In the short time between the first flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk in 1903 and the Battle of Britain that started in July of 1940, the airplane had evolved from a rickety DIY creation to ...

The German Luftwaffe entered World War II in September 1939 employing as its main day fighter the Messerschmitt Bf109 one of the classic fighter aircraft designs of all time When war broke out it was ...

Smithsonian/Eric Long World War II witnessed technological leaps in aircraft design and performance that recast the nature of air warfare. Wood-and-fabric biplanes were replaced with streamlined, ...

The pilots that fly in these freezing hazardous conditions need intense training, what could be more intense than on a test flight an engine backfires, shuts down and threatens to rip the plane in ...