Flight Journal
BACKSTREET BRAWLER
A young man, his Hurricane and the Battle of Britain
10+ min |
November - December 2023
Flight Journal
Scourge of the Allied Fighters
IT HAD TO BE THE MOST HELPLESS FEELING in the world: you're at 25,000 feet over Europe knowing that your primary function is to drop bombs-or flying escort for the bombers while being a slow-moving target for some of the world's finest shooters. However, you have John Browning's marvelous .50 caliber invention to give some degree of protection. Unfortunately, you're absolutely helpless against flak. Piloting and gunnery skills play no role in a game where sheer chance makes life and death decisions. For that reason, the Krupp 88 mm Flak 18/36/37 AA cannon could be considered WW II's ultimate stealth fighter. You never saw it coming.
3 min |
November - December 2023
Flight Journal
ZERO MYTH, MYSTERY, AND FACT
A test pilot compares the A6M5 Zero to U.S. fighters
10+ min |
November - December 2023
Flight Journal
American BEAUTY
\"Forgotten Fifteenth\" top-scoring Mustang ace John J. Voll
10+ min |
November - December 2023
Flight Journal
General Curtis LeMay
Strategic Air Command Creator & Commander
8 min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
NOORDUYN NORSEMAN
Canada's rugged, fabric-covered workhorse
8 min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
Stinson AT-19
The Reliant goes to war
4 min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
Firepower
AS AN EVOLVING WEAPONS PLATFORM, the Boeing B-17 underwent numerous changes during its production run to increase its survivability over deadly Axis-held skies.
1 min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
EJECTING FROM A HAWKER HUNTER
Roderick Kurtz punches out after an encounter with a USAF F-35
10+ min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
Adventures in the WAIRAPA WILD CAT
A New Zealand P-40 warrior racks up the kills
10 min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
A good landing is one you can walk away from
NO, THIS IS NOT A SCENE FROM A MOVIE where the hero staggers away from a \"good landing\" on Mindoro, Philippine Islands, after being shot down by a Japanese Zero.
1 min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
Still Flying After All These Years
One of the oldest airworthy J-3 Cubs
3 min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
Flying the MESSERSCHMITT ME 109
Thrilling tales of aerial supremacy
4 min |
September - October 2023
Flight Journal
BA Swallow - Slab-sided floater
The British Aircraft (BA) Swallow originated in Germany in 1927 as the Klemm L.25, a tandem two-seat, low-wing, all-wood monoplane. Klemm first exported to Britain in March 1929 and started a small \"flood.\"
2 min |
July - August 2023
Flight Journal
FLYING THE ROC!
Stratolaunch test pilot Evan Thomas on flying the world's largest operational airplane
10 min |
July - August 2023
Flight Journal
SPITFIRE SPY - over China
Unauthorized, high-risk photo-recon missions
10+ min |
July - August 2023
Flight Journal
Forgiveness - Lt. Gen. Richard Reynolds on crashing a $379 million B-1 prototype
By the time Lieutenant General Richard Reynolds retired from the USAF in 2005, he’d had a distinguished 34-year career as a B-52 pilot, an Air Force test pilot with experience flying 72 different aircraft types, a B-2 system program office director, a commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, and more.
10 min |
July - August 2023
Flight Journal
SABRE-RATTLING - Flying F-100s and F-86s in Korea
I GREW UP IN TOLEDO, OHIO with my mother, who provided the most influence in my life and my two sisters. My father, who was a World War I veteran, had died when I was only seven years old, right at the beginning of the Second World War.
10+ min |
July - August 2023
Flight Journal
PAYBACK - B-25s settle the score on the Rising Sun
As I sat silently in my B-25-shrewdly named \"Fickle Finger of Fate\"awaiting the signal from the Navy deckhand to start my engines, I thought long and hard about how I ended up here and about the unknown that lay ahead.
10+ min |
July - August 2023
Flight Journal
"GENTLEMEN, YOU HAD A RACE ...The end of the Reno Air Races BY JAN TEGLER ייף
It has been almost 59 years since legendary pilot Bob Hoover first uttered the famous words, “Gentlemen, you have a race!”
2 min |
July - August 2023
Flight Journal
"America" Flies Again
Restoring the Curtiss Seaplane
4 min |
May - June 2023
Flight Journal
MUSTANGS over Normandy
P-51s search and destroy targets of opportunity
10+ min |
May - June 2023
Flight Journal
AWOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
Major Charles \"Bazooka Charlie\" Carpenter and his gun-toting L-4 Cub
10+ min |
May - June 2023
Flight Journal
Howard DGA GH-2
The \"Big Blue Freeloader\" earns its keep
10 min |
May - June 2023
Flight Journal
"DAMS RAID" - John "Hoppy" Hopgood, heroic "Dambuster"
Eighty years ago this May, Operation Chastise, more commonly known as the \"Dams Raid,\" took its place in military history. Flying at ultra-low-level, at night, a few RAF Lancaster crews successfully breached two major dams, the Möhne and the Eder, in the heart of Germany. The incredible story of the raid, executed by a newly formed RAF squadron flying specially modified Avro Lancaster bombers, is well-known to those with an interest in military aviation, and the extraordinary feat of arms carried out by the \"Dambusters\" has become legendary. To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the raid, this is the story of just one of those who did not return, with the details related in the words of one of his crew members who miraculously survived.
10+ min |
May - June 2023
Flight Journal
RISE OF THE PHANTOM - Evolution of the Legendary F-4
IT WAS MAY 10, 1972, when four Air Force F-4D Phantoms, using their AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, initiated a head-on engagement with a four-ship formation of MiG-21s. The MiGs had no weapons capable of engaging from a fontal aspect. Oyster Flight was part of a 28-ship F-4D prestrike MiGCAP configured to intercept any Vietnamese People’s Air Force (VPAF) MiGs that might attack the 92-plane strike force that followed. The target was the Paul Doumer Bridge, part of the highway network from China into Hanoi.
10+ min |
May - June 2023
Flight Journal
FIRST BRIDGE The start of the Vietnam war
General Curtis E. LeMay, Air Force Chief of Staff, was not happy. First-line U.S. fighters had been in South East Asia in small numbers since 1960. By mid-1964, more fighters began rotating through bases in South Vietnam and Thailand as a show of force. Reconnaissance missions with a pair of fighters as escorts, known as armed recce,” were being flown into Laos and Vietnam, but they were severely restricted in their operations. The fighters escorting the reconnaissance aircraft could attack enemy positions only if they were first fired upon. The politicians were being cautious. By January 1965, there had been several protective reactions,” and even a few fragged planned) missions, but nothing of any real scope. In fact, many of the preplanned missions had failed to find their targets in the confusing jungle landscape or reported disappointing Battle Damage Assessment.
10+ min |
January - February 2023
Flight Journal
A Legendary Sortie
BRADLEY WENTZEL
1 min |
January - February 2023
Flight Journal
The Original "Old Crow"
Col. Bud Anderson's airborne reunion with a P-39Q Airacobra,The evening sun was low on the horizon as John Cyrier taxied toward the Commemorative Air Force's (CAF's) ramp at San Marcos, Texas on July 28. He had just completed the final leg of a four-stop flight home from AirVenture 2022 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Cyrier pivoted the Central Texas Wing's P-39Q around to the right, braked to a stop, and cut power to the fighter's Allison V-1710 V-12 engine. Just after its 11-foot, seven-inch Aeroproducts propeller swung to a stop, he shot both arms through the P-39's rolled-down cockpit door windows, clenched his fists, and yelled an exultant \"Yeeeaaah!\"
10+ min |
January - February 2023
Flight Journal
THE LAST COMBAT Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3 Wk. Nr. 1342
In 1988, a Frenchman walking on the beach near Cap BlancNez near Calais, France, discovered a piece of metal sticking out of the sand. There had been a storm and, as sometimes happens, the sand on the beach had shifted, revealing something that had been buried for almost 50 years. It was the wingtip of a crashed World War II fighter aircraft. As the tides ebbed and flowed, most of the wreck of a relatively intact German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter was revealed, with both wings, the landing gear, and parts of the fuselage.
10+ min |