In the summer of 1940, roughly 3,000 RAF fighter pilots stood between Nazi Germany and the conquest of Britain. Against them, the Luftwaffe fielded over 2,600 aircraft and some of the most experienced combat aviators in the world. For four months — from July to...
Quick FactsNationalityGerman 🇩🇪Aerial Victories158 (151 in North Africa alone)Aircraft FlownBf 109E/FWarsWorld War II (North Africa)Born / Died13 Dec 1919 – 30 Sep 1942 (age 22)UnitJG 27 Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2006-0122, Hans-Joachim Marseille — via Wikimedia Commons...
The standard defensive manoeuvre for an SR-71 Blackbird when it detected a surface-to-air missile launch was simple: accelerate. At Mach 3.3 and 85,000 feet, acceleration was sufficient. No SR-71 was ever shot down. In over 3,500 operational missions, spanning 24...
Quick FactsNationalityAustrian/German 🇦🇹Aerial Victories258 (including 3 in Me 262 jet)Aircraft FlownFw 190A, Bf 109, Me 262 (first jet ace)WarsWorld War IIBorn / Died7 Dec 1920 – 8 Nov 1944 (age 23)UnitJG 54, Kommando Nowotny Walter Nowotny (portrait) — via Wikimedia...
On the evening of October 12, 1947, test pilot Chuck Yeager went horse riding in the Mojave Desert and fell off, breaking two ribs. Two days later, in severe pain and with his ribs tightly taped, he crawled into the cockpit of a Bell X-1 rocket plane, used a sawed-off...
At dawn on August 27, 1939 — four days before Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began — test pilot Erich Warsitz climbed into a small, unremarkable-looking aircraft at the Heinkel airfield in Rostock-Marienehe and opened a throttle connected to an engine...
Quick FactsNationalityGerman 🇩🇪Aerial Victories301 (2nd all-time)Aircraft FlownBf 109G, Fw 190WarsWorld War II (Eastern Front)Born / Died20 Mar 1919 – 8 Jan 1983 (age 63)UnitJG 52 5-Luftwaffe-pilot-Major-Gerhard-Barkhorn-01 — via Wikimedia Commons He is the...
Quick FactsNationalityGerman 🇩🇪Aerial Victories352 (all-time record — never broken)Aircraft FlownBf 109G/KWarsWorld War II (Eastern Front)Born / Died19 Apr 1922 – 20 Sep 1993 (age 71)UnitJG 52 Erich Hartmann voor zijn Bf 109 (G-6) — via Wikimedia Commons Two hundred...
Share this story The handle is between your legs. You have trained for this. You have watched the videos, studied the diagrams, memorised the sequence. But nothing prepares you for the moment you actually pull it — especially when the ocean is rushing up to meet you....
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