The Big-Tailed Beast the Navy Loved to Hate

The Big-Tailed Beast the Navy Loved to Hate

History & Legends

Share this story Its own crews called it “the Beast.” Less politely, they said the letters SB2C stood for “Son of a Bitch, 2nd Class.” An MIT professor who studied a model of it in a wind tunnel declared that anyone who built more than one...
The Mosquito’s Deadly Twin

The Mosquito’s Deadly Twin

History & Legends, Military Aviation

Share this story Eric “Winkle” Brown flew more different types of aircraft than any human being who has ever lived — nearly five hundred of them, from Spitfires to jets to captured German rocket planes. And of all of them, the one he wrote about with...
The Best British Fighter Never Built

The Best British Fighter Never Built

History & Legends

Share this story Every test pilot who flew it seemed to reach for superlatives. One of the greatest aviators of the century called it outstanding. Another, a man who would later fly jets to the edge of control, called it simply the best aircraft he had ever flown. The...
Britain’s Flying Suitcase

Britain’s Flying Suitcase

History & Legends, Military Aviation

Share this story When the founder of Britain’s leading aviation magazine first laid eyes on the Royal Air Force’s newest bomber in 1936, he needed only five words. The fuselage was tall, deep and barely a yard wide, and it reminded him of a piece of luggage. The name...
The Jeep That Grew a Rotor

The Jeep That Grew a Rotor

History & Legends

Share this story Of all the strange machines the Second World War produced, few are as gloriously, defiantly odd as the one a British engineer built in 1942: an ordinary army Jeep, bolted to a spinning rotor, meant to be towed into the sky behind a bomber and flown...
The Fat Fighter That Became an Ace-Maker

The Fat Fighter That Became an Ace-Maker

History & Legends

Share this story In American memory, the Brewster Buffalo is a punchline: a fat, underpowered little barrel of a fighter that was massacred at Midway and written off as one of the worst aircraft of the war. Its own pilots called it a flying coffin. Fly two thousand...
IndiGo and Norse Rip Up Their 787 Deal

IndiGo and Norse Rip Up Their 787 Deal

Aviation World, News

Share this story For a few months, the world’s cheapest big airline flew the world’s trendiest long-haul jet. It did not last. IndiGo — India’s low-cost giant, and the largest airline in the country by a country mile — is tearing up its damp-lease deal...