Inhaltsverzeichnis für March/April 2024 in Flight Journal

SO MANY OF THE AIRCRAFT featured in Flight Journal over the years are the result of herculean efforts by a select number of talented individuals who rescued these aircraft from what would have been their final resting places: A Battle of Britain Supermarine Spitfire ditched along the Channel coast and buried in the sand, only to have its exposed wingtip discovered by a beach jogger decades later; a Spanish built Messerschmidt Bf 109 found in a warehouse, still unassembled in its wooden factory shipping crate; a Nakajima built A6M Zero found by island natives and pulled out of the jungles of Western New Guinea; and how about the iconic “White A” Fw 190, found remarkably intact with the pilot’s helmet still on the seat, in an overgrown meadow near St. Petersburg,…

From the very onset when the airplane was thrust into the combat role, military commanders on the ground quickly realized they needed hard-copy evidence of future targets, troop buildups and battle damage assessment from previous bombing raids. The bottom line in warfare was whoever possessed more information about what the other guy was doing held a distinct advantage of knowing not only where to hit him next but also how hard. Enter the camera-equipped Allied fighters. Probably the best known of all the Allied “Foto Joes” was the F-4/F-5 P-38 Lightning. With its built-in redundancy of two engines instead of one and a high-altitude capability, the Lightnings were stripped of their machine guns and cannon and replaced with a variety of vertical and oblique aerial cameras. Depending on the exact…

Developed in the late 1920s, the Royal Air Force’s Bristol Bulldog entered service in May 1929. The single engine, single seat biplane fighter was the RAF’s frontline fighter through most of the 1930s. Bulldogs were exported to Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Sweden in Europe and to the Asia/Pacific nations of Australia, Japan, and Siam. Although the type never drew blood in the air while serving with the RAF, it did, however, see use during the Spanish Civil War as Latvia had sold 11 examples to the Spanish Republican Air Force. The Finnish Air Force flew its Bulldogs against the Soviet Union during the 1939 Winter War, where they achieved two aerial victories over a Polikarpov I-16 fighter and a twin-engine Tupolev SB (ANT-40) bomber. Today, there are two surviving…

THE YEAR WAS 1928 and the concept of the airplane was changing radically. While barnstormers still landed rickety surplus biplanes in pastures to hop passengers, those days were waning fast. Utility was driving designs to be faster and sleeker. But, when the Lockheed Vega flew in June of that year, it was as if a spaceship had landed. Its lines and performance were a quantum leap forward, especially as it continued to be improved to keep up with the rapidly changing times. The Vega was born into the equivalent of the Space Race: every aircraft manufacturer was trying to establish itself at the leading edge of the aviation community. However, even as it was being challenged, the Vega continued to be at the top of the heap. In this case,…

Major Joshua “Cabo” Gunderson, who served as the U.S. Air Force’s F-22 Demonstration Pilot until the end of 2022, described the first time he flew the Raptor in formation with a P-51 Mustang as a part of the USAF Heritage Flight as “surreal.” “You pinch yourself,” he says. “You’re like, ‘Holy cow! I’m here flying a Raptor next to this Mustang.’ You can hear the Merlin from the cockpit of the Raptor which is wild!” The highly popular Heritage and Legacy flights pair WW II, Korean, and Vietnam-era warbirds with today’s Air Force and Navy jet fighters in tight formation passes in front of airshow crowds across the nation. The idea—to honor America’s military aviation past, celebrate the present, and inspire Americans to serve in the military—goes back to the…

You had to be better than just a good stick as an Army aviator to be selected to fly the Mohawk in Vietnam. The enemy on the ground was bad enough to contend with, but the ever changing weather, mountainous terrain and political infighting between military branches on how the Mohawk would be utilized and armed was a never-ending battle for its crews. The Grumman Mohawk to some, at first glance, was thought of as a “bug-eyed” hideous monster that sported two turbine engines and a triple tail. But the men who flew it in combat, including the following three Army aviators, all proclaim it was a lady in the air, one that brought its crews home safely. Punching through storms By Maj. Gen. William Page, U.S. Army (Ret.) In…

The increasing numbers of MiG-15s based just north of the Yalu River in the fall of 1950 caused great concern with the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), and when these sweptwing fighters started coming south of the river in November 1950, air superiority and safety of UN ground troops were threatened. The call was made to bring the new F-86 Sabres to Korea to counter the Soviet-built MiGs. The 4th Fighter Wing was the first to respond, but that is not the end of the story. At the same time, there was also a need to bring in a newer fighter-bomber that could easily range to the Yalu and also take care of itself in a fight. The F-80Cs were doing a good job in this, but if the MiGs…

Earning my wings I was faced with a dilemma back in 1940. I wanted to become a fighter pilot, but the Army Air Corps wanted me to get a college education first. Thankfully, a rather simple situation presented itself to me in June 1941. The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) was looking for a “few good men.” With my mind made up and $10 bucks in my pocket, I set out with a buddy of mine, hitchhiking from our home state of Virginia to the Canadian border near Hamilton, Ontario. The RCAF welcomed us with open arms, along with the other 5,000 American men who beat us to Canada, all itching to fly and fight. Although I joined the RCAF in the summer of 1941, I wasn’t able to sit…

The tropic air thrummed with the pulsing drone of Pratt & Whitney radials as 34 Grumman F4F-4s descended into the traffic pattern of Guadalcanal’s grass field known as Fighter One. It was April 26, 1943, and the Wildcats of Navy Fighter Squadron 11 landed less than three months after the strategic island was secured by American forces. The Sundowners squadron was part of [carrier] Air Group 11, previously slated to board the aircraft carrier Hornet (CV-8), which had been sunk in the October 1942 Battle of Santa Cruz. Thus, “CAG-11” went ashore, operating under Commander Aircraft Solomon Islands, ComAirSols, which included Navy, Marine and Army squadrons. Flying the Wildcat marked F-4 was a tall, lanky 24-year-old aviator from Utah, Lt.(jg) Charles Russell Stimpson. Cheerful and extroverted, he was one of…

During its 32-month debut in the Korean War, the MiG-15 remained a mystery. Due to superior training and effective tactics, the F-86 pilots were however very successful in combat against it. During the war, the U.S. offered a $100,000 reward for any pilot who would deliver an intact MiG-15, but it never happened until the war was over. On September 21, 1953, a lone MiG-15 came out of nowhere to land undetected at Kimpo Airbase. A young North Korean pilot, Lt. No Kum-Sok, delivered his MiG because of his opposing views to Communism, and he had no idea there was a reward for his fighter. Under heavy security, the MiG-15 was taken to Okinawa, where it was flown by a well-known test pilot along with Maj. Chuck Yeager. From there,…

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