Aviation History

The Disappearance of the "Lady Be Good"

On April 4, 1943, a Consolidated B-24D Liberator with a crew of 9 departed an airfield in Libya on a night mission to bomb Naples, Italy. Discover the story of how the aircraft and crew disappeared...

Operation Baby Lift

Operation Baby Lift was a humanitarian effort undertaken by the US government to save South Vietnamese orphans from the North Vietnamese. Like so many other government programs, this one did not en...

The History Of Mountaineering and Aviation

In 1933 a British Expedition to photograph Mount Everest from an airplane was undertaken to map the mountain to help determine a possible route to the summit. It required exceptional pilots and air...

The Maker of Pilots: Willa B. Brown

Willa B. Brown, Aviatrix and Maker of Pilots Willa Beatrice Brown was born on January 22, 1906, to Eric Brown (an African American father) and Hallie Brown (her Native American mother) in Glasgow, ...

Project Excelsior

A reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter he envisioned for manned flight. Leonardo da Vinci made the first real studies of flight in the 1480's. Da vinci had over 100 drawings that illust...

OPERATION BOLO

"Mig Sweep" painting by Keith Ferris This painting is a depiction of the McDonnell F-4C21-MC Phantom II depicting the aircraft making a Vector Roll to gain a firing position on an enemy North Vietn...

A Boeing 707 Death Spiral

The Boeing 707 was one of the first jet powered intercontinental aircraft, it had four engines and one of the most interesting features of the aircraft were it's swept wings and tail surfaces. Spec...

Sabrina Patricia Jackintell, World Record Holding Aviatrix

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways…Chardonnay in one hand…chocolate in the oth...

The Sole Surviver

This is an interesting story about an aircraft accident that occurred over the Amazon jungle and the sole survivor of that accident. The aircraft involved was a Peruvian airline Lockheed Electra L1...

Gary Powers and the U-2 Program

The wreckage of the U-2 flown by Gary Powers over the Soviet Union an downed near Sverdlovsk The Aftermath Of The Downing The CIA's first indication that something was wrong with Power's mission oc...

The Birth Of Instrument Flying

In the early days of aviation, navigating in bad weather presented a real challenge for pilots, resulting in the early demise of many pilots. There were no navigation aids to help pilots easily fin...

The Flying Wing

Early adoption of the Flying Wing occurred in 1908 but achieved some success in 1940 when Jack Northrop built the N-1M Flying Wing aircraft. Following that success Northrop Aircraft Company went on...