The Air Race That Built the Spitfire
Before the Spitfire, before the Battle of Britain, there was a series of air races over water — gaudy, dangerous, and watched by hundreds of thousands. The Schneider Trophy looked like pure spectacle. In fact, it was quietly forging the engine and the designer...
The 1949 Jet Bomber Still Flying Today
In May 1949, a test pilot was reminded that the day chosen for his aircraft’s maiden flight — the 13th — fell on a Friday, and that no one would blame him for waiting. He was unmoved. The aeroplane he flew that day went on to serve for fifty-seven...
The Night a 747 Lost All Four Engines
It was a calm, clear night over the Indian Ocean on 24 June 1982 when the passengers of British Airways Flight 9 noticed something strange: a glow along the wings, and puffs of smoke curling into the cabin that smelled of sulphur. Up front, the crew watched St...
The Flying Tank They Called the Jug
A German fighter pilot once emptied his guns into an American P-47, then pulled up alongside to watch it fall out of the sky. It did not fall. Baffled, he flew wing-to-wing with the shredded aircraft, stared at the damage, shook his head, and peeled away. The P-47...
The Wooden Bomber That Outran the Luftwaffe
In 1940, as the Battle of Britain raged, the de Havilland company was quietly building a bomber the Air Ministry had not asked for and did not want — and it was making it out of wood. Officials scoffed. Within two years, that wooden aeroplane was the fastest...
The British Jet That Flew Faster Than the Sun
On 10 March 1956, a slender British delta streaked down a measured course over the English south coast and did something no aircraft had ever done: it flew faster than 1,000 miles per hour in level flight. When the timekeepers finished their sums, the Fairey Delta 2...
Starlux’s Flying Sculpture Lands in America
Most airlines paint their jets. Taiwan’s STARLUX hired one of the world’s most famous artists to turn an Airbus A350-1000 into a mirror-finished flying sculpture — and on 15 July, it flew the thing across the Pacific to Phoenix.Flight JX026 delivered the STARLUX...
Riyadh Air Cleared for Beijing and Shanghai
Two and a half weeks after it flew its very first paying passengers, Saudi Arabia’s brand-new airline has been handed the keys to the world’s second-biggest aviation market. Riyadh Air is going to China.The Civil Aviation Administration of China has cleared the...
The Catalina Flying Boat Rises Again
Eighty years ago, a fat-bellied flying boat called the PBY Catalina rescued downed airmen, sank submarines and crossed oceans on missions that lasted a full day and night. Its type certificate has quietly survived ever since. Now someone wants to build brand-new ones...
Gliders, a Dictator, and an Impossible Takeoff
On the afternoon of 12 September 1943, a string of flimsy plywood gliders scraped down onto a boulder-strewn plateau high in the Italian Apennines, right outside a mountaintop ski hotel. Out of them poured German paratroopers and SS commandos. Within a few minutes,...
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