Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare
Alla fine degli anni '60, un analista della CIA sedeva a fissare una sgranata fotografia satellitare del Mar Caspio e non riusciva a far quadrare i conti. La macchina nell'inquadratura era lunga quasi 100 metri, più di un Boeing 747, eppure sfiorava chiaramente l'acqua...
Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare
Picture a flatbed trailer tilting slowly skyward in the California desert until it stands almost vertical, and clinging to it nose-up like a wasp on a windowpane, a stubby silver dart of an aircraft. There is no runway in sight. There is no landing gear worth the...
Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare
Picture a desert morning at Edwards in 1949: dust, sagebrush, and a fighter that looks like someone bolted the wings on the wrong way round. Most aircraft wings are fat where they meet the fuselage and slim to a graceful point at the tip. The Republic XF-91...
Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare
Agli inizi degli anni '50, i jet più nuovi e veloci del mondo continuavano a scontrarsi con un muro invisibile. Acceleravano magnificamente, ma poi, poco prima di raggiungere la velocità del suono, un'ondata di resistenza aerodinamica inghiottiva la potenza dei motori e li fermava di colpo. Nuovissimi caccia...
Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare
It had no tail. It squatted on its undercarriage like a startled bird. It was named after a flying reptile, and in the buttoned-up world of 1930s British aviation it looked like a practical joke. The Westland-Hill Pterodactyl was none of those things. It was a deadly...
Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare
Ask anyone to name a First World War fighter ace and you’ll hear the same handful of names: the Red Baron, perhaps Billy Bishop, maybe Albert Ball. You will almost never hear the name of the deadliest pilot the Southern Hemisphere ever produced — a Melbourne boy who...
Mondo dell'aviazione, Storia e leggende
Look closely at the photograph: those are two full-size 1950s automobiles, parked comfortably underneath the helicopter. Above them sits a single rotor so vast that each of its two blades weighs as much as a small car and is wide enough to walk along. And it was spun...
Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare
Ask almost anyone which aircraft won the Battle of Britain and you will get the same answer: the Spitfire. It is one of the most beautiful machines ever built, and it has earned its legend. But it is, at best, only half the story. The aircraft that actually shot down...
Storia e leggende, Aviazione militare
In a refrigerated room hidden beneath London’s Smithfield Meat Market in 1943, behind a screen of hanging animal carcasses, a future Nobel Prize winner was busy perfecting a recipe. Not for food — for a building material. His task: prove that you could build the...
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