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Su-57 Fighter Profile – between an F-18 and an F-22?

Many advanced aviation designs get mired down temporarily or for the longer term owing to unanticipated complications of the myriad engineering systems involved. Russia’s Su-57 is in such a case, although we can’t count out seeing it eventually go into production. As reported on Thedrive.com, “India’s decision to finally walk away from the joint program […]

Kittyhawk Jungle Rescue

Confined in a microworld of levers, switches, and instruments, Royal Australian Air Force Flight Sergeant James Denman Harvey slid his Curtiss P-40’s eight-piece canopy backwards and looked down. Hammered by tropical heat and skin slippery in perspiration, he studied the surface of a newly captured airstrip called “Tadji.” Harvey and fellow No. 78 Squadron pilots […]

Second Chances: Breathing New Life into a California Bearcat

The Southern California Wing of the Commemorative Air Force in Camarillo, CA has recently begun a full overhaul of one of its most prized aircraft, the Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat. Though Bearcats are somewhat common warbirds in the world of aircraft restoration, CAF SoCal’s airframe, BuNo 122674, has a truly unique history and has flown in […]

Nieuport 28 Takes Flight!

The American Heritage Museum in Stow, Massachusetts is honored to announce that America’s oldest, original, and airworthy combat aircraft has returned to the sky. On Saturday, April 2nd, 2022, the museum’s 1918 Nieuport 28 took to sky in southern Sweden with World War I aircraft restoration expert, Mikael Carlson, at the controls. There are 5 […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1905 – Birth of Elizabeth Muriel Gregory “Elsie” MacGill, known as the “Queen of the Hurricanes;” she becomes the world’s first female aircraft designer. 1936 – First flight of the Fokker D.XXI (shown), a Dutch low-wing monoplane fighter. 1945 – Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan’s ports and waterways, begins. The mining runs are […]

Rare WW II P-47 Restoration

The Commemorative Air Force (CAF) Airbase Georgia is acquiring a rare World War II P-47 Thunderbolt as a long-term restoration project. The P-47 will join the noteworthy Airbase fleet of operating aircraft, including its SBD Dauntless, P-51 Mustang, FG-1D Corsair, and P-63 Kingcobra. Weighing 10,000 pounds empty, the Thunderbolt was the largest single fighter built […]

SAAB 37 Viggen – The Bird of Many Feathers

Sweden is an aeronautically unique country. After WW II, the military realized that it needed better equipment to protect the nation, so beginning in 1946, the Air Force became one of the world’s largest operators of the most state-of-the-art fighter available, the P-51 Mustang. However, while doting over what were probably the most pristine Mustangs […]

Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4 – Free Wallpaper

The Battle of Britain is one of the more pivotal events in the 20th century. If England had fallen, the remaining Allies would have had no place to base all of the subsequent military actions. In recognition of that, here is a screen saver of a Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4. Although the “F” model barely made […]

Stearman PT-17/N2S: The Biplane With So Many Lives

The PT-17 Stearman is literally the airplane that has always seemed to just be “there.” Although, it is most often thought of as the school marm that taught a generation of airmen the skills necessary to win a war, she has actually lived three distinct lives and is entering a fourth, from military trainer to […]

A Tale of Two Mules

It has been said that an Army travels on its stomach—and depends on its ammo. This is another way of saying that, although the Quartermaster Corps is probably the most mundane and unheralded segment of any military, it should share top billing with the most elite of the frontline combat troops. If the Quartermaster Corps […]