From the Wright Brothers to Charles Lindbergh to Chuck Yeager to Neil Armstrong, Americans were the leaders in aviation.
The early kite-like pusher biplanes of the Wrights and Glenn Curtiss astounded the world, especially when Curtiss won the Rheims international air race in 1909. The Wrights let their pre-eminence slip away and by 1915, the Curtiss Aeroplane Company was the largest in the world. During World War One, under wartime pressure, the British, French, and Germans made more rapid advances than the Americans.
But the Twenties were another story, and U.S. military fliers set the pace in high-speed flying, and of course, in 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew solo from New York to Paris, an event quite unrivalled in modern history. In the late Twenties and through the Thirties, air racing became quite the rage in the United States, and odd-looking “all-engine” airplanes like the infamous GeeBee set new records. Other American aviators like Wiley Post and Amelia Earhart established new frontiers in aviation.
Aircraft technology proceeded apace: Pratt & Whitney’s double Wasp radial engines were the powerhouses of the day. RCA produced the finest electronic equipment.
In World War Two, the American air forces relied on massive numbers of high-quality airplanes – fighters, bombers, trainers, as well as pilots, air crews, supplies, and spare parts – to rule the skies.
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The primitive biplane circled the course over Long Island’s Hempstead Plains ten times, covering fifteen miles, and then came down. The pilot was hungry. As Glenn Curtis put it: “I felt hungry and it was time for breakfast. Even an aeroplanist has to eat, and after making ten evolutions of the [...]
The great inventor Alexander Graham Bell, by then extremely wealthy, established the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) in October 1907 to bring bright young engineers together in a creative environment. The AEA, composed of Bell as mentor, Douglas McCurdy, Frederick Baldwin, Lt. Thomas Selfridge, and Glenn Curtiss, went on to build aircraft as a team [...]
On December 17, 1903, over the wind-swept barrier island of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the Orville Wright became the first man to fly. “To fly,” in the precise terminology of the FAI, meant “the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight”. The Wright Flyer was the first powered aircraft designed and built [...]
North American’s jet, Flown by USAF in Korea
Bud Mahurin on the F-86, an Interview with SECRETS OF WAR
Q: This is Bud Mahurin and the title is “Korea: the Air War.” What kind of aircraft were being used in Koera, and how did you find them?
Mahurin: We were assigned F-86 Sabre jets, manufactured by North [...]
This advertisement appeared in Aero Digest, April, 1935:
THE BEECHCRAFT
READ THIS: AN AMAZING STATEMENT
A few of the leaders who use Beechcrafts:
Socony Vacuum Co.
Department of. Commerce
Standard Oil, of N. J.
Loffland Bros.
O. J. Whitney Flying Service
Olson Drilling Co.
Gilpin Air Lines
FAR greater speeds and operating economy are practical with standard aircraft motors–every-day performance of the many Beechcrafts in this [...]
This two-page advertisement appeared in Aero Digest, April, 1935:
RCA OFFERS YOU A COMPLETE LINE OF AVIATION RADIO EQUIPMENT
FEATURING:
QUALITY RUGGEDNESS SIMPLICITY
LOW INITIAL COST
LOW OPERATING COST
WHATEVER your aviation radio requirements, RCA can meet them-with standard equipment backed by years of experience in every radio communications field. Several new pieces of equipment, conforming to RCA’s high standard of [...]
This advertisement for Kollsman appeared in Aero Digest, April, 1935:
KOLLSMAN FOR PRECISION
The 1935 Models of BEECHCRAFT are equipped with
.
KOLLSMAN
.
PRECISION AIRCRAFT INSTRUMENTS
• The same characteristics of accuracy, dependability and performance
which have gained a world-wide reputation for the Kollsman Sensitive
Altimeter are also inherent in all our engine and flight instruments.
KOLLSMAN INSTRUMENT COMPANY, 5 JUNIUS STREET, [...]
Coast Guard Dolphin in NYC
Aero Digest specsEast Boston (now Logan) airport in 1936.
Eight-place high-wing amphibion monoplane.
Two P. & W. Wasp engines, 450 h.p. each.
The Douglas Dolphin was an amphibious flying boat. While fewer than 60 were built, they served a wide variety of roles: private ” air yacht”, airliner, military transport, and search and rescue. [...]
First modern airliner
All-metal, twin-engine, low-wing monoplane – 180 MPH
an aircraft featured on the Hall of Fame of the Air
Looking at old airplanes, they seem incredibly archaic — with two wings, made of wood and cloth, open cockpits, struts and wires all over. But the 1933 Boeing Model 247 suddenly resembles modern aircraft. Not [...]
Rearwin Airplanes, Incorporated, Fairfax Airport, Kansas City, Kansas
Specifications from Aero Digest, April, 1935:
• Two-place high-wing monoplane. ATC 469. LeBlond engine, 70 horsepower. Span 35 feet. Length overall 22 feet 3 inches. Height overall 6 feet 9 inches. Wing area 166 square feet. Chord 62.5 inches. Power loading 18 pounds per horsepower. Wing loading 8.13 [...]
