History of AirplanesThis is the airplane that ushered in fighter combat. Before Tony Fokker fashioned his famous synchronizing gear to a machine gun so that it could fire through the prop, aerial combat was a hit-or-miss proposition. After his E.III swept the skies in 1915, air fighting developed into a deadly serious skill.
The earliest planes of [...]
A long distance aircraft of the 1920s
All-metal, high-wing monoplane
The freezing Arctic wind penetrated the unheated, corrugated metal craft taking off from Spitsbergen, Norway. Navigator Richard Byrd, an ambitious U.S. Navy Commander, and pilot Floyd Bennett struggled to keep warm in their furs. They made a long flight north that day, and on their return [...]