immediately retracted the overheated undercarriage instead of letting air stream cool it, whereupon the bi-metal brakes fused. Repaired, Flying Fortress departs for Wright Field on 11 January 1937. 18 December The sole Kreider-Reisner XC-31, 34-26, assigned at Wright Field, Ohio, receives moderate damage in a landing accident resulting in a ground loop, at Pittsburgh-Allegheny County Airport, Pennsylvania. Pilot was Joseph B. Zimmerman. Post-21 December Prototype Junkers Ju 88 V1, D-AQEN, first flown at Dessau, Germany on 21 December 1936, crashes after only a few test flights, but is ordered into production. 1937 1 January Lt. Col. Fredrick Irving Eglin (1891–1937), first rated as a military aviator in 1917 and helped train other flyers during World War I, is killed while assigned to General Headquarters, Air Force, Langley Field, Virginia, in the crash of his Northrop A-17 pursuit aircraft, 35–97, at Cheaha Mountain, Alabama in bad weather during flight from Langley to Maxwell Field, Alabama. The Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Base renamed Eglin Field 4 August 1937, later Eglin Air Force Base on 24 June 1948. 28 January Fairchild C-24, 32-289, c/n 6709, of the 1st Air Base Squadron, Langley Field, Virginia, one of four Pilgrim Model 100-Bs acquired by the USAAC and used as an air ambulance into the late 1930s, crashes 5 miles SE of Front Royal, Virginia, killing pilot Joseph B. Zimmerman. 27 February Two Air Corps Reserve officers are killed in crash of North American BT-9A, 36–118, '3', of the Air Detachment, 6th Corps Area, near the SE corner of Chicago Municipal Airport, during a blind-flying flight. Pilot under the hood was 2d Lt. John P. Spake, 29, of Berwyn, Illinois, with 2d Lt. Clyde H. Wood, Jr., 26, of Chicago, in the rear cockpit. The plane came down in a field at Marquette Road and the Belt Railway of Chicago after 40 minutes in the air. Circling at 500 feet, the plane was seen to waver, then dive into the ground. "Both were co-pilots for the United Airlines, and had been flying since 1931 and were graduates of the army training service." Late April The Heinkel He 112 V5, specially adapted to carry liquid propellant rocket motors, and with the enclosed canopy modification of the V3, flies for the first time at Kummersdorf, near Berlin. Piloted by Flugkapitan Erich Warsitz, the aircraft is supposed to carry a motor developed by Wernher von Braun and powered by