The A-12 was an early attempt by Lockheed to create a spy plane that could avoid enemy detection and anti-aircraft fire. It was the first “attempt” at a stealth aircraft…
The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Ryujo: The Forgotten, Unique, one-off Hybrid of a Cruiser Hull with an Aircraft Carrier Superstructure Grafted on to it
The Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Ryujo was a unique, one-off hybrid of a cruiser hull with an aircraft carrier superstructure grafted on to it The Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Ryujo…
Brigadier General Fred Castle, the B-17G Copilot, was killed in the crash of his bomber
Brigadier General Fred Castle was flying as a copilot in the lead B-17G Flying Fortress with the 487th Bomb Group, 1Lt. Robert W. Harriman, and their skilled lead crew of…
How the Sukhoi OKB seized control of the Russian aviation industry
The head of the then-Sukhoi OKB convinced the Russian Federation’s President to select his firm’s designs as the country’s principal fighter aircraft during negotiations with post-Soviet Russian President Yeltsin Having…
Ex-USAF F-4 pilot tells how he managed to land his Phantom II safely following the right engine explosion
The fuel flow controller on the F-4 Phantom II had NEVER broken down. It wasn’t mentioned in the flight handbook, the book of emergency procedures, or anywhere else The McDonnell…
How the Warthog’s CCIP Gun/Rockets mode calculates Range and Impact Point without Radar
Without radar, how does the A-10 Warthog’s CCIP gun/rockets mode calculate range and impact point? A calculation produced by a weapon’s sighting system is known as a Continually Computed Impact…
As the squadron prepared to switch from the AV-8B to the F-35B, VMA-214 was renamed VMFA-214
VMA-214 was renamed VMFA-214 as part of the switch from the AV-8B Harrier to the F-35B Lightning II On March 25, 2022, Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Yuma, Arizona, held…
Jackie Cochran, the first woman to breach the sound barrier, (with Chuck Yeager flying the Chase Plane)
Jackie Cochran broke the sound barrier on May 18, 1953, and she set a record for women’s absolute speed of 652.337 mph A jet sped through the desert close to…
The day a kamikaze aircraft hit the USS Cabot light aircraft carrier in a direct strike
On November 25, 1944, the kamikaze campaign had just been going for a month. The US Navy’s Fast Carrier Task Force was the primary target of the Japanese, who mainly…
RB-36 Crew Member recalls when his Peacemaker Pilot did a Chandelle Maneuver on Takeoff during an Airshow and, on a separate occasion, did an Emergency Landing with a Loose Flap
‘During my three years at Ellsworth Air Force Ease I had two events that I call outstanding,’ A/1C Ralph Whitaker (Ret.), B-36 Electrical Gunner Upper Responding to the US Army…