The SR-71 Blackbird's New York to London Record: One Hour and Fifty-Four Minutes at Mach Three
On September 1, 1974, the SR-71 Blackbird crossed the Atlantic in 1 hour 54 minutes - a record no aircraft has broken in over 50 years.
TaildraggerCold War aviation
The North American XB-70 Valkyrie - The Mach Three Bomber Nobody Needed and the One That Survived
The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was America's most technically advanced Cold War bomber - capable of Mach 3 at 70,000 feet but cancelled before entering service.
TaildraggerThe SR-71 Blackbird - The Skunk Works Machine That Flew at Mach Three and Never Lost a Fight
The SR-71 Blackbird flew over 3,500 Cold War missions at Mach 3.2 and was never once shot down - here's the full story of how it was built and why it worked.
TaildraggerVulcan XH Five Five Eight - The Last V-Bomber and the People Who Refused to Let It Go
XH558 was the last airworthy Avro Vulcan, restored by volunteers and public donations after 14 years on the ground to fly again for eight seasons.
TaildraggerThe glass noses of Soviet jets and the Cold War avionics gap that put a man where a radar should be
Soviet bombers featured glass noses because the USSR lacked compact radar technology, placing human navigators where Western jets mounted radar.
TowerThe North American F-hundred Super Sabre and the first production fighter to go supersonic in level flight on May twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty-three
The F-100 Super Sabre became the first production fighter to exceed Mach 1 in level flight on May 25, 1953, changing military aviation forever.
TaildraggerThe Berlin Blockade lifts on May twelfth nineteen forty-nine and the airlift that moved two million tons on three-minute intervals
The Berlin Airlift delivered 2.3 million tons of supplies over 277,000 flights, ending when the Soviet blockade lifted on May 12, 1949.
TaildraggerWatson's Whizzers and the American test pilots who stole Hitler's jet fleet before the ink on VE Day was dry
How a band of American test pilots raced across defeated Germany to seize Hitler's secret jets before the Soviets could claim them.
TaildraggerTen scrapped aircraft programs that ambition built and history buried
Ten ambitious aircraft programs that were cancelled before production, from nuclear-powered bombers to forward-swept wing fighters.
TowerMathias Rust and the teenage Cessna pilot who landed in Red Square
In 1987, 19-year-old Mathias Rust flew a rented Cessna 172 from Helsinki to Moscow's Red Square, exposing Soviet air defense failures and reshaping Cold War politics.
TaildraggerThe Tu-144 crash at the nineteen seventy-three Paris Air Show and the six seconds that destroyed the Soviet supersonic dream
The 1973 Tu-144 crash at the Paris Air Show killed 14 people and effectively ended the Soviet supersonic airliner program.
TaildraggerGail Halvorsen and the Candy Bomber who turned a C fifty-four into a candy store over Berlin
How pilot Gail Halvorsen's unauthorized candy drops over Berlin transformed Cold War relations and became aviation's greatest humanitarian story.
TaildraggerThe Berlin Airlift Easter Parade of nineteen forty-nine
The 1949 Easter Parade delivered nearly 13,000 tons of supplies to blockaded Berlin in 24 hours, breaking Soviet resolve.
TaildraggerThe Berlin Airlift and the candy bombers
The Berlin Airlift sustained a city of 2.5 million by air for 15 months - and one pilot's act of kindness became its most enduring legacy.
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