Curtiss XP-31 in flightRARE BIRD: The Curtiss XP-31 /Have you ever had a friend who was getting to be of a certain age, and you noticed that he or she was beginning to slow down, not taking the stairs two-at-a-time anymore, reluctant to stay out late at night, a little more forgetful than usual? (O.K. this ...
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It used to be that there were weights and balances in relating history. Major events drew more attention, while lesser ones passed into oblivion. No more—YouTube has completely revised the scene, and something as unimportant as the pathetic dweeb wailing over Britney Spears can soak up more hits than major news events. This phenomenon also ...
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/WE NEED TO SINK SOME MORE BATTLESHIPS—METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING! IT HAS BEEN A WONDERFUL THING FOR ME TO BE A PART OF THE AIR FORCE FROM BASIC TRAINING AT LACKLAND IN 1951 THROUGH THE GLORIOUS EXPERIENCE OF FLYING B-47S FOR THE STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND TO THE VIETNAM WAR AND BEYOND. AND SINCE RETIREMENT I’VE WATCHED THE AIR ...
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/It was justifiably called "the airlift that saved Israel. One of the most critical but least celebrated airlifts in history unfolded over a desperate 32 days in the fall of 1973. An armada of Military Airlift Command aircraft carried thousands of tons of materiel over vast distances into the midst of the most ferocious fighting the ...
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On November 1, 1952, the United States detonated the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, popularly called the “hydrogen bomb.” The experiment took place on Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific and immediately generated a controversy from leftists that resonates today. It was immediately said that if we detonated a hydrogen bomb, the Soviet Union would follow. What ...
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Calling the Boeing B-47 “the most significant multi-jet aircraft of all time” might be attributed to the bias of an old B-47 pilot, were it not for the incontrovertible facts of the situation. The Boeing Company took a gigantic gamble to create the B-47. It combined an advanced planform, with wings and horizontal surfaces swept back ...
Posted in Aircraft
The Curtiss A-18 Shrike: Another Step on the Curtiss Treadmill to Oblivion In 1934 the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company realized at long last that it had barking up the wrong design tree with its modern looking but very heavy all-metal attack planes. Deciding to make a clean start, it made an offer that Donavan R. ...
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For almost twenty years after the close of World War I in 1918, the Congress of the United States starved its military services, refusing to appropriate enough money to sustain a tiny Army, a minuscule Air Corps and just barely providing enough for the always-favored Navy. Personnel took the hardest hit, with demotions ...
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On October 7, 2011, I had the great honor of being inducted into the Commemorative Air Force's American Combat Airman Hall of Fame. The honor was all the greater because of the other inductees, which included Brigadier General Steve Ritchie, the last American pilot ace, and the only man ever to shoot down 5 MiG ...
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A GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY FOR A WARRIOR WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD April 15, 2012 will mark the 60th anniversary of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortess bomber. Just sixty years before, at Boeing Field, Seattle, the second prototype YB-52, serial number 49-0231, took off for the first time. No one, not its designers nor even its pilots, “Tex” ...
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