The Aircraft That Never Were: Convair Kingfish
In June 1956, the CIA began operating the new U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft’s high-altitude performance made it unreachable for ...
Tag: History of Aviation
Last Torpedo Carrier: Argentina’s IA-58 Pucará Experiment
You may remember one of the most dramatic scenes in the film Midway – where American torpedo bombers fly at low altitude ...
The story of Rosie the Rocketeer: Little airplane with ‘bazooka’
In the early 1940s, while developing a lightweight infantry anti-tank weapon – the M1 rocket launcher, later widely known as the “bazooka” – Colonel ...
American Attack Aircraft, Part 12: Lessons from the Luftwaffe
The highly effective use of German dive bombers during the Polish campaign and the Western Blitzkrieg naturally drew the interest ...
Pilatus Turboprop Aircraft: An Overview of PC-9
The PC-7 aircraft, whose long history I discussed recently, proved to be a commercially successful project. However, in 1980 it ...
A-60 Aircraft: Soviet Dream of Laser Weapons in the Sky
The A‑60 is one of the most obscure and ambitious projects to emerge from the late Soviet and later Russian ...
American Attack Aircraft, Part 10: Douglas Export Models
Building on the A-17 platform, the aircraft developers sought to enter international markets. Adopting a flexible approach to customer requirements, ...
Milestone for Aviation Icon: 90 Years Since the First Flight of Hurricane
Today marks 90 years since Flight Lieutenant George Bulman conducted the first flight of the Hurricane prototype at Brooklands. The ...
American Attack Aircraft, Part 9: Northrop A-17
As I mentioned in one of the earlier articles, the engineers at Northrop, drawing on their experience with the “militarization” ...