never arrived by road at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE), Boscombe Down. En route, vehicle carrying it apparently jack-knifed while descending a hill and crashed into a stone wall; the airframe was damaged beyond repair. News of the accident alerted the British public to a new Gloster fighter design. August The first prototype Curtiss XBTC-2 (BuNo 31401) of only two built crashed at NATC Patuxent River in Maryland during testing of full-span duplex wingflaps and dual-rotation propellers. This was the last Curtiss aircraft built for the U.S. Navy. 1 August "M'CHORD FIELD, WASH., Aug. 1 (AP) - The Army Air Force day observance was marred today by the deaths of Capt. W. L. Davidson, pilot, and Lt. Frank M. Brown, co-pilot, in the crash of their flaming B-25 bomber near Kelso, Wash., shortly after taking off on a night flight to Hamilton field, California. T/Sgt. Woodrow D. Matthews, crew chief, and Sgt. Elmer L. Taff, 24, Mertzon, Texas, a hitchhiker making his first plane flight, parachuted to earth several miles from the wreck scene. Matthews was critically injured." TB-25J-30/32-NC (44-31316), of the 400th AAF Base Unit, was based at Hamilton Field and piloted by William L. Davidson. 6 August A Kodiak, Alaska-based U.S. Navy Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina, BuNo 34032, disappeared on a morning flight from Kodiak to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, with 15 passengers and five crew. The Seventeenth Naval District radioed headquarters that the amphibian reported that it was bucking heavy headwinds southeast of Fort Randall in the area of Cold Bay in a message to the Thirteenth Naval District. The PBY had six hours of fuel left at that time. All available aircraft and several ships were directed to search for the missing flight. The passengers were an Army-Navy football team. The PBY was not found, and a year later all aboard were declared dead. September Gloster E.1/44, TX145, experienced extreme nose-wheel shimmy at 140 mph (225 km/h) during taxi tests at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE), Boscombe Down. Its front end severely damaged, it was returned to the workshop for repair. Taxi trials were not resumed until late February 1948. 16 September A pilot assigned to Eglin Field, Florida, was killed during an attempted emergency landing in a Lockheed P-80 at that base during the afternoon. Capt. Lawson L. Lipscomb of Houston, Texas, radioed that he was having difficulty with the jet and was