BRISTOL BRABAZON
TWO BRITISH might-have-beens made aviation history 60 years ago. Each was the largest aircraft of its type in the world. Each extended the state of the art in design, fabrication … Continue reading
MASSON’S MEXICAN MELEE
FRENCH AVIATOR Didier Masson competed in the Dominguez Air Meet, held January 10 to 20, 1910, near Los Angeles and the first international flying competition in the U.S. What with … Continue reading
VOUGHT XF5U
THE XF5U “Flying Flapjack” was one of the might-have-beens of aviation history. Its designer, Charles H. Zimmerman, was a talented aerodynamicist and member of NACA, the National Advisory Committee for … Continue reading
SAVOIA-MARCHETTI SM.55X
A WINGED armada of 24 Savoia-Marchetti SM.55X flying boats transported Italo Balbo and his 96 colleagues in their mass flight from Orbetello, Italy, to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair (www.wp.me/p2ETap-1q1). One … Continue reading
ITALO BALBO’S CHICAGO VISIT
IMAGINE THE sight in Chicago at 5:45 p.m., July 15, 1933: To the east over Lake Michigan, an airplane comes into view, then another two droning just aft of its … Continue reading
A QUEST FOR LATERAL CONTROL: THE GOUPY II
EARLIEST AIRCRAFT were on a quest for control, especially laterally, from side to side, in roll. Wing warping was one choice; ailerons were another. Major court cases ensued (for the … Continue reading
A “SPRUCE GOOSE” FANTASY
HOWARD HUGHES disliked the term “Spruce Goose” for what he preferred to call the Hughes Flying Boat. And indeed, spruce was only one of the woods used in the Hercules … Continue reading
HARRIET QUIMBY—AVIATRIX, AND SO MUCH MORE
HARRIET QUIMBY was the first woman in the U.S. to have a pilot’s license, indeed, only the 37th person in the world to have one. But she was also a … Continue reading
POLIKARPOV PO-2 AND THE NIGHT WITCHES
HEROINES OF the highest order—and one of the world’s most successful aircraft designs—bedeviled the Nazis during World War II. The tale of the Night Witches and the Polikarpov Po-2 is … Continue reading
AIRCRAFT IN JAPAN, 1910-1945
FLYING MACHINES, both lighter- and heavier-than-air, came early to Japan. The country’s heritage of civil aircraft is wonderfully documented—in both Japanese and English—in one book in my collection. Another book, … Continue reading
