Boeing B-47 Stratojet (USAF Photo) Boeing B-47B rocket-assisted take off. Black smoke from engines indicates water-methanol injection is in use. The Boeing B-47 Stratojet (Boeing company designation Model 450) is a retired American long-range, six-engined, turbojet-powered strategic bomber designed to fly at high subsonic speed and at high altitude to avoid enemy interceptor aircraft. The primary … Read more
Boeing B-50 Superfortress (USAF Photo) Boeing B-50D-95-BO Superfortress (Serial No. 48-096). This is a Boeing photo shoot over Puget Sound, Washington-converted to EB-50D standards as mothership for the Bell X-2 flight test program, 1948. The Boeing B-50 Superfortress is an American strategic bomber. A post–World War II revision of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, it was fitted … Read more
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (USAF Photo) A U.S. Air Force Boeing B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress (s/n 57-0162, nicknamed “Casper The Friendly Ghost”) from the 320th Bomb Wing dropping Mk 117 750 lb (340 kg) bombs over Vietnam. This aircraft was the first B-52F used to test conventional bombing in 1964, and later dropped the 50,000th bomb of the “Arc … Read more
Boeing X-32 (USAF Photo) Boeing Joint Strike Fighter X-32B demonstrator lifting off on its maiden flight from the company’s facility in Palmdale, California, 18 September 2000. The Boeing X-32 is a concept demonstrator aircraft that was designed for the Joint Strike Fighter competition. It lost to the Lockheed Martin X-35 demonstrator, which was further developed … Read more
X-planes (NACA Photo) Bell X-1 being released from Boeing B-29 Superfortress. The X-planes are a series of experimental United States aircraft and rockets, used to test and evaluate new technologies and aerodynamic concepts. They have an X designator within the US system of aircraft designations, which denotes the experimental research mission.Not all US experimental aircraft have … Read more
Bell X-2 Starbuster (NACA Photo) The Bell X-2 (nicknamed “Starbuster”) was an X-plane research aircraft built to investigate flight characteristics in the Mach 2–3 range. The X-2 was a rocket-powered, swept-wing research aircraft developed jointly in 1945 by Bell Aircraft Corporation, the United States Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to explore … Read more
North American XB-70A Valkyrie (USAF Photo) North American XB-70A Valkyrie. The futuristic XB-70A was originally conceived in the 1950s as a high-altitude, nuclear strike bomber that could fly at Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound). At that time, any potential enemy would have been unable to defend against such a bomber. By the early … Read more
(USAF Photo) North American XP-82 Twin Mustang (Serial No. 44-83887), on a test flight over the Sierras, 1945. The North American F-82 Twin Mustang is the last American piston-engined fighter ordered into production by the United States Air Force. Based on the North American P-51 Mustang, the F-82 was originally designed as a long-range escort fighter … Read more
