Category Archives: Aviators

If you were his friend, you didn’t call him “Slick”, you called him “Chal”, and you admired him both for his flying career and for his valiant efforts to obtain recognition for the prescient designs of Vincent J. Burnelli. Those designs, so remarkably modern when first introduced, are at last being realized, if not recognized, ...

On January 17, 1991, the world watched in wonder as its television sets showed stealth fighters, air-launched cruise missiles and precision guided munitions gut the Iraqi air defense system during the opening hours of Desert Storm. None knew then, and few know now, that the path for these high tech wonders was prepared by the ...

In considering a genius such as Willy Messerschmitt, you have to at first discount any reservations you have about the cause in which he served. It is difficult to look objectively at anyone who served in so important a way so sordid a regime as that of Adolph Hitler’s, but it is necessary to take ...

Describing Charles Rocheville as the Burt Rutan of his day is not really an accurate comparison, but it does give a hint of how Rocheville stood out from his contemporaries. Rutan has excelled in using new materials and unorthodox designs, while Rocheville used traditional materials in fairly orthodox designs. Rocheville is more like Rutan in ...

One of the great pleasures in writing aviation history in getting to meet some of the less-well known personalities who none the less had done so much for aviation, and who led interesting, fulfilled lives after they perhaps reached their peak in the industry. One such individual was Charles Rocheville, whose life and aircraft I covered ...