Flight Journal - Page 219 of 286 - Aviation History | History of Flight | Aviation History Articles, Warbirds, Bombers, Trainers, Pilots

D-DAY INVASION: JUNE 2024

1930'S FIGHTER FLIES AGAIN: APRIL 2024

The Legend of Maj. Paul "Pappy" Gunn

Their Finest Hour

Butcher Bird Hellcat & Corsair: A test pilot recalls

Stinson’s Big-Guy L-Bird

Stalin’s Flying Hammer

LATEST

TV Station Takes Rare Look at HondaJet

WFMY News 2 of Greensboro, N.C., recently took a rare look at aviation innovation inside Honda Aircraft Co. The headquarters is home of what’s known as the fastest and most fuel-efficient business jet on the planet. Honda Aircraft President and CEO Michimasa Fujino designed the seven-seat HondaJet. “Every time I see this airplane, this is art,” he said. “I […]

Farming Looks to Drones as ‘Flying Tractors’

Drones in the tens of thousands will be in the skies by 2030, the Federal Aviation Administration predicts. But where some may fear precision weapons or flying spy cameras, Steve Markofski sees flying tractors. Markofski, a new business planner for Yamaha, hopes to repeat in the United States the success that the company has had in […]

Flying Tigers Vet Honored at Georgia Middle School

One of only four surviving members of the 1st American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force was honored Monday night with a concert performance by students of Lovinggood Middle School in Powder Springs, Ga., northwest of Atlanta. Maj. Edward Stiles Sr. is the honoree, is the grandfather of Lovinggood’s assistant band director Michelle Koenig. […]

Navy X-47B to Make History Today

The U.S. Navy plans to make aviation history on Tuesday by catapulting an unmanned jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time, testing a long-range, stealthy, bat-winged plane that represents a jump forward in drone technology. The Northrop Grumman X-47B, which can carry the equivalent of two precision-guided bombs and fly 2,000 nautical miles […]

Fifty years old and it could still be the most improved manned interceptor on the planet…

By Steve Pace It was first publicly known as the A-11, then the YF-12A, but it actually began life in total secrecy as the AF-12. We’ll call it the YF-12A because that’s what its buyer, the U.S. Air Force, designated it and it was just one of the many derivatives of the Lockheed-built CIA-funded A-12 […]

Aviation Insider: A Troubled Bird

The F-35 Approaches U.S. Service By Robert F. Dorr Col. Andrew J. “Drifter” Toth, commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing, the “Nomads” at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, was talking about the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter when he acknowledged a flight restriction on the airplane. “We’re not allowed to fly within 25 miles […]

Missile-launching Galaxy coming to Delaware Museum

By Robert F. Dorr Only once in history has an intercontinental ballistic missile — an ICBM — been launched from an aircraft in flight. It happened October 24, 1974 when a C-5A Galaxy from Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, launched a 60-foot, 78,000-pound LGM-30F Minuteman II ICBM from its cargo ramp high over the Pacific […]

Salute from the Shore Air Show to Go On

Each year on the Fourth of July, a group from Columbia, S.C., organizes “Salute from the Shore,” a flyover of military aircraft along the entire South Carolina coast from the North Carolina border to the Georgia state line. The crowds on the beach are urged to display American flags, wave and cheer as a video […]

Plane Buffs Have Plenty to See in Washington, Oregon

The world’s single largest building is located in Everett, Wash., a northern suburb of Seattle. And yet, if you didn’t make an effort to visit Paine Field, you might never know it was there. This structure is no high rise. It is 2.2 miles from one end to the other, sprawling across more than 98 […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1883 – Birth of Charles Alexander Holcombe Longcroft, British World War I pilot and squadron commander in the Royal Flying Corps who went on to become a senior commander in the Royal Air Force. 1912 – A Flanders F.3 Monoplane crashed at Brooklands in England, killing the pilot and his passenger. The accident was investigated […]