upgraded C version.

 * L-39M1
 * Ukrainian upgraded C version with AI-25TLSh engines. The conversion is carried out by Odesaviaremservis and the first plane was ready in 2009. The upgrade of a further 7 L-39C's was planned. Only six L-39C were converted into L-39M1 by 2014

 * L-39V (V for Vlečná – tug)
 * Single-seat target tug version for Czechoslovakia. Equipped to tow KT-04 target on 1,700 m (5,600 ft) cable. Prototype plus eight production aircraft built.

 * L-39ZO (Z for Zbraně – weapons)
 * Interim weapon trainer variant for export. Four pylons stressed for 500 kg (1,100 lb) (inboard) and 250 kg (550 lb) (outboard), with total external load of 1,150 kg (2,500 lb). First flew 25 June 1975, with initial deliveries to Iraq in 1977. 337 built.

 * L-39ZA
 * Significantly upgraded L-39ZO for armed training and light attack, employing sturdier landing gear, a higher payload (total 1,290 kg (2,844 lb)) and notably provision for a GSh-23L 23-millimeter twin-barreled cannon attached in a conformal pod under the pilots' compartment, having a 150-round magazine within the airframe. Outer pylons wired to carry K-13 or R-60 air-to-air missiles. Two prototypes, with first flying on 29 September 1976. 208 aircraft delivered.

 * L-39ZAM
 * Slovak upgraded ZA version.

 * L-39ZA/ART
 * Thai version of L-39ZA with Elbit avionics. 40 built.

 * L-39MS/L-59
 * The Aero L-39MS is a second generation military trainer aircraft developed from the firm's earlier L-39. Compared to its predecessor, it featured a strengthened fuselage, longer nose, a vastly updated cockpit, and a more powerful (21.6 kN (4,850 lbf)) Lotarev DV-2 engine, allowing operation at higher weights and speeds (max speed 872 km/h (542 mph)). First flight on 30 September 1986. It was later designated as the Aero L-59.

 * L-139 Albatros 2000
 * Revised version with western avionics and 17.99 kN (4,045 lbf) Garrett TFE731-4-1T engine. Single prototype built.

 * L-159
 * Further modernised advanced trainer/combat aircraft with more modern, western avionics and Honeywell/ITEC F124 engine.

 * L-39NG
 * Modernised and upgraded version with Williams FJ44 engine, improved fuel system and avionics, planned to be introduced in 2018.

 * Skyleader UL-39 Albi
 * A carbon-fibre ducted-fan powered scale variant first flown in the Czech Republic on 4 April 2016.

Operators
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• 🇩🇿

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• 🇦🇿

• 🇧🇩

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• 🇧🇬 12 L-39ZA

•

• 🇨🇫

• 🇨🇺

• 🇨🇿

•  Withdrawn from use in 1990.

• 🇪🇬

•

• 🇪🇪

• 🇪🇹

• 🇫🇷 (The Breitling Jet Team currently uses nine L-39s)

•

• 🇬🇭

• 🇭🇺

• 🇮🇶

• 🇰🇿

• 🇰🇬

• 🇱🇾

• 🇱🇹 (potential future L-39NG customer)

•  (The Baltic Bees Jet Team currently uses six L-39s)

• undefined

• 🇲🇿

• 🇳🇬

• 🇰🇵

•

• 🇷🇺

• 🇸🇰

• 🇸🇸

• 🇸🇾

• 🇹🇯

• 🇹🇭 L-39ZA/ART (Westernized version, equipped with Israeli avionics )

• 🇹🇳

• 🇹🇲

• 🇺🇬

• 🇺🇦

• 🇺🇸 (The Patriots Jet Team currently uses six L-39s; The Black Diamond Jet Team currently uses six L-39s)

• 🇺🇿

• 🇻🇳

• 🇾🇪

Notable accidents and incidents

 * On 26 September 1987, Mihai Smighelschi, a 21-year-old student of the Romanian Air Force Academy, flew an L-39ZA Albatros trainer to Turkey and requested political asylum. His aircraft was later recovered and onboard data recorders showed that he had flown no higher than 150 m above ground at 700 km/h to evade radar detection. Smighelschi had less than 100 hours at the time, including high-school glider training, and less than 3 hours on the L-39ZA. Without satellite navigation or any maps, he had navigated a straight line over Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey using only ground marks and the memory of a map of Europe present at the Academy. He eventually landed in Kirklareli, Turkey, on a street near several jeeps that seemed to have American insignia, damaging the aircraft's front wheel and the nose.
 * On 24 January 2001, Atlas Air Founder, Chairman, and CEO Michael A. Chowdry was killed when his Czech L-39 jet trainer crashed into an open field near Watkins, Colorado, US. Also killed was The Wall Street Journal aerospace reporter Jeff Cole. Chowdry and Cole were making a planned flight from Front Range Airport.
 * On 2 June 2002, a brake failure on an L-39 landing at the Imperial War Museum Duxford caused the plane to run off the end of the runway and down an embankment onto the M11 motorway. The trainee pilot was killed when he ejected at ground level, but the instructor survived the accident and no vehicles on the motorway were involved.
 * On 6 December 2015, an L-39 crashed while attempting to take-off at Apple Valley Airport, California, US; the pilot Mike Mangold and his passenger were both killed on impact, followed by an ensuing fire on the ground.

Aircraft on display

 * Czech Republic
 * 230107 – L-39C on static display at the National Technical Museum in Prague.
 * 230108 – L-39C on static display at Caslav Air Base in Čáslav, Central Bohemia.
 * Germany
 * Auto & Technik Museum Sinsheim
 * Lithuania
 * 931531 – L-39C as 01 Blue on static display at the Lithuanian Aviation Museum in S. Darius and S. Girėnas Airport (EYKS) Kaunas.
 * United States
 * 430405 – L-39C on static display at the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Alabama.
 * 533526 – L-39C on static display at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California.
 * 131907 – L-39C on static display at the Teton Aviation Center in Driggs, Idaho.
 * 2314 – L-39ZO Airworthy and on rotating display at the Olympic Flight Museum in Olympia, Washington
 * 2314 – L-39ZO Airworthy and on rotating display at the Olympic Flight Museum in Olympia, Washington

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Aero L-39 Albatros


text:
Himmler (surname)

Himmler is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:

 * Ernst Hermann Himmler (1905–1945), German Nazi functionary and younger brother of Heinrich Himmler
 * Gebhard Ludwig Himmler (1898–1982), German Nazi functionary and older brother of Heinrich Himmler
 * Gudrun Burwitz, née Himmler (1929–2018), daughter of Heinrich Himmler
 * Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945), Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS), a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) of Nazi Germany
 * Katrin Himmler (born 1967), a German author, the granddaughter of Ernst Hermann Himmler, great-niece of Heinrich Himmler
 * Margarete Himmler (1893–1967), wife of Heinrich Himmler

title: Himmler (surname)


text:
Cessna O-1 Bird Dog

The Cessna O-1 Bird Dog is a liaison and observation aircraft that first flew on December 14, 1949, and entered service in 1950 as the L-19 in the Korean War. It went to serve in many branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, was not retired until the 1970s in a number of variants, and also served in the Vietnam War. It was also called the OE-1 and OE-2 in Navy service, flying with the Marine Corps, and in the 1960s it was re-designated the O-1. It remains a civilian-flown warbird aircraft, and there are examples in aviation museums. It was the first all-metal fixed-wing aircraft ordered for and by the United States Army following the Army Air Forces' separation from it in 1947. The Bird Dog had a lengthy career in the U.S. military as well as in other countries, with over 3400 produced.

It was further developed into a turboprop-powered version in the 1970s, the SIAI-Marchetti SM.1019. An experimental variant was the Cessna 308, a one-off to explore the possibility of a 4-person liaison version.

Design and development
The U.S. Army was searching for an aircraft that could fly over enemy locations to collect information related to artillery fire target locations and distances, as well as perform liaison duties, and preferably be constructed of all metal, as the fabric-covered liaison aircraft used during World War II (primarily Stinson and Piper products) had short service lives. After the specification for a two-seat liaison and observation monoplane was issued, the Cessna Aircraft Company submitted the Cessna Model 305A, a development of the Cessna 170. The Cessna 305A was a single-engine, lightweight, strut-braced, high-wing monoplane with a tailwheel landing gear.

The greatest difference from the Cessna 170 was that the 305A had only two seats in tandem configuration (the largest tandem-seat aircraft Cessna ever produced), with angled side windows to improve ground observation. Other differences included a redesigned rear fuselage, providing a view directly to the rear (a feature later dubbed "Omni-View", carried over to Cessna single-engine aircraft after 1964), and transparent panels in the wings' center-section over the cockpit (similar to those found on the Cessna 140 and the later Cessna 150 Aerobat model), which allowed the pilot to look directly overhead. A wider door was fitted to allow a stretcher to be loaded.

The Army held a competition in April 1950 for the contract, with contenders from Cessna, Piper, Taylorcraft, and Temco;Cessna's entry was selected for service.

The U.S. Army awarded a contract to Cessna for 418 of the aircraft, which was designated the L-19A Bird Dog. The prototype Cessna 305 (registration N41694) first flew on 14 December 1949, and it now resides in the Spirit of Flight Center in Erie, Colorado. Deliveries began in December 1950, and the aircraft were soon in use fighting their first war in Korea from 1950 through 1953. An instrument trainer variant was developed in 1953, later versions had constant speed propellers, and the final version, the L-19E, had a larger gross weight.

Around 1950, U.S. Air Force (USAF) orders for sixty L-19A aircraft were diverted to the United States Marine Corps (USMC), which designated it OE-1 under the 1922 United States Navy aircraft designation system, took delivery from 1951 to 1953, and deployed the aircraft in Korea. In 1959, two L-19E aircraft transferred from the U.S. Army to the USMC were also designated OE-1. The USMC issued a requirement for a larger and faster version, prompting Cessna to adapt Cessna 180 wings and a more powerful 260 hp Continental O-470-2 engine to the aircraft, which was designated OE-2; 27 of these improved aircraft were delivered, but the sharp price increase dissuaded the USMC from future orders.

Cessna produced 3,431 aircraft; it was also built under license by Fuji in Japan. Initially, 2486 were produced between 1950 thru 1954, and an additional 945 produced through 1958, and 60 more were produced in Japan.

The L-19 received the name Bird Dog as a result of a contest held with Cessna employees to name the aircraft. The winning entry, submitted by Jack A. Swayze, an industrial photographer, was selected by a U.S. Army board. The name was chosen because the role of the army's new aircraft was to find the enemy and orbit overhead until artillery (or attack aircraft) could be brought to bear on the enemy. While flying low and close to the battlefield, the pilot would observe the exploding shells and adjust the fire via his radios, in the manner of a bird dog (gun dog) used by game hunters.

Military service
The United States Department of Defense (DOD) ordered 3,200 L-19s that were built between 1950 and 1959, entering both the U.S. Army and Marine Corps inventories. The aircraft were used in various utility roles such as artillery spotting, front-line communications, medevac, and training.

In U.S. service, the L-19 replaced the Piper L–4 Grasshoppers and Stinson L–5 Sentinels.

With the adoption of the 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system, the Army L-19 and Marine Corps OE were redesignated as the O-1 Bird Dog, and soon entered the Vietnam War. During the early 1960s, the Bird Dog was flown by the Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF), U.S. Army, and U.S. Marines in South Vietnam and later by clandestine forward air controllers (e.g., Ravens) in Laos and Cambodia. Because of its short takeoff and landing (STOL) and low altitude/low airspeed capabilities, the O-1 also later found its way into USAF service as a Forward Air Controller (FAC) aircraft for vectoring faster fighter and attack aircraft and supporting combat search-and-rescue operations recovering downed aircrews.

During the Vietnam War, the Bird Dog was used primarily for reconnaissance, target acquisition, artillery adjustment, radio relay, convoy escort, and the forward air control of tactical aircraft, including bombers operating in a tactical role.

Supplementing the O-1, then gradually replacing it, the USAF switched to the Cessna O-2 Skymaster and North American OV-10 Bronco, while the U.S. Marine Corps took delivery of the OV-10 to replace their aging O-1s. Both were faster twin-engine aircraft, with the OV-10 being a turboprop aircraft. Still, the U.S. Army retained the Bird Dog throughout the war, with up to 11 Reconnaissance Airplane Companies (RACs) deployed to cover all of South Vietnam, the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and the southern edge of North Vietnam. Its quieter noise footprint, lower speed, tighter maneuverability, short runway ability, and better visibility (even to the rear) kept it highly valued by the ground units it supported and highly feared by enemy units it flew over. The last U.S. Army O-1 Bird Dog was officially retired in 1974.

During the Vietnam War, 469 O-1 Bird Dogs were lost to all causes. The USAF lost 178, the USMC lost 7, and 284 were lost from the U.S. Army, RVNAF, and clandestine operators. Three Bird Dogs were lost to enemy hand-held surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).

Two O-1 Bird Dogs were loaned to the Australian Army's 161 Reconnaissance Flight operating out of Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy Province. One was lost to ground fire in May 1968, killing 161's commanding officer. Another Bird Dog was built by this unit's maintenance crew, using aircraft sections salvaged from dumps around Vietnam. It was test-flown and later smuggled back to Australia in pieces, contained in crates marked as "aircraft spares". This aircraft now resides in the Museum of Army Flying at the Army Aviation Center at Oakey, Queensland.

As the USAF phased out the O-1 in favor of the O-2 and OV-10, many O-1s in the United States were sold as surplus. During the 1970s and 1980s, Ector Aircraft remanufactured many as the Ector Mountaineer with their original powerplants and as the Ector Super Mountaineer with the Lycoming O-540-A4B5.

In United States Service, it was mostly replaced by the O-2 Skymaster and OV-10 Bronco, although it lingered in many roles due to unique advantages.

Civil Air Patrol service
In the early 1970s, as the O-2 Skymaster and OV-10 Bronco replaced the O-1 in frontline USAF service, several former USAF O-1s were turned over to the USAF's civilian auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), for duties such as aerial search in support of domestic search and rescue (SAR) operations. However, since very few CAP pilots had prior training and experience as professional military aviators and/or significant experience with tailwheel aircraft, many CAP O-1 aircraft were damaged in ground loops and other takeoff, landing, or taxiing mishaps.

To reduce both risk and repair costs, the USAF directed CAP that all O-1 aircraft in CAP service be eventually replaced for safety reasons by single-engine tricycle-gear civilian Cessnas common to general aviation, primarily Cessna 172 and Cessna 182 aircraft. The only O-1 remaining in the CAP inventory is a permanent static display aircraft on a pylon in front of CAP Headquarters at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

Civilian use

Many former USAF and former CAP O-1 and L-19 aircraft were sold to private owners as recreational aircraft, and others went to glider clubs in the U.S. as a reliable and robust vehicle to tow gliders into the air. As with most aircraft used for glider towing, the aircraft has also been outfitted with mirrors mounted to the struts. Others went to museums, where they are usually displayed in their military combat markings.

In Canada, the Royal Canadian Air Cadets use former CAF L-19 aircraft equipped with a towing rig to tow their Schweizer 2-33A gliders for the Air Cadet gliding program. These particular L-19 variants are used in the Atlantic, Eastern, and Pacific regions. They have been modified for noise reduction using a smaller-diameter, four-blade Hoffman composite propeller in all regions except the Pacific Region and exhaust modification. The fuel delivery system has also been modified from the original design, placing the fuel selector valve closer to the pilot. The L-19/O-1 is a popular warbird with private pilots.

In the U.S., the Franconia Soaring Association in Franconia, N.H., uses an O-1, tail number N4796G, to tow its gliders, including Schweizer SGS 1-26 gliders and Grob G103 Twin Astir and Pilatus B4-PC11 sailplanes, as of July 2012.

As of June 2009, more than 330 were registered with the US Federal Aviation Administration. Others are owned and operated outside the U.S. by individuals and flying organizations.

Notable flights

American television personality and actor Ed McMahon was a Marine Corps aviator who piloted an OE during the Korean War, flying 85 combat missions and earning six Air Medals in 1953.

Captain Sidney Harrison, U.S. Army, a decorated veteran of World War II and the Korean War, crashed his Cessna O-1 on a flight from Wichita, Kansas, to Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, in 1952. The wreckage is still in the woods above Palmer Lake, Colorado, and can be reached by an 11.1 mi hike.

Captain Hilliard A. Wilbanks, USAF, posthumously received the Medal of Honor for sacrificing his life on February 24, 1967, while supporting an ARVN Ranger Battalion at Di Linh, near Da Lat, South Vietnam. After knowing their ambush had been compromised and fighter support would soon come, the Viet Cong charged into the Rangers. Trying to slow them down, Wilbanks shot the rest of his phosphorus rockets at the enemy. After he ran out of rockets, he made strafing passes, firing his M16 rifle from the side window of the plane. After the third pass, he was wounded and crashed, and died while being evacuated by helicopter.

On 29 April 1975, the day before the fall of Saigon during the Vietnam War, Republic of Vietnam Air Force Major Bung-Ly loaded his wife and five children into a two-seat Cessna O-1 Bird Dog and took off from Con Son Island. After evading enemy ground fire, Major Bung-Ly headed out to sea and spotted the aircraft carrier USS Midway (CV-41). With only an hour of fuel remaining, he dropped a note asking that the deck be cleared so he could land. As there was no other way to make room, Midway's commanding officer, Captain (later Rear Admiral) Lawrence Chambers, ordered US$10 million worth of South Vietnamese Bell UH-1 Iroquois ("Huey") helicopters to be pushed overboard into the South China Sea. The Bird Dog that Major Bung-Ly landed aboard Midway is now on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. A similar aircraft was restored in the markings of the aircraft flown by Major Bung-Ly for an exhibit at the USS Midway Museum in San Diego, California.

Variants

 * L-19A (Cessna 305A)
 * Initial production version for United States Army with 213 hp Continental O-470-11, redesignated O-1A in 1962. 2,486 built

 * L-19-IT
 * L-19A converted to instrument trained. 66 converted.

 * TL-19A
 * L-19As converted to dual control trainers, redesignated TO-1A in 1962.

 * XL-19B
 * L-19A with a 210 shp Boeing XT-50-BO-1 turboprop engine, one built.

 * XL-19C
 * L-19A with a 210 shp Continental CAE XT51-T-1 turboprop engine, two built.

 * TL-19D (Cessna 305B)
 * Instrument trainer with dual controls and powered by 210 hp Continental O-470-15, redesignated TO-1D in 1962. 310 built.

 * L-19E (Cessna 305C)
 * Improved version with strengthened airframe and powered by Continental O-470-15, became O-1E in 1962. 469 built

 * L-19L (Cessna 182D)
 * Military variant of the Cessna 182D for the Canadian Army. Four built, all nearly identical to the civilian 182D.

 * OE-1
 * 60 L-19As and two L-19Es delivered to USMC, redesignated O-1B in 1962.

 * OE-2 (Cessna 321)
 * Redesigned version for USMC with Cessna 180 wings, 260 hp Continental O-470-2 and modified fuselage, became O-1C in 1962, 27 built.

 * O-1A
 * L-19A redesignated in 1962

 * TO-1A
 * Redesignation of TL-19A

 * O-1B
 * OE-1 redesignated in 1962.

 * O-1C
 * OE-2 redesignated in 1962

 * O-1D
 * A number of TO-1Ds converted for forward air controller duties with the USAF.

 * TO-1D
 * TL-19D redesignated in 1962.

 * O-1E
 * L-19E redesignated in 1962.

 * O-1F (Cessna 305E)
 * Forward Air Controller conversions of the O-1D for the USAF

 * O-1G (Cessna 305D)
 * Forward Air Controller conversions of the O-1A for the USAF

 * CO-119
 * SIAI-Marchetti SM.1019
 * Turboprop variant for the Italian Army

 * Cessna 325
 * Agricultural variant of the Model 305 with spraybars and a hopper in an enclosed rear cockpit, four built

Operators
These are mostly historical (not current) list of operators:
 * Australian Army – 161 Recce Flight operated 2 aircraft during the Vietnam War. One was shot down on 23 May 1968, killing the flight's commanding officer, Major George Constable. The aircraft was replaced and continued in service until 161 withdrew from Vietnam. A second plane, Bunny 2, was assembled from pieces scrounged by unit members, flown then disassembled and smuggled back to Australia as "spare parts" where it was assembled and flown.
 * Austrian Air Force
 * Brazilian Air Force
 * Khmer Air Force
 * Royal Canadian Air Force
 * Canadian Army
 * Royal Canadian Air Cadets
 * Chilean Air Force
 * French Army
 * Indonesian Air Force
 * Iraqi Air Force
 * Italian Army
 * Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force
 * Kingdom of Laos
 * Royal Lao Air Force
 * Armed Forces of Malta Air Wing received five O-1Es from Italy in 1992.
 * North Korean Air Force
 * Royal Norwegian Air Force
 * Pakistan Army
 * $\phi$
 * Philippine Air Force
 * Philippine Navy
 * Philippine Army
 * Republic of Korea Air Force
 * South Vietnam
 * Republic of Vietnam Air Force
 * Spanish Air Force
 * Spanish Army
 * Saudi Air Force
 * Republic of China Army
 * Republic of China Marine Corps
 * Royal Thai Air Force
 * Royal Thai Army
 * Royal Thai Navy
 * Turkish Army
 * United States Air Force
 * United States Army
 * United States Marine Corps
 * Civil Air Patrol
 * Vietnam People's Air Force (captured South Vietnamese aircraft)
 * South Vietnam
 * Republic of Vietnam Air Force
 * Spanish Air Force
 * Spanish Army
 * Saudi Air Force
 * Republic of China Army
 * Republic of China Marine Corps
 * Royal Thai Air Force
 * Royal Thai Army
 * Royal Thai Navy
 * Turkish Army
 * United States Air Force
 * United States Army
 * United States Marine Corps
 * Civil Air Patrol
 * Vietnam People's Air Force (captured South Vietnamese aircraft)
 * United States Air Force
 * United States Army
 * United States Marine Corps
 * Civil Air Patrol
 * Vietnam People's Air Force (captured South Vietnamese aircraft)
 * Vietnam People's Air Force (captured South Vietnamese aircraft)
 * Vietnam People's Air Force (captured South Vietnamese aircraft)

title: Cessna O-1 Bird Dog


text:
User:Xnybre

Xnybre

title: User:Xnybre


text:
Talk:Sensationalism

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 March 2021 and 2 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ShellieHu.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:39, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 January 2020 and 12 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Zachary Michael Labonski.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:39, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed re-organization
Instead of organizing by type of medium (mass media/newspapers, broadcasting, and online) perhaps we can organize the article instead by the particular traits of sensationalism (word choice, visuals, crime journalism, profit-motive, etc.). Superb Owl (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sensationalism


text:
Cardinal mark

A cardinal mark is a sea mark (a buoy or other floating or fixed structure) commonly used in maritime pilotage to indicate the position of a hazard and the direction of safe water.

Cardinal marks indicate the direction of safety as a cardinal (compass) direction (north, east, south or west) relative to the mark. This makes them meaningful regardless of the direction or position of the approaching vessel, in contrast to the (perhaps better-known) lateral mark system.

Characteristics
The characteristics and meanings of cardinal marks are as defined by the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities.

A cardinal mark indicates one of the four compass directions by:

 * the direction of its two conical top-marks, which can both point up, indicating north; down, indicating south; towards each other, indicating west; or away from each other, indicating east
 * its distinctive pattern of black and yellow stripes, which follows the orientation of the cones - the black stripe is in the position pointed to by the cones (e.g. at the top for a north cardinal, in the middle for a west cardinal)
 * optionally, its distinctive sequence of flashing light, which consists of a sequence of quick or very quick flashes whose number gives the clockface position which corresponds to the direction of the cardinal (e.g. three for an east cardinal, nine for a west; north has continuous flashes, and south may be augmented with a long flash, to help distinguish it from a west in difficult conditions)

Either a quick or a very quick sequence of light flashes may be used; the choice allows for two similar nearby marks to be uniquely identified by their lights.

A cardinal mark may be used to accomplish the following:

 * Indicate that the deepest water is an area on the named side of the mark
 * Indicate the safe side on which to pass a danger
 * Draw attention to a feature in a channel, such as a bend, junction, branch, or end of a shoal
 * Draw attention to a new danger such as a grounded ship. In such cases two equal marks are often placed together to indicate that it's a newly marked danger and is not yet printed in official charts.

Other uses:

 * Sometimes a Cardinal Mark can be used instead of a Special mark to indicate a spoil ground, or an outfall pipe for example. A few examples can be seen on the South Coast of England and in Northern France.

Mnemonics
The north and south topmarks are self-explanatory (both cones pointing up, or both pointing down). Remembering the east and west marks can be more of a problem.

 * The topmarks for east and west "follow the Sun"—the top cone points in the direction in which the Sun appears to move (rising for an east mark or setting for a west mark), while the bottom cone points in the direction in which its reflection on the ocean surface appears to move. The Sun and its reflection move away from each other on rising and toward each other on setting.
 * East looks like an Easter egg. The western mark has a pinched waist: "Western women have wasp waists".
 * East looks like a classical letter E/epsilon. The western mark looks like a "W" on its side, or "West winds wool" (looks like a bobbin)
 * East is larger around the middle: "Equatorially enlarged". West is a woman's waist.
 * West looks like a wine glass with the narrow stem and wide top and bottom.

The colours can be remembered this way: The two conical top-marks always point to black.
 * If the top-marks point to the top, black is at the top.
 * If the top-marks point to the bottom, black is at the bottom.
 * If the top-marks point to the middle, black is at the middle.
 * If the top-marks point to the outside, black is at the outside.

title: Cardinal mark


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DEC PRISM

PRISM (Parallel Reduced Instruction Set Machine) was a 32-bit RISC instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was the outcome of a number of DEC research projects from the 1982–1985 time-frame, and the project was subject to continually changing requirements and planned uses that delayed its introduction. This process eventually decided to use the design for a new line of Unix workstations. The arithmetic logic unit (ALU) of the microPrism version had completed design in April 1988 and samples were fabricated, but the design of other components like the floating point unit (FPU) and memory management unit (MMU) were still not complete in the summer when DEC management decided to cancel the project in favor of MIPS-based systems. An operating system codenamed MICA was developed for the PRISM architecture, which would have served as a replacement for both VAX/VMS and ULTRIX on PRISM.

PRISM's cancellation had significant effects within DEC. Many of the team members left the company over the next year, notably Dave Cutler who moved to Microsoft and led the development of Windows NT. The MIPS-based workstations were moderately successful among DEC's existing Ultrix users but had little success competing against companies like Sun Microsystems. Meanwhile, DEC's cash-cow VAX line grew increasingly less performant as new RISC designs outperformed even the top-of-the-line VAX 9000. As the company explored the future of the VAX they concluded that a PRISM-like processor with a few additional changes could address all of these markets. Starting where PRISM left off, the DEC Alpha program started in 1989.

Background
Introduced in 1977, the VAX was a runaway success for DEC, cementing its place as the world's #2 computer vendor behind IBM. The VAX was noted for its rich instruction set architecture (ISA), which was implemented in complex microcode. The VMS operating system was layered on top of this ISA, which drove it to have certain requirements for interrupt handling and the memory model used for memory paging. By the early 1980s, VAX systems had become "the computing hub of many technology-driven companies, sending spokes of RS-232 cables out to a rim of VT-100 terminals that kept the science and engineering departments rolling."

This happy situation was upset by the relentless improvement of semiconductor manufacturing as encoded by Moore's Law; by the early 1980s there were a number of capable 32-bit single-chip microprocessors with performance similar to early VAX machines yet able to fit into a desktop pizza box form factor. Companies like Sun Microsystems introduced Motorola 68000 series-based Unix workstations that could replace a huge multi-user VAX machine with one that provided even more performance but was inexpensive enough to be purchased for every user that required one. While DEC's own microprocessor teams were introducing a series of VAX implementations at lower price-points, the price-performance ratio of their systems continued to be eroded. By the later half of the 1980s, DEC found itself being locked out of the technical market.

RISC
During the 1970s, IBM had been carrying out studies of the performance of their computer systems and found, to their surprise, that 80% of the computer's time was spent performing only five operations. The hundreds of other instructions in their ISAs, implemented using microcode, went almost entirely unused. The presence of the microcode introduced a delay when the instructions were decoded, so even when one called one of those five instructions directly, it ran slower than it could if there was no microcode. This led to the IBM 801 design, the first modern RISC processor.

Around the same time, in 1979, Dave Patterson was sent on a sabbatical from University of California, Berkeley to help DEC's west-coast team improve the VAX microcode. Patterson was struck by the complexity of the coding process and concluded it was untenable. He first wrote a paper on ways to improve microcoding, but later changed his mind and decided microcode itself was the problem. He soon started the Berkeley RISC project. The emergence of RISC sparked off a long-running debate within the computer industry about its merits; when Patterson first outlined his arguments for the concept in 1980, a dismissive dissenting opinion was published by DEC.

By the mid-1980s practically every company with a processor design arm began exploring the RISC approach. In spite of any official disinterest, DEC was no exception. In the period from 1982 to 1985, no fewer than four attempts were made to create a RISC chip at different DEC divisions. Titan from DEC's Western Research Laboratory (WRL) in Palo Alto, California was a high-performance ECL based design that started in 1982, intended to run Unix. SAFE (Streamlined Architecture for Fast Execution) was a 64-bit design that started the same year, designed by Alan Kotok (of Spacewar! fame) and Dave Orbits and intended to run VMS. HR-32 (Hudson, RISC, 32-bit) started in 1984 by Rich Witek and Dan Dobberpuhl at the Hudson, MA fab, intended to be used as a co-processor in VAX machine. The same year Dave Cutler started the CASCADE project at DECwest in Bellevue, Washington.

PRISM
Eventually, Cutler was asked to define a single RISC project in 1985, selecting Rich Witek as the chief architect. In August 1985 the first draft of a high-level design was delivered, and work began on the detailed design. The PRISM specification was developed over a period of many months by a five-person team: Dave Cutler, Dave Orbits, Rich Witek, Dileep Bhandarkar, and Wayne Cardoza. Through this early period, there were constant changes in the design as debates within the company argued over whether it should be 32- or 64-bit, aimed at a commercial or technical workload, and so forth.

These constant changes meant the final ISA specification was not complete until September 1986. At the time, the decision was made to produce two versions of the basic concept, DECwest worked on a "high-end" ECL implementation known as Crystal, while the Semiconductor Advanced Development team worked on microPRISM, a CMOS version. This work was 98% done 1985–86 and was heavily supported by simulations by Pete Benoit on a large VAXcluster.

Through this era there was still considerable scepticism on the part of DEC engineering as a whole about whether RISC was really faster, or simply faster on the trivial five-line programs being used to demonstrate its performance. Based on the Crystal design, in 1986 it was compared to the then-fastest machine in development, the VAX 8800. The conclusion was clear: for any given amount of investment, the RISC designs would outperform a VAX by 2-to-1.

In the middle of 1987, the decision was made that both designs be 64-bit, although this lasted only a few weeks. In October 1987, Sun introduced the Sun-4. Powered by a 16 MHz SPARC, a commercial version of Patterson's RISC design, it ran four times as fast as their previous top-end Sun-3 using a 20 MHz Motorola 68020. With this release, DEC once again changed the target for PRISM, aiming it solely at the workstation space. This resulted in the microPRISM being respecified as a 32-bit system while the Crystal project was canceled. This introduced more delays, putting the project far behind schedule.

By early 1988 the system was still not complete; the CPU design was nearly complete, but the FPU and MMU, both based on the contemporary Rigel chipset for the VAX, were still being designed. The team decided to stop work on those parts of the design and focus entirely on the CPU. Design was completed in March 1988 and taped out by April.

Cancellation
Throughout the PRISM period, DEC was involved in a major debate over the future direction of the company. As newer RISC-based workstations were introduced, the performance benefit of the VAX was constantly eroded, and the price/performance ratio completely undermined. Different groups within the company debated how to best respond. Some advocated moving the VAX into the high-end, abandoning the low-end to the workstation vendors like Sun. This led to the VAX 9000 program, which was referred to internally as the "IBM killer". Others suggested moving into the workstation market using PRISM or a commodity processor. Still others suggested re-implementing the VAX on a RISC processor.

Frustrated with the growing number of losses to cheaper faster competitive machines, independently, a small skunkworks group in Palo Alto, outside of Central Engineering, focused on workstations and UNIX/Ultrix, entertained the idea of using an off-the-shelf RISC processor to build a new family of workstations. The group carried out due diligence, eventually choosing the MIPS R2000. This group acquired a development machine and prototyped a port of Ultrix to the system. From the initial meetings with MIPS to a prototype machine took only 90 days. Full production of a DEC version could begin as early as January 1989, whereas it would be at least another year before a PRISM based machine would be ready.

When the matter was raised at DEC headquarters the company was split on which approach was better. Bob Supnik was asked to consider the issue for an upcoming project review. He concluded that while the PRISM system appeared to be faster, the MIPS approach would be less expensive and much earlier to market. At the acrimonious review meeting by the company's Executive Committee in July 1988, the company decided to cancel Prism, and continue with the MIPS workstations and high-end VAX products. The workstation emerged as the DECstation 3100.

By this time samples of the microPRISM had been returned and were found to be mostly working. They also proved capable of running at speeds of 50 to 80 MHz, compared to the R2000's 16 to 20. Performance predictions based on these observations suggested a significant performance improvement over existing and announced RISC products from other vendors. However, without the accompanying floating-point unit, whose design had been halted, or the cache interface chip required for operating at such frequencies, which had been part of a cancelled project, floating-point performance predictions remained hypothetical.

Legacy
By the time of the July 1988 meeting, the company had swung almost entirely into the position that the RISC approach was a workstation play. But PRISM's performance was similar to that of the latest VAX machines and the RISC concept had considerable room for growth. As the meeting broke up, Ken Olsen asked Supnik to investigate ways that Digital could keep the performance of VMS systems competitive with RISC-based Unix systems.

A group of engineers formed a team, variously referred to as the "RISCy VAX" or "Extended VAX" (EVAX) task force, to explore this issue. By late summer, the group had explored three concepts, a subset of the VAX ISA with a RISC-like core, a translated VAX that ran native VAX code and translated it on-the-fly to RISC code and stored in a cache, and the ultrapipelined VAX, a much higher-performance CISC implementation. All of these approaches had issues that meant they would not be competitive with a simple RISC machine.

The group next considered systems that combined both an existing VAX single-chip solution as well as a RISC chip for performance needs. These studies suggested that the system would inevitably be hamstrung by the lower-performance part and would offer no compelling advantage.

It was at this point that Nancy Kronenberg pointed out that people ran VMS, not VAX, and that VMS only had a few hardware dependencies based on its modelling of interrupts and memory paging. There appeared to be no compelling reason why VMS could not be ported to a RISC chip as long as these small bits of the model were preserved. Further work on this concept suggested this was a workable approach.

Supnik took the resulting report to the Strategy Task Force in February 1989. Two questions were raised: could the resulting RISC design also be a performance leader in the Unix market, and should the machine be an open standard? And with that, the decision was made to adopt the PRISM architecture with the appropriate modifications, eventually becoming the Alpha, and began the port of VMS to the new architecture.

When PRISM and MICA were cancelled, Dave Cutler left Digital for Microsoft, where he was put in charge of the development of what became known as Windows NT. Cutler's architecture for NT was heavily inspired by many aspects of MICA.

Design
In terms of integer operations, the PRISM architecture was similar to the MIPS designs. Of the 32-bits in the instructions, the 6 highest and 5 lowest bits were the instruction, leaving the other 21 bits of the word for encoding either a constant or register locations. Sixty-four 32-bit registers were included, as opposed to thirty-two in the MIPS, but usage was otherwise similar. PRISM and MIPS both lack the register windows that were a hallmark of the other major RISC design, Berkeley RISC.

The PRISM design was notable for several aspects of its instruction set. Notably, PRISM included Epicode (extended processor instruction code), which defined a number of "special" instructions intended to offer the operating system a stable ABI across multiple implementations. Epicode was given its own set of 22 32-bit registers to use. A set of vector processing instructions were later added as well, supported by an additional sixteen 64-bit vector registers that could be used in a variety of ways.

title: DEC PRISM


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Falukorv

Falukorv is a sausage (korv in Swedish) which ordinates from Falun, Sweden. It's made of a grated mixture of smoked pork and beef or veal with potato starch flour, onion, salt and mild spices. Falukorv is a pre-cooked sausage, thus it can be eaten cold without any further preparation.

History
The history of falukorv reaches back to the Falun copper mine during the 16th and 17th century, where ox hide was used for ropes and some of the meat remaining after slaughter was salted and smoked and used for sausages.

The tradition of preparing the meat in this way was revitalised in the late 19th century by the butcher Anders Olsson, whose initiation led to the development of the modern falukorv, which uses a mixture of pork and beef or veal.

TSG falukorv
A popular sausage, falukorv has Traditional Speciality Guaranteed-status in the EU, UK and Norway. Under EU law thus, restrictions apply to what may be labeled as "falukorv". Only potato flour may be used as a binding agent, and the amount of meat may not fall short of 45%, although most brands of falukorv have a significantly higher meat percentage. The TCS status does not require the sausage to be manufactured in Falun, though.

Middagskorv
Because of its TSG status, only sausages made from a specific recipe may be called falukorv; it may not be made with any alternative ingredients. Manufacturers therefore use the term middagskorv (dinner sausage) to describe variations, such as sausages with a lower fat content of 9% instead of the standard 23%, chicken, or vegetarian versions made from soy, pea and potato protein or quorn.

Typical falukorv meals

 * Sliced and fried with boiled, fried, or mashed potato
 * Sliced and fried with elbow macaroni
 * Sliced and fried, served with baked Swedish brown beans and fried egg
 * Partially sliced and baked au gratin with cheese and mustard, often with onion or apple tucked in between the slices; served accompanied by roast or mashed potatoes.
 * As a substitute for the beef in beef stroganoff – the resulting dish being known as korv Stroganoff
 * Diced and fried with potatoes and onions as a component of pyttipanna
 * Sliced and on top of bread

title: Falukorv


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Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Съезд Коммунистической партии Советского Союза) was the supreme decision-making body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Its meetings served as convention of all party delegates and their predecessors.

Between the congresses the party was ruled by the Central Committee. Over the course of the party's history, the name was changed in accordance with the current name of the party at the time. The frequency of party congresses varied with the meetings being annual events in the 1920s while no congress was held at all between 1939 and 1952. After the death of Joseph Stalin, the congresses were held every five years.

General
Information on congresses, number of delegates, number of people elected to CCs, party membership, the individual who presented the Political Report and information on when the congress was convened can be found in these sources:


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Helen Humes

Helen Humes (June 23, 1913 – September 9, 1981) was an American singer. Humes was a teenage blues singer, a vocalist with Count Basie's band, a saucy R&B diva, and a mature interpreter of the classic popular song.

Early life
She was born on June 23, 1913, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Emma Johnson and John Henry Humes. She grew up as an only child. Her mother was a schoolteacher, and her father was the first black attorney in her home town. In an interview, Humes recalled her parents singing to each other around the house and in a church choir.

Humes was introduced to music in the church, singing in the choir and getting piano and organ lessons given at Sunday school by Bessie Allen, who taught music to any child who wanted to learn. Humes began occasionally playing the piano in a small and locally traveling dance band, the Dandies. This constant involvement in music would lead to her singing career in the mid-1920s.

Early career
Her career began with her first vocal performance, at an amateur contest in 1926, singing "When You're a Long, Long Way from Home" and "I'm in Love with You, That's Why". Her talents were noticed by a guitarist in the band, Sylvester Weaver, who recorded for Okeh Records and recommended her to the talent scout and producer Tommy Rockwell. At the age of 14, Humes recorded in St. Louis in April 1927, singing four blues songs, though only two of the sides were ever issued. A second recording session was held in New York, and this time she was accompanied by pianist J. C. Johnson. Despite this introduction to the music world, Humes did not make another record for another ten years, during which she completed her high school degree, took finance courses, and worked at a bank, as a waitress, and as a secretary for her father. She stayed home for a while, eventually leaving to visit friends in Buffalo, New York. While there, she was invited to sing a few songs at the Spider Web, a cabaret in town. This brief performance turned into an audition, which turned into a $35-a-week job. She stayed in Buffalo, singing with a small group led by Al Sears.

Cincinnati Cotton Club
While Humes was home in Louisville (she said she always returned home at least twice a year) she received a call from Sears, who was in Cincinnati. He wanted her to sing at Cincinnati's Cotton Club. The Cotton Club was an important venue in the Cincinnati music scene. It was an integrated club which booked and promoted many black performers. Humes moved to Cincinnati in 1936 and sang with Sears's band again at the Cotton Club.

Count Basie first heard and approached Humes while she was performing at the Cotton Club in 1937. He asked her to join his touring band to replace Billie Holiday. He told her that she would be paid $35 a week, and she responded, "Oh shucks, I make that here and don't have to go no place!" Not long after this encounter, Humes moved in 1937 to New York City, where John Hammond, a talent scout and producer, heard her singing with Sears's band at the Renaissance Club. Through Hammond, she became a recording vocalist with Harry James's big band. Her swing recordings with James included "Jubilee", "I Can Dream, Can't I?", Jimmy Dorsey's composition "It's the Dreamer In Me", and "Song of the Wanderer". In March 1938, Hammond persuaded Humes to join Count Basie's Orchestra, where she stayed for four years.

The Count Basie Orchestra
In the Count Basie Orchestra, Humes sang ballads and popular songs. While she was also a talented blues singer, Jimmy Rushing, another member of the orchestra at the time, held domain over the blues vocals. Her vocals with Basie's band included "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" and "Moonlight Serenade".

On December 24, 1939, Humes performed with the Count Basie Orchestra, and James P. Johnson, at the second From Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall, produced by John Hammond. After this concert, most of her time with the Basie Orchestra was spent touring. In a 1973 oral history she described life on tour: "I used to pretend I was asleep on the Basie bus, so the boys wouldn't think I was hearing their rough talk. I'd sew buttons on and cook for them, too…in places where it was difficult to get anything to eat…down south. I wasn't interested in drinking and keeping late hours…but my kidneys couldn't stand the punishment of those long rides… then too I got tired of singing the same songs."

For these reasons, Humes left in 1942.

Café Society and solo career
While home again in Louisville in 1942, Humes was called by John Hammond and invited to sing at Café Society in New York. She performed frequently there, accompanied by the pianists Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. During that year, she also performed at the Three Deuces, at the Famous Door with Benny Carter (February), at the Village Vanguard with Eddie Heywood, and on tour with a big band led by the trombonist Ernie Fields.

In 1944, Humes moved to Los Angeles, California, where she recorded and contributed to movie soundtracks. Some of the soundtracks she recorded were Panic in the Streets and My Blue Heaven. She appeared in the musical film Jivin' in Be-Bop, by Dizzy Gillespie. She also performed and toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic for five seasons. She recorded her most popular songs, two jump blues tunes, "Be-Baba-Leba" (Philo, 1945) and "Million Dollar Secret" (Modern, 1950). There was some controversy surrounding the single Be-Baba-Leba" because it had been recorded first by singer Tina Dixon who held the initial copyright. Dixon's version was released after Humes who popularized the tune. Despite her chart success, her career stagnated. From the late 1940s to the mid-1950s she made a few recordings, working with different bands and vocalists, including Nat King Cole, but was not nearly as active as she had been. In 1950 she recorded Benny Carter's "Rock Me to Sleep". She bridged the gap between big-band swing jazz and rhythm and blues.

In 1956, Humes toured Australia with the vibraphonist Red Norvo. Their tour was well received, and she returned again in 1962 and 1964. She performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1959 and the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1960 and 1962. She toured Europe with the first American Folk Blues Festival in 1962.

She returned to the United States in 1967 to take care of her ailing mother. At this point Humes viewed her singing career as a part of her past. She took a job at a local ammunition plant, sold her record player and her records and stopped singing. From 1967 to 1973, she did not work as a singer, until Stanley Dance persuaded her to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1973. This performance led to a revival of her career in music. The festival was followed with multiple European engagements and some albums made in France for Black and Blue. She sang regularly at the Cookery in New York City from 1974 to 1977.

Humes subsequently performed occasionally in America and at European venues and festivals, including the prestigious Nice Jazz Festival in the mid-1970s. She recorded her final album, Helen, for Muse Records in 1980. She received the Music Industry of France Award in 1973 and the key to the city of Louisville in 1975.

Humes said of her career, "I'm not trying to be a star! I want to work and be happy and just go along and have my friends – and that's my career."

Death
Humes died of cancer in Santa Monica, California, in 1981, at the age of 68. Her family requested donations for cancer research instead of flowers at her funeral. She is buried at the Inglewood Park Cemetery, in Inglewood, California.

Style and reviews
Humes's vocal range was from G3 to C5, as she stated in a letter to the arranger Buck Clayton in preparation for a European tour, along with a list of her preferred songs. According to many critics, her voice was versatile, suiting pop songs and ballads as well as blues. She was compared to Ethel Waters and Mildred Bailey from early in her career and was often recorded singing the blues after her association with Basie. In an interview with the jazz critic Whitney Balliett, Humes explained, "I've been called a blues singer, a jazz singer, and a ballad singer – well, I'm all three, which means I'm just a singer." A review from Downbeat Magazine of her albums Talk of the Town, Helen Comes Back, and Helen Humes with Red Norvo and His Orchestra said the following about her collaboration with Red Norvo: "Norvo's sparkling vibes are the ideal complement to Helen's lithe, light timbered clarity…Helen is in particularly fine voice…[with] an uncanny resemblance to early Ella [Fitzgerald] in her sound and phrasing."

The review of Helen Comes Back was not as positive but did not fault the singer:"Blues dominates [the album]…[and] although her voice is delightful, the material is too simple to challenge her…Helen is a great deal more than a blues shouter."

Reviews in The Washington Post of her last performances, in Maryland in 1978 and Washington, D.C., in 1980, described her as "beaming and genial at 65" (in 1978) and gave insight into her versatile vocals: "her characteristically light voice [turning] rough as she belted out…'You Can Take My Man But You Can't Keep Him Long'." The reviews also described her use of back phrasing, reminiscent of Billie Holiday's signature style of phrasing a melody in an intimate, personal fashion.

Discography

 * Helen Humes (Contemporary, 1959 [1960])
 * Songs I Like to Sing! (Contemporary, 1960 [1961])
 * Swingin' with Humes (Contemporary, 1961)
 * Helen Comes Back (Black & Blue, 1973)
 * Sneakin' Around (Black & Blue, 1974; Classic Jazz, 1978)
 * The Incomparable Helen Humes with Connie Berry & Her Jazz Hounds (Jazzology, 1974)
 * Helen Humes with Connie Berry Trio (Audiophile, 1974 [1980])
 * Midsummer Night's Songs with Red Norvo (RCA Victor, 1974)
 * On the Sunny Side of the Street (Black Lion, 1975)
 * The Talk of the Town (Columbia, 1975)
 *  'Deed I Do [live] (Contemporary, 1976 [1994])
 * Nice Jazz 1978 [live] (Black & Blue, 1978)
 * Helen Humes and the Muse All Stars [live] (Muse, 1978 [1980])
 * Let the Good Times Roll (Classic Jazz, 1980) reissue of Helen Comes Back
 * Helen (Muse, 1980 [1981])

 * Be-Baba-Leba (1944–52) (Whiskey, Women, And..., 1983)
 * E-Baba-Le-Ba: The Rhythm and Blues Years (Savoy Jazz, 1986)
 * New Million Dollar Secret (Whiskey, Women, And..., 1987)
 * Complete 1927–1950 Studio Recordings (Jazz Factory, 2001) 3-CD
 * The Helen Humes Collection 1927–62 (Acrobat, 2017) 2-CD
 * Today I Sing the Blues 1944–1955 (Jasmine, 2018)

With the Count Basie Orchestra
 * The Original American Decca Recordings (Decca/GRP, 1992)

With Harry James
 * The Chronological Harry James and His Orchestra 1937–1939 (Classics, 1996)

With Don Byas
 * Midnight at Minton's (Onyx, 1973; CD reissue: HighNote)

Awards and honors

 * Hot Club of France Award for Best Album of 1973
 * Key to the City of Louisville, 1975, 1977

title: Helen Humes


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Aero Vodochody

Aero Vodochody (commonly referred to as Aero) is a Czech aircraft company. Its main production facilities are located at Vodochody Airport in the Prague-East District, on the municipal territories of Vodochody and Odolena Voda.

During the Cold War era, the firm was well known for its range of jet-powered trainer aircraft, the L-29 Delfin and L-39 Albatros. It also developed derivatives of the L-39, the L-59 Super Albatros and the L-159 Alca military light combat jet. Aero Vodochody is believed to have handled the biggest aircraft industrial programme to take place across any of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) countries except for the Soviet Union itself. Following the fall of the communist government in Czechoslovakia during 1989, Aero Vodochody experienced a disruptive period of business, having lost a major portion of the market for its jet trainers. Sales noticeably declined during the 1990s in Eastern Europe as well as in NATO countries as a result of the peace dividend.

Between 1998 and 2004, Aero Vodochody was controlled by the American aerospace company Boeing. During October 2006, the company was privatised once again, being bought by Czech-Slovak investment group Penta Investments for roughly 3 billion CZK. Aero Vodochody continues to manufacture both whole aircraft and aerostructures for the aerospace industry. During the 2014 Farnborough Airshow, it announced the launch of the Aero L-39NG, an upgraded and modernised version of its ubiquitous L-39.

In year 2021 Penta Investments sold their business share to the HSC Aerojet Zrt.

History

Aero Vodochody has been active since its founding in 1919. Between 1929 and 1951, its subsidiary, Aero, manufactured a range of small and medium-sized cars with two-stroke engines, it also briefly produced the Škoda 150 truck between 1946 and 1947 under licence.

During the 1950s, Aero Vodochody developed the L-29 Delfin trainer aircraft; it was Czechoslovakia's first indigenously designed jet-powered aircraft. The L-29 is believed to have likely been the biggest aircraft industrial programme to take place across any of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) countries except for the Soviet Union itself. During the course of the programme, in excess of 3,000 L-29s were produced; of these, around 2,000 were reported to have been delivered to the Soviet Union, where it served as the standard trainer for the Soviet Air Force. Of the others, which included both armed and unarmed models, many aircraft were delivered to the various COMECON countries while others were exported to various overseas nations, including Egypt, Syria, Indonesia, Nigeria and Uganda. Reportedly, the type has been used in active combat during several instances, perhaps the most high-profile being the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960s and of Egyptian L-29s against Israeli tanks during the brief Yom Kippur War of 1973.

The L-39 Albatros was designed during the 1960s as a replacement for the Aero L-29 Delfín as a principal training aircraft. Several specialised variants of the base L-39 design were quickly introduced. In 1972, a purpose-built target tug variant, the L-39V, conducted its initial flight. During 1975, the first L-39ZO training/light combat model, which was equipped with four underwing hardpoints as well as a strengthened wing and modified landing gear, performed its first flight. In 1977, the first L-39ZA light combat variant, which was fitted with a single Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-23 cannon mounted underneath the fuselage in addition to the four hardpoints and strengthening of the L-39ZO, made its maiden flight. According to aerospace publication Flight International, roughly 200 L-39s were being sold each year upon the jet trainer market during the late 1980s. Sales of the L-39 declined during the 1990s. This downturn has been attributed to the loss of the captive Warsaw Pact trainer market, to which a substantial proportion of the total aircraft manufactured had been historically sold to; allegations about Czechoslovak banks being unable to finance the defense industry and inaction on the part of the Czechoslovak government; and concerns over the quality of manufacturing standards. During 1996, production of the L-39 was terminated.

Aero Vodochody has developed several improved variants of the L-39 to take its place, and has continued extensive support and overhaul operations for existing L-39 customers. The L-59 Super Albatros was derived from the L-39, being originally designated as the L-39MS. Aero only produced a handful of L-59s before discontinuing production. Another derivative of the L-39 Albatros was the L-159 Alca, a modernised combat-oriented version. Originally, Aero Vodochody had intended to develop the L-159 in partnership with Elbit, but the Czech Ministry of Defense instead selected Rockwell Collins to partner on the program.

During the 2010s, Aero Vodochody was engaged in the manufacture of the L-159 advanced light combat aircraft and the Sikorsky S-76 helicopter. It has also an active presence in the aerostructures sector, producing the center wing box of the Alenia C-27J Spartan airlifter, door subassemblies for the Embraer 170 and Embraer 190 airliners, the cockpit of the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, gun bay doors for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter, subassemblies and various elements of the Airbus A320 family airliner, and fixed leading edge kits for the Boeing 767 airliner. The company is reportedly likely to upgrade the runway at its Vodochody Airport near Prague to international airport standards, allowing it to better serve the low-cost air carriers and charter flights that service Prague.

During July 2014, Aero Vodochody presented the L-39NG programme at the Farnborough Airshow. By April 2015, a partnership had formed between Aero Vodochody, American defence contractor Draken International and engine manufacturer Williams International to undertake the programme and to properly prepare the L-39NG to compete on the North American market. The L-39NG is being developed and marketed in two stages. The L-39NG upgrade program (Stage 1) contains an installation of FJ44-4M engine and optionally the Stage 2 avionics to existing L-39 Albatros. The second phase (Stage 2) represents newly built L-39NG aircraft with the possible use of components from the previous upgrade to Stage 1, once the original airframe reaches the end of its life. The first stage was formally completed om 14 September 2015 with the maiden flight of the L-39NG technology demonstrator (L-39CW). On 20 November 2017, Aero Vodochody announced the completion of development of the L-39CW; on 14 March 2018, they announced that the L-39CW, equipped with both the new engine and the new avionics, had received type certification. The brand new L-39NG aircraft made first flight on December 22, 2018. in September 2020, less than two years later, the aircraft was certified by the Military Aviation Authority of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic.

In September, 2021, Aero Vodochody sale transaction was successfully completed. Based on an agreement signed in July 2021 Hungarian company HSC Aerojet Zrt. became the 100% owner of Aero. In HSC Aerojet Zrt. majority is held by Hungarian businessman Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky and minority is held by Czech company OMNIPOL a.s. The sale also included Vodochody Airport.

title: Aero Vodochody