The U.S. Army experimented with the use of lighter-than-air blimps for a variety of needs.
Of Wings & Things
Vintage and vanishing military helicopters
The use of helicopters in the U.S. Air Force predates the Air Force as a separate service. In World War II, limited numbers of Sikorsky R-4s flew for the Army Air Forces. But with the separation of the Air Force from the Army in 1947, both branches of the military coveted helicopters to do certain […]
That’s a Standard, not a Jenny
Popular history has a way of making icons of some aircraft and almost ignoring others. In the case of American World War I biplane trainers, the Curtiss JN-4 and JN-6 Jenny series of biplanes are undisputed icons of their era. But there was another American trainer of 1917-18 that all too often gets lumped in […]
Sea Dart jet seaplane skimmed into history
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. But early […]
Miss Veedol’s victory spanned the Pacific
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 […]
Kodachrome captured World War II in color
That color stability has been of vital value to researchers and anyone pursuing color imagery dating back to before World War II.
Boeing P-12, F4B refined the art of American biplane fighters
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. […]
No pilot? No problem!
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. If an aircraft is to be subjected to dangers ranging from gun and […]
Game-changing Fokkers served on both sides of the Atlantic
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 […]