The Swedish Bomb
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
Author: HW
High Flight – the Untold Story of Aviation’s Greatest Poem
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
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
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
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
Kipling’s Visions of Conquest of the Air
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.
The Shufti Kite
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
An Early Lifting Body
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
Hot Rod of the Winter Sky
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
Pigs in Space!
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.
By Rocket Plane Across the Atlantic
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
A Revolutionary One-Man Helicopter
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
Close Air Support REJECTED
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
Who Invented the Rocketship?
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.
Super Streamlining for Speed
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
The 1935 Plan to Use Rocket Airplanes to Deliver US Mail
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
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
Not a Captured French Plane
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
The Six-Ship Takeoff
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
American Ingenuity
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,
An Aerobatic Amazement
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
A Daring Flight on D-Day
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
The Curtiss Autoplane
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
Weird, But Not French
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
The VW of the Skies
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
America’s Victory Program
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
A New Sensor Platform
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
An Absolute Failure
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
The Bombing of Tulsa
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
Encounter over the Iron Curtain
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
Fritz Beckhardt’s Final Flight
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
An Unexpected Canard
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
Don’t Flare on Landing
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
Narrow and Sleek
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
First Off at Pearl Harbor
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
Puzzle Pictures
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
Royal Flush
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
The First Air Support for Tanks
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
The Dippy Twist Loop
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
Elliptical Wing Wonder
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