Since the late 1940s, pilots have loved and imitated Chuck Yeager’s laconic, folksy drawl Every time you sit on a plane while traveling for the holidays, a voice that is…
Cold War
XA897, the first Vulcan B1 supplied to the Royal Air Force, crashed in a contentious manner
Vulcan XA897 hit the ground and bounced back into the air a few hundred yards short of the runway. Only the pilot and co-pilot got ejection seats despite the Vulcan…
History
The Ki-43 pilot who rammed a B-17 likely underestimated the attack approach and hit the bomber
As the first pilot to purposefully ram a B-17 Flying Fortress, Sergeant Oda Tadao received praise in the Japanese media and received a posthumous promotion. It is unlikely that the…
Cold War
While French fighters were grounded for Bastille Day celebrations, 2 RAF Phantoms followed 2 Soviet Bears over France
“I could not avoid a feeling of irritation when I pictured our Mirage colleagues as they attended their Bastille barbecues on this midsummer’s day,” Alan Winkles, former RAF Phantom pilot “The…
Black Mike left RAF Cosford after a year following its well-received appearance at the RAF100 celebration during the 2018 Cosford Airshow The most recent development in the life of Phantom…
Civil
Three tycoons once tried to convert three Airbus A380 airliners into business jets but their projects were scrapped. Here’s why.
A mid-eastern royal, a Russian oligarch, and a broker tried to convert three Airbus A380 airliners into business jets, but their projects were scrapped. The Airbus A380 was developed to…
Trains were never safe from roaming P-47 Thunderbolts on armed reconnaissance missions. Yet German strategies quickly made strafing them a difficult and risky task Late in December 1944, as Col.…
Carriers
Are Russians hunting to fish the wreckage of the UK F-35B that crashed last week like they did with that of a US Navy F-14 that fell off the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy in 1976?
Western allies have expressed confidence to recover the wreckage of the British F-35B Lightning II before Russia beats them to recover and gain critical technological know-how in the sophisticated fifth-generation…
According to the story, President Johnson intended to call the Blackbird the “RS-71,” but he misread the letters, and said “SR-71.” The following story appears in Col. Richard H. Graham’s book…
The new VH-92A Marine One presidential helicopter isn’t effective “for the contingency operation mission,” a reference to emergency flights. President Joe Biden’s first flight on the VH-92A presidential helicopter, the…