If everything aeronautical seemed possible in the heady post-war jet age, some aircraft designs found where the limitations were.
The Convair F2Y Sea Dart was one of four delta-wing jets in design or production by that San Diego company in the 1950s. Convair embraced the delta planform as its ticket to supersonic performance. [Read more…]
Long before entrepreneurs launched cars into space, pilots of the 1920s and 1930s were beholden to people of wealth who could sponsor record flights or offer cash prizes for the first intrepid aviator to achieve a specific milestone flight.
Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon teamed up in an effort to be the first to span the Pacific from Tokyo to the United States, but only after a round-the-world record attempt eluded them.
A native of Bridgeport, Washington, Pangborn was an adroit aviator who first groomed his skills during World War I. Herndon had the good fortune of access to sufficient wealth to underwrite his aviation interests.
The two initially collaborated for a run at the round-the-world flying record, seeking to break the leisurely 20-day pace logged aboard the dirigible Graf Zeppelin in 1929.
Wiley Post and Harold Gatty trimmed that globe-girdling time down to eight days and 15 hours before Pangborn and Herndon could execute their plan. The aircraft of choice for Pangborn and Herndon was a deep-bellied single-engine Bellanca “Long Distance Special” painted bright red and christened “Miss Veedol” for a motor oil sponsor. [Read more…]
The current ease of making digital color photographs is a taken-for-granted marvel that aviation photographers of earlier generations lacked.
The search for practical and permanent color photography began in the mid-19th Century. Early processes were complex and far from user-friendly.
The color revolution that changed all that was the introduction by Kodak of Kodachrome color transparency film for movies and slides in 1935 and 1936. By 1938, improvements in the Kodachrome developing process gave this color film superior archival longevity in dark storage when compared to most other color film processes.
That color stability has been of vital value to researchers and anyone pursuing color imagery dating back to before World War II. [Read more…]
The decade of the 1920s was a transitional time for American military aircraft design and construction.
Early fighters of the era, though better than the machines of the recently concluded Great War, were hardly revolutionary.
They began employing welded steel tube fuselages, a design advancement proven in combat with Fokker fighters flown by German airmen. [Read more…]
An age-old component of aviation has been the pilot-in-the-loop. A pilot brings sophisticated human faculties to bear in solving problems of flight and making judgments on proper actions.
But sometimes, the presence of a pilot can be detrimental — to the pilot. [Read more…]
When Anthony Fokker’s team introduced the futuristic Fokker D.VII biplane fighter to Germany in 1918, its welded steel tube fuselage and wings with less external bracing and rigging were a game-changer.
Clocking speeds as high as 124 miles an hour, the D.VII was bested in that regard by the contemporary British S.E.5 and French SPAD XIII biplanes, but that does not seem to have hampered its lethality. [Read more…]
Aircraft manufacturers and users have a penchant for picking names for their machines. Sometimes, a name is so good or so universally associated with a manufacturer that it gets recycled on a new design.
The Chance Vought company’s first Corsair was in 1926. It was an observation biplane, the O2U, supplanted by the O3U. Fewer than 300 were manufactured. [Read more…]
If World War I showed the nations of the world how the airplane could vault over ground emplacements to strike at an enemy, the combatants also came to appreciate the efficacy of using aircraft as ambulances to surmount obstacles and save precious time flying away from the fray. [Read more…]
It was rare — almost like lottery-winning rare — as three World War II Bell P-63 Kingcobras and one predecessor P-39 Airacobra landed at Wittman Field in late July for EAA AirVenture 2017 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
These aluminum ‘Cobras have become more furtive than their reptilian namesakes. To see one at an air show is a treat. To see four is, well, it’s Oshkosh.
The warbird ramp where the four ‘Cobras parked was awash in questions from visitors. So here’s a recap of the Oshkosh ‘Cobra convention, beginning with a brief background history on the P-39 and P-63. [Read more…]
It was not uncommon for mass-produced aircraft of the 20th Century to stick with one type of engine, albeit with model advances as the engines improved.
All production B-17s except the Model 299 prototype flew with some version of the Wright R1820 radial; B-24s were loyal to Pratt & Whitney R1830s.
The Douglas DC-3/C-47 series bucked that trend early, as commercial DC-3 variants tended to ride on Wright 1820s, while military C-47 versions were typically powered by Pratt 1830s. [Read more…]
