History & Legends, Military Aviation
Every military pilot flying today sits on a device that can blast them out of a crippled aircraft in a fraction of a second. From the moment of handle pull to full parachute deployment takes less than two seconds. The seat fires its occupant at up to 20g and 600 mph...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In 1961 the Soviet Union flew an aircraft with a working nuclear reactor on board. The aircraft was a modified Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, redesignated Tu-95LAL — Letayushchaya Atomnaya Laboratoriya, or “Flying Atomic Laboratory.” The reactor sat in the rear of...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
The British, in the 1950s, came up with one of the most elegant interceptor concepts of the early jet age — and then, in a moment of breathtaking strategic clumsiness, threw the entire programme away. The aircraft was the Saunders-Roe SR.53, a small, beautiful, and...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Of all the strange aircraft the United States built during the Second World War — and there were many — none was stranger, on paper or in person, than the Northrop XP-79. The XP-79 was, in concept, a manned missile. Its mission was not to shoot down enemy bombers with...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On the morning of 6 January 1940, the temperature over southeastern Finland sat at minus thirty-two degrees Celsius. A flight of seven Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 bombers crossed the frontier on a routine raid against Finnish railway lines. They flew without fighter escort....
History & Legends, Military Aviation
The standard British Quick Reaction Alert intercept, in the Cold War era, went something like this. NATO radar would call out an unidentified contact entering the United Kingdom Air Defence Region. Two RAF Phantom FGR.2s would be airborne in under five minutes. They...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On the morning of 1 May 1960, two young Soviet fighter pilots got an order so improbable they made the duty officer repeat it. They were to take off from a training airfield in Russia. They were to climb as fast as they possibly could. They were not to wait for a...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Louis Blériot was flying on a broken ankle. His monoplane — a fragile structure of spruce, ash, and rubberised canvas — had a 25-horsepower engine that overheated on long runs. He had no compass. No radio. No life jacket. As he climbed to 250 feet over the...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In 1924, flying around the world meant crossing the Pacific Ocean in open biplanes, with engines that had to be rebuilt every few thousand miles, relying on supply ships pre-positioned across the widest ocean on Earth by a US Navy that had deployed its vessels months...
History & Legends, Inside MiGFlug
Guy Martin has spent his life chasing speed. The former Isle of Man TT racer, truck mechanic, and Channel 4 presenter has pushed the limits on two wheels at over 180 mph on public roads. But in 2024, he faced a challenge that made even the legendary Mountain Course...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On the evening of December 18, 1972, 129 Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers lifted off from bases in Guam and Thailand and turned north toward Hanoi. They were about to fly into the most heavily defended airspace on Earth. Over the next eleven nights, the United...
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