Air Attack on the German Oil Industry

The swift focus of the Allied bomber campaign against the German’s oil industry had immediate and far-reaching effects, compared with the 175,000 tons of aviation fuel it produced in April 1944. In June of that same year, German oil production fell to just over 55,000 tons, less than a third of the previous years output. Unless something was done, and done very soon, the Luftwaffe could find... 

The A-5 Fantan: The Low Priced Ground Attack Aircraft

The Nanchange A-5, code named “Fantan” by NATO, gave the Peoples Republic of China an effective, low cost supersonic strike aircraft. A step that helped China demonstrate to the world their ability to alter and improve an existing aircraft platform. The Fantan is based on the 1950’s MiG-19 airframe. During the late 1950s, the Chinese military leaders identified the need to field a... 

Project Tom-Tom

Project Tom-Tom was originated by the United States Air Force’s Strategic Air Command as a way to provide its long range heavy bomber fleets with a fighter umbrella by towing them on semi-fixed wing links. The concept of the MX-1018, the programs official call-sign, was devised from the FICO (Fighter Conveyor) system. A program initiated by the US Air Force in the 1950s to test the feasibility... 

Prying eyes over Persia

Major Doug Soifer began to trim out the Astro-Inertial Navigation System control display while at the same time he adjusted the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) displays. It was the fifth hour of a very long, non-stop flight from the Kadena Air Force Base, located on the strategically important Island of Okinawa, to one of the more congestive areas of the world: the Persian Gulf. In the morning of September... 

The Gloster Rocket

The development of the jet engine revolutionized the design of both military and civilian aircraft, but it was the former, particularly the fighter platform, which benefited first. Frank Whittle’s achievement in developing the jet has been well covered but the task of producing the first generation of aircraft designed to use his engines, mainly by the Gloster Aircraft Company, is not so well... 

Air Power In Venezuela’s 1992 Coup Attempt

If compared to the rest of it’s South American counterparts, Venezuela enjoyed a relative stable form of government for much of the 1970s and 80s. As with the rest of the country’s military arms, the Fuerza Aerea Venezolana (FAV) suffered from a prolong period of budgetary restrictions and limitations that started in the mid 70s and lasted until the early mid-to late 80s. This period of... 

Nasa’s F-15 Program

There are few fighters that capture the imagination in the same way that the F-15 Eagle does. Almost all the pilots who flew the Eagles in peace and in war, acknowledge that it was a completely ‘different beast’. Its handling capability and its sheer power will be difficult to duplicate in a platform-era base. To resume, the F-15 will most likely end up in history as the most feared and... 

A Brief Look at China’s Current Air Capabilities

In the past few years, The People’s Republic of China’s growing military capability has attracted a great deal of interest, but major details regarding China’s near-future military strength have been hard to come by. At this moment, China is spending massive amounts of financial resources in order to improve its overall military capability. This spike of budgetary expenses by China... 

French Nuclear Deterrent

France had possessed nuclear weapon systems since the 1950s. In the beginning, France’s Nuclear Posture was based on three key points: Instability, Strategic Security, and Nuclear Independency. France’s regards instability on a state and/or sub-state level and their technological breakthroughs possible threats to the “strategic stability” balance in the world. Because of this... 

The Brains of the F-15 Eagle

The vaunted American air superiority fighter, the F-15 Eagle, was a product of years of research and development. Its advanced and integrated systems were the central part of the Eagle’s ability to dominate the skies since its introduction three decades ago. From the outset, the F-15 design team planned to incorporate the aircraft with the most sophisticated avionics and weapons packages available.... 

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