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Interdiction and Crossbow On Sunday morning, June 18, 1944, Clementine Churchill, the prime minister’s wife, visited London’s Hyde Park to see her daughter Mary, who was a young officer serving with the local anti-aircraft battery. It had been a busy week on the home front. Almost two weeks prior, the invasion force had departed British ports and landed on the…
An A-4H of No. 102 ‘Flying Tigers’ Squadron, upgraded with most of the features of the A-4N. Israel (Israel Air Force/Defence Force) Israel is and has been the largest A-4 operator outside the US. Up to 1976, the Israel Defence Force/Air Force (IDF/AF) is believed to have acquired 321 new…
A Harrier II+ ‘radar bird’ of Marine Attack Squadron (VMA) 542, ‘Flying Tigers’ based at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina, in the mid-1990s. An AV-8B Night Attack jet of VMA-214 ‘Black Sheep’ as it appeared in 1989. Working up during the 1991 Gulf War, the unit…
The Royal Air Force (RAF) and Army Air Corps, based in Malaya, provided multi-role air support to emergency operations. This was either as an independent force of the operation, or in direct cooperation with forces on the ground. There were six facets to the availability of air support: 1.Photographic air…
The KuK Versuchsgleitboot or “glider boat” was a mix between a WiG (Wing in Ground Effect) and hovercraft back in 1916. One of the earliest military examples of such vehicle was the very innovative Austro-Hungarian Versuchsgleitboot, an attempt to devise a “gliding boat”. It was not really a hovercraft since…
SKYBORG An Air Force concept of a future Skyborg system depicts an unmanned aircraft firing an AIM-120 missile from an internal weapons bay, signaling an air-to-air role. The next combat aircraft to enter the U.S. Air Force inventory will not be a manned sixth-generation fighter or even the Northrop Grumman…
Design began at the end of 1941 of an all new single seat fighter using the new VK-107 engine, requiring the least possible drag, smallest dimensions and weight consistent with a manoeuvrable and tough machine. Due to delays with the VK-107 engine and pressure to build the maximum number of…
Arguably, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 evolved into wartime Germany’s most effective fighter, offering the Luftwaffe…
Douglas A-20 Havoc Douglas Aircraft developed the Model 7B twin-engine light attack bomber in the…
Final Encounter (Spitfire v Messerchmitt) by Michael Turner. Wing Commander J E Johnnie Johnson, Spitfire…
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