Warbirds

Around 100 vintage warbirds in 24 historically sequenced formations are expected to participate in next year’s second Arsenal of Democracy Flyover, the event planning committee announced this week. The flyover, which is being held to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe and the Pacific, will coincide with a […]

A meticulously rebuilt prototype of the P-82 Twin Mustang, designated the XP-82, became the only flying version of the type on New Year’s Eve but it wasn’t supposed to work out that way. Test pilot Ray Fowler was conducting the latest of a series of high-speed taxi tests at the XP-82 Prototype Project’s home base […]

A well-known Texas pilot who gave numerous rides to veterans in his P-51 “Pecos Bill” was killed along with a passenger when the warbird crashed into an apartment building parking lot in Fredericksburg, Texas, on Saturday. Cowden Ward Jr. and the unidentified passenger, believed to be a Second World War B-17 pilot, were taking part […]

Seventy years after it was lost during World War II, amateur divers found the wreckage of a B-24 Liberator bomber in the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Italy. The U.S. Air Force airplane was badly damaged during an aerial engagement with the Luftwaffe in 1944, and the crew was forced to ditch. Several of […]

As if it wasn’t enough to be planning to fly a fleet of vintage C-47s above Normandy next June, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the project also includes about 300 parachute jumpers from a variety of historic-recreation groups who aim to honor the veterans of WWII. This week, they flew their first practice […]

What sounds like a dream flight will undoubtedly be a technical and logistical nightmare as a British group attempts the first circumnavigation in a Spitfire. Although the aircraft climbs like a scalded cat and can go more than 400 MPH, Spitfires were designed for 20-minute bouts of dogfighting, not 27,000-mile cross countries. With a combat […]