Flight Journal - Page 2 of 284 - Aviation History | History of Flight | Aviation History Articles, Warbirds, Bombers, Trainers, Pilots

DEADLY NIGHT STALKER - APRIL 2023

F-117S OVER BAGHDAD - FEBRUARY 2023

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

Budd Davisson to join the EAA Homebuilders Hall of Fame

Budd Davisson of Phoenix, Arizona, contributing editor for Flight Journal and known worldwide for his extensive writings on homebuilt aircraft, aerobatic flight, and aviation safety, will be honored by the Experimental Aircraft Association on November 10 with his induction to the EAA Homebuilders Hall of Fame. Davisson is one of five individuals to be honored […]

Defender of the Reich: WW II as seen by a Luftwaffe Ace

Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring was in rare form, his eyes full of fire as he faced one of the better known of Germany’s aces, Oberst Walther Dahl. “Göring’s reply astonished even me,” Dahl remembered. “In the presence of pilots with heads, arms and legs in plaster, he yelled: ‘You cowards! Now I know why your Geschwader […]

What They Wore

The P-47 Thunderbolt pilot of 1945 wore and carried lots of stuff, and little of it gave meaning to the military term “uniform.” At Metz, France, in January 1945, the group and squadron commanders of the “Hell Hawks” 365th Fighter Group posed in their gear in front of a wrecked Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf 190. The men […]

The Rarest of Tigers

By the end of WW II, more than 8,000 D.H.82s had been built. Large numbers were disposed of as war surplus and were available on the civil market for as little as £50. A number were the subject of conversion schemes. The most ambitious was that carried out by Jackaroo Aircraft, Thruxton, Hampshire, England in […]

High-Time Hog Driver

Inside the cockpit with Lt. Col. John Marks, the Air Force’s most experienced A-10 pilot Ten thousand feet above an area near the city of Ghazni in southeastern Afghanistan, Lt. Col. John Marks—call sign “Karl”—adjusted the zoom for the infrared sensor in the Litening pod on his right wing. Peering at the infrared image on […]

Kittyhawk Jungle Rescue

Confined in a microworld of levers, switches, and instruments, Royal Australian Air Force Flight Sergeant James Denman Harvey slid his Curtiss P-40’s eight-piece canopy backwards and looked down. Hammered by tropical heat and skin slippery in perspiration, he studied the surface of a newly captured airstrip called “Tadji.” Harvey and fellow No. 78 Squadron pilots […]

“Test Pilot: An Extraordinary Career Testing Civil Aircraft”

Having flown an astonishing 400 different aircraft, as a licensed Category 1 test pilot and flight test instructor for both airplanes and helicopters, Chris Taylor is arguably one of the best qualified and widely experienced test pilots working today anywhere in the world. After obtaining his private pilot’s license at the age of just 17, […]

Breitling Aerospace Red Arrows Special Edition

News from Breitling on their Red Arrows timepiece: “We are pleased to announce our latest launch in collaboration with the Royal Air Force, the Breitling Aerospace Red Arrows Special Edition. Our historical partnership with the Royal Air Force dates from the 1930s, and today the pilots wear Breitling Chronographs built to ensure accuracy and reliability […]

Me 163 Komet: A Brilliant Failure

The Komet was not a war’s-end-crazy-idea born of desperation, as is often believed. In fact, the design began in the late 1930s, and the prototype flew in 1941. It was the hands-down winner for the crown of fastest operational aircraft of World War II, both in speed and climb. From the technological view, it included […]

Thunderbolts of the 56th FG

As the most long-lived Thunderbolt group in the ETO, the 56th FG certainly sported some of the most varied camouflage plus squadron and individual markings in England. Upon arrival at Kings Cliffe in January 1943, its first combat-ready P-47C models bore a factory-standard olive drab over neutral gray livery. As the Thunderbolt was the first […]

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