Airliners Collide Midair Over New York
In December 1960 a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 bound for Idlewild Airport (now JFK) in New York City collided in midair with a TWA Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation descending toward LaGuardia Airport. 128 aboard the two aircraft and six people on the ground were...
U2 Spy Plane Incident
https://youtu.be/4dFx7hSGyHI In May 1960 a Soviet missile shot down an American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory near Sverdlovsk. In February 1962,...
Unarmed Nuclear Bomb Dropped on South Carolina
https://youtu.be/u1s46O9FK-E In March 1958 a B-47 pilot accidentally grabbed the bomb bay door lever and released an unarmed nuclear bomb at 15,000 feet over the suburbs of Florence, South Carolina. The bomb's high explosives exploded on impact, wrecking a house and...
John Glenn Sets Airspeed Record
In July 1957 Marine Corps Major John Glenn flew a Vought F8U Crusader, from Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in California to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York in three hours, 23 minutes, setting a transcontinental speed record: 725.55 mph.
Distant Early Warning Line
The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line was the northernmost of three radar lines in Canada and Alaska. Designed to provide enough warning time of a nuclear attack to enable launching an effective counterattack, the DEW line was placed far north of the joint...
US Hydrogen Bomb Dropped Over Bikini Atoll
In May 1956 the United States conducted the first airborne test of an improved hydrogen bomb. Dropped from a B-52 bomber over the island of Namu in the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the successful test indicated that hydrogen bombs were viable airborne weapons...
Transcontinental Non-stop Flight
https://youtu.be/sfwb9piy9WQ In November 1953 American Airlines began the 1st regular non-stop commercial NY-LA air service with the Douglas DC7 . yesterdays airlines.com 1932 First scheduled cross-country passenger flights with no change of plane 1933...
MiG-15 Pilot Flees to South Korea
https://youtu.be/bFzEp0vuC7Y Operation Moolah - in 1953 U.S forces in Korea offered $100,00 and political asylum to the first pilot who defected to South Korea with a combat-capable MiG-15. In September 1953, a MiG- 15 piloted by Senior Lt. No Kum-Sok of the North...
Chinese Spring Offensive Air War
https://youtu.be/HNgrTVzYDHA The Air Plan After their New Years' offensive, the Chinese People's Volunteer Army high command decided to use the People's Air Force in support of future ground operations. In preparation for this move, an air-ground training...
U.S. Bombing of Pyongyang
https://youtu.be/5v4_kNVCgXc The first intentional U.S. air raid on civilian populations in North Korea occurred with the bombing of the capital city Pyongyang in January 1951. (YouTube video is from 1952). Throughout the remainder of the war, a sustained U.S. air...
Fire Bombing North Korean Cities
https://youtu.be/5v4_kNVCgXc 1952 Attack on Pyongyang From June to October 1950 US Far East Air Force (FEAF) B-29 bombers limited their targets to transport centers and industrial hubs in North Korea. Nevertheless, these "precision bombing" attacks...
MiG-15 Enters the war
https://youtu.be/tsGREOUphOM On November 30, 1950 a U.S. Air Force B-29 Superfortress, attacking an air base in North Korea, was lightly damaged by a lightning-fast, unidentified fighter. The B-29's gunner was unable to fix the fast enemy fighter in the...
Bombing North Korea
https://youtu.be/AVuy3e1vDYw Early in the war, after the virtual destruction of the North Korean Air Force, U.S. Far East Air Force (FEAF) B-29 bombers carried out massive aerial attacks on transport centers and industrial hubs in North Korea....
America in Space
https://youtu.be/XcCfcKhXv4w Image credit: NASA In July 1950 the first rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The General Electric Bumper 2 was a two-stage rocket made of a V-2 missile base topped with a WAC Corporal rocket, capable of reaching...
Bombing North Korea
https://youtu.be/TGY7_WAvkj0 From 1950-53 the United States Air Force (USAF) carried out an extensive bombing campaign against North Korea. It is estimated that conventional bombs, incendiaries and napalm destroyed ~85 percent of the buildings in major...
MASH
The Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) was a fully functional hospital unit maintained by the U.S. Army Medical Corps in a combat zone. MASH units, established in August 1945, were deployed during the Korean War and later...
Early Korean Air War
At the outbreak of the Korean War, the United States Air Force (USAF) had >1000 aircraft in the Pacific region. Immediately mustered against the North Korean invasion were F-80 Shooting Stars, F-82 Twin Mustangs, B-26 Invaders and B-29...
McMinnville UFO
McMinnvile Oregon UFO - Wikipedia In May 1950 photographs of UFOs taken on a farm near McMinnville, Oregon were published in Life magazine and nationwide newspapers. Although some skeptics believe UFOs are a hoax, many ufologists argue that the photos are...
U.S. Navy Plane Shot Down
Consolidated Vultee PB4Y-2 Privateer In April 1950, Soviet fighters shot down a US Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer patrol bomber over the Baltic Sea. At the time, Privateers were used by the US Navy for signals intelligence flights off of the coast of the Soviet Union and the...
B-36 Crash~British Columbia
https://youtu.be/uLnagDIlfZQ In February 1950 a US Air Force B-36 crashed near the coast of northern British Columbia during a simulated nuclear attack on San Francisco. A Mark 4 nuclear bomb, which lacked the plutonium core needed for a nuclear blast, was...
Nonstop Around-the-World
https://youtu.be/OXf1fSiOYPs Flying out of Fort Worth, Texas, a United States Air Force Boeing B-50 Superfortress named Lucky Lady II made the first non-stop around-the-world flight in February 1949. With in-flight refueling, the 94-hour trip covered 23,452 miles...
Pearl Harbor
On the morning of December 7, 1941, the surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii catapulted a reluctant America into the Second World War. There are not many...
Spruce Goose
The largest wooden airplane ever constructed, the Spruce Goose was actually made from birch. In the face of staggering losses to German U-boats in 1942, the steel magnate and shipbuilder Henry Kaiser asked Howard Hughes to design and build a massive flying...
Breaking the Sound Barrier
In October 1947, 24 year-old Air Force test pilot Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager flew an experimental Bell X-XS-1 rocket-propelled aircraft out of Edwards Air Force Base (then called Muroc Army Air Field) in California to break the sound barrier at a speed of...
UFO
In July 1947, an unidentified disc-shaped object, apparently crashed from the air, was found near Roswell, New Mexico. Although there was initial widespread interest in the possibility it was an extra-terrestrial craft, the US military claimed it was merely a...