History & Legends, Military Aviation
In 1946, the U.S. Navy flew a fighter that couldn’t decide whether it belonged to the propeller age or the jet age — so it used both at once. The Ryan XF2R Dark Shark had a turboprop in the nose spinning a four-bladed propeller, and a turbojet buried in...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
The highest a jet has ever flown under its own power is not an American record, and it is nearly half a century old. On August 31, 1977, Soviet test pilot Alexandr Fedotov zoom-climbed a MiG-25 to 37,650 metres — 123,523 feet — and no air-breathing...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress first flew on April 15, 1952. The youngest airframe in the fleet was delivered in October 1962. Every B-52 flying today is older than every crew member flying it — and many are older than the crew members’ parents. The Air Force...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On February 20, 1959 — a day Canadians still call “Black Friday” — Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the most advanced interceptor on the planet, fired 14,500 people, and ordered every prototype destroyed. Then, for good measure, he had the...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Half a century ago, the Shah of Iran bought 80 American F-14A Tomcats and 633 AIM-54 Phoenix long-range missiles for $2 billion. It was the most advanced fighter deal the United States had ever made with a foreign country.Then came the revolution, the hostage crisis,...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Before AWACS, air warfare was a knife fight in a dark room. Pilots relied on their own radar, ground controllers with limited visibility, and radio calls that were often confused, late, or wrong. After AWACS, one side had the lights on and the other did not. The...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
North Korea operates one of the largest air forces in the world on paper. The Korean People’s Army Air Force (KPAAF) fields an estimated 550–570 combat aircraft, over 300 transport and utility helicopters, and approximately 110,000 personnel. By numbers alone,...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
The Republic XF-84H Thunderscreech is widely considered the loudest aircraft ever built. Its supersonic propeller generated continuous sonic booms that could be heard 25 miles away, made ground crews physically ill, and reportedly knocked a man unconscious on the...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
At 2:38 a.m. on January 17, 1991, eight AH-64 Apache helicopters crossed into Iraqi airspace at treetop height. Their mission: destroy two early-warning radar stations that would blind Iraq to what was coming next. Within minutes, the stations were burning wreckage....
Aviation World, History & Legends
The de Havilland Comet was the most beautiful airliner ever built. It was also the most deadly — and its failures saved more lives than any single aircraft in history. We’ve written about the Comet before — see our earlier piece on its legacy. This article...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In the late 1950s, both superpowers reached the same conclusion: the future of strategic bombing was speed. Build a bomber that flies at Mach 3 and nothing can catch it. No interceptor, no missile, no air defence system could touch an aircraft crossing the sky at...
Aviation World, History & Legends
On 14 December 1986, a spindly aircraft made almost entirely of paper, glue, and carbon fibre wobbled down the runway at Edwards Air Force Base with so much fuel aboard that its wingtips dragged on the concrete, damaging the winglets. Nine days, three minutes, and 44...
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