Between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. Navy received more than 150 airships for the war effort. The military used these blimps, produced by the Goodyear Corporation, as convoy escort vessels. The Navy used them to spot enemy submarines and drop depth charges on those they encountered. But of all the airships utilized during World War [...]
Franklin D. Roosevelt has the distinction of being the first US president to ever fly in an aircraft, while Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first president to travel in an airplane with the designation Air Force One. It was Theodore Roosevelt, however, who was the first [former] president to ever fly in an aircraft in October [...]
The bearcat, also known as the binturong, is a viverrine mammal from Southeast Asia—it is closely related to neither bears nor cats. The Grumman F8F Bearcat, on the other hand, is a single-engine carrier-based fighter aircraft that was introduced late into WWII. The Bearcat aircraft concept was conceived when Battle of Midway veteran F4F Wildcat [...]
To read The History of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Part 1: WWI, click here. Post-WWI: Target and Assault Drones Interwar Years After World War I, the aviation industry advanced exponentially. These advancements (particularly within the air transport sector) hindered the testing and operation of unmanned systems. As post-war hostilities decreased, so did military interest in unmanned flight; [...]
When we think of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), it’s easy to limit our thought to present-day UAVs—after all, drones have been receiving a lot of media attention lately. While modern drones and remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) have become critical to the US Military due to their advancements, the development of such vehicles is, like so [...]
The "Flying Pancake" Breakfast might be the most important meal of the day, but it's got nothing on the "sweet factor" of experimental aircraft. In other words: in a world of cold breakfast cereals, be a pancake. Charles H. Zimmerman believed in pancakes, or at least it appears that way. As a researcher at Langley Memorial Aeronautic Laboratory, [...]
