Aircraft

North American F-82 Twin Mustang PartĀ II

Aircraft 22 Min Read

P-82B Model The USAAF ordered 500 Merlin-powered P-82B Twin Mustangs (Model NA-123) on 8 March 1944 with production contract AC-2384, sixteen months before NAA test pilot George ā€˜Wheatiesā€™ Welch took the first P-82B, 44-65160, aloft for the first time on 31 October 1945. The end of the war forced the USAAF to re-evaluate the Twin Mustangā€™s future and instead of…

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Aircraft Soviet 13 Min Read

Early Soviet JetsĀ II

Ilyushin Il-28 After a slow start the Soviets had by 1953 caught up on Western jet fighters mainly due to the copying of British Rolls-Royce engines. MiG had now become the dominant aircraft designer and its fighters would see service round the world for more than 40 years. This lead…

Aircraft Soviet 13 Min Read

The production MiG-9 inĀ detail

The MiG-9 was a cantilever mid-wing monoplane of all-metal construction with a smooth stressed skin and a retractable tricycle undercarriage. To simplify the process of assembly the aircraft was divided into several production units. Fuselage: semi-monocoque stressed-skin structure. Duralumin was used as the main structural material. Technologically the fuselage was…

Aircraft Soviet 17 Min Read

MiG-9

The initial-production 1-300s (by then the type had been allocated the service designation MiG-9) were to be powered by BMW 003A engines, a small stock of which had been captured in Germany. Known in service as the RD-20 Series A1, these original German engines had a TBO of only ten…

Air Warfare Aircraft Wars 28 Min Read

World War IIĀ Aviation

Although it cannot be said that airpower won World War II, it is fair to state that airpower made possible and accelerated the Alliesā€™ victory over the Axis powers. If airpower had been removed entirely from the equation, it is possible that the end result might have been exactly the…

Aircraft 13 Min Read

NACA-Langley and JohnĀ Becker

John Beckerā€™s 11-inch hypersonic wind tunnel. (NASA) During the war the Germans failed to match the Allies in production of airplanes, but they were well ahead in technical design. This was particularly true in the important area of jet propulsion. They fielded an operational jet fighter, the Me-262, and while…

Aircraft 24 Min Read

First Steps in HypersonicĀ Research

Sanger Amerika Bomber Todayā€™s world of high-speed flight is international, with important contributions having recently been made in Japan, Australia, and Russia as well as in the United States. This was even truer during World War II, when Adolf Hitler sponsored development programs that included early jet fighters and the…

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Focke Wulf Fw 190D-9Ā Dora

Arguably, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 evolved into wartime Germanyā€™s most effective fighter, offering the Luftwaffe…

American Medium Bombers of WWII PartĀ I

Douglas A-20 Havoc Douglas Aircraft developed the Model 7B twin-engine light attack bomber in the…

Spitfire XIVs versus BfĀ 109Ks

Final Encounter (Spitfire v Messerchmitt) by Michael Turner. Wing Commander J E Johnnie Johnson, Spitfire…

German Failure to Develop a Four-EngineĀ Bomber

ā€œAmerikaā€ bomber Amerika Bomber: A group of Me 264 aircraft getting ready to take off.…