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Geraldine Mock and the Spirit of Columbus
Jerrie Mock in the Spirit of Columbus, her airplane for the around-the-world flight. Ask the average person on the street, “Who was the first woman to fly around the world solo?” and you’ll likely...
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The production T-37 “Tweet” serves up an enduring mystery
In very early 1952, I was an undergraduate working part time in Cessna’s Flight Test, Aerodynamics and Preliminary Design Group when a request for proposal for the TX came in from the Air Force. The TX...
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Fields of vision: carving hills into airports
This article is taken from Phil Scott’s new book Then and Now: How Airplanes Got This Way, available now from Sporty’s Pilot Shop. -Ed. When the Wright brothers finally had a flying machine that could...
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Time Capsule: Leighton Collins flies an early 707 to Europe
From time to time, we revisit an original Air Facts article that we think would make enjoyable and worthwhile reading today. So it is with Leighton’s “Flight 700,” his story of flying with iconic...
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Pioneer aviator Foster Lane
Foster Lane was born in 1903, the year the Wright Brothers changed everything with their first powered flight. He started flying in 1925, getting his first ride in a barnstormer’s Curtiss JN4 Jenny....
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Leading edge aeronautical research on the plains
And on the planes You don’t think of leading edge aeronautical research being conducted in the General Aviation industry, especially in Wichita, Kansas. But Cessna did just that, in the early 1950s,...
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Leighton Collins on flight training, 1944
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the May, 1944 edition of Air Facts. We found Leighton Collins’ comments on improving both safety and flight training to be as valuable today as they...
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The day Lindbergh got lost
Back in 1968 I was the relief copilot on Pan Am’s Boeing 707 Rome to New York morning flight. I was doing pre-departure Doppler navigation system checks and the captain, first officer and flight...
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The Cessna OE-2: a mishmash military model
In 1954, just after the cessation of hostilities in the Korean war, the Marines wanted an improved model of Cessna’s L-19 Army Liaison/Observation airplane (the Navy/Marine designation for the L-19...
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From the archives: Molt Taylor on flying cars
Editor’s note: Earlier this week Dick Collins shared the long list of airplanes that never made it from dream to reality. In this article, first published in the January 1959 edition of Air Facts, we...
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Eggs to Caracas, Venezuela
Eggs. Who knew there would be a need to fly eggs from Florida to Venezuela? In this case, it was 28,800 pounds of eggs each flight, every night for weeks. Here is the story as it occurred in the summer...
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Will the real Harold Neff please stand up?
It all started when I read a Peter Garrison column in Flying. Rather than his usually more esoteric technical topic, he had written a nostalgic article about “Young Walter” (May 2009) which rang a few...
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Connie flight from Paris to Cairo, 1951
From time to time, we revisit an original Air Facts article that we think would make enjoyable and worthwhile reading today. So it is with Bob Buck’s “Flight to Cairo,” the legendary airline pilot’s...
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Crash of the B-23 Dragon Bomber
The B-23 crashed in a heavily wooded area next to a lake. The afternoon I spent at the crash site of the B-23 “Dragon Bomber” was far different than what the eight crewmen aboard the plane experienced...
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From the archives: Wolfgang Langewiesche flies across Africa
From time to time, we revisit an original Air Facts article that we think would make enjoyable and worthwhile reading today. Today we are pleased to republish “140 in Africa,” a delightful article that...
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The first US Air Meet, 1910
An advertisement for the first Aviation Meet in America featured a variety of flying machines. Viewing the aeroplane for the first time Fans attended the first major International Air Meet at Reims,...
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The art of flying on silent wings
In our latest trip through the Air Facts archives we share a beautiful meditation on soaring, written by legendary airline pilot Bob Buck. Bob was a pilot’s pilot, and his thoughtful, evocative...
View ArticleTop 10 articles of 2013
2013 was another banner year for Air Facts, as we welcomed nearly double the number of readers to our site as in 2012. As usual, variety is what made Air Facts such a fun place, from serious education...
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Warp speed: birth of an aileron
Editor’s note: In an installment from his book Then & Now: How airplanes got this way, Phil Scott explains how the Wrights’ work and others led to the development of the aileron. When we first...
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Richard Bach and Air Facts: long time ago…
In the summer of 1960 a 24-year old Air Force jet fighter pilot, Richard Bach, submitted an unsolicited article to Air Facts. My father and I read the article, agreed that while it was different it had...
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