Civilian Archives - Page 2 of 175

A Canadian Staggerwing: Then & Now

The classic Beechcraft D17S Staggerwing first appeared in 1937 and was a follow-on design for Walter Beech of the original fixed gear Model 17 of the early 1930s. It was considered to be one of the finest and fastest aircraft of the time. It was expensive with prices quoted between $14,000 and $17,000 US dollars […]

Super Stearman Saturday

What do you get when you take any airplane and more than double its horsepower? For one thing you get much bigger grins every time you move the throttle forward for takeoff. The 450 Stearman, the so-called “Super Stearman,” is a classic case in point. Originally born with a puny 220 hp, W-670 Continental radial […]

DeHavilland Comet: Wooden Artistry

In 1934 the public still viewed aviation as something special. In fact, air racing had become a worldwide obsession, which, like NASCAR many years later, offered great publicity opportunities for the sponsors and the participants. Australian millionaire Sir MacPherson Robertson, recognized the public relations value of air racing and announced he was sponsoring a race […]

GeeBee R-1 and R-2: Air Racing with the World’s Fastest Pony Kegs:

Today it’s impossible to think of the golden age of air racing without an R-1 or R-2 Gee Bee roaring across the mind’s eye. To the aviation public, the Gee Bees air racing — and vice versa. And that’ s only right. When Granville engineer, Pete Miller, drafted the first lines for the “R” series of […]

From England to Australia…in a Biplane

British pilot and speaker Tracey Curtis-Taylor is flying her 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane from England to Australia to honor aviation pioneer Amy Johnson, who made a similar flight in 1930. Curtis-Taylor won’t retrace Johnson’s 1930 route, which went through Iraq and Syria. She expects to spend three to four months on the journey, which started October 1 […]

Howard Hughes

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 7, 1976) was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world. He gained prominence from the late 1920s as a maverick film producer, making big-budget and often controversial films like The Racket […]

Happy Birthday Beech Staggerwing

At the height of the Great Depression, aircraft executive Walter H. Beech and airplane designer Ted A. Wells joined forces to collaborate on a project to produce a large, powerful, and fast cabin biplane built specifically for the business executive. The Beechcraft Model 17, popularly known as the “Staggerwing”, was first flown on November 4, […]

Early Aeronautical Pioneer

Michael Holroyd Smith, a Victorian inventor and engineer, is best remembered for his pioneering work on developing Britain’s earliest street tramways. However, he was also interested in and contributed to the development of powered flight. He is known to have presented a lecture concerning the possibility of mechanically powered flight in 1879 and in 1910 […]

Free: Original Drawing of Sikorsky “Le Grand”

When 23-year-old Igor Sikorsky proposed building the world’s biggest airplane and the first four-engine airplane, he was laughed at. However, in 1913, he proved his detractors all wrong, and had taken his first step toward becoming an aviation icon. The drawing we are offering is directly from the Sikorsky Archives and was initialed by Igor […]

In a Tiny Corner of a Huge World: What Are the Chances?

Sadly, I recently attended the funeral of our friend Nancy, who was 80-something. Sitting with the other mourners, I couldn’t help but think about an obscure, meaningless fact that I was certain her son and I were the only ones in attendance knew. We alone knew her connection to one of aviation’s enduring controversies: Who […]