Aircraft
The Berlin Airlift 1948-49
Dancing with Bears-The Berlin Airlift – Set during the Berlin airlift this scene captures the harassment of the Soviet planes as Allied cargo comes in on a constant schedule. By Brian Bateman The joint occupation of Berlin had made sense when the Allies were expected to co-operate in administering Germany. In June 1948, over strenuous Soviet objections, the western occupying…
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Fire-breathing Rockbeaus I
Air Commodore E W “Bill” Tacon Tacon’s most outstanding wartime successes took place in 1944, after he converted to Beaufighters, joined 236 Squadron, and rapidly began to demonstrate dead-eyed accuracy with his front guns and rockets. On June 23 he attacked four R-boats entering Boulogne harbour; although his aircraft was…
Fire-breathing Rockbeaus II
The strike was to be led by Tony Gadd, formerly a flight commander with Gibbs on 22 Squadron, now wing commander flying of the North Coates wing. The leadership was given to North Coates because of their greater experience of operating off the Dutch coast. Gadd was a tall, slim,…
The Javelin ‘In Action’
Being a product of the Cold War, the Javelin was very fortunate never to have been involved in a conflict during its operational service career. The majority of home-based squadrons serving with Fighter Command during their Javelin period would have been involved in a seemingly endless round of QRAs (Quick…
Xian H-20 bomber
The latest edition of Modern Weaponry—a magazine published by Chinese state-owned defense giant Norinco—contains four computer-generated images of the upcoming Xian H-20 bomber. The pictures confirm the bomber’s internal weapons bay, flying wing design, and dark grey radar-absorbent coating, according to the South China Morning Post. These are the first…
Luft-Verkehrs Gesellschaft GmbH (LVG)
LVG B.I Unit: Bayerische Feldflieger-Abteilung 2 End of 1914. LVG C.II Unit: Kasta 4, KAGOHL 1 Serial: IV.1 Pilot – Lt.Hans Ulrich von Trotha, observer Lt.Baron von Lernsner. LVG C.V Unit: Flieger-Abteilung (A)212 Pilot – Flugzeugfuhrer UO Schroder, observer – Lt.August Auer. Early 1918. LVG C.VI Unit: Flieger-Abteilung? Serial: 4…
Zeppelin-Werke Staaken GmbH
Although firms like Siemens-Schuckert and Luftverkehrsgesellschaft (LVG) had made tremendous inroads into the development of long-range bombers during the First World War, the most successful company by far was Zeppelin-Werke Staaken. It was the Staaken R-planes that bombed Britain during the hostilities and they were the only large bombers to…