Share this story The Short Stirling was the first of the RAF’s great four-engine heavy bombers — into service before the Halifax, before the Lancaster, the aircraft that opened Britain’s strategic bombing war. It was huge, handsome and, in the end,...
Share this story When Soviet-built MiG-15s came screaming over Korea in late 1950 with their swept wings and steep climb, the United States Navy had a problem. Its best carrier jet, the Grumman F9F Panther, was a fine, sturdy machine — but its straight wing...
Share this story In the early 1950s the United States lay awake at night worrying about Soviet bombers slipping across the Arctic in the dark. The aircraft it scrambled to meet them was the Lockheed F-94 Starfire — the first American jet fighter with an...
Share this story In 1935 a newspaper baron dared British industry to build the fastest civil aircraft in Europe. The result was so quick that when the Royal Air Force turned it into a bomber, it could outrun its own fighters. Two years later that same design flew the...
Share this story The Blackburn Skua was slow, awkward and asked to do two jobs it could not both do well. It has been mocked ever since as one of the Fleet Air Arm’s worst fighters. And yet in the first months of the Second World War this unloved machine scored...
Share this story Nobody ever called the Fairey Barracuda beautiful. With its high shoulder-mounted wing, spindly legs and a clutter of struts and flaps hanging beneath it, the Fleet Air Arm’s torpedo and dive bomber looked like it had been assembled from spare...
Comparte esta historia. La noche del 30 de marzo de 1944, el Mando de Bombarderos de la RAF envió 795 bombarderos pesados a Núremberg. Noventa y seis de ellos nunca regresaron. En una sola noche, en pocas horas sobre Alemania, murieron más de 500 jóvenes aviadores: la peor noche del Mando...
Comparte esta historia En la primavera de 1942, el flamante Avro Lancaster apenas había entrado en guerra cuando el Mando de Bombarderos envió doce de ellos en una misión que rozaba el suicidio: volar a plena luz del día, a baja altura, a mil millas a través de la Europa ocupada para bombardear...
Share this story On the morning of 21 March 1945, twenty de Havilland Mosquitos came in over Copenhagen at rooftop height, so low that Danes on the streets could see the crews’ faces. Their target was the Shellhus — the Gestapo’s headquarters in the...
Comparte esta historia. Algunos aviones se cancelan porque fallan. El Douglas F5D Skylancer se canceló porque era demasiado bueno, llegó demasiado tarde y fue construido por la compañía equivocada. Alcanzó la velocidad supersónica en su primer vuelo, se manejó de maravilla e impresionó a todos los pilotos que...
Share this story On November 6, 1945, an American fighter turned onto final approach to a small escort carrier off California when its engine quit. The pilot did not bail out. He kept coming, touched down, and caught a wire — and in doing so made the first...
Share this story Take an F-16 Fighting Falcon, throw away its wing, and bolt on a vast cranked-arrow delta that nearly doubles its area. Stretch the fuselage, cram in 65 percent more fuel, and hang bombs from twenty-seven stations. What you get flies farther, carries...
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