American Attack Aircraft, Part 8: Contribution of Gerard Valtí
In 1932, aviation enthusiast Gerard Valtí secured financial backing from automotive magnate E. L. Cord and founded the Airplane Development...
All about the “passenger attack” Cessna AC-208 Combat Caravan: an air‑defense variant?
While writing an article on the Northrop Gamma attack aircraft, I kept getting a sense of déjà vu: the idea...
American Attack Aircraft, Part 7: John Northrop’s “Gamma”
In the first half of the 1930s, the U.S. aviation industry was introducing new civilian aircraft one after another. These...
Weapons of Ukraine’s Victory: AIM-132 Missile
Today, I’ll discuss a weapon that was originally designed for aviation use but is currently employed in Ukraine solely as...
American Attack Aircraft, Part 6: Experiments of the 1930s
In parallel with the production and deployment of the A-12 attack aircraft, the U.S. Army Air Corps tested several other...
First American Attack Aircraft, Part 5: Production A-12 “Shrike”
Although Curtiss won the 1931 competition for a new attack aircraft, its A-8 did not enter mass production. The main...
Weapons of Ukraine’s Victory: SDB Guided Bomb
In May 2024, reports confirmed that Ukrainian aviation had used U.S.-made GBU-39/B guided bombs, also known as SDBs – Small Diameter Bombs....
First American Attack Aircraft, Part 4: On the Eve of the 1930s
In the early 1930s, the U.S. finally introduced its first production attack aircraft: the Curtiss A-3 biplane. The plane proved...
American Attack Aircraft, Part 3: The First Production Variants
As mentioned in the previous part, in 1925 the leadership of the U.S. Army Air Service concluded that large, armored...