History & Legends, Military Aviation
Two days before the most important flight in the history of aviation, Captain Chuck Yeager went horseback riding with his wife, Glennis, near their home at Muroc Army Air Field in the California desert. The horse threw him. He hit the ground hard and cracked two ribs...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
No supersonic fighter in history has been built in greater numbers. No jet has served in more air forces, fought in more wars, or lasted longer in frontline service. The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 — NATO codename Fishbed — first flew in 1955, entered production in 1959,...
Aviation World, History & Legends
On June 15, 1919, at 8:40 in the morning, a Vickers Vimy biplane with two Rolls-Royce Eagle engines and no radio contact with the outside world nosed down through the clouds over the west coast of Ireland — and drove itself straight into a bog at Derrygimlagh, near...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Quick FactsNationalityAustro-Hungarian 🇦🇹Aerial Victories32 (highest k.u.k. Luftfahrtruppen ace)Aircraft FlownAlbatros D.III, Hansa-BrandenburgWarsWorld War IBorn / Died5 Feb 1895 – 1 Aug 1981 (age 86)UnitFlik 6, Flik 55J Julius Arigi — via Wikimedia Commons Every war...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On October 3, 1967, test pilot William J. “Pete” Knight climbed into a black, dart-shaped aircraft bolted to the wing of a B-52 bomber. At 45,000 feet over the Mojave Desert, the B-52 released him. Knight lit the rocket engine. In the next 84 seconds, he accelerated...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On September 6, 1976, a Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat interceptor appeared on Japanese radar screens without warning. It was flying fast, low, and heading straight for Hakodate Airport on the northern island of Hokkaido. The pilot had not filed a flight plan. He had not...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In August 1914, when the first European armies crossed their borders and the Great War began, military aircraft were used for one purpose: watching. Unarmed reconnaissance planes flew over enemy lines, their observers sketching troop positions and supply routes. The...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On the morning of April 18, 1942 — four months and eleven days after Pearl Harbor — sixteen B-25 Mitchell medium bombers launched from the pitching deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet. They were headed for Tokyo. None of them had enough fuel to return. There was...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Two small, strange-looking aircraft were built in total secrecy at Lockheed’s Skunk Works facility in Burbank, California, between 1976 and 1977. They were angular, faceted, and looked like something a geometry student had folded out of sheet metal. They were...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In 1920, Bessie Coleman walked into every flight school in the United States that she could find. Every single one turned her away. She was Black. She was a woman. In Jim Crow America, that was two disqualifications, and neither was negotiable. So she learned French....
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Eugene Jacques Bullard was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1895 — the grandson of enslaved people, the son of a man who had barely escaped a lynch mob. By the time he was eleven years old, he had decided that his future lay anywhere but the American South. So he ran...
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