Category Archive

They are seen by many as two of the finest fighter planes of world war 2 and yet both had rather inauspicious beginnings but through upgrades, both large and small they became formidable fighting machines that were feared and admired by both sides but how did the Focke-wolf FW-190 stack …

From Vietnam to the Falklands and from the cold war to the middle east, air to air refuelling or tanking is the unseen force enabler allowing those countries which have this capability, to project their airpower around the world and allowing their aircraft to stay in the air for as …

The SR-71 was a groundbreaking aircraft designed to take the place of the U2 spy plane but in the time between the U2 and before the SR-71, another aircraft was proposed and designed by the same man Clarence “Kelly” Johnson,  this would be so radical that it had the classification …

The first time we used hydrogen for civil aviation, it all ended rather badly, since then when you ever mention hydrogen-powered flight the first thing many people think of is the Hindenburg, but the times they are a-changing and with the pressure to find new non-fossil fuels for aircraft, will …

When you think of vertical take of and landing aircraft other than helicopters, probably the first ones that spring to mind is the now-retired Harrier Jump jet and the much more recent Lockheed F-35B and this might make you wonder why there haven’t been more of them around. Well, what’s …

They are some of the most unusual aircraft of the past 80 years, responsible for sightings of UFO’s across the US and became the most expensive plane ever built and all from the principle that they are the most aerodynamic of any plane design and yet they fell into obscurity …

The British aircraft industry from the later part of WW1 up until the 1950’s was one of biggest in the world with a large number manufacturers building some of the most iconic planes of the time as well as creating groundbreaking technologies like the jet engine and onboard radar. So …

Now it may sound like a bit of a bold claim that one engine helped change the course of world war 2 but when you look at the evidence you will see that it has a lot of validity, but it wasn’t the only good engine around at the time, …

During the 1950s NATO faced a new threat from Soviet Union, western intelligence believed they were building a fleet of supersonic nuclear bombers that could fly higher and faster than anything NATO had including it’s interceptors. The UK’s response was to create a groundbreaking fighter that not only would outperform …