While chatting with the folks working on B-17 firebombers at the Mesa, Arizona, airport on a brisk winter day in 1980, someone said I needed to meet Max Biegert, the man responsible for getting the B-17F registered N17W out of a city park in Arkansas and returning it to flight as a large sprayer and air tanker. That B-17 now holds a place of honor in the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
Kinner’s bold Envoy design
A general aviation airplane ahead of its time.
World’s oldest Liberator is the CAF’s crown jewel
The Commemorative Air Force’s B-24 Diamond Lil has been flying more than 80 years. More than a half-century of that time has been under CAF stewardship. Lil has never looked better.
Hamilton Metalplane’s pedigree
There’s a reason the Hamilton Metalplane reminds you of a Ford Trimotor. The original Ford 3-AT Trimotor, as well as the Hamilton aircraft, were worked on by a young aircraft designer named James McDonnell — yes, that James McDonnell.
de Havilland’s diminutive Fox Moth
If front-line British warplanes advanced with the global state of the art from the 1930s into the postwar 1940s, some smaller utility aircraft remained delightfully unfazed by the eternal quest for speed or modernity. Such was the case with de Havilland’s diminutive Fox Moth biplane.
The one and only Boeing XB-15
Only one Boeing XB-15 bomber prototype was built, yet it provided the giant aircraft manufacturer with design ideas that shaped the famous B-17 and Model 314 Clipper airplanes.
The Douglas Dolphin
The Douglas Dolphin, launched at the beginning of the Great Depression, was a niche machine that would serve airlines, business leaders and, ultimately, the military.
The Stinson trimotor
The Stinson Aircraft Company carved its own niche in the market by selling its trimotors at low prices to airlines in the 1930s.
The fate of World War II surplus aircraft
Thousands of war surplus aircraft were scrapped after World War II, many salvaged for their engines, parts, and aluminum. By removing aged warplanes from the scene entirely, the aircraft industry and the military did not have to contend with some in Congress who might be attracted to false savings with old airplanes versus the development of state-of-the-art new aircraft.