Warbird Roundup 2019 adds another high point to a special year for the Warhawk Air Museum of Nampa, Idaho.
The annual gathering of warbirds at the museum on Aug. 24-25 attracted a crowd of about 4,000. Warm sunny days favored those who came to watch a variety of warbirds fly throughout the day.
[Read more…]Aircraft manufacturers have long been adept at leveraging designs to gain as much utility — and production — as possible.
The dual tracks of commercial transport and military airlift had more in common in the 1940s than today. It was an era before low-sitting, end-loading, and air-dropping cargo behemoths defined military transport procurement. The need for moving large numbers of troops and large numbers of airline passengers over long distances had some commonality back then.
World War II blunted the development of pure civilian transports for the duration, but big players in the airline business, including Pan American Airways, had important wartime transport duties. Pan American also had enough clout to influence the development of a super transport for the Navy that might one day also be an ocean-spanning airliner.
[Read more…]The dawn of practical electric airplanes is already a glow on the horizon, illuminated by prescient entrepreneurs like Roei Ganzarski.
Roei brought examples of his electric aircraft motors to the Paris Air Show in June. He and his MagniX company discussed three electric aircraft programs promising to fly starting this year.
An all-electric deHavilland Beaver floatplane is expected to make its first flight in Vancouver, B.C., by November. In the works is an electric Cessna Caravan. And a fascinating clean-sheet design, the French nine-passenger pressurized aircraft called Alice, has chosen to use three of MagniX’s electric powerplants.
[Read more…]As the fledgling U.S. Army Air Service was still figuring things out, in 1924 it created the C-Class of aircraft to include cargo and personnel transport, doing away with an earlier T-series that indicated Transport.
And C-Cargo it has been ever since, starting with the original Douglas C-1 biplane, introduced in 1925.
[Read more…]There is only one Paris Air Show. Its size and number of exhibitors rank it as the largest event of its kind in the world. It is a mélange of high-stakes corporate displays, wheeling-and-dealing, aerial arms bazaar, technology reveal, and flying show.
It’s easy to list two reasons for visiting the Paris Air Show: The air show and Paris.
[Read more…]The Planes of Fame Air Museum hosted another fabulous warbird weekend air show May 4 and 5 at Chino, California. The emphasis at Chino is on wave after wave of warbirds flying loud and low circuits around the airfield, providing a stunning visual and aural experience unique to Chino.
[Read more…]The McDonnell Aircraft Company expressed a fondness for paranormal or spooky aircraft names.
This may date back to the company’s ambitious XP-67 fighter design during World War II occasionally referred to as the Bat or Moonbat, although the official nature of such a moniker is unclear.
Nonetheless, McDonnell — later McDonnell-Douglas and now part of the mega Boeing holdings — ran through a list of names with its ensuing jet fighters, including Phantom, Banshee, Goblin, and the F3H Demon.
[Read more…]The belle of the ball at SUN ‘n FUN 2019 in Lakeland, Florida, had to be Tom Reilly’s XP-82 Twin Mustang. It’s one of just over 270 built, one of only five extant, and the only one flying in the world.
Conceptually, it looks like two P-51 Mustang fuselages sharing a common wing. But the truth is a bit more complicated, as almost no parts from a P-51 interchange with the longer and somewhat reshaped P-82.
Tom Reilly, who restored this gem in his shop in Douglas, Georgia, knows that all too well.
[Read more…]A lot of moving parts characterized the development of aeronautics from 1941 to the end of World War II in 1945.
For the U.S. Navy, the creation of the twin-engine XF7F-1 Tigercat design in the summer of 1941 was a blend of technology and tradition.
From a distance, it looks like a new airplane. Closer, it wears a mantle of age gracefully. It is the Douglas C-47 called “That’s All, Brother,” and it is testament that everything old is new again.
Any C-47 flying today deserves the respect reserved for such a long-lived classic. “That’s All, Brother” rises far above that level with a story of heroism that turned the course of history.
This C-47 — yes, this very aircraft, not just one like it — led a stream of 800 C-47s on the initial airdrop missions opening the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. That’s the day the Allies had waited years to see. The western European continent was being reclaimed and liberated from German occupation from that date on.
[Read more…]
