US Military Aviation
Air Force Sloganizing
The U.S. Air Force recently announced its new motto: "Aim High...Fly-Fight-Win," which generals chose out of five contenders suggested by airmen and the general public: Fly Fight Win, Aim High, Above and Beyond, Air Power, and Wings of Freedom.
This from the same people who named the Boeing C-17 ...
November 09, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
Western Low-Fly Zones: Not in My Sky
The Air Force is looking for places in the American West where pilots can practice flying special operations missions over terrain similar to the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. One proposal would call for a new Low Altitude Tactical Navigation area straddling the border of Colorado and New Mexico...
November 08, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Air Force Drones Cut to Wide Angle
U.S. Air Force drones that serve as the aerial eyes of American combat troops in Afghanistan are about to widen their view.A multi-camera system called "Gorgon Stare" (named for the Medusa's deadly gaze, which turns onlookers to stone) will be installed on unmanned Reaper aircraft and deployed t...
November 05, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
A Piece of Lafayette Escadrille History
On November 15, 2010, Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco will auction this dark grey-green canvas fuselage insignia panel from a Spad VII flown by the Lafayette Escadrille, featuring the familiar Indian-head insignia. The panel, says the company's press release, was collected by Sergeant E...
November 03, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Just Shoot Me
Late in World War II, the Bell P-63 became an aerial gunner's easiest target.
November 2010 |
By James Dunaway
The Autobots Are Coming!
The defense research agency DARPA recently selected six companies to participate in a year-long program to transform a Humvee-like vehicle into an aircraft. Lockheed Martin and AAI Corporation are asked to supply something that can “avoid traditional and asymmetrical threats while avoiding road ...
October 25, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Magellans of the Air
On September 28, 1924, crowds cheered and sirens shrieked as the Army Service pilots known as "the Magellans of the Air" landed at Sand Point Field in Seattle, Washington, after completing the first round-the-world flight.They had set off on April 6, some six months earlier, determined to circumnav...
October 21, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Top Gun 2.0?
The Hollywood grapevine and other gossip networks are all atwitter over the news that Paramount Pictures is reportedly in talks with producer Jerry "Blow It Up" Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott about a sequel to their 1986 movie, "Top Gun," which made a megastar of the Grumman F-14 (and some o...
October 15, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
You've Got (Balloon) Mail
In September 1870, not long after the start of the Franco-Prussian War, the city of Paris was under siege by Prussian soldiers. By the 19th, the German army had blocked all communication into or out of the city. There was nothing worse, wrote French journalist Francisque Sarcey, than to "live cut o...
October 13, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Pushing His Buttons
Alex Spencer, curator of British aircraft and military flight materiél at the National Air and Space Museum, started his career some 20 years ago as a lowly intern. One morning, as he was riding the shuttle out to the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryl...
October 04, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
"Ah, Dr. Mach!"
On this day in 1953, 21-year-old North Korean pilot No Kum-Sok astonished the American flyers at Kimpo Air Base in South Korea by landing in the middle of their runway and surrendering—thus becoming the first MiG pilot to defect to the West.
In his fascinating 1996 book, A MiG-15 to Freedom, No (w...
September 21, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
The Curse of the Cargomaster
Readied to transport the first U.S. ICBMs, the Douglas C-133 had a peculiar habit. It kept crashing.
September 2010 |
By John Sotham
Case Closed
Mysteries solved, secrets revealed, and questions finally answered.
September 2010 |
By The Editors
Wings of Honor
The World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., was built to honor the 16 million Americans who served in the armed forces during that conflict, the more than 400,000 who died, and all who supported their efforts from the homefront. But the Greatest Generation is aging rapidly, and about 1,200 World...
August 20, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
B-24 Understudy Fills Big Shoes
Just two weeks ago, the Commemorative Air Force returned its B-29 Superfortress, Fifi, to flight after six years of down time while the airplane was fitted with customized engines (maintainers had found metal shavings in the engine oil). The CAF planned to re-launch Fifi as the signature aircraft f...
August 18, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
Dog Ate My Homework
The cabaret known as the U.S. Air Force's KC-X tanker competition is getting in some high-kicks now, baby. This summer, a little known company with 30 employees called U.S. Aerospace, which had changed its name from New Century only last March, and which has had some recent questions surrounding it...
August 06, 2010 |
By Mike Klesius
Low Jinks in the Mach Loop
How do you complete a marathon in four minutes? In a jet fighter, of course, at 400-plus knots. That's how this Tornado pilot and others fly the Mach Loop in Wales. The loop is a 26-mile ring of valleys in a region designated by the British military as Low Flying Area 7, one of several such regi...
August 03, 2010 |
By Mike Klesius
