Airmail Pilots: Firsts and Legends

January 12, 2009 0

Early airmail flight was dangerous and its pilots needed to have a considerable amount of the daredevil in them to brave the risks. But whether these pioneers exhibited extraordinary (or perhaps foolhardy) bravery or were merely doing their job, the careers of the members of this “suicide club” were like those of few others. […]

Learjet

January 4, 2009 0

Learjet is a manufacturer of business jets for civilian and military use. It was founded in the late 1950s by William Powell Lear Jr. as Swiss American Aviation Corporation. Learjet is now a subsidiary of Bombardier and marketed as the “Bombardier Learjet Family”. […]

Boeing’s Metal Monoplanes of the 1930s

January 4, 2009 0

By the end of the 1920s, biplanes were becoming obsolete and manufacturers turned to building all-metal monoplanes. Boeing Aircraft led this technological revolution with welded steel tubing for fuselage structure. This soon became standard in the industry until it was replaced by monocoque sheet metal structures in the mid-1930s. […]

Dogfights – Tuskegee Airmen

January 1, 2009 0

This outstanding series of 5 videos features actual recreation of aerial battles, interlaced with interviews with some of the Tuskegee pilots themselves. The remaining videos will be added weekly. […]

Blanche Noyes

December 28, 2008 0

Blanche Noyes (June 23, 1900 – October 1981) was an American pioneering female aviator who was among the first ten women to receive a pilot’s license. […]

Kansas World War II Army Airfields

December 28, 2008 0

During World War II, Kansas was a major United States Army Air Force (USAAF) training center for pilots and aircrews of USAAF fighters and bombers. Kansas was a favored because it has excellent, year-round flying conditions. The sparsely populated land made ideal locations for gunnery, bombing, and training ranges. […]

Women in the Military in World War II

December 21, 2008 0

In 1941, the New York Herald Tribune published a letter from a woman who was tired of sitting at home worrying about the war. “If I were only a man, there would be a place for me,” she wrote. Many women shared similar feelings of frustration, eager to play an active role in the conflict, but held back because by law and tradition. […]

Boeing-Stearman Model 75

December 21, 2008 0

The Stearman (Boeing) Model 75 is a biplane, of which at least 9,783 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s as a military trainer aircraft. Stearman became a subsidiary of Boeing in 1934. Widely known as the Stearman, Boeing Stearman or Kaydet, it served as a Primary trainer for the USAAF, as a basic trainer for the USN (as the NS1 & N2S), and with the RCAF as the Kaydet throughout World War II. […]

The Earliest Overseas Aviation Companies: England, France, Germany, and Russia

December 21, 2008 0

The American and European aviation industries began to develop within a few years of each other, but Europe took the first formal steps to establish dedicated aircraft companies in the early decades of the 20th century. During this time, there was a shift from aircraft designers, builders, and pilots all being the same people to having entrepreneurs who ran the business and built the planes and others who flew them. […]

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