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…]A century ago in May 1919, three huge seaplanes set out to be the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic, albeit with stops en route in Canada and the Azores. One of the three, designated NC-4, completed the journey, reaching the final destination of Plymouth, England, on May 31.
The aircraft that proved capable of crossing the Atlantic in 1919 was born in desperate times during World War I. The German navy had perfected its U-boats in that war, and Allied shipping paid a terrible price. The U.S. Navy sought a far-ranging flying boat to combat the enemy submarines at sea.
Designed by Glenn Curtiss in collaboration with Navy engineers and pilots in the fall of 1917, the resulting seaplane was too late for wartime service. But its great range made this aircraft a natural for long overwater flights.
[Read more…]The men hollered raucously and joyously over the noise of the two Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engines and the slipstream ripping past the open doors in the converted F27 airliner.
The flight was taking us from a ground-level temperature in the 80s to a much colder zone near freezing at 12,500′. One of the men yelled a chant the rest of his team recognized even over the roar, and then he ran up the aisle of the aircraft, slapping palms with the others in bench seats facing toward the aisle.
As good as an Army Golden Knights parachute team jump is to watch at an air show, that distant performance only hints at the dedication, teamwork, and camaraderie these military professionals practice daily.
It was my good fortune to hitch a ride in the team’s venerable C-31A (F27) propjet airliner jump plane for a night show over SUN ‘n FUN 2019 at Lakeland, Florida, in April.
[Read more…]General Aviation News reader Jack Handy recently sent in a batch of U.S. Air Force photos that were gathered by Wilber Clouser, an Air Force Systems Command technical editor of handbooks after World War II.
One interesting subset of these photos shows aircraft from several manufacturers that were efforts to meet the needs of the oncoming jet age. Some designs shunned jets, using more economical piston engines as stopgap powerplants until jet developments rendered those aircraft obsolete in the early 1950s.
The problems facing the Air Force, and designers, revolved around jet engine developments and the need for range and speed unheard of during the recently concluded World War II.
In an era when cutting and bending aluminum was the mainstay of airframe builders, it was relatively easy for contractors to build a few prototypes. Designs proliferated in the last half of the 1940s, but not all bore the fruit of long-term production.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve heard of Waco aircraft. The name derives from the last initial of its one of founders, George Weaver, and an abbreviated form of Aircraft Company, hence Waco.
Weaver and his partners set up business in Ohio in 1920 under the Waco name. The company became Advance Aircraft for awhile, but the biplanes are called Wacos, pronounced Wah-co, not Way-co. [Read more…]
