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Aviation History – First Helicopter Flight-November 13, 1907

On 13 November 1907, French engineer and bicycle maker Paul Cornu made history by becoming the first man to fly in a rotary wing aircraft. The primitive helicopter – a twin-rotor craft powered by a 24-horsepower engine – only lifted Cornu about 1.5m off the ground, holding him there for 20 seconds at Coquainvilliers, near […]

Ford Trimotor – Ford’s Fabulous Tri-Motor classic airplane

When you climb on board some airplanes, there’s a feeling that can only be described as passing through a portal into history. As I worked my way between the rows of seats up to the cockpit of the Ford 4AT Trimotor, that was one of those moments: there was no doubt that what I was […]

Pearl Harbor images of the Aftermath – December 8 and Onward

The images of the attack on Pearl Harbor will be forever etched in the mind’s eye of Americans everywhere. As with the images of the airliners hitting the World Trade Center towers, the fire and smoke of December 7, 1941, can’t be erased from our memories. We seldom see, however, photos that portray the aftermath […]

Pearl Harbor – A Greenhorn relates his experience

Back in the mid-1930s, when I was a teenager in California, I used to spend a lot of time fishing off the municipal pier at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. I was standing on the pier one day when a flight of 16 to 20 Boeing P-26s came roaring by fast and low in tight formation. I will never forget the look of the pilots, with their heads sticking out of the cockpit and their white silk scarves billowing behind them, all looking like Eddie Rickenbacker.

Model 12 Pitts Special Biplane – The Definition of “Bitchin'”

What’s better than a biplane? That’s obvious: a biplane with a round motor. And what ís better than a biplane with a round motor? A round-motored biplane that’s designed by Curtis Pitts! When you’re saddling up the Model 12, it feels like a much bigger than a normal two-place Pitts, when in reality it’s not. […]

The Last Doolittle Raider is Still Going Strong – Aviation History News

At 101 years of age, Lt. Col. Richard Cole (USAF, retired) is still a man with a mission. The last survivor of the 80 officers and enlisted men who followed then Col. Jimmy Doolittle off the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet for the first air raid against Japan on April 18, 1942, Cole’s […]

Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker: 1929’s Heavy Hauler

We only have roads into town three months of the year, while all the lakes and rivers are frozen. Otherwise the only way into Norman Wells and many of the other communities around us is by airplane. Usually float planes. That’s why I had the Bellanca CH-300 restored. In the 1930s it was one of […]

Maxim Machine Gun – WW I’s revolutionary advance in weaponry

If you do an Internet search for “chattering Spandaus,” you only get 89 hits, but that stock phrase has become synonymous with World War I aviation. Generations of moviegoers have seen the image: the leering Teutonic ace, hard eyes gleaming behind squared-off goggles above the blazing muzzles. The fact is that there is no such […]

Sen-toku: Japan’s Underwater Aircraft Carriers

Sneaking Up On America … Again Pearl Harbor was the first. The American West Coast was to be next for a sneak bacteriological attack. Then, bomb New York City and obliterate the Panama Canal. According to the Japanese High Command, that was all to be accomplished early in the conflict—and they were deadly serious about […]

Piper J-3 Cub: Piper’s Lightweight aircraft is a gift to mankind

Like most pilots, I’m not certain I can remember a time before I flew a J-3. That’s probably because I too started out in a Cub. I was fifteen years old and even then found one of the biggest hurdles to flying a Cub to be simply getting in it. The dance includes the following […]