Life magazine, with the help of the USN, commissioned the construction of an incredible series of gigantic dioramas that illustrated the various events and phases of the Battle of Midway. While preparing Barrett Tillman’s exhaustive article on that operation in this issue, our own Stan Piet stumbled upon what appears to be the entire file [...]
When the prototype of the Sydney Camm-designed Hawker Hunter first flew at Dunsfold, Surrey, UK on July 20, 1951, its success and future were not assured. A rival interceptor, fighter aircraft from Supermarine, the Swift, was also competing for the RAF F.43/46 requirement. Sixty years later, the total production figure of 1,985 aircraft speaks for [...]
The mission of the Blue Angels is to enhance Navy and Marine Corps recruiting, and credibly represent Navy and Marine Corps aviation to the United States and its Armed Forces to America and other countries as international ambassadors of good will. The United States Navy’s Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, popularly known as the Blue Angels, [...]
The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and in several other conflicts. During World War II Mustang pilots claimed 4,950 enemy aircraft shot down, the most of any Allied fighter. It was conceived, designed and built by North American Aviation [...]
The Vought F4U Corsair was a carrier-capable fighter aircraft that saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War. Demand for the aircraft soon overwhelmed Vought’s manufacturing capability, resulting in production by Goodyear and Brewster: Goodyear-built Corsairs were designated FG and Brewster-built aircraft F3A. From the first prototype delivery to the U.S. Navy [...]
The story behind the avenger’s replacement By mid-1944 the U.S. Navy knew that it would take much longer than previously thought for the Allies to win WW II. The Japanese were still putting up very stiff resistance to the American demand for complete capitulation. Thus, it was expected that an invasion of Japan in late [...]
War was coming to the ocean called “Pacific.” Imperial Japan, in need of oil to feed its growing ambition, squirmed under the stricture of an American embargo (implemented because of Japan’s aggression toward China). Japan would not be denied its self-proclaimed destiny, so Tokyo’s warlords cast covetous eyes southward to the petroleum-rich Dutch East Indies, [...]
The engineers were trying to build the lightest airplane with the biggest motor and still make it capable of surviving carrier landings. To do this, they designed the wings lighter and weaker than normal but intended to shed about three feet on each side should it be overstressed. It could fly back to the carrier [...]
Bent-Wing Beauty You don’t have to inspect a Corsair closely to know that it is a very complex airplane. The characteristics that make it so identifiable—among them, its inverted “gull” wing—must have kept manufacturing people up nights trying to figure out how to build them fast enough to meet the requirements of the War. From [...]
