Flight Test Museum to Expand
The Air Force Flight Test Museum, located at Edwards Air Force Base in California, is planning a move to bigger quarters.
View ArticleWWII Heroes Win Gold
The Congressional Gold Medal has been approved for members of the Civil Air Patrol or CAP who served during WWII and to the legendary Doolittle Raiders.
View ArticleHawaii by Air
National Air and Space Museum Though the first transpacific air service to Hawaii began in 1935, via Pan American Airways’ Clippers, the real tourist boom didn’t commence until after WWII, when a new...
View ArticleNational Aviation Heritage Invitational
This year’s grand champion and winner of the Neil A. Armstrong National Aviation Heritage Trophy was a beautiful 1934 Waco YKC cabin-class biplane.
View ArticleSmithsonian Treasures on Display
A recent media preview at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center provided an opportunity to check out some fascinating projects.
View ArticleThird Time’s the Charm?
Britain's most star-crossed restoration project is back in the air.
View ArticleImmaculate Restorations
MeierMotors, thanks to PRman/webmaster Matthias Dorst, has flooded warbird forums with photos of MM’s restorers at work on a variety of notable airplanes.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thinking Outside the Gondola
On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace ascended to 135,890 feet wearing a pressure suit with life support system before exceeding the speed of sound in a record-breaking skydive. J. Martin Harris A little...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Herk Rescue Mission
Former hostages and rescuer reunite near Secord's C-130 in 2013. Mack Secord On November 24, 1964, Mrs. Marilyn Wendler was an 11-year-old missionary’s daughter scrambling aboard a U.S. Air Force C-130...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Savannah’s Flying Fortress
Volunteers pose with 'City of Savannah' as it nears completion. Gulf Stream Aerospace They called it the Mighty Eighth—the Eighth Air Force, the most effective bomber force of World War II. Though...
View ArticleTweets Heard Round the World
Amelia Rose Earhart arrives at Oakland after her 24,300-mile journey. AP Photo/Oakland Tribune During Amelia Earhart’s ill-fated 1937 round-the-world attempt, the famed Golden Age flier dubbed “Lady...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Google Takes Over Moffett Field
With a 200-foot-high ceiling and a floor surface covering eight acres, Hangar One at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., is an appropriate place from which to launch some very big ideas. That seems...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Seabee Revival
Mike Araldi's Republic RC-3 amphibian, which he christened "Abeja" ("Bee"), is marked accordingly. Every dog has its day—even a Seabee. A design bought by Republic to help keep its Long Island factory...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Down-Under Boxkite Replica
Until now, there has been only one flying Bristol Boxkite—the oft-photographed example that is part of the Shuttleworth Collection in England, a fragile chaos of cables and turnbuckles that is flown...
View ArticleClik here to view.
EAA’s Standard J-1 Returns
The EAA's Standard J-1, decked out in the markings of fictional barnstormer Waldo Pepper, takes to the air again. The square-cut 1916-18 Standard J-1 biplane is notorious for being mistaken as a...
View ArticleOsprey Settles Into New Nest
The Air Force’s oldest Osprey (a CV-22), originally built as a preproduction aircraft for the U.S. Navy, enters retirement.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dog Finds a New House
Veterans of HMM-361 pose with the restored Sikorsky UH-34D they presented to the National Museum of the Marine Corps. U.S. Marine Corps The Sikorsky UH-34D was properly named the Seahorse when flown by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Battling Beast Debuts
The first airplane to emerge from the new restoration hangar at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center was unveiled to the public on April 1: the Curtiss SB2C-5 Helldiver
View ArticleClik here to view.
Drones vs. Poachers
The drones are flown from a mobile command post. The Lindbergh Foundation Poachers are killing so many elephants and rhinos in Africa that biologists predict both species may soon be extinct without...
View Article‘Wichita Fokker’ Takes Flight
Eric Berens' Travel Air 2000 makes its first flight since 1937. The Model 2000's superficial resemblance to the Fokker D.VII earned it a role in Howard Hughes' "Hell's Angels." Image: Jim Weeden The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spanish Stork
Emilio Garcia-Conde's Fieseler Fi-156 "Storch" in Spanish Civil War Nationalist markings. For all its warlike mien and malevolent insignia, the Luftwaffe version of the Fieseler Fi-156 Storch (Stork)...
View ArticleMorane-Saulnier Across the Med
Flying a replica Morane-Saulnier G, Baptiste Salis arrives in Tunisia, having crossed the Mediterranean a century after Roland Garros first did so in a Morane-Saulnier H. ©2013 Demotix It’s a quirk of...
View ArticleA Tigercat Roars Again
James Slattery's Grumman F7F-3N Tigercat made its debut at the EAA AirVenture this summer. Image: Jim Koepnick The only reason to restore a Grumman F7F Tigercat is because it’s so beautiful. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Coast to Coast on Sun Power
Imagine flying 900 miles at about 40 mph in a cockpit that has half the interior space of a Mini Cooper, with wings the span of a commercial jet providing lift. Now remove the gas tank, add 12,000...
View ArticleGee Bee Super Q.E.D. II
The Super Q.E.D. II first flew in September 2013, and made its public debut at Oshkosh in the summer of 2014.
View ArticleOriginal Air Force One
An L-749 Constellation is the first aircraft to carry the coveted call sign "Air Force One."
View ArticleTravel Air Type R Replica
The Travel Air Type R, popularly known as the “Mystery Ship,” was the first civilian air racer to beat military-backed modified fighters.
View ArticlePatuxent Crown Jewel
Since it's a non-flying replica, the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum's A-1 Triad was built with an emphasis on authenticity. (Courtesy of Hank Caruso) While the Wright brothers were supplying versions...
View ArticleKermit’s Curtiss-Wrights
The Curtiss-Wright CW-19 is a rare representative of the transitional days when U.S. aviation stepped fully into the mid-20th century.
View ArticleTwin Beech Takes Top NAHI
From left: George Scott, Matt Walker and Mike Kvasnik with their award-winning 1946 Beechcraft D-18S. Photo: Jim Dunn Each year the National Aviation Heritage Invitational (NAHI) brings together some...
View ArticleLearjet’s Golden Anniversary
Rat Pack stalwarts Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra lent Lear's private jet an invaluable aura of cool during the mid-1960s. John Bryson/Sygma/Corbis It wasn’t until the age of 50 that Frank Sinatra owned...
View ArticleFrom da Vinci to Voyager
In 1505-06, Leonardo da Vinci envisioned a day when humans would fly like birds. Biblioteca Reale, Turin; Inset, NASA “One can draw an imaginary line from the genius of the Renaissance Leonardo da...
View ArticleDouglas World Cruiser Redux
Beginning next spring, the World Cruiser replica "Seattle II" is poised to reprise the 1924 round-the-world flight made by its forebear. Image: Bob Dempster Any American who can fog a mirror will know...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Germany Retires Its Last Phantom
On June 29 Germany became the latest—but by no means the last—country to retire its McDonnell-Douglas F-4F Phantom II fighter-bombers, after 41 years of service. Of the 263 Phantoms used by the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Flying Pencil’ Recovery
On August 26, 1940, German Dornier Do-17Zs of Kampfgeschwader 3 on a mission to bomb British airfields at Hornchurch and Debden were attacked by Boulton-Paul Defiants of No. 264 Squadron, Royal Air...
View ArticleDoolittle Raiders Drink a Final Toast
Edward Saylor, Dick Cole (Jimmy Doolittle's copilot) and David Thatcher drink to their comrades. Photo courtesy U.S. Air Force A milestone historical event took place on November 9, 2013, at the...
View ArticleWaiting for the Candy Bomber
Spirit of Freedom is one of hundreds of aircraft that delivered more than 200,000 tons of food and fuel during the airlift.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Living in the Age of Airplanes
Producer/director Brian Terwilliger’s love letter to aviation, Living in the Age of Airplanes reminds us of the myriad ways in which flying has transformed our lives and our world. At the film’s April...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bata Lockheed Electra
Many of us assume that corporate flying was developed by Texas oil barons and Midwestern entrepreneurs during the 1930s, but it was a Czech shoe company, Bata, that pioneered a particularly productive...
View ArticleAviation History Briefing- November 2009
Two Harpoon Twins The PV-2 Harpoon was the last in a long line of Lockheed double-fin twins that started in 1934 with the Model 10 Electra (Amelia Earhart’s mythic airplane) and included the RAF’s...
View ArticleAviation History Briefing- September 2009
Scrapyard Spitfire There are more Spitfires flying today than have been airworthy since the early 1950s: at least 50, some sources say, with as many as 150 more in various stages of rebuilding and...
View ArticleAviation History Briefing- July 2009
Barn Cub Found Every collector’s dream is to come across a “barn find,” though often the discovery doesn’t involve a barn. It can be a Merlin engine spotted in a junkyard, a decrepit Stearman parked in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Homebuilt Macchi M.5 Replica
When I first read that a Holland, Mich., aviation enthusiast and former pilot had built a Macchi M.5 “fighter plane,” I put that description down to a newspaper columnist’s overheated and underinformed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spirit of TWA Transcontinental
The oldest surviving ex-TWA aircraft, a Lockheed 12A Electra Junior, made a coast-to-coast round trip in September to celebrate the opening of the new JFK Terminal 5. The structure is attached to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Soccer War Corsair
Some of the most unusual Corsairs in the world are the two dozen that participated in the last-ever air war involving piston-engine fighters, during the July 1969 “Soccer War” between El Salvador and...
View ArticleAviation History Briefing- January 2009
The Airmail Flies Again Ninety years ago, in May 1918, the U.S. Post Office Department inaugurated airmail service and began an adventure in American history much like the days of the Pony Express, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The First Crusader
The First Crusader Few important aircraft prototypes make it to fully restored museum status. They often become test mules and are eventually junked, or they are fettled to become prototypes for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Breitling Jet Team Debuts in U.S.
Spectators at the Sun ’n Fun Fly-In & International Expo in Lakeland, Fla., got to see the first-ever public performance in America of the Breitling Jet Team on April 24 and 25. Flying L-39...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Percival Mew Gull Debuts
Percival Mew Gulls dominated British air racing in the late 1930s.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Albatros Returns to Old Rhinebeck
A replica Albatros D.Va built in the 1970s has been restored and is back in the air. Students of the Saxe Middle School of New Canaan, Connecticut, raised funds for the restoration.
View Article
