Main Categories Archives - Page 14 of 270

Heavy Metal Monday: Focke-Wulf Fw 190

More commonly referred to as the Butcher Bird by pilots that went up against this fierce fighter, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger (Shrike) was a German single-seat, single-engine aircraft designed by Kurt Tank in the late 1930s. Widely used during WW2 along with its Luftwaffe counterpart, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Fw 190 became the […]

Mission into Darkness

Flying the SB2C Helldiver into probable suicide On June 19, 1944, Task Force-58’s (TF-58) fighter and dive-bomber aircrews celebrated the combined destruction of 380 Japanese airplanes during the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. But our exhilaration was almost dashed the very next day when we went hunting for the fleeing Japanese fleet. Those of us flying […]

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 […]

Curtis SB2C Helldiver and Ben Case: Bombing in the Beast

Ben Case and the SB2C Helldiver. We were launched while our fleet was 180 to 200 miles northeast of Manila. My group was assigned to hit Japanese ships in Manila Harbor. As we approached our dive area at 10,000 feet, big, black puffs of smoke from anti-aircraft fire began popping all around us.” Leslie Bennett […]

Pearl Harbor: the Inside Story

At approximately 7:55 AM (local time), on December 7, 1941, the US Navy was attacked by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the US forces were taken completely off guard. 96 ships were stationed at Pearl Harbor, but the Japanese aircraft’s primary targets were the big battleships moored on Battleship Row at Ford Island. The Japanese aircraft […]

The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver

A carrier-based dive bomber aircraft produced for the US Navy during WW II, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was a replacement for the Douglas SBD Dauntless. The SB2C was much faster than the SBD and the crew nicknames for the aircraft included the Big-Tailed Beast or just the derogatory Beast, Two-Cee, and Son-of-a-Bitch 2nd Class, (after […]

P-40 – By any other Name

The British Commonwealth and Soviet air forces used the name Tomahawk for models equivalent to the P-40B and P-40C, and the name Kittyhawk for models equivalent to the P-40D and all later variants. P-40s first saw combat with the British Commonwealth squadrons of the Desert Air Force in the Middle East and North African campaigns, […]

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 […]

Friday Fighter, P-40 Warhawk

Perhaps the most famous fighter to come from World War Two, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk developed from the P-36 Hawk, via the P-37. Many variants were built, some in large numbers, under names including the Hawk, Tomahawk and Kittyhawk. The first Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was a P-36 running with a supercharged Allison engine. The blend […]

Martin B-26 Marauder

A twin-engined medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company from 1941 to 1945, the B-26 Marauder first flew on 25 November 1940 piloted by Martin test pilot William Kenneth Ebel, co-pilot Ed Fenimore and flight engineer Al Malewski. The B-26 was first used in the Pacific Theater of World War II in early […]