Main Categories Archives - Page 104 of 270

On This Day in Aviation History

1888 – Birth of Maurice Jean-Paul Boyau, French rugby union player, World War I flying ace and one of the most successful balloon busters. 1914 – A civilian pilot, René Caudron, makes the first French shipboard takeoff in an airplane, from a ramp constructed over the foredeck of the seaplane carrier Foudre, using a Caudron G.3 […]

Russian UCAV Possibly Spotted in Flight

The Russian unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) program revealed as long ago as 2007 might have reached the flight-test phase. The evidence comes from a near midair over Arkhangelskoye on Feb. 17, reported by the pilots of two L-29 jet trainers belonging to a civilian flying club based at the Barataevka airfield near Ulyanovsk. The […]

U.S. Army Begins Grounding Kiowas, May Sell

The U.S. Army has started grounding some of its Bell Helicopter OH-58 Kiowa Warriors and is now seeking buyers for the aircraft, including possible foreign customers. “We assume that these aircraft would be at a price point [that some countries] can afford,” Maj. Gen Lynn Collyar, commanding general of army aviation and missile command, said […]

Sikorsky S-92 Named Presidential Helicopter

Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp., won an initial $1.24 billion contract to develop and build six new U.S. presidential helicopters, the first step toward a fleet of 21 new aircraft by 2023, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday. The award capped years of efforts by the U.S. Navy to replace the current fleet […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1893 – Birth of Karl Paul Schlegel, German World War I fighter ace and balloon-buster. 1912 – A Wright biplane, flown by U.S. Army Lt. Thomas De Witt Milling at College Park in Maryland, becomes the first airplane to be armed with a machine gun. 1917 – Royal Air Force ace Maj. Edward “Mick” Mannock claims his first (of 61) victories. […]

Bell 407 Becomes Light Attack Platform

U.S. helicopter pilots and maintainers couldn’t stop gawking at NorthStar Aviation’s new light-attack helicopter, the 407MRH, at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference in Nashville, Tenn., this week. “This is amazing,” Spc. Jessica Sanford, 26, an unmanned aerial vehicle maintainer who previously worked on OH-58 Kiowa Warrior armed scout helicopter, gushed on Tuesday […]

An Icon Aloft

John Magoffin’s Lockheed Vega By Budd Davisson Photos by Scotty Germain The year was 1928 and the concept of the airplane was changing radically. While barnstormers still landed rickety surplus biplanes in pastures to hop passengers, those days were waning fast. Utility was driving designs to be faster and sleeker. But, when the Lockheed Vega […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1888 – Birth of Johann Frint, Austro-Hungarian World War I flying ace. 1935 – First flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk (A model shown), also known as the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, a single-engined American fighter. 1937 – German Zeppelin LZ-129, the Hindenburg, catches fire and explodes while attempting to dock at Lakehurst Naval Air […]

American Airlines Host Airbus Test Jet

There was a French visitor at the American Airlines maintenance hangar at the airport Monday. Airbus flew in one of its test A350s from Toulouse, France, late Sunday evening and put it on display for the media and employees at American. The Fort Worth-based carrier has 22 A350-900 XWB aircraft on order, with the first […]

Boeing Delivers 100th Navy Growler

The U.S. Navy formally took delivery of the 100th Boeing EA-18G Growler during an elaborate Monday ceremony in which the company stumped for Congress to buy beyond the Navy’s current program of record of 138 aircraft. The Navy submitted a request to the Congress to purchase 22 additional jets in its unfunded priorities list earlier […]