World War II

In the early years of World War II, Germany’s U-Bootwaffes roamed, almost with impunity, the sea trade routes of the Western Allies, engaging and sinking their extremely vital ships at an alarming rate. It wasn’t until the Allies began to implement a sophisticated system of long rage, air patrols over the Atlantic that the tide of the submarine... 

Only thirty one units of the Saunders Roe A.27 ‘London’ biplane flying boat were built for the Royal Air Force Costal Command. The RAFCC,operated the type from 1936 to the fall of 1941. The ‘London’ is another sample of an aircraft which was obsolete before it reached front line units. The Saro A.27 was conceived in response... 

During the afternoon hours of September 23rd 1916, one of the ‘next generation’ super-Zeppelins, the L33, took to the air for its first operational mission: the bombing of downtown London. Just a few months before, the L33 was on the ground, getting its final fittings and adjustments. It was truly a remarkable piece of engineering. She was... 

I. Early History The Spanish Air Force has been around since the first operational balloons began to appear over the Iberian Peninsula back in 1895. But it was not until April 10th, 1910, that the country formally introduced the nascent military air service as part of its overall armed forces structure. On the afternoon of November 5th, 1913, a rudimentary... 

The Supermarine Sea Otter was a British designed anphibian biplane intended to replace the once venerable Supermarine Warlus in the Royal Air Force reconnaissance and search and rescue missions. It had the distinctions of being the last biplane flying boat to achieve front line service in Great Britain’s armed force. The Otter was a result of... 

During the Second World War, many countries in Europe designed and produced combat aircraft. Chief among them was Nazi Germany, but there were also a number of small, industrial-based countries, such as Romania, Poland and others; that developed and eventually fielded military airplanes. One of them was the Nordic country of Finland. As relationships... 

The Vultee A-35B, codenamed Vengeance by the Americans, was specifically designed and produce to meet a British’s Royal Air Force (RAF) 1940 requirement of a dedicated dive-bombing platform in the same mold of the highly successful, at least during the early days of World War II; Stuka dive bomber. Even before the German invasion of Poland, the... 

When Adolf Hitler plunged Germany into the Second Word War he envisioned a short raging contest. Never in his dream had he envisioned a prolonged and straining four year struggle, but by 1942 he was exactly in the middle of his “struggle”. In order to chance the tide of the war, the German leader ordered the design and development of very... 

The Kawanishi E7E, codenamed “Alf” by the Allies, was a three seat reconnaissance floatplane. In the spring of 1932, the Japanese Imperial Navy asked the Kawanishi Aircraft Corporation to develop a replacement for the company’s vaunted E5K reconnaissance platform. The proposed replacement, the E7K-1was conceived as an equal span, biplane... 

In the early part of 1941, inside the corridors of power of the Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command, there was a growing concern regarding the Halifax and Lancaster bomber force in contrast to the Sterling platform. The perceived disadvantage of the Sterling had many in the Command clamoring for an upgrade to the existing aircraft. This lead to the...