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Just too late for World War I – The Martinsyde Buzzard 19 Aug 2013 | 01:00 pm
The first true fighter developed by the Martinsyde company was the F.1 created in 1915 as a substantial two-bay biplane powered by a Rolls-Royce Mk III (later Eagle III) water-cooled V-12 engine rated...
Nearing the end of the biplane era: The Gloster Gauntlet 12 Aug 2013 | 02:00 pm
In the summer of 1927 the British Air Ministry issued Specification F.20/27 for a new fighter, and this elicited a large number of proposals including the Armstrong Whitworth A.W.XVI, Boulton and Paul...
Precursor to the Zero – The Mitsubishi A5M 5 Aug 2013 | 01:00 pm
With the A5M Japan moved from dependence on Western imports (aircraft, aircraft components, design concepts and designers) to a completely indigenous product in every way the equal of the best of its ...
The US Air Force’s standard cannon – The M61 Vulcan 29 Jul 2013 | 01:00 pm
Now a General Dynamics product although it was designed and originally manufactured by General Electric, the 20-mm M61 Vulcan is the most widely used aircraft cannon of the Western world, and was the ...
Emergency fighter – The Miles M.20 22 Jul 2013 | 01:00 pm
At the time of the Munich Crisis in September 1938 it was not clear to the British civil, industrial and military authorities whether or not production of the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire...
Soviet aircraft guns after World War II 15 Jul 2013 | 01:00 pm
The USSR made use of medium- and heavy-calibre machine guns on its lighter tactical warplanes and, to a considerably greater extent, on a number of its battlefield helicopters. The medium-calibre weap...
The Falcon air-to-air missile that did not enter service – The Hughes AIM-47 Falcon 8 Jul 2013 | 01:00 pm
The Hughes AIM-47 Falcon, which up to 1962 was designated as the GAR-9, was a very long-range air-to-air missile that shared the basic design of the earlier AIM-4 Falcon but offered significantly high...
A US heavyweight air-to-air missile – The Hughes AIM-54 Phoenix 1 Jul 2013 | 01:00 pm
Designed for the abortive General Dynamics F-111B swing-wing naval fighter, the AIM-54A Phoenix was brought to fruition (together with its associated Hughes AWG-9 pulse-Doppler radar fire-control syst...
A US bomber killer – The Hughes AIM-26 Super Falcon 24 Jun 2013 | 01:00 pm
Introduced into operational service in 1961 to provide the Convair F-106A Delta Dart of the US Air Force’s Air Defense Command with a very high kill probability against Soviet strategic bombers in hea...
A pioneering air-to-air missile – The Hughes AIM-4 Falcon 17 Jun 2013 | 01:00 pm
Designed and manufactured by the Missile Systems Group of the Hughes Aircraft Company, the Falcon in 1956 became the first fully guided air-to-air missile to enter operational service anywhere in the ...
