Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring was in rare form, his eyes full of fire as he faced one of the better known of Germany’s aces, Oberst Walther Dahl. “Göring’s reply astonished even me,” Dahl remembered. “In the presence of pilots with heads, arms and l

The Flying Heritage Collection (FHC) Focke-Wulf (based in Everett, Washington) is a Fw 190A-5 built in April 1943 as part of a batch of 981 aircraft at the F-W factory in Bremen. The FHC aircraft left the factory with the Stammkennzeichen (factory co

The validity of the high scores reported by German Fighter pilots is often questioned, so an explanation is in order. Each German claim for the destruction of an enemy aircraft in aerial combat (Abschuss) had to be confirmed by the Oberbefehlshaber d

The Super Sport is, in fact, a warbird camouflaged as a sport plane. Previous WACO incursions in military sales were commercial models modified to suit customers’ needs. In the Model D, WACO, at last, had a high-performance biplane designed from the

PICTURE, IF YOU WILL, a Mach-2-capable, all-weather fighterbomber that flies 1,000 feet above the ground on autopilot, while a Doppler navigation system steers it to a target 300 to 500 nautical miles distant. Then, at 550 knots, it runs in toward th

Using Chinese airfields, the 311th Fighter Group was the first to take World War II to the Japanese. The 311th’s 530th Fighter Squadron, which became known as the “Yellow Scorpions,” was the first squadron based in China. During their combat tour, th

When the Second World War ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, Group Captain Aleksander Gabszewicz, the Commanding Officer of No. 131 (Polish) Wing, had been flying combat missions since the beginning of the war when Germany first invaded his home country

In this photo from the Eighth Air Force’s famous 4th Fighter Group Debden Eagles, a parade of armorers prepare to install .50-caliber machine guns and armor-piercing ammo in the Group’s Mustangs. Note the pierced-steel planking that is being used as

May 5, 1945. Flying at 8,000 feet and at just over 200 mph in his personal Spitfire Mk XVI TD240, Group Captain Aleksander Gabszewicz, the Commanding Officer of No. 131 (Polish) Wing, led 11 heavily laden, bomb-carrying Spitfires of 302 Squadron towa

The exact origin of Aleksander Gabszewicz’s “Boxing Bulldog” motif is something of a mystery and seems to pre-date its wider use by other Allied units. Photographs taken at RAF Northolt in April 1942, when Gabszewicz was the Commanding Officer of No.

Like all Mk XVI Spitfires, Spitfire Mk L.F. XVIe TE311 was manufactured at the Castle Bromwich Aeroplane Factory near Birmingham, England. It was built during 1945 as a low-back, clippedwing Packard Merlin 266-powered L.F. XVIe and delivered on June

The Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (RAF BBMF), known at first as the Historic Aircraft Flight, was founded at RAF Biggin Hill, the famous Battle of Britain airfield in Kent. When it began on July 11, 1957, it only had three PR Mk X

The three primary F-35 models are the A, B, and C (Israel also has an “I” model). We will be focusing on the Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) B model, which is the Marine Corps primary variant. The Marines are also procuring some aircraft-carrier

The generic land-based and primary variant, with an internal gun. The majority of foreign operators fly the A model (and a few a mix of As and Bs). The Israelis have a specially modified A model with their own gear which was assigned as an I model. T

From December 7, 1941, through the Battle of Midway (June 4 to 7, 1942), Kaname Harada was a Zero pilot onboard the carrier Soryu. During that time, he scored several aerial victories in the Indian Ocean operations and Midway. His carrier, however, a

By the time this limited-production high-performance version of Maj. Michael Jackson’s Teddy was photographed in early spring 1945 at Boxted, the 56th FG had been operating with Thunderbolts for almost three years. Initially constituted in November 1

When the editors of Flight Journal asked me to write about all the great WW II fighters and to choose one as “the best,” I thought, “What an ego trip!” The selections would be easy to dig out of my dusty flight-report files (which document my evaluat

Whenever Navy and Marine Corps aviators who flew and fought in propeller-driven fighters gather, there is always the argument about which was the better airplane: the “bent-wing bastard,” as we lovingly dubbed the Chance Vought F4U-lD Corsair, or the

THE F4U-4 WAS BLESSED with the more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800-34W, which gave it a great boost in high-speed performance. This provided the necessary edge over the newer Japanese fighters that were coming into squadrons when the F4U-4 arrived i

Lockheed’s twin-engine Lightning had the potential to be the number-one fighter. It first flew on January 27, 1939—early enough to have been deployed before Pearl Harbor. It had more horsepower than any previous fighter, and its tricycle landing gear

BOTH CHANCE VOUGHT AND GRUMMAN were given many Navy E (for “Excellence”) citations for production during WW II. And, indeed, they both did produce a large quantity of excellent Navy fighters. Ten Hellcats were delivered in 1942, just six months after

A good example of a supposedly “perfect” fighter that’s cited by many historians as being the greatest such WW II aircraft, is the German twin-jet-powered Messerschmitt Me 262. It was more than 100mph faster and had a more powerful fighter-to-fighter

THE NON-SUPERCHARGED ENGINES used in fighters in the late ’20s had induction air flowing directly from a duct in the nose of the aircraft into the carburetor. When an aircraft gained altitude, the thinner air was insufficient to maintain the sea-leve