Aviation History

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 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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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.

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 ...

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...

The Bridge of Spies

The Bridge of Spies is a story about the exchange of Rudolf Abel and Francis Gary Powers during the Cold War. Both the US and the USSR wanted their spies returned to them, so a swap took place in t...

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 U-2 Enters Service

The 60-year-old aircraft still flys today serving our country's need for information on our adversaries. U-2 flights began in 1956, but they were paused by President Eisenhower in 1958 because he w...

The Iconic U-2

In late 1954 the CIA, at the direction of President Eisenhower, was told to develop a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft due to the growing threat of the Soviet Union. Lockheed had developed the...