The North American B-25 Mitchell was the twin-engined medium bomber that filled the middle rank of American bombing aviation in the Second World War. Its design traces back to the late 1930s, when North American Aviation reworked its own…
The North American P-51 Mustang was an American long-range single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber, and it began as the answer to a request for something else entirely. In 1940 the British Purchasing Commission approached North American…
The Avro Lancaster was the four-engined heavy bomber with which RAF Bomber Command sustained its night offensive over Germany from 1942 until the end of the Second World War. It first flew on 9 January 1941 and 7,377 were built across ten…
The Douglas DC-4 was an unpressurized four-engine transport whose production series first flew on February 14, 1942. Mass-produced during the Second World War as the military C-54 Skymaster, it became one of the workhorses of postwar…
The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the four-engined heavy bomber with which the United States carried the strategic air offensive to the Japanese home islands, and the most advanced aircraft to see combat in the Second World War. Its name…
The Douglas DC-6 is the piston-engined four-motor airliner with which the Douglas Aircraft Company took on Lockheed in the post-war long-range commercial market. It began as a military order: in 1944 the United States Army Air Forces asked…
The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, the civil derivative of the C-97 and ultimately of the B-29 bomber, first flew on 8 July 1947 and entered service with Pan American on 1 April 1949. With its double-deck fuselage and lower-deck lounge it…
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (NATO reporting name "Fagot") was the first mass-produced Soviet swept-wing jet fighter, and with it the Soviet Union drew level with Western combat aviation almost overnight. The I-310 "S-01" prototype — a…