Military Archives - Flight Journal

Peter Teichman pulls in close to the cameraship
in his Mustang, painted as “Jumpin’ Jacques.” Teichman’s Mustang, his first acquisition for the
North Weald, England-based Hangar 11 Collection,
is unique as it is one of only a few Mustangs with
combat history. It still carries the field repairs from battle scars she received while flying with the 332nd Fighter Group. (Photo by John Dibbs/facebook.com/theplanepicture)

South Pacific Warrior: A rare combat Mustang

“We’d fly over the target, level, and the target would go under the wing. We’d be slowing down, and slowing down, pull up, and just do a wing over. Slightly beyond the target, pull over, and then come straight down. We had a gun sight, but [we’d] just line the target up on the seam […]

Night Hunter — the first Corsair equipped with radar

Hunched in the cockpit of an F4U-2 Corsair in the darkest, blackest night he could remember, Second Lieutenant Frank Lang peered at the 6-inch scope in the center of his instrument panel and saw nothing significant to break up the green-yellow line inscribing a circle around the dial.

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 […]

America’s Few: Marine Aces of the South Pacific

Written by aviation historian Bill Yenne, “America’s Few” is a new book from Osprey Publishing that delves into the history of U.S. Marine Corps aviation in World War II, following the feats of the Corps’ top-scoring aces in the skies over Guadalcanal. Marine Corps aviation began in 1915, functioning as a self-contained expeditionary force. During […]

Bad Kitty! VF-19 “Satan’s Kittens”

VF-19 “Satan’s Kittens” Chew Up the Enemy “I had well over 1,000 hours of time in the air before I entered combat. Most of that was as an instrument instructor flying the SNJ. Instrument flying really teaches you the finer points of flying an airplane. It also makes you focus and for some reason I […]

B-21 Design Details

A newly released Northrop Grumman B-21 picture published March 7 offers the first clear view of both of the bomber’s unique air inlets, which are shaped like sideways teardrops. The image appeared in a presentation by Gen. C.Q. Brown, the Air Force chief of staff, who addressed the Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado. The designers […]

10 Facts about the B-21 Raider

Named in honor of the Doolittle Raid of World War II, Northrop Grumman’s B-21 Raider was unveiled December 2, 2022 in Palmdale, Calif., marking the first time the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft was seen by the public. When delivered to the Air Force, the B-21 will join the nation’s strategic triad as a visible and […]

Thunderbolts of the 56th FG

As the most long-lived Thunderbolt group in the ETO, the 56th FG certainly sported some of the most varied camouflage plus squadron and individual markings in England. Upon arrival at Kings Cliffe in January 1943, its first combat-ready P-47C models bore a factory-standard olive drab over neutral gray livery. As the Thunderbolt was the first […]

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 […]

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 […]