Ben Rich of Lockheed Skunk Works presented a paper in 1976 that provided a brief overview of the “Bx,” a straightforward modification of the SR-71 Blackbird into a supercruising strike…
The USAF F-4 Phantom II version was authorized to be designated the F-110 Spectre in 1962 McDonnell Aircraft Company delivered the F4H (later dubbed F-4) Phantom II in answer to…
The Apollo astronauts had to change many of their daily routines, including what they ate, drank, dressed, and even how they used the restroom On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11…
‘The VC10 captain announced that as it was Bastille Day he had been told that we would have to look after the ‘trade’ alone and that, consequently, we could not…
‘We had the specks lab tested, and they turned out to be organic material—insects that had been injected into the stratosphere,’ Norman Nelson CIA’s engineer inside the Skunk Works In…
‘In retrospect, my ordering WSO to eject was a mistake which I have always regretted. I felt at the time I was saving his life and I intended to eject…
Mossad deployed a team of female agents to recruit several Iraqi pilots who had been sent to Randolph Air Force Base in the United States for a staff course, but…
‘Tony LeVier [the test pilot who flew the first flight of the U-2] was sitting at Bob Gilliland’s bar when we arrived. The story of how the U-2 was named…
‘We used to have a joke in flight training: “What happens to a prop aircraft when it loses its engine? It becomes a glider. What happens to a jet when…
While the F-14 Tomcat was shown off in Top Gun, the F-16 Fighting Falcon used the questionable Iron Eagle series to demonstrate the machine’s agility to cinemagoers While the F-14…