On January 23, 1939, A Curtiss Hawk 75A pursuit plane, one of 100 being constructed for the French Government, “substantially exceeded all known speed records” with a free dive of more than 575 miles per hour. Read more about this event at This Day in Aviation. Read More...
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December 18, 1941: First US WWII pilot makes “Ace” in Curtiss P-40 Warhawk
18 December 1941: First Lieutenant Boyd David (“Buzz”) Wagner, United States Army Air Corps, commanding officer of the 17th Pursuit Squadron (Interceptor) at Nichols Field, Pasay City, Commonwealth of the Philippines, shot down his fifth Japanese airplane, a Mitsubishi A6M2 Type Zero fighter, with Read More...
December 12, 1953, Bell X-1A Hits Mach 2.44, A New Record
12 December 1953: On its tenth flight, U.S. Air Force test pilot Major Chuck Yeager flew the Bell X-1A rocket plane to Mach 2.44 (1,621 miles per hour/2,609 kilometers per hour) at 74,700 feet (22,769 meters), faster than anyone had flown before. (From This Day in Aviation.) Read More...
Moog hardware provides control for the mighty Saturn V
Image credit: NASA November 9th marks the anniversary of the first launch of the Saturn V, the most powerful rocket ever made and the one that would soon propel man to the Moon. The first stage of Saturn was powered by five F-1 engines, each making 1.5 million pounds of thrust. The engines on all Read More...
Oct 26, 1925, Doolittle wins Schneider Cup in Curtiss R3C-2 Racer
The Curtiss R3C-2 Racer on display at the National Air and Space Museum. (Photo by Eric Long, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution) Lieutenant James Harold Doolittle, Air Service, United States Army, won the Coupe d’Aviation Maritime Jacques Schneider (commonly called the Read More...
14 October 1938: Curtiss-Wright 75P first flight
14 October 1938: At Buffalo, New York, test pilot Everett Edward Elliot made the first flight in the new Curtiss-Wright Corporation’s Model 75P, a prototype for a single-engine pursuit plane which had been designated XP-40 by the U.S. Army Air Corps. Designed by Curtiss-Wright’s Chief Engineer, Read More...
