The first aircraft to use its own fuel for hydraulic fluid was the SR-71 Blackbird and it was called the fuel hydraulic system The legendary SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3+ spy…
‘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…
“I remember looking up out of the canopy at the cars passing under us on Highway 20. After we landed and got out of the plane I was really hyped…
‘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…
‘I assured him that I know his official green Chevy pickup very well and would certainly avoid him,’ David Storm, USAF F-4 Phantom II pilot The F-4 Phantom II was…
By 1962, Kelly Johnson had done at least a few studies on using the A-12 as a carrier for a QF-104 Starfighter The A-12 was the result of the military’s…
“I start the aggressive [6.5-G] pull into the vertical—and the aircraft explodes… Any F-100 pilot who hears a loud ‘BANG!’ automatically thinks, ‘compressor stall,’” Merrill A. “Tony” McPeak F-100 Thunderbird…
‘For all the bad-mouthing the F-104 has received in the past if I had the money (and my wife would let me… which she definitely would not!) I would buy…
‘It may very well be the biggest procurement blunder in the history of the Air Force, the Army Air Force, the Army Air Corps, and even the Balloon Division of…