The future of the last Martin Mars water bomber still in service is uncertain, now that Canada’s British Columbia provincial government has given notice that this is the last summer the aircraft, based in Port Alberni, will be given a direct-award contract. Wayne Coulson, owner of the 1940s-era aircraft that’s based on the Martin JRM Mars four-engined cargo [...]
Photos of one of the planes that have been flying over Quincy, Mass., show that, despite suspicions, the aircraft is not a drone. The Cessna 182T, a single-engine light plane, which residents have captured in photos, has been flying overhead for weeks turning circles around the Quincy and Milton air space. Although people have gotten a [...]
1909 – Birth of Valentina Stepanovna Grizodubova, one of the first female pilots in the Soviet Union and a World War II pilot. 1913 – First bombing attack against a surface ship: Didier Masson and Captain Joaquín Bauche Alcalde, flying for Mexican Revolutionist Venustiano Carranza, dropped dynamite bombs on Federalist gunboats at Guaymas, Mexico. 1961 – A Convair B-58 Hustler (shown above) cruises at a speed of 1,302 [...]
Aviation buffs looking for something besides an old warbird or the latest Gulfstream to add to their collections might want to consider this: a former U.S. government DC-9. Why? Well, this McDonnell Douglas bird, known as a VC-9C, once served as Air Force Two. That’s right, in it’s heyday, N681AL hauled vice presidents around for [...]
Air India has launched test flights of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, which have been fitted with new battery packs following battery fire incidents in January, as the first of these sophisticated planes was flown from Mumbai to Delhi via Ahmedabad. By Friday, two Dreamliners will be test-flown several times daily between Delhi and Amritsar [...]
1888 – Birth of Francesco Baracca, Italy’s top fighter ace of World War I, credited with 34 aerial victories. 1926 – Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole in a Fokker F.VIIa-3 m. Their total distance from Spitzbergen, Norway, is 1,600 miles. 1943 – A German night fighter crew defects to the U.K., flying a Junkers Ju 88R-1. The defection gives British scientists and tacticians access to a Lichtenstein airborne interception radar for [...]
More than 65 years after flying fighter planes over Europe, the Red Tail pilots of the Tuskegee Airmen will have a monument designed to honor their World War II exploits while inspiring kids to seek careers in aviation. “It’s like a dream come true,” said retired Red Tail pilot Leo Gray on Tuesday during a groundbreaking ceremony [...]
The sequester won’t stop a beloved tradition after all. For a time, it was looking like this year’s U.S. Air Force Academy’s graduating cadets would not get to have a flyover at their commencement ceremony in Colorado Springs, Colo., due to the sequester grounding the Thunderbirds demonstration team. But now two museums, one local and one [...]
