Browsing: Vehicles

A Brief History On October 1, 1942, the United States was a bit behind Germany and Britain in the development of jet engines and jet powered aircraft, but still managed to conduct the first ever flight of an American prototype jet fighter, the Bell P-59 Airacomet.  Only 5 years later, the US North American F-86 Sabre  made its first flight, and the tale of these 2 fighter airplanes could not have been much more different. Digging Deeper The P-59 was a disappointing flop, and only 50 production models were built.  One was exchanged with the British for one of their…

A Brief History On September 28, 2008, the history of space exploration reached a new milestone when SpaceX, a private company, launched their Falcon 1 unmanned spacecraft, the first private spacecraft launched into orbit. Breaking News: On Saturday, May 30, 2020, SpaceX and NASA made history together when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried 2 American astronauts into space up to the International Space Station in a successful launch and flight, the first manned flight from the United States in a decade.  This is the first time a private company has ever taken NASA astronauts into space.  The crew capsule…

A Brief History On August 31, 1965, fans of super-different airplanes could add another oddity to their list when the Aero Spacelines Super Guppy made its first flight.  A bulbous looking whale of an airplane, the Super Guppy was the successor to the Pregnant Guppy, an equally goofy looking giant cargo plane. Digging Deeper As stated above, the Super Guppy had been developed from the Pregnant Guppy which in turn was based on the C-97 military cargo plane, itself based on the Boeing 377 airliner which in turn was originally based on the B-29 Superfortress bomber.  (It would appear Boeing…

A Brief History On August 28, 1988, an Italian precision flight team proved that aerial acts that look extremely dangerous to an audience appear that way for a reason, Because They Are!  The Italian Air Force acrobatic team known as Frecce Tricolori was flying 10 Aermacchi MB-339 (a subsonic trainer/light attack jet) at the Ramstein Air Show when 3 of the planes collided and crashed, killing all 3 pilots. Digging Deeper Unfortunately, the crashing planes crashed on the spectators, killing 67 of the hapless audience and injuring another 1000 people (346 seriously) as the flaming debris careened into the crowd. …

A Brief History On August 23, 1954, a harmless looking cargo aircraft made its first flight when the C-130 had become airborne.  It would go on to become perhaps the greatest cargo plane in history, still in production over 50 years later!  Despite its fantastic versatility as a troop and cargo transport, airborne laboratory, electronic warfare, weather reconnaissance plane, aerial tanker, fire fighter, search and rescue, paradrops, sensor drops, Special Forces support, and bomber that drops the largest bomb in the US Air Force (the MOAB, Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or colloquially, “Mother of  All Bombs” due to its giant…