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nturers and Pilots HistoricWings.com :: A Magazine for Aviators, Pilots and Adventurers A Magazine for Aviators, Adventurers and Pilots Menu Flight Stories What’s That? Video Channel Magazine Features Free Subscription About HW Editor’s Letter Policies and Rights Search for: Search Search Search for: Search Scroll News The Swedish Bomb admin June 24, 2021 Beneath the crowded streets of Stockholm, there’s an underground, rock-lined cavern that today serves as a concert and entertainment hall. But back in 1954, it was home to R1, Sweden’s Continue reading The Swedish Bomb High Flight – the Untold Story of Aviation’s Greatest Poem admin April 18, 2021 April 18, 2021 Published on April 18, 2021 By Thomas Van Hare Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined Continue reading High Flight – the Untold Story of Aviation’s Greatest Poem Crisis in Space – MiG Mad Marine, John Glenn and Friendship 7 admin March 21, 2021 March 27, 2021 Published on March 21, 2021 By Thomas Van Hare On February 20, 1962, John Glenn, one of America’s most famous astronauts, climbed into the Mercury-Atlas 6 capsule Friendship 7”. His Continue reading Crisis in Space – MiG Mad Marine, John Glenn and Friendship 7 The Red Stuff — the Soviet Chuck Yeager Revealed admin March 11, 2021 March 27, 2021 Published on March 11, 2021 by Thomas Van Hare Most people know of Chuck Yeager, the pilot who first broke the sound barrier in 1947 in his bright orange Bell Continue reading The Red Stuff — the Soviet Chuck Yeager Revealed The Siege of Tsingtao admin January 19, 2021 January 19, 2021 January 19, 2021 By Thomas Van Hare At the start of the Great War in 1914, Europe held sway over much of China. Great Britain had Hong Kong. The US Continue reading The Siege of Tsingtao Kipling’s Visions of Conquest of the Air admin April 23, 2020 April 23, 2020 Published on April 23, 2020 By Thomas C. Van Hare FAMILY DIRIGIBLE. A competent, steady man wanted for slow speed, low level Tangye dirigible. No night work, no sea trips. Continue reading Kipling’s Visions of Conquest of the Air The Shufti Kite admin March 20, 2020 March 20, 2020 Published on March 20, 2020 By Thomas Van Hare Week after week on Saturdays — the Jewish sabbath — at roughly noon, the pilots of the newly founded Israeli Air Continue reading The Shufti Kite An Early Lifting Body admin July 10, 2019 This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed just two years after the end of the Great War. A lifting body design that added more than 1/4 to the available Continue reading An Early Lifting Body Hot Rod of the Winter Sky admin June 5, 2018 This Week’s Hints to help you along: A brilliant combat design, fast and with fine maneuverability. Wings and fuselage were made of plywood; didn’t fare well in the weather. Powered Continue reading Hot Rod of the Winter Sky Pigs in Space! admin June 5, 2018 June 5, 2018 Published June 5, 2018 By Ron Miller/io9 As much as we love The Muppets, in 1963 a pair of NASA engineers entertained the idea of sending real pigs into space. Continue reading Pigs in Space! By Rocket Plane Across the Atlantic admin March 23, 2018 March 23, 2018 Published March 23, 2018 By Ron Miller/io9 A stubby-winged plane launches itself from an airport runway on the outskirts of Berlin. When it reaches an altitude of several miles, it Continue reading By Rocket Plane Across the Atlantic A Revolutionary One-Man Helicopter admin March 23, 2018 This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed by two college dropouts in their 20s. However, neither designer knew how to fly a helicopter! Body styling reminiscent of a Ford Continue reading A Revolutionary One-Man Helicopter Close Air Support REJECTED admin March 13, 2018 March 19, 2018 This Week’s Hints to help you along: Lost out in the bid to be the leading CAS aircraft. A brilliant design, even with its Hersey Bar wing. Amazing visibility, slow Continue reading Close Air Support REJECTED Who Invented the Rocketship? admin March 12, 2018 March 8, 2018 Published on March 12, 2018 By Ron Miller/io9 The birth of the idea of traveling to other worlds through outer space can be given a specific date: January 7, 1610. Continue reading Who Invented the Rocketship? Super Streamlining for Speed admin March 6, 2018 This Week’s Hints to help you along: A record-setter showcasing advancing streamlining. A fuel tank atop the fuselage, blocks the pilot’s view. Nearly 200 mph, yet still a very slow Continue reading Super Streamlining for Speed The 1935 Plan to Use Rocket Airplanes to Deliver US Mail admin March 6, 2018 March 6, 2018 Published on March 6, 2018 By Ron Miller/io9.com In 1935, a wealthy, enterprising stamp dealer, 32-year-old Frido W. Kessler, came up with what seemed like a brilliant idea. He would Continue reading The 1935 Plan to Use Rocket Airplanes to Deliver US Mail A Nenadovich Biplane Type admin November 29, 2017 This Week’s Hints to help you along: A Nenadovich design, fairly unique in aeronautical engineering. Designed by one nation, finished and flown by another. A wartime experimental design that showed Continue reading A Nenadovich Biplane Type Not a Captured French Plane admin October 23, 2017 This Week’s Hints to help you along: A rotary engine fighter from the Great War. 80 hp when more powerful engines were preferred. Looks like French wings on a German Continue reading Not a Captured French Plane The Six-Ship Takeoff admin October 23, 2017 November 7, 2017 Published October 23, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare Our job tomorrow will be to take off well before daylight for the first time in history and bomb the gun positions Continue reading The Six-Ship Takeoff American Ingenuity admin September 7, 2017 September 7, 2017 This Week’s Hints to help you along: Two cylinders and 150 hp. No combustion required in the cylinders! Can rotate the prop either direction — reversing thrust! Based on, well, Continue reading American Ingenuity An Aerobatic Amazement admin August 24, 2017 This Week’s Hints to help you along: A 1950s, fully aerobatic job that still amazes. Belgian, but most popular in the UK. Not a home built, but a full production Continue reading An Aerobatic Amazement A Daring Flight on D-Day admin June 6, 2017 June 6, 2021 Published on June 6, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare On D-Day, June 6, 1944, after passing a tense and confusing early morning hours in the cockpit of his yellow-nosed Messerschmitt Continue reading A Daring Flight on D-Day The Curtiss Autoplane admin May 7, 2017 May 8, 2017 Published on May 7, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare At the aero show held at New York early this year there was exhibited a Curtiss triplane, which aroused the greatest Continue reading The Curtiss Autoplane Weird, But Not French admin May 7, 2017 May 7, 2017 This Week’s Hints to help you along: Not everything in the skies that looks weird is French. A German’s first foreign production plane after WWII. A late-1950s effort that helped Continue reading Weird, But Not French The VW of the Skies admin April 20, 2017 This Week’s Hints to help you along: From 55 years ago, before the home-builder revolution. Perfectly at home on wheels, skies or floats. Less than 350 lbs empty weight, a Continue reading The VW of the Skies America’s Victory Program admin March 27, 2017 March 27, 2017 Published on March 27, 2017 By Thomas Van Hare Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler, a well-known Democratic Party isolationist, was shocked by what the US Army Air Corps officer, a Continue reading America’s Victory Program A New Sensor Platform admin March 27, 2017 March 26, 2017 This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed as a sensor platform for counterinsurgency. A twin-boom design reminiscent of the Skymaster and Mohawk. To carry wing-loads of rockets and other Continue reading A New Sensor Platform An Absolute Failure admin February 27, 2017 This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed to replace a venerable, well-used type. Outlasted by the...