Share this story Before he was a reclusive billionaire, before the movies and the mania, Howard Hughes was a young man obsessed with going fast. In 1935 that obsession took the shape of a single, gorgeous silver aeroplane — the Hughes H-1 Racer — and with...
Share this story He never became a general, never commanded a wing, and spent much of his career infuriating his superiors. Yet John Boyd may have shaped modern air combat more than any pilot who ever lived. He rewrote how fighters are flown, how they are designed,...
Share this story When ten jets pour off the top of a loop trailing green, white and red smoke, an entire country looks up. The Frecce Tricolori — the Tricolour Arrows — are Italy’s national aerobatic team and, by sheer number of aircraft, the biggest...
Condividi questa storia All'inizio degli anni '50 gli Stati Uniti, patria di Boeing e Douglas e della più potente industria aeronautica del mondo, si misero alla ricerca di un bombardiere all'estero. Acquistarono un modello britannico. Il Martin B-57 Canberra, una versione di costruzione americana del modello inglese...
Condividi questa storia Di solito si annuncia con un botto: uno schiocco secco, simile a quello di un cannone, proveniente dal motore, a volte una lingua di fuoco che esce dalla presa d'aria o dallo scarico e un calo di spinta da far venire il mal di stomaco. Per un passeggero sembra che il motore sia esploso. Di solito, però...
Share this story On 7 April 2003, Captain Kim Campbell rolled in over Baghdad to help American soldiers pinned down near the Tigris. She put her A-10 Thunderbolt where it was needed, took the shot, and started to pull off target. Then a surface-to-air missile found...
Share this story Most warplanes of the 1950s are museum pieces or scrap. The Xian H-6 is neither. Nearly seventy years after its Soviet ancestor first flew, China is still building, flying, and continually re-arming this jet — and the latest versions are among...
Share this story Two fighters close head-on at a combined speed near 1,000 knots. For a heartbeat they flash past each other, close enough for the pilots to see helmets in the other cockpit. Then the real fight begins. That instant has a name: the merge. What a pilot...
Share this story She was the best-known aviator in Nazi Germany, and one of the most gifted test pilots of her era — a small, intense woman who flew rocket planes, the first practical helicopter, and a piloted version of the V-1 flying bomb. She was also a...
Condividi questa storia All'inizio degli anni '50, l'aeronautica militare statunitense desiderava un unico velivolo in grado di salire rapidamente, individuare un bombardiere sovietico sul proprio radar e abbatterlo con una stiva piena di missili prima che raggiungesse una città americana. La risposta fu l'F-102 Delta Dagger...
Share this story In 1949 the Swedish Air Force asked for something that did not exist anywhere in the world: an interceptor capable of Mach 1.4 to 1.5, able to operate from dispersed road bases, to meet a Soviet bomber threat crossing the Baltic.Saab’s answer...
Share this story There is an aeroplane in the Cold War Gallery at Dayton that the museum has deliberately not restored. Its wings are off. Its nose is crushed. The paint is scorched.The Lockheed XF-90 lost its competition, never entered production, and was officially...
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