April 2021 Articles

• For 368th Fighter Group (FG) pilot, 1st Lt. George L. Sutcliffe, what began as a routine mission on June 14, 1944, over Lisieux, France, took an unexpected and unsettling turn for the worse. Just minutes before, he and his fellow 397th Fighter Squadron (FS) pilots were looking for targets of opportunity after they had bombed […]

  

  Impossible Odds – He hoped the Jug was as tough as they said it was

  For 368th Fighter Group (FG) pilot, 1st Lt. George L. Sutcliffe, what began as a routine mission on June 14, 1944, over Lisieux, France, took an unexpected and unsettling turn for the worse. Just minutes before, he and his fellow 397th Fighter Squadron (FS) pilots were looking for targets of opportunity after they had bombed and strafed their primary target.

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• When we put ourselves under a surgeon’s knife, we usually also put ourselves into the trust of someone who knows his craft and can work under pressure, particular when things start to go really bad. For instance, as a patient, it would be reassuring to know that the doctor about to work on me had […]

  

  Rampant Raiders – April 25, 1967, VA-212 tests the A-4 to the limit

  When we put ourselves under a surgeon’s knife, we usually also put ourselves into the trust of someone who knows his craft and can work under pressure, particular when things start to go really bad. For instance, as a patient, it would be reassuring to know that the doctor about to work on me had also been a carrier-based light-attack naval aviator with the Silver Star and the Purple Heart, and that he was the young A-4 pilot in a famous series of photos taken during a mission to the heart of North Vietnam in 1967, right in the middle of the aerial campaign known as Rolling Thunder.

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• The experimental X-15 carried the first human into the weightless realm above. Devoid of the oxygen essential to life, space is defined as beginning at an altitude of 62 miles. Many of the 199 missions (each was brief) penetrated the inky black boundary of outer space.PARDON THE INTERRUPTIONYou need to be a Flight Journal Digital […]

  

  North American Aviation X-15 Space Age Pioneer

  The experimental X-15 carried the first human into the weightless realm above. Devoid of the oxygen essential to life, space is defined as beginning at an altitude of 62 miles. Many of the 199 missions (each was brief) penetrated the inky black boundary of outer space.

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• Few technologies have had such a rapid development and such a powerful impact on mankind as the invention of the airplane. Also, few new technologies were greeted with such enthusiasm by the general public and by such skepticism by the scientific community. PARDON THE INTERRUPTIONYou need to be a Flight Journal Digital Member to see the […]

  

  Impossible barriers are made to be broken

  Few technologies have had such a rapid development and such a powerful impact on mankind as the invention of the airplane. Also, few new technologies were greeted with such enthusiasm by the general public and by such skepticism by the scientific community. 

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• Authenticated by its log books, an N3N that 41st U.S. President George H.W. Bush trained in is preserved and still flying—now owned by Stewart Wells. This N3N-3, S/N 2952 and currently registered “N44839,” left the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia on June 26, 1941, and was immediately assigned to Training Squadron 11 in Corpus Christi, […]

  

  Naval Aircraft Factory N3N-3

  Authenticated by its log books, an N3N that 41st U.S. President George H.W. Bush trained in is preserved and still flying—now owned by Stewart Wells. This N3N-3, S/N 2952 and currently registered “N44839,” left the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia on June 26, 1941, and was immediately assigned to Training Squadron 11 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

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• There are no great aces without great wingmen, and young Lt. Floyd Fulkerson from Little Rock, Arkansas was one of those wingmen. Although he had four confirmed victories, so he was nearly an ace himself, he saw his primary contribution to the war effort to have been the protection of his lead pilots, some of […]

  

  Five-Gun Fury – Lt. Floyd Fulkerson: Wingman to the Aces

  There are no great aces without great wingmen, and young Lt. Floyd Fulkerson from Little Rock, Arkansas was one of those wingmen. Although he had four confirmed victories, so he was nearly an ace himself, he saw his primary contribution to the war effort to have been the protection of his lead pilots, some of whom were America’s leading aces. During his time with the 475TH Fighter Group in the Pacific, Floyd flew with such notables as Major Richard Bong, Major Tommy McGuire, and even the much-celebrated “Lone Eagle,” Charles Lindbergh. Cover the shooter, that’s what wingmen do.

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