Goddard’s dream finally became a reality on November 20, 1925, when he set up a test over Rochester, New York. His crew consisted of the pilot, two lieutenants from the Army Ordnance Corps, his research partner « Doc » Burke, and himself. Armed with a super-size powder bomb, fourteen feet long and eight inches in diameter, packed with eighty pounds of explosive, the crew took off. They dropped the bomb around 11 o’clock at night over the city. Twenty seconds later it exploded with a tremendous blast and brilliant light which was so fast it took the place of a shutter in the camera. The results took awhile to process, since they had to land the plane in darkness, get to their hotel – difficult because of the mass panic the explosion had caused. Later that day, the newspapers proudly displayed the world’s first photograph ever taken at night from an airplane.
George W. Goddard : Overview: A Life-Long Adventure in Aerial Photography, Doubleday & Co, New York, 1969, 432 pp.
https://infinite.mit.edu/video/how-fast-fast-1994
George William Goddard was born in London, England, in 1889. He came to Rochester, N.Y. in June 1904 to live with his aunt and uncle. He was naturalized April 27, 1918.
General Goddard graduated from Washing Irving Preparatory School in New York in 1910, attending Keuka college in Keuka, N.Y. for two years, then studied commercial art in Rochester for a year. He was a free-lance cartoonist in Rochester until January 1916, when he became a staff artist for the Coke and Iron Monthly in Chicago, Ill.
On Dec. 14, 1917, General Goddard enlisted in the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps and entered the aerial photography course at the School of Military Aeronautics at Cornell University. Upon completion of the three-month course, he became an instructor in aerial photographic interpretation.
General Goddard was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Aviation Section Reserve on Aug. 8, 1918, and assigned to Taliaferro Field, Fort Worth, Texas, to organize and take to France the 43rd, 44th and 45th Aerial Photographic sections.
When the World War I armistice was declared, General Goddard was transferred to Carlstrom Field, Fla., where he graduated from flying school and was rated a pilot in May 1919. He then was assigned to McCook Field, Ohio, as officer in charge of aerial photographic research. In that capacity, he started developments in the infra-red and long-range photography, special aerial cameras, photographic aircraft and portable field laboratory equipment and formed the nucleus of the present Photographic Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
On July 1, 1920, General Goddard received his regular commission as a second lieutenant in the Air Service, and was promoted immediately to first lieutenant the same date. He then was appointed officer in charge of aerial photography in the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps, Washington, D.C. While on that assignment, he received a presidential appointment as Air Corps representative on the Federal Board of Surveys and Maps. He organized the first Army aerial photographic mapping units that pioneered in mapping Muscle Shoals, Tennessee River Basin, Teapot Dome, Mississippi River and many other areas.
In August 1945, General Goddard was appointed chief of the Photographic Laboratory at Wright Field. He retired June 30, 1949, but was recalled to active duty the following day, retaining his position as chief of the Photographic Laboratory.
In May 1952, General Goddard was transferred to headquarters of the Allied Air Forces in Central Europe at Fontainebleau, France, for duty as director of reconnaissance, Operations Division.
In July 1953, General Goddard was assigned to Headquarters Air Material Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
General Goddard was sent to Bikini in 1946 in connection with the atomic bomb test. In July 1950, he was awarded the Thurman H. Bane Award for his development in low-altitude high-speed night photography. Immediately thereafter he went to Korea to introduce this new system of night photography and the latest type strip camera, which has been highly successful in the low-altitude jet aircraft operations under adverse weather conditions.
George W. Goddard pioneered many of the advances in aerial recon,
experimenting with infrared photography, long-focal length camera lenses,
« quick work photography, » which allowed photographers to develop their
photos within minutes and put them in the hands of the ground commanders. A
long time dream of Goddard’s was to perfect aerial photography at night,
which would prevent the enemy from hiding their activities under a cloak of
darkness. He had experimented, successfully, with powder bombs, devices that
would be dropped from a plane, explode, and trigger a plane-mounted camera’s
shutter at the same moment the charges lit up the night sky. Not only
extremely dangerous, it was difficult to synchronize the brightest part of
the blast with the camera’s shutter. The first real breakthrough came when
he witnessed a demonstration by telephone engineers operating their picture
transmitting equipment – with a photo-electric cell inside a revolving drum.
Goddard realized that the energy produced by the cell could be amplified to
actuate the shutter of a camera. Then, when the light from the powder flash,
mounted on the tail of his airplane, could trigger a camera shutter, and
synchronization would be achieved.
Goddard’s dream finally became a reality on November 20, 1925, when he set
up a test over Rochester, New York. His crew consisted of the pilot, two
lieutenants from the Army Ordnance Corps, his research partner « Doc » Burke,
and himself. Armed with a super-size powder bomb, fourteen feet long and
eight inches in diameter, packed with eighty pounds of explosive, the crew
took off. They dropped the bomb around 11 o’clock at night over the city.
Twenty seconds later it exploded with a tremendous blast and brilliant light
which was so fast it took the place of a shutter in the camera. The results
took awhile to process, since they had to land the plane in darkness, get to
their hotel – difficult because of the mass panic the explosion had caused.
Later that day, the newspapers proudly displayed the world’s first
photograph ever taken at night from an airplane. When they got back to
Dayton there was a letter from Goddard’s commanding officer saying, « from
now on [expletive] let the people know before you scare the hell out of
them. and congratulations for a terrific job. »
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/11429/chapter/7#104