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Author: HW

The Swedish Bomb

admin June 24, 2021

Beneath the crowded streets of Stockholm, there’s an underground, rock-lined cavern that today serves as a concert and entertainment hall. But back in 1954, it was home to R1, Sweden’s

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High Flight – the Untold Story of Aviation’s Greatest Poem

admin April 18, 2021April 18, 2021

Published on April 18, 2021 By Thomas Van Hare Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined

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Crisis in Space – MiG Mad Marine, John Glenn and Friendship 7

admin March 21, 2021March 27, 2021

Published on March 21, 2021 By Thomas Van Hare On February 20, 1962, John Glenn, one of America’s most famous astronauts, climbed into the Mercury-Atlas 6 capsule “Friendship 7”.  His

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The Red Stuff — the Soviet Chuck Yeager Revealed

admin March 11, 2021March 27, 2021

Published on March 11, 2021 by Thomas Van Hare Most people know of Chuck Yeager, the pilot who first broke the sound barrier in 1947 in his bright orange Bell

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The Siege of Tsingtao

admin January 19, 2021January 19, 2021

January 19, 2021 By Thomas Van Hare At the start of the Great War in 1914, Europe held sway over much of China.  Great Britain had Hong Kong.  The US

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Kipling’s Visions of Conquest of the Air

admin April 23, 2020April 23, 2020

Published on April 23, 2020 By Thomas C. Van Hare FAMILY DIRIGIBLE. A competent, steady man wanted for slow speed, low level Tangye dirigible.  No night work, no sea trips. 

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The Shufti Kite

admin March 20, 2020March 20, 2020

Published on March 20, 2020 By Thomas Van Hare Week after week on Saturdays — the Jewish sabbath — at roughly noon, the pilots of the newly founded Israeli Air

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An Early Lifting Body

admin July 10, 2019

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed just two years after the end of the Great War. A lifting body design that added more than 1/4 to the available

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Hot Rod of the Winter Sky

admin June 5, 2018

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A brilliant combat design, fast and with fine maneuverability. Wings and fuselage were made of plywood; didn’t fare well in the weather. Powered

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Pigs in Space!

admin June 5, 2018June 5, 2018

Published June 5, 2018 By Ron Miller/io9 As much as we love The Muppets, in 1963 a pair of NASA engineers entertained the idea of sending real pigs into space.

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By Rocket Plane Across the Atlantic

admin March 23, 2018March 23, 2018

Published March 23, 2018 By Ron Miller/io9 A stubby-winged plane launches itself from an airport runway on the outskirts of Berlin. When it reaches an altitude of several miles, it

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A Revolutionary One-Man Helicopter

admin March 23, 2018

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed by two college dropouts in their 20s. However, neither designer knew how to fly a helicopter! Body styling reminiscent of a Ford

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Close Air Support REJECTED

admin March 13, 2018March 19, 2018

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Lost out in the bid to be the leading CAS aircraft. A brilliant design, even with its Hersey Bar wing. Amazing visibility, slow

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Who Invented the Rocketship?

admin March 12, 2018March 8, 2018

Published on March 12, 2018 By Ron Miller/io9 The birth of the idea of traveling to other worlds through outer space can be given a specific date: January 7, 1610. 

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Super Streamlining for Speed

admin March 6, 2018

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A record-setter showcasing advancing streamlining. A fuel tank atop the fuselage, blocks the pilot’s view. Nearly 200 mph, yet still a very slow

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The 1935 Plan to Use Rocket Airplanes to Deliver US Mail

admin March 6, 2018March 6, 2018

Published on March 6, 2018 By Ron Miller/io9.com In 1935, a wealthy, enterprising stamp dealer, 32-year-old Frido W. Kessler, came up with what seemed like a brilliant idea. He would

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A Nenadovich Biplane Type

admin November 29, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A Nenadovich design, fairly unique in aeronautical engineering. Designed by one nation, finished and flown by another. A wartime experimental design that showed

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Not a Captured French Plane

admin October 23, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A rotary engine fighter from the Great War. 80 hp when more powerful engines were preferred. Looks like French wings on a German

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The Six-Ship Takeoff

admin October 23, 2017November 7, 2017

Published October 23, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare “Our job tomorrow will be to take off well before daylight for the first time in history and bomb the gun positions

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American Ingenuity

admin September 7, 2017September 7, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Two cylinders and 150 hp. No combustion required in the cylinders! Can rotate the prop either direction — reversing thrust! Based on, well,

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An Aerobatic Amazement

admin August 24, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A 1950s, fully aerobatic job that still amazes. Belgian, but most popular in the UK. Not a home built, but a full production

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A Daring Flight on D-Day

admin June 6, 2017June 6, 2021

Published on June 6, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare On D-Day, June 6, 1944, after passing a tense and confusing early morning hours in the cockpit of his yellow-nosed Messerschmitt

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The Curtiss Autoplane

admin May 7, 2017May 8, 2017

Published on May 7, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare “At the aero show held at New York early this year there was exhibited a Curtiss triplane, which aroused the greatest

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Weird, But Not French

admin May 7, 2017May 7, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Not everything in the skies that looks weird is French. A German’s first foreign production plane after WWII. A late-1950s effort that helped

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The VW of the Skies

admin April 20, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: From 55 years ago, before the home-builder revolution. Perfectly at home on wheels, skies or floats. Less than 350 lbs empty weight, a

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America’s Victory Program

admin March 27, 2017March 27, 2017

Published on March 27, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler, a well-known Democratic Party isolationist, was shocked by what the US Army Air Corps officer, a

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A New Sensor Platform

admin March 27, 2017March 26, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed as a sensor platform for counterinsurgency. A twin-boom design reminiscent of the Skymaster and Mohawk. To carry wing-loads of rockets and other

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An Absolute Failure

admin February 27, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed to replace a venerable, well-used type. Outlasted by the plane it was designed to replace. Named after a demon because of the

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The Bombing of Tulsa

admin February 27, 2017June 25, 2021

Published on February 27, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare On the morning of June 1, 1921, the Ku Klux Klan and the white population of Tulsa made their move. At

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Encounter over the Iron Curtain

admin February 10, 2017

Published on February 10, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare The two USAFE F-84E Thunderjets made a beeline toward the border between West Germany and Czechoslovakia.  At the border, they turned

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Fritz Beckhardt’s Final Flight

admin January 27, 2017January 27, 2017

On November 13, 1918, the pilots of the German fighter group, Kampfeinsitzerstaffel 5 (Kest 5), flew their final mission of the Great War.  Two days earlier, at the 11th Hour

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An Unexpected Canard

admin January 23, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A single prototype of a highly innovative design. It crash-landed, killing the test pilot when it hit a tree. A fighter to be

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Don’t Flare on Landing

admin January 15, 2017January 15, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: An old design from a classic designer. So underpowered and yet it flew. The rudder cables are below the fuselage. Tricycle gear yet

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Narrow and Sleek

admin January 3, 2017January 15, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Twin-engine and those look like American cowlings. The rudders give a good hint, but not Earhart. A wartime design but relatively unknown. This

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First Off at Pearl Harbor

admin December 7, 2016

Published on December 7, 2016 By Thomas Van Hare Exactly 75 years ago today, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, catching America by surprise.  From the first

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Puzzle Pictures

admin November 19, 2016November 19, 2016

Published on November 19, 2016 By Thomas Van Hare The challenges of aerial photo interpretation are extraordinary.  A dark smudge at the base of a hill may be the concealed

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Royal Flush

admin October 10, 2016July 16, 2019

Published on October 10, 2016 By Thomas Van Hare On Sunday, October 10, 1943 — 73 years ago in aviation history — the 8th Air Force flew a bombing raid

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The First Air Support for Tanks

admin October 3, 2016November 29, 2016

Published on October 3, 2016 By Thomas Van Hare Almost exactly one hundred years ago, the world’s first tanks rolled onto the battlefields of the Somme.  Amazingly, the first use

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The Dippy Twist Loop

admin September 26, 2016March 11, 2021

Published on September 26, 2016 By Thomas Van Hare She was just the fourth woman in the world to be certified as a pilot.  She was also the first to

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Elliptical Wing Wonder

admin September 26, 2016September 25, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: The wing really is elliptical and it flies! Little wingtip vortices improves performance 30%. Structurally more sound than conventional designs. Made for civilian

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