Flying-Aviation
Flight Journal
THE BEST WWII FIGHTERS
Which was number one?
10+ min |
Annual 2020
Flight Journal
“Hotrod” Jug
By the time this limited-production high-performance version of Maj. Michael Jackson’s Teddy was photographed in early spring 1945 at Boxted, the 56th FG had been operating with Thunderbolts for almost three years. Initially constituted in November 1940 as the 56th Pursuit Group, with three Squadrons (61st, 62nd and 63rd) operating a mix of training aircraft and basing, they were posted in scattered locations in defense of New York City in early 1942. With the 63rd actually based at Republic’s Farmingdale factory, it was a natural for the 56th to be tapped to be the premier Thunderbolt unit in May 1942.
2 min |
Annual 2020
Flight Journal
GUNFIGHTER OF THE RISING SUN
A Zero pilot’s own story
10+ min |
Annual 2020
Flight Journal
Me 262 Mach 1 Mystery
Did the Reich get there first?
10+ min |
Annual 2020
Flight Journal
HELLCAT VERSUS CORSAIR
GRUMMAN TEST PILOT FLIES THE COMPETITION
10+ min |
Annual 2020
Flight Journal
Flying the FW 190
A legend gets checked out in the Butcher Bird
10+ min |
Annual 2020
Flight Journal
THE F-5 AN AMERICAN TIGER
We all know about jet fighters such as the Phantom, Tomcat, Eagle, Viper, Hornet, F-22, and F-35, but what about the less-covered F-5? It doesn’t seem to secure as much time basking in the spotlight. Let’s indulge ourselves.
10+ min |
November - December 2020
Flight Journal
THE MARINES' LAST DOGFIGHT
THE CORSAIR WAS ONE TOUGH BIRD
7 min |
November - December 2020
Flight Journal
KITTYHAWK JUNGLE RESCUE
P-40 GETS A NEW LEASE ON LIFE
10+ min |
November - December 2020
Flight Journal
A Human Record of War: Life magazine, 1965
1965…The April 16 cover story in Life was a photoessay by Larry Burrows, a British journalist best known for his war photography in Vietnam.
4 min |
November - December 2020
Flight Journal
On the Night Before
Airborne operations over Normandy on the night of June 5, 1944
1 min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
TERRIFIC TILTROTOR
DRIVING THE V-22 OSPREY
10 min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
My Life as Rosie the Riveter
I have read about and seen many images about “Rosie the Riveter,” but my story is unique. I was a model with a rivet gun who worked at a factory, and my husband really did fly the very planes that I was advertising to encourage women to build during WW II.
4 min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
The Art of James Dietz
A historical painting is only as good as the story it tells, and how convincingly it combines the people, their actions, costumes, surroundings and atmosphere in an appropriate composition.
1 min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
I Will Run Wild: The Pacific War from Pearl Harbor to Midway
In I Will Run Wild, Cleaver expertly captures the strained relationship between the U.S. and Japan prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1 min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
Restoring a Classic
A Canadian Staggerwing Gets a New Life
10 min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
FIRST KILLS!
F-82 OPERATIONS IN THE KOREAN WAR
10+ min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
Preserving aviation history
Duplicate history
1 min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
HURRICANE FORCE
Group Capt. Billy Drake: A Gentleman and an Ace
10+ min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
BAILOUT AT 70,000 FEET
A U-2 pilot hits the silk at the edge of outer space
10+ min |
September - October 2020
Flight Journal
And in the end ... friends
Piloting one of 21 Fw 190s of II. Gruppe, Jagdgeschwader 1, Oberleutnant Wolfgang Kretschmer, during the March 6, 1944 Berlin Air Raid, took part in the noon head-on attack on the 13th Combat Bomb Wing. As he emerged from the rear of the B-17 formation, he instinctively glanced back at the receding enemy bombers and saw the one he had attacked, rear up and out of control. Others, trailing smoke or losing height, were obviously in trouble. The German pilot turned back to the front to find that the rest of his unit had disappeared. He was alone. Undaunted, Kretschmer pulled a tight turn and sped after the enemy bombers, determined to deliver a follow-up attack from the rear.
2 min |
June 2020
Flight Journal
Mustang VS Thunderbolt
A 78th Fighter Group combat pilot’s inside analysis
7 min |
June 2020
Flight Journal
FLYING THE NORTH AMERICAN P-51 Mustang
A triple Ace reports from the cockpit
10+ min |
June 2020
Flight Journal
The Secrets of Truk Lagoon
Project Recover locates three missing World War II aircraft
5 min |
June 2020
Flight Journal
The iconic '80s aviation action classic returns to thrill a new generation
Can you believe it’s been 34 years since we first saw Tom Cruise catapult off a carrier deck and up into the danger zone as Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun? That jet-propelled ode to air-to-air combat in the jet age is without question one of the most iconic films of the 1980s—so much so that in 2015 the Library of Congress deemed it to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” enough to be archived in the National Film Registry! It was also the highest-grossing film of 1986, which probably has more to do with why Paramount Pictures and producer Jerry Bruckheimer have been trying for a decade to get a sequel off the deck—and now they have.
3 min |
June 2020
Flight Journal
Battle of the Superfighters
F-14D Tomcat vs F/A - 18E/F Super Hornet
10+ min |
June 2020
Flight Journal
Clipwing Monocoupe
The Monocoupe Corp. built only seven Monocoupe 110 Specials (or 110 SPL), also called the Clipwing Monocoupe. The most famous was flown by legendary airshow pilot Woody Edmundson, who, in 1946, replaced the original 145 hp Warner Scarab engine with a 185 hp one that had an inverted flight carburetor and an Aeromatic propeller. He nicknamed the plane Little Butch and flew it for the next 19 years.
2 min |
June 2020
Flight Journal
A good landing is one you can walk away from
No, this is not a scene from any movie where the hero staggers away from a “good landing” on Mindoro, Philippine Islands, after being shot down by a Japanese Zero; it is an actual photo of Lt. S. F. Ford walking away from a virtually new Lockheed P-38L-5-LO Lightning that he crash-landed, probably some time after January 1945.
1 min |
June 2020
Flight Journal
THE GEICO SKYTPERS
The family-run business that changed the skywriting industry forever!
3 min |
April 2020
Flight Journal
FLYING THE Bf 109: Two pilots give their reports
The Bf 109 is, without a doubt, the most satisfying and challenging aircraft I have ever flown. So how does it fly and how does it compare with other WW II fighters?
10+ min |