Viktor Belenko: The Pilot Who Stole a Secret Soviet Aircraft
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 22, 2021
Lieutenant Viktor Ivanovich Belenko woke up early in the morning as he had done everyday for the past four weeks, to watch the approaching d...
Showing posts with the label Aviation
Pilâtre de Rozier And The World’s First Aviation Accident
Kaushik Patowary
May 13, 2021
In 1783, French professor Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier created history by becoming the first man to fly in a balloon untethered. Two year...
The World’s Loudest Plane Was So Loud It Caused Seizures
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 27, 2021
The aviation industry’s transition from propellers to jet engines saw the emergence of a new kind of engine called the turboprop. A turbopro...
The Fighter Plane That Shot Itself Down
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 14, 2020
Fighter aviation has come a long way from the crude old days when pilots shot down their own planes as often as the enemy’s. In those early ...
George Cayley: The Man Who Invented Flight
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 19, 2020
History credits Orville and Wilbur Wright for flying the world’s first aircraft, but it was Yorkshire Baronet Sir George Cayley who first pr...
Fokker’s Synchronizing Gear And The Birth of Fighter Planes
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 16, 2020
The first airplanes to join the First World War were not made for combat. They merely played the role of an observer, scouting enemy positio...
The 1940 Mid-Air Collision at Brocklesby
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 2, 2020
In New South Wales, Australia, about 120 km south of Wagga Wagga, lies a small community of farmers and cattle rearers called Brocklesby. Th...
The B-17 That Flew With Its Tail Sliced Off
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 26, 2020
This famous photograph of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, with its tail section severed but still flying was taken during Word War 2, towar...
The Soviet Bomber That Was Reverse Engineered From Stolen American B-29s
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 9, 2020
Ask anyone, what won the war against Japan during the Second World War, and the answer would invariably be the ‘atomic bomb’, but truth be...
Cornfield Bomber: The Fighter Plane That Landed Without Its Pilot
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 2, 2020
One of the strangest aviation mishaps that ended happily happened on February 2, 1970. That morning, three F-106 Delta Darts took off from t...
The Cottbus MiG-21 Crash of 1975
Kaushik Patowary
Jan 18, 2020
On Schmellwitzer Street in Cottbus, in northeast Germany, stands an old five-story apartment building. High up on the face of the building...
The Zeppelin Spy Basket
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 19, 2019
One of the most perilous positions in the crew of a German Zeppelin during the First World War was that of the aerial lookout, whose job was...
The French Chateau With The World’s Largest Private Collection of Warplanes
Kaushik Patowary
Sep 26, 2019
Among the rolling hills of Burgundy's wine country, surrounded by vineyards and forested land, stands a 14th-century castle belonging to...
Flying Aircraft Carriers
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 31, 2019
Germany’s mixed success with Zeppelins during the First World War convinced the British and the Americans to take a closer look at these fly...
ATLAS-I: The Cold War-Era Facility That Tested The Effects of EMP on Military Aircraft
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 7, 2018
Flying in and out of Albuquerque, in New Mexico, the United States, one can catch a glimpse of a gigantic wooden trestle standing in the mid...
How The British Fought Fog With Runways of Fire
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 18, 2018
During the Second World War, British pilots were fighting more than the German Messerschmitts. They were also fighting against the weather—m...
Alexander Graham Bell's Tetrahedral Kites
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 7, 2017
Alexander Graham Bell is best remembered for inventing the telephone, but the great Scottish inventor’s interests weren’t limited to just on...
Mach Loop: The Valley of Fighter Jets
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 7, 2016
Nestled between the towns of Dolgellau and Machynlleth, in central Wales, is a series of grass covered valleys that is renowned the world ov...
The Wrecked Bomber of Huu Tiep Lake
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 5, 2016
On the night of December 27, 1972, a US bomber B-52 was knocked out of the sky during a bombing raid on Hanoi, Vietnam. A part of the wrecka...
Fliegeberg: Otto Lilienthal’s ‘Fly Mountain’
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 4, 2016
One of the major inspiration to the Wright brothers was the work of German pioneer of aviation, Otto Lilienthal, who repeatedly and successf...
