Sally Ride, NASA’s First Female in Space, Dies
Astronaut Sally K. Ride, Ph.D., the first American woman to fly into space, died on July 23, 2012, at her …
Aerospace
B-26 Marauder Pilot Fought the German Jets
Long after World War II, former B-26 Marauder medium bomber pilot Jim Vining was in a room with Adolf Galland, …
The Messerschmitt Me 262 Jet Fighter
The Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe (“Swallow”), also called the Sturmvogel (“Stormbird”) in its fighter-bomber version, was the world’s first operational …
Book Review – Thunderbolts of the Hell Hawks, by Don Barnes, John Crump, and Roy Sutherland
Once in a while, a book will capture your attention not because it’s educational, not because it’s entertaining, but because …
Messerschmitt’s P.1101 Never Flew, but Influenced Aviation for Decades
When American tanks rolled into Oberammergau in Bavaria on April 29, 1945, the war had not yet ended and the …
Capt. F. Gary Powers, CIA U-2 Pilot, Awarded the Silver Star
Capt. Francis Gary Powers, the pilot of the Central Intelligence Agency U-2 spy plane that was shot down over the …
An Interview With Col. Walter J. Boyne, USAF (Ret.)
The classic melody “Ode to Joy” from the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony welled up in the mind of …
The Battle of Midway: The Sole Survivor of Torpedo Squadron 8
Then-Ensign George Gay, U.S. Navy Reserve, was the pilot of one of the 15 Douglas TBD-1 Devastators of Torpedo Squadron …
XF-11 Was Howard Hughes’ “Might Have Been” Reconnaissance Aircraft
On July 7, 1946, a young Marine on leave, Sgt. William Lloyd Durkin, was relaxing next door to an unoccupied …
Chuck Gumm, the First Mustang Ace in the War Against Germany
First Lt. Charles F. Gumm, Jr. looked out from his cockpit, scanned the sky and scanned again.
He was called …