Aviation History

A photo of the altitude record setting Packard-Lèpere L USA C.II P53, A.S. 40015 aircraft in 1920. (U.S. Air Force)

Today we all enjoy comfortable flight in modern jet powered passenger aircraft which cruise at altitudes as high as 45,000 feet. What many do not realize is that the outside air temperature at thos...

A Boeing 707 sitting on the tarmac belonging to SABENA Airlines in 1961

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 (FAI) sitting her Grob G102 Astir CS glider

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...

Major Bernard Francis Fisher, United States Air Force, A-1E Skyraider Medal of Honor Pilor

An A-1 Skyraider Hero Pilot

The A-1 Skyraider was developed and manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company just after the end of World War II. This aircraft became very important in saving the lives of many during the Vietnam W...

Anna Leska

One of the things I find most interesting is that from the time the Wright Brothers first flew the Wright Flyer through the end of World War II many women pursued learning to fly. From when I first...

Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran, Aviatrix Extraordinaire pilot and entreprenuer

Jacqueline Cochran, Aviatrix Extraordinaire! - Part Two

This is the story of an amazing aviatrix who over her aviation career accomplished more than most pilots do in a lifetime. Follow Jackie as she goes from learning to fly in 1932 to starting her own...

A photograph of Jackie Cochran in 1932 at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, NY from a glass negative

Jacqueline Cochran, Aviatrix Extraordinaire!

Bessie Mae Pittman a/k/a Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran, hairdresser extraordinaire in Saks Fifth Avenue Stores. Meet one of the most interesting female pilots with a career lasting over four decades ...

Buffalo Airways Lockheed L188 Electra aircraft in flight

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...

F-8 Crusader aircraft in flight over the ocean off the coast of California

Jud, you're on fire!

Sometimes the truth really is stranger than fiction! It's June 21, 1963, and a routine ferry flight of a US Navy F-8 Crusader from California to Hawaii meets up with a KC-97 aerial refueler out ove...

An image of one of the three X-15 hypersonic aircraft hanging in the Milestone of Flight gallery of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

The X-15 Test Program

Read about the test program completed by the North American Aviation X-15 hypersonic rocket airplane, and it's many achievements in advancing high-speed aircraft and spacecraft.

NASA Researcg Test Pilot Neil Armstrong with the first North American X-15, 56-6670, on Rogers Dry Lake after a flight in 1960. His right hand is resting on the ball nose sensor.

The World's First Hypersonic Rocket Plane - The X-15

Scott Crossfield prepares for a flight in the North American Aviation X-15A The X-15 is a mid-wing monoplane with dorsal and ventral fin/rudders and stabilators. The wing has no dihedral while the ...

A photograph of the North American X-15 rocket powered aircraft

The Amazing Story of the X-15: A Revolutionary Spaceplane

North American Aviation, Inc., X-15A-1, 56-6670, at Los Angeles Division, October 1958. (Air Force Flight Test Center History Office) Since the first flight of the Wright Flyer on December 17, 190...