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Missouri Man Recalls Flying for ‘Pappy’ Boyington

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Col. Ed Harper is a true-blue example of the soldiers of World War II. He sits back in his easy chair at his Lake Saint Louis home on one of those sunny days when winter battles with spring recalling how he was just 18 when he and the rest of America […]

Travel Air Lands at Montana Aviation Museum

Once it was called the “Limousine of the Air,” the private plane of choice for the likes of Wallace Beery, whose acting career bridged the silent and sound movie era. But the Travel Air 6000 became the bread and butter of flying in these mountains of Montana and Idaho for Johnson Flying Service. Now Missoula has […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1916 – French World War I ace Jean Navarre score his first kill, a German Aviatik north of Fismes, France. As one of the pioneer flying aces, he would be credited with twelve confirmed aerial victories. 1924 – The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed. 1935 – First flight of the North American T-6 Texan (shown above); more than 15,000 of these trainers are later built. 1954 – Last […]

New Zealand Air Show Thrills Crowds

An estimated 30,000 people will be ironing out the kinks in their necks after spending the weekend gazing at the sky at the Omaka Classic Fighters Airshow near Blenheim, New Zealand. Airshow organiser Graham Orphan said that despite rain on Saturday, the crowd was out in force for the seventh biennial airshow at the Omaka […]

USAF F-22s Join South Korean Drills

The U.S. sent Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors to South Korea on Sunday to join military drills aimed at underscoring the U.S. commitment to defend Seoul in the face of an intensifying campaign of threats from North Korea. The advanced, radar-evading F-22s were deployed to Osan Air Base, the main U.S. Air Force base in South Korea, from Japan to support ongoing […]

A380s Fly in Formation over Sidney

Two Airbus A380s made a dramatic tandem flight over the famous Australian landmark Sydney Harbour Bridge today to launch the new Qantas-Emirates partnership, hailed by the Australian carrier as a “seismic shift” in aviation. The tie-up, approved last week by Australia’s competition watchdog, allows the two airlines to combine operations for an initial period of five years, […]

Canadian Museum Gets Starfighter

Thomas Hinderks felt like a kid at Christmas when two shipping containers delivered pieces of a Canadair CF-104D Starfighter aircraft to the Alberta Aviation Museum in Edmonton, Canada, Friday morning. After waiting almost 18 months to acquire the Cold War-era plane from the Netherlands, the museum’s executive director didn’t hesitate to sling himself up six feet […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1912 – Hanna Reitsch, German test pilot, was born; she was a test pilot on the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka and Dornier Do 17 as well as one of the few pilots to fly the Focke-Achgelis Fa 61, the first fully controllable helicopter. 1939 – The Curtiss YP-37 (shown above), a single-engined fighter based on the company’s […]

Silver Star Recipient Recounts Vietnam Evac Flight

Frank Montgomery doesn’t fit the image of the typical Vietnam veteran. First of all, he’s 89 years old, and Vietnam wasn’t his first taste of a combat zone. A World War II veteran who also served during the Korean War, Montgomery was flying North American P-51 Mustang fighter planes before most of his fellow Vietnam […]

Making the Jump to Jets: One Pilot’s Story

Diving from 17,000 feet, the airspeed increasing to more than three times what I’m used to in a Cessna 172, my instinct to pull out of the back side of a 6,000-foot-vertical loop is premature and aggressive — an understandable reaction to the visual sense of unprotected free-fall. As the front-seat pilot, I sit so […]