Flight Journal - Page 120 of 286 - Aviation History | History of Flight | Aviation History Articles, Warbirds, Bombers, Trainers, Pilots

D-DAY INVASION: JUNE 2024

1930'S FIGHTER FLIES AGAIN: APRIL 2024

The Legend of Maj. Paul "Pappy" Gunn

Their Finest Hour

Butcher Bird Hellcat & Corsair: A test pilot recalls

Stinson’s Big-Guy L-Bird

Stalin’s Flying Hammer

LATEST

South Africa ‘Best Air Show’ Returns

“South Africa’s Best Air Show” returns to Zwartkop in Pretoria on Saturday. Join 30 000 airheads, families and friends and experience more than 100 different types of historic aircraft up-close, as they take to the sky at the Paramount Group South African Air Force Museum Air Show. Teaming up with Paramount Group, Africa’s largest privately-owned […]

England’s Jet Age Museum Reopens

Gloucestershire’s new Jet Age Museum has been officially opened 14 years after the old museum closed. Former Royal Air Force Capt. Eric “Winkle” Brown, 95, the last surviving pilot to have flown the first British jet, the Gloster E28/39, unveiled a plaque to mark the occasion. The museum’s collection of aircraft has been in storage since […]

Oregon Aviation Museum on the Move

The skies around Jefferson County will be a bit more active than usual over the next few weeks, as a collection of vintage warplanes moves from Oregon’s Tillamook Air Museum to their new home at the Madras Airport. The museum announced plans to relocate to Central Oregon last year, as part of a larger move […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1888 – Birth of Maurice Jean-Paul Boyau, French rugby union player, World War I flying ace and one of the most successful balloon busters. 1914 – A civilian pilot, René Caudron, makes the first French shipboard takeoff in an airplane, from a ramp constructed over the foredeck of the seaplane carrier Foudre, using a Caudron G.3 […]

Russian UCAV Possibly Spotted in Flight

The Russian unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) program revealed as long ago as 2007 might have reached the flight-test phase. The evidence comes from a near midair over Arkhangelskoye on Feb. 17, reported by the pilots of two L-29 jet trainers belonging to a civilian flying club based at the Barataevka airfield near Ulyanovsk. The […]

U.S. Army Begins Grounding Kiowas, May Sell

The U.S. Army has started grounding some of its Bell Helicopter OH-58 Kiowa Warriors and is now seeking buyers for the aircraft, including possible foreign customers. “We assume that these aircraft would be at a price point [that some countries] can afford,” Maj. Gen Lynn Collyar, commanding general of army aviation and missile command, said […]

Sikorsky S-92 Named Presidential Helicopter

Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp., won an initial $1.24 billion contract to develop and build six new U.S. presidential helicopters, the first step toward a fleet of 21 new aircraft by 2023, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday. The award capped years of efforts by the U.S. Navy to replace the current fleet […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1893 – Birth of Karl Paul Schlegel, German World War I fighter ace and balloon-buster. 1912 – A Wright biplane, flown by U.S. Army Lt. Thomas De Witt Milling at College Park in Maryland, becomes the first airplane to be armed with a machine gun. 1917 – Royal Air Force ace Maj. Edward “Mick” Mannock claims his first (of 61) victories. […]

Bell 407 Becomes Light Attack Platform

U.S. helicopter pilots and maintainers couldn’t stop gawking at NorthStar Aviation’s new light-attack helicopter, the 407MRH, at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference in Nashville, Tenn., this week. “This is amazing,” Spc. Jessica Sanford, 26, an unmanned aerial vehicle maintainer who previously worked on OH-58 Kiowa Warrior armed scout helicopter, gushed on Tuesday […]

An Icon Aloft

John Magoffin’s Lockheed Vega By Budd Davisson Photos by Scotty Germain The year was 1928 and the concept of the airplane was changing radically. While barnstormers still landed rickety surplus biplanes in pastures to hop passengers, those days were waning fast. Utility was driving designs to be faster and sleeker. But, when the Lockheed Vega […]