Aviation History

Before World War II, in 1939, jet engines existed only as laboratory items for test. But at the end of the war, in 1945, it was clear that the future of aviation lay with jets. The new engines gave great power and thrust, but were compact in size. They also were simple in their overall layout. […]

Early Years On Aug. 1, 1907, the U.S. Army Signal Corps established a small Aeronautical Division to take “charge of all matters pertaining to military ballooning, air machines and all kindred subjects. […]

A list of aviation facts from the month of April […]

Joseph Christopher McConnell, Jr. (30 January 1922 – 25 August 1954) was the top American ace during the Korean War. A native of Dover, New Hampshire, Captain McConnell shot down 16 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s while flying F-86 Sabres with the U.S. Air Force. […]

At the end of World War I, the aircraft industry took a sharp nosedive. Several wartime aircraft companies closed their doors and others barely survived. One year after the Armistice, 90 percent of wartime production capacity had been eliminated. […]

The U.S. aircraft industry experienced huge growth during World War II. Moreover, its achievements, some claim, were as important to Allied victory as the military successes on the battlefield. American industry was fortunate in that it could operate without threat of air bombardment or other military damage to factories and without shortages of critical materials. And the industry used those advantages fully. […]

Aviation history facts and events from the month of March […]

If residents of Western Nevada had looked high up in the sky on the morning of Oct. 24, 1968, they might have seen the sun glinting off the fuselage of a silver, eight-engine NB-52A Stratofortress as it made a graceful turn over Smith Ranch Dry Lake. […]

Historical aviation facts and events from the month of February […]

The Concorde supersonic airliner, built jointly by France and Great Britain, to this day remains the only such supersonic plane to operate successfully in commercial service and has earned its prominent place in aeronautical history. […]