Aviation News
It was a day that many people in Central Illinois will never forget. The U.S. Presidential aircraft, Air Force One, had one of its wheels stuck in the mud at Willard Airport in Savoy. President Bill Clinton was on his way to speak at the University of Illinois at the time.
See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Continue reading “25 years later, former responders remember Air Force One incident”
Imagine seeing an F-15E Strike Eagle with no souls onboard take off with a large missile mounted on top of the fueslage, it’s a pretty cool sight to behold. In 2006, Boeing proposed an unmanned variant of the F-15E Strike Eagle, called the F-15 Global Strike Eagle (GSE), for air-launching missiles with the launch vehicle mounted dorsally.
Image: USAF
Continue reading “F-15 Global Strike Eagle”
A and T Recovery, a U.S. company that specializes in recovering WW II aircraft, has proposed to recover four warbirds that were lost when aircraft carrier USS Lexington was sunk.
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By Photographer Second Class H.S. Fawcett, U.S. Navy – U.S. Navy photo <a rel=”nofollow” class=”external text” href=”https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nara-series/80-g/80-G-10000/80-G-10613.html”>80-G-10613</a>, Public Domain, Link
Continue reading “Recovery of F4F-3 flown previously by 4 U.S. Navy aces”
On this day in 1983, the F/A-18 became an operational fighter with the first squadron being U.S. Marine Corps’ VMFA-314 at MCAS El Toro.
See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Continue reading “Forty years ago today, the F/A-18 Hornet became operational”
On Dec. 27, 1992, four U.S. Air Force F-16s, led by Lt. Col. Gary North, encountered an Iraqi MiG 25 that crossed into the no-fly zone in southern Iraq. The F-16s trapped the Iraqi aircraft in the no-fly zone, blocking it from escaping to the north. F-16D #90-0778, flow by North, fired an AIM-120A at the Soviet-built fighter and shot it down. The encounter was also the first air combat kill for a U.S. F-16.
Continue reading “The AIM-120 scored its first combat kill on this day 30 years ago”