Aircraft
NOTAR
1 Air intake 2 Variable pitch fan 3 Tail boom with Coandă Slots 4 Vertical stabilizers 5 Direct jet thruster 6 Downwash 7 Circulation control tailboom cross-section 8 Anti-torque lift Diagram showing the movement of air through the NOTAR system. One of the most radical innovations in helicopter design began in the mid-1940s. In 1944, James Weir of the…
Most Recent
NATO Libyan Campaign Review I
NATO Post Libya On Thursday, 27 October 2011 the UN Security Council voted unanimously for a resolution ‘ending the mandate for foreign military action at 23:59 Libyan time on 31 October’. During the military action the NATO-led coalition had flown 26,000 sorties of which 10,000 were labelled strike missions. Interestingly,…
NATO Libyan Campaign Review II
The Paradigm of Intervention In the immediate aftermath of publishing its much-maligned Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) the United Kingdom’s coalition government became embroiled in a military adventure in Libya. Somewhat unexpectedly this would shine an intense spotlight on the outcome of the SDSR. It would also provide an…
Skynight: The Deadliest Night Fighter in Korea
With a profile that would never be considered glamorous, the Douglas Skyknight was a conventional design delivering truly mediocre performance. Still, the Navy needed a sedan, not a sports car, and designer Ed Heinemann, who won fame for the World War II Douglas Dauntless and the 1953 Collier Trophy for…
ARAB MiG-21F/FL “FISHBED” 1961-67
During the opening attacks of the 1967 Six Day War, the Israeli Air Force struck Arab air forces in four attack waves. In the first wave, IDF aircraft claimed to have destroyed eight Egyptian aircraft in air-to-air combat, of which seven were MiG-21s; Egypt claimed five kills scored by MiG-21PFs.…
The McDonnell F-4 Phantom
The big F-4 fighter-bomber was gradually evolved from the F3H, with which it had no more than a configurational similarity. Despite its size and bulky look, the F-4 had excellent performance and good maneuverability; it was adopted by both the USN and the USAF. Early F-4’s had no fixed gun,…
P-38 LIGHTNING Redux
“The P-38 was very unusual. Imagine what I felt when first climbing on board that airplane. Sitting on that tricycle landing gear, it was very high off the ground. There was a stepladder that dropped out of the tail end of the fuselage pod, and you took two steps up…