‘This would be only the fellow’s third actual landing in an airliner. He’d had one good one and one not so good. This was going to be a demanding test…
History
An RAF Phantom Pilot remembers shadowing two Soviet Bears over France with his navigator and wingman when French fighters were grounded for Bastille Day celebrations
‘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…
NavalWarfare
US Navy Submarine Chief Petty Officer recalls when his boat was pinged by the sonar of a Spruance-class destroyer (the sonar ping sound could be heard through the hull of his submarine)
‘The Spruance-class destroyer sighted our periscope and decided to prosecute. We ran for a while, let them have some ASW training and then surfaced and went into port,’ James Clark,…
‘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…
Civil
NASA X-59 QueSST aircraft moves Closer to Runway at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility for ground testing
The series of images in this article shows NASA’s X-59 as it sits on the flight line — the space between the hangar and the runway — at Lockheed Martin…
Cold War
The high loss rate of the F-105 over Vietnam can be attributed, according to the F-105 pilot, to the SAC bomber philosophy
‘At Takhli we liked the pop-up tactic as we felt we got better target coverage with less exposure and fewer losses. Lots of folks agreed until new PACAF C-in-C Gen…
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…
Cold War
JP-7 was not the only fuel that the SR-71 could use in an emergency; JP-4 and JP-5 also limited the Blackbird’s top speed to Mach 1.5
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…
Airshows
Video shows last flying C-123 Provider almost crashing while landing in heavy Crosswinds at Geneseo Airshow
Filmed on Jun. 3, 2023 the video in this post features the last flying C-123 Provider (Serial #54-664, named “Thunderpig”) almost crashing while landing in heavy cross winds at Geneseo…