Military Archives - Page 3 of 180

Russian & Chinese Stealth Fighters

Russia and China are producing stealth fighters, but how good are they? A recent Forbes commentary is illuminating. China’s Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon has been described as the first credible operational fifth-generation stealth fighter designed outside the U.S. The 2017 photo at the top shows China’s domestically built J-20, courtesy of XINHUA News Agency via […]

Grumman TBF Avenger – WW II Torpedo Bomber

Entering service in 1942, the Grumman TBF Avenger first saw action during the Battle of Midway. Developed by Grumman for the US Navy and Marine Corp, the torpedo bomber, was also used by several allied air and naval services. The Avenger’s crew members included the pilot, a turret gunner and a radioman/bombardier/ventral gunner. For armament, […]

Stinson’s Big-Guy L-Bird

As soon as the airplane joined motorized ground vehicles as tools of war, its ability to see over the horizon made it an invaluable tactical device. It was more mobile than a tethered balloon and could be used to transport messages and leaders from point to point, whenever and wherever it was needed. There was […]

Next-Gen Fighter

On 16 June, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. described the Next Generation Air Dominance Fighter (NGAD) to the House Armed Services Committee in testimony relating to the fiscal 2022 budget request. Brown said he wants the NGAD to have “multirole” capability, with combat capabilities that assure air dominance but also […]

Butcher Bird Hellcat & Corsair: A test pilot recalls

During WW II, we in the military were not allowed to save notes, keep diaries or take pictures, and being a Boy Scout type, I lived by the rules. Now, decades later, when I’m called to write about some of my flight experiences, I wish that I had bent the rules a little. Thank goodness […]

The Grumman Skyrocket

Intended for use on carriers, the Grumman XF5F-1 Skyrocket had folding wings and was intended to have an airspeed of over 300mph. It used two Pratt & Whitney Wright R-1820 engines, and first flew on April 1, 1940. Although it had good flight characteristics and a maximum speed of 383mph at 20,000 feet, it had […]

Creating the Military “IoT”

On Dec. 9, the joint force took another step toward achieving a military Internet of Things (IoT) when fifth-generation aircraft overcame long standing connectivity limitations to share actionable operational data in their native secure digital “languages” with and through multiple sources for the first time. This test was the latest demonstration of the transformative warfighting […]

Early UAV Development and Dahlgren

Anyone familiar with Dahlgren history has almost certainly heard of Carl Norden and Dahlgren’s role in the development of his famous bombsight. It’s less well known that he came to Dahlgren two years before his first bombsight tests and almost five years before testing the first version of his famous bombsight in 1924. This earlier […]

Building the XQ-2C Drone

In the early 1960s, the government needed an interim replacement for the U2 “spy plane”, one that would not carry a pilot. The new, still secret, Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” was not yet ready to replace the U2. As it turned out, eight days after Captain Francis Gary powers was shot down on May 1, 1960 […]

“Wise Guy” is Back

Thirteen years after being retired on August 14, 2008, B-52H Stratofortress 60-0034 “Wise Guy” returned to the fleet at Minot AFB in North Dakota. The aircraft began its journey back to the sky at the 309th Aircraft Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona in 2019. After initial refurbishment, she was […]