Autogyro: The story of early plane-helicopter hybrids, 1925-1940
A Spanish engineer and aeronautical pioneer, Juan de la Cierva, developed the or…
Tag: Aviation
The military observation balloons of World War I, 1914-1918
Observation was an incredibly important role for aerial warfare in World War I. …
R-100 airship: Inside a “flying hotel”, 1929-1930
The R100 airship was built as part of a British government programme to develop …
Test pilot George Aird ejected from his Lightning F1 aircraft, 1962
This is the story behind the famous picture of the test pilot George Aird ejecte…
The raids and brutal reprisals of World War Two, 1942
The events of 1942 were crucial in the way that World War Two played out. The fi…
The story in pictures of the massive Hughes H-4 Hercules, 1945-1947
The largest wooden airplane ever constructed, and flown only one time, the H-4 H…
World War II: The bloody war spreads around the globe, 1940-1941
On April 9, 1940, Germany simultaneously invaded Norway and occupied Denmark, an…
The Allied Invasion of Europe, 1943-1945
Starting with the Invasion of Sicily in July of 1943, and culminating in the Jun…
Flying first class in the 1960s
Life was once simpler. There was only one class for passengers on airline flight…
The forgotten era of the Airships, 1900s-1940s
The history of airships begins, like the history of hot air balloons, in France.…
Attack on Pearl Harbor in pictures, 1941
The Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor began just before 8 a.m. local time S…
MiG-21 crashed into an East German apartment block, 1975
On January 14th, 1975, Major Peter Makowicka, aged 33, was on a training mission…
Battle of Britain in rare pictures, 1940
In the summer and fall of 1940, German and British air forces clashed in the ski…
Loading passengers onto an airship from a mooring mast, 1930s
In the 1920s and 1930s airship mooring masts were built in many countries. A moo…
Aerial warfare of First World War, 1914-1918
Aerial warfare was by no means a First World War invention. Balloons had already b…
First flight with the Wright Brothers, 1902-1909
On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20 feet ab…
The final moments of a Japanese dive bomber, 1945
A Japanese plane caught squarely by antiaircraft fire leaves a trail of smoke an…
Manfred von Richthofen “The Red Baron” petting his dog on an airfield, 1916
Manfred von Richthofen earned widespread fame as a World War I ace fighter pilot…
Mathias Rust, the teenager who flew illegally to Red Square, 1987
It all began in May of 1987. Mathias Rust was fed up with the Cold War tension bet…
The grave of an Allied pilot buried by Germans during the North African Campaign, 1941.
This photograph was taken by George Rodger of No. 1 Section Army Film & Phot…