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Lockheed TriStars End Military Mission

Story and photo by the Royal Air Force The Lockheed TriStar has flown its last operational mission with the Royal Air Force bringing to an end 30 years of service which saw the aircraft at the heart of operations around the world. On Monday, two TriStars of 216 Squadron based at RAF Brize Norton flew an air-to-air […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1893 – Birth of Romolo Ticconi, Italian World War I flying ace. 1917 – Canada-born Lt. Col. William Avery ‘Billy’ Bishop, scores his first combat victory over an Albatros D II single-seat fighter while flying a Nieuport XVII; he later becomes the top Canadian ace of the war with 72 victories. 1944 – A British twin-engined […]

Veteran Pilot Receives WWII Combat Medals

Nearly 70 years after William Bell flew combat missions during World War II, the former Marine has received his medals. Bell, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was a 21-year-old pilot during the Philippines’ liberation from Japanese forces in 1945, flying more than 60 combat strike missions. In the space of four months, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross […]

U.S. Sending Special Ops Ospreys to Uganda

The U.S. is sending more special operations forces — along with Bell Boeing CV-22 Ospreys and transport and refueling aircraft — to Uganda to help African Union troops combat the Lord’s Resistance Army, which is led by Joseph Kony, a White House official confirmed on Monday. As the Washington Post first reported Sunday, the aircraft […]

Air Show Performed Killed in Crash

The pilot of a de Havilland DHC-1 that crashed Sunday in Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest has been identified as a veteran airshow performer, Jim “Fang” Maroney, 59, of Brookfield, Fla. Maroney, whose Super Chipmunk Airshows was scheduled to perform this weekend in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., was found dead Monday morning after searchers located the […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1891 – Birth of Rudolf Berthold, German World War I flying ace. 1918 – British World War I fighter ace John Lightfoot Trollope of the Royal Flying Corps No. 43 Squadron shoots down seven German aircraft in his Sopwith F.1 Camel. 1939 – American pioneer aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran achieves a woman’s altitude record of 30,052 […]

C-47 Prepares for Return Trip to Normandy

The next time the American military transport plane known as Whiskey 7 drops its paratroopers over Normandy, France, it will be for a commemoration instead of an invasion. Seventy years after taking part in D-Day, the plane now housed at the National Warplane Museum in western New York is being prepared to recreate its role […]

Kentucky Park Gets NASA T-38

“Did somebody order an airplane?” joked Worldwide Aircraft Recovery Vice President Marty Batura on Saturday afternoon as he drove a NASA Northrop T-38 Talon airplane into Kentucky’s Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport, while members of the Aviation Heritage Park snapped pictures of the arrival. “It’s like a bunch of expectant fathers,” said Bob Pitchford, a […]

Ex-Cuban Planes Unlikely to Fly Again

At face value, they are three old planes not worth much more than their parts and scrap metal. Stolen from the Cuban government during a six-month period ending in April 2003 – two by hijackers, one by its pilot – all three landed at Key West International Airport, a 116-mile flight from struggling Havana to […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1871 – Birth of Carlo Maria Piazza, Italian early aviator. 1912 – A Wright B Flyer, designated S.C. No. 7, is used to make the first flight of an American military airplane outside the continental U.S. when it is flown in the Philippines. 1918 – Germany launches Operation Michael; in the initial attack against the […]