Main Categories Archives - Page 19 of 270

World’s Largest All Composite Aircraft Takes off

MOJAVE, CA – April 13, 2019 – Stratolaunch Systems Corporation, founded by Paul G. Allen, today successfully completed the first flight of the world’s largest all-composite aircraft, the Stratolaunch. With a dual fuselage design and wingspan greater than the length of an American football field, the Stratolaunch aircraft took flight at 0658 PDT from the Mojave Air & Space Port. Achieving a maximum speed of 189 miles per hour, the plane flew for 2.5 hours over the Mojave Desert at altitudes up to 17,000 feet. As […]

Supermarine Spitfire – Free Wylam Drawing

Somewhere there is probably a list of the world’s most beautiful airplanes but the process of selecting those airplanes has undoubtedly prompted numerous fistfights. However, when it came to putting the Spitfire on, or at the top, of the list, it’s doubtful anyone anywhere disagreed. Reginald Mitchell created a piece of art as much as […]

A Role of the Dice

A lucky Liberator crew survives When Allied airmen strapped on their aircraft for a combat mission during World War II, especially when piloting a heavy bomber like the B-24 Liberator over the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the situation usually provoked the same thoughts from pilots and crew members alike. “Will we get this overloaded […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1938 – First flight of the Bell P-39 Airacobra, a principal American fighter in service at the start of World War II. It is the first fighter in history with a tricycle undercarriage and the first to have the engine installed in the center fuselage, behind the pilot. 1962 – The Royal Canadian Air Force […]

Dick Cole, Doolittle Raiders, dies at 103

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole, the last surviving Doolittle Raider, tours a U.S. Navy B-25 Mitchell similar to the aircraft he co-piloted. Cole has died at age 103. (Staff Sgt. Vernon Young Jr./Air Force) A legend passes. Retired Lt. Col. Dick Cole, the last surviving member of the Doolittle Raiders who rallied […]

F8 Wings Folded

On January 22, 1968, I was a young LTJG at Miramar, attached to Navy Fighter Squadron VF-53 preparing for a deployment to Vietnam aboard the USS Bon Homme Richard. As a final part of the pre-deployment regimen, all pilots were briefed to fly [ FMLP ] Field Mirror Landing Practice about 2100 that night. This was our last chance […]

Arizona Commemorative Air Force Museum

On the southwest corner of Falcon Field Airport in Mesa, Arizona, are the 55,000-square-foot hangars of the Arizona Commemorative Air Force Museum (AZCAF). As part of the museum established in Texas, this museum was started in 1977, with the restoration of a B-17G Fortress named “Sentimental Journey.” Despite the vintage aircraft behind a chain-link fence, […]

Forgotten DC-3 Caught on Camera

Lying on a black sandy beach in the south of Iceland, the wreckage of a crashed U.S. Navy aircraft looks like something from a post-apocalyptic movie. Amazingly, the crew all survived the impact, when the Douglas Super DC-3 was forced to crash land on Sólheimasandur beach on Nov. 24, 1973. But the plane was abandoned rather than recovered, […]

Looking Back: Project FICON

U.S. Navy aircraft carriers are a dominant presence in waters around the world, and interestingly enough, the Air Force once tried to make a flying version. During World War II, bomber aircraft could fly thousands of miles to their targets, unlike gas-guzzling fighters, which had much shorter ranges. This was a big problem for bombers, since they were sitting […]

The Ever-Present Sidewinder

Kern County, California, 1952: a 1949 Kaiser raced down a desert runway with a streamlined object fitted to a crude bracket on the right side. Lacking a wind tunnel, the passengers — engineers in the front and back seats — took notes on the model’s aerodynamic performance. They were testing the XAAM-N-7, the world’s first […]