B-36 Peacemaker (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The B-36 Peacemaker was America's first intercontinental nuclear bomber, the largest piston-engined aircraft ever to enter production, and still holds the world record for the largest wingspan of any combat aircraft.

The Peacemaker project began even before the attack on Pearl Harbor caused America to enter World War Two.   At that time it seemed very likely that Germany was going to invade and defeatGreat Britain.   If a war between America and Germany then started, America would have to bomb targets all the way from the continental United States, which was completely impossible with existing aircraft.   Even after it became clear that Great Britainwouldn't fall the B-36 project was kept alive, first because of the need to bomb Japan and, after the capitulation of Japan, by the start of the Cold War.   The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan by B-29 Superfortresses were soon replaced by larger bombs which were beyond the carrying capabilities of the B-29, leaving the B-36 as the only nuclear bomber with the size, lifting capabilities and range to hit targets in Russia.   The Peacemaker was much larger than its predecessor, with a length of 162 feet and a wingspan of 230 feet, compared to a length of 99 feet and wingspan of 141 feet for the Superfortress.

The Peacemaker was fitted with six piston engines driving propellers, all mounted at the back of the wings in pusher configuration, each engine producing an incredible 3800 horsepower.   To make things even more interesting, it also had four jet engines, which led to the expression among its crews "six turning and four burning".   The jet engines gave extra power for takeoff, but they were shut off when cruising in order to conserve fuel and increase range.

The Peacemaker was America's main atomic bomber until it was completely replaced by the B-52 Stratofortress in 1959.   Its payload was even greater than the B-52, but it could only fly half as fast.   Although much of the B-36's design was old, its large wing and powerful engines allowed it to fly at an altitude and speed which prevented Russian fighters, including the early jets, from intercepting it.   If it was intercepted then it could defend itself using no fewer than eight turrets, each equipped with two 20mm cannon, the most defensive firepower any bomber has ever carried.   An attempt was later made to carry a small "parasitic" jet fighter called the XF-85 Goblin into combat, but it was too difficult for the fighter pilots to hook up to the trapeze which attached them to the Peacemaker, and the project was abandoned.

F-5 Tiger IIs (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

These F-5 Tiger II fighters taxying out during the 2009 Marine Corps Air Station Yuma airshow in Arizona are unusual in several ways.

The first oddity is that the F-5 was built by Northrop mainly for export, although it did see very limited combat with American forces in Vietnam.   It was also intended as an air force fighter, however these two have Marine Corps insignia.  Finally, these aircraft are painted in a very unusual disruptive color scheme, not at all like the current US military low visibility grey scheme.

The reason for all of these peculiarities is that these aircraft are not part of the regular United States combat forces, instead they are "aggressor" aircraft operated by the Marine Corps, a similar function to those performed by the air force at Nellis Air Force Base with their F-15 aggressors and F-16 aggressors.   Since the main purpose of aggressors is to allow American aircraft to fight against aircraft which have different flight characteristics than their own, it makes more sense to use F-5s in this role than F-15s or F-16s, which are part of the regular military.   Indeed the Marine Corps bought these ex-Swiss Air Force F-5s because they perform much like the Russian MiG-21 "Fishbed" fighter.   The color scheme and red star on the tail are a deliberate recreation of standard Soviet paint styles.

KC-135 Stratotanker (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The KC-135 Stratotanker is a dedicated aerial refuelling plane.   It allows fighters and other military aircraft to fly more missions by transferring fuel to them near where they're operating, rather than having to go to a distant air base to refuel.

United States Air Force tankers like the KC-135 use a "flying boom" to transfer fuel.   This consists of a long metal pipe which expands like a telescope, the small "wings" near the end allowing a boom operator or "boomer" lying in front of a window at the back of the plane to maneuver it into the receiving plane's fuel receptacle.   TheUnited States Navy and Marine Corps, as well as foreign air forces, prefer the "probe and drogue" method, with a metal tube or "probe" on the receiving plane, and a basket or "drogue" attached to a flexible hose on the tanker.   The receiving plane's pilot flies towards the tanker and inserts the probe into the drogue, and fuel transfer then begins.   This method allows several planes to refuel at once from the same tanker, since it's possible to have a hose extending from the fuselage, and others extending from the wings.   However, the boom allows fuel to be transferred to large aircraft more quickly.   Another advantage of the boom is that a fighter or other small plane with engine trouble or a large fuel leak can hook up to the boom and then shut down the engine and be towed back to base, where it can glide down.   This technique was used on many occasions during the Vietnam War.

The Stratotanker was developed at the same time as the Boeing 707 airliner.   It was supposed to be nearly identical, but airlines decided they wanted the plane to be larger, so the two planes ended up with much less in common.   For many yearsBoeing had been building only military aircraft like the B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress, but the 707 allowed them to break back into the airliner business.

F-16 Fighting Falcons (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

Two California air national guard F-16 Fighting Falcons during the opening ceremony for the 2009 Riverside airshow.

Unusually for an American airshow, they're both fitted with extra fuel tanks and short-range and long-range practice missiles, however unlike at foreign airshows, flares aren't permitted during these demonstrations.

The F-16 is the workhorse of the USAF, less capable than its twin-engined brother the F-15 Eagle, but cheaper to build and operate, and therefore able to be fielded in greater numbers.

First flying in 1974, the F-16 has been a phenomenal success, going beyond its original brief as a daytime fighter to become a true multirole aircraft equally as capable doing ground attack and air-to-air combat.   It now operates with about 25 air forces around the world, and comes in a variety of configurations, including two-seater models.   It has taken part in many military operations and shot down a wide variety of other aircraft in combat.

Polikarpov I-16 fighter plane (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The Polikarpov I-16 was a very innovative fighter which first flew at the end of 1933.   It was the first cantilevered monoplane fighter with retractable undercarriage, which greatly increased the top speed, making it the world's fastest fighter of the time.   Although some people thought it was based on the American P-26 "Peashooter", it was in fact an original design.

About 500 I-16s fought with the Republicans during the Spanish civil war, completely dominating the air until the Messerschmitt Bf 109 appeared.   When Germany invaded Russia in 1941, about two-thirds of the Russian fighter force still consisted of the I-16, even though the Russians had already realized that it was at the end of its development potential.   The I-16 was still capable of operating against the early-model Bf 109E "Emil" at low altitudes, but by 1943 it had been replaced by more modern aircraft.

P-38 Lightning and Mitsubishi Zero (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The Chino-based P-38 Lightning "23 Skidoo" chases the Commemorative Air Force's Mitsubishi Zero during the 2006 Arizona Skyfest held near the town of Prescott.

The Zero was Japan's main fighter throughout World War Two, and American forces made extensive use of the Lightning during thePacific War because of its long range, especially when using drop tanks like the ones visible in this photograph underneath "23 Skidoo".   An aircraft with two engines also has considerable advantages when flying over vast stretches of ocean, though flying a P-38 on only one engine is no easy matter.

Ultimately the Lightning shot down more Japanese aircraft than any other USAAF fighter, though navy and Marine Corps F6F Hellcatsdid shoot down more.

P-47 Thunderbolt (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The P-47 Thunderbolt was the largest and heaviest single-engined fighter of World War Two, and one of only two American fighters to use a turbo super-charger, the other being the twin-engined P-38 Lightning.

In spite of its size and weight, the Thunderbolt was a very effective fighter, able to tackle even the best German fighters of the time, like the Focke-Wulf FW 190.   Unusually for American land-based fighters of the time, the P-47 wasn't powered by an inline piston engine like the Spitfire, P-40 Warhawk or P-51 Mustang, but a radial piston engine just like the FW 190, a power source also favored by American naval fighters.   Indeed the Thunderbolt used the same R-2800 Double Wasp engine as the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair, though it managed to fly slightly faster than the F4U.

Red Bull Bo-105 Helicopter (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

As anyone who has seen the movie Blue Thunder can tell you, helicopters just aren't supposed to do loops!   This German-designed Bo-105 not only breaks that rule, it does all sorts of other aerobatic feats too, especially when flown on the airshow circuit as part of the Red Bull display team.

Although it's not a well-known helicopter in America, the Bo-105 has been very successful since it was certified in 1970.   Since then it has been exported to 20 different countries, where it's used for many civilian purposes as well as police and military operations.

P-51, F-16, F-15 and F-22 (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

Three generations of American fighter aircraft in formation at the 2006 "Aviation Nation" airshow at Nellis AFB near Las Vegas.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-15 Eagle in the photo are usually classified as "fourth generation" fighters, while the F-22 Raptor is the only operational "fifth generation" fighter.   However the boundary lines between generations is very imprecise, and some aircraft like the Gripen, MiG-35, Sukhoi Su-30 and F-18 Super Hornet are even said rather ungrammatically to be "fourth and a half generation aircraft", sometimes abbreviated to 4.5th generation.

The reality is that almost for a century fighter aircraft technology has advanced faster than almost any other branch of technology, and has incorporated other new technologies as soon as they became practical, including radio, radar, rocket power, cathode ray tubes, transistors, micro-electronics, lasers and GPS, to name just a few.   Indeed if you say that the first world war one fighters were "generation one", then already by the end of that war several generations of fighters had come and gone, because aircraft in service at the start of the war were completely out-classed by the aircraft in use at the end.   Development slowed between the two world wars, but in the lead-up to the second world war biplane fighters became obsolete as faster monoplane designs came into service.   The war saw the development of the first jet fighters, and though the very first, the Me262 Schwalbe, had swept wings, the early British and American jets like the Meteor, Vampire, Venom and Shooting Star all had straight wings and could therefore be considered "first generation" jet fighters.  Technology advanced during the Korean war with next generation swept-wing fighters like the MiG-15 "Fagot" and F-86 Sabre, then settled into a steady pattern of progress as the cold war developed, with supersonic fighters like the MiG-21 "Fishbed" and F-104 Starfighter.   The Vietnam era saw the development and introduction of aircraft like the F-4 Phantom II and the F-14 Tomcat, and then aircraft like the MiG-29 "Fulcrum", Su-27 "Flanker", F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon, which defined the final part of the cold war.

Although a new generation of fighters is coming into service now, aircraft like the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, Gripen, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, the future has never looked less interesting for fighter aircraft enthusiasts, with aircraft development taking longer and longer, military budgets getting smaller and the possibility of unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) taking pilots out of the picture entirely.

Fouga Magister (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The Fouga Magister was the world's first successful jet trainer, first flying in 1952.   A French design, it was also sold to many other countries, including Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Finland, Cambodia, El Salvador, Brazil and Israel.   One of these Israeli Magisters has a role in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar, chasing Judas across the desert!

The Magister ("school house") has an unusual v-shaped tail which came from a glider which Fouga was using as a jet-engine test aircraft.   The tail didn't quite do the job, so they had to put a stabilizing fin underneath, with a small wheel to prevent it from scraping along the runway when the plane takes off.   The instructor sat in the back cockpit, but the view from there is very bad, so a periscope is fitted to improve forward vision.

This Magister looks like it's on fire, but this is just a smoke system to make its display at the 2002 Royal International Air Tattoo look better.

F4U Corsairs (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

A pair of F4U Corsair naval fighters in formation at the 2008 Chino airshow.

Powered by a 2000 horsepower R-2800 radial engine driving a huge 13 foot 4 inch propeller, the Corsair was the first American fighter capable of flying at more than 400 mph in level flight.   The propeller was so large that the designers had to incorporate an inverted gull-wing, leading to the nickname "bent wing bird".   Nevertheless, the Corsair was considerably faster than the F6F Hellcat, which used the same engine.

The long nose of the Corsair made it difficult to see forward well enough to land on aircraft carriers, so it was initially used by theUnited States Marine Corps and the Royal New Zealand Air Forcefrom land bases.   The Royal Navy eventually solved the carrier landing problems by raising the seat seven inches, fitting a curved canopy called the Malcolm Hood (seen on these two Corsairs), and flying a curved approach to the carrier, which allowed the pilot to keep the deck in sight until the last moment.  This allowed the British to use the Corsair on carriers from the middle of 1943, almost a year before the US Navy started operating them.

English Electric Lightning (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The English Electric Lightning was designed in the 1950s to fly short-range missions against incoming bombers.   Later aircraft like the American F-104 Starfighter and the Russian MiG-21 "Fishbed" were designed for the same role, and the Fishbed even had the same sort of "shock cone" mounted in the nose air intake to regulate the flow of air into the engine at different speeds.

The British had done a lot of work on supersonic flight during World War Two and almost became the first country to break the sound barrier, however they cancelled their research program because of a lack of funding and a mistaken belief that their straight-winged research aircraft couldn't fly faster than the speed of sound.   However by this time they'd developed the "shock cone" for the nose intake and also the "all-moving" tail, which was put onto the American X-1 and allowed Chuck Yeager to control the plane aboveMach 1.   British development slowed down for several years, and when they finally developed a supersonic fighter they went straight from sub-sonic aircraft to the Lightning, which was capable of flying at twice the speed of sound.

The Lightning had several unique design features, including twin engines which were mounted one above the other, reducing the frontal area of the plane and therefore making it able to fly faster.   The wheels retracted outwards into the wings, so fuel drop tanks were mounted on top of the wings rather than underneath, giving a very unusual appearance to the aircraft.

The Lightning was used by the RAF and also by the Royal Saudi Air Force and the Kuwait Air Force.   Three are in civilian hands in South Africa and still fly regularly at air shows, and if you have enough money then you can even take a ride in the back seat of one of the trainer versions!

Mirage F1 (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

A Dassault Mirage F1 fighter arrives at the 2002 Royal International Air Tattoo in England, the largest and most diverse military airshow in the world, with hundreds of aircraft from many participating nations.

Designed as a lightweight fighter to replace the Mirage III, the F1 differed significantly from earlier Dassault fighters by having aswept wing and conventional tail surfaces, rather than the tail-less delta layout of its predecessor.   Dassault later returned to the delta layout for the F1's successor, the Mirage 2000.

The Mirage F1 was highly successful, it was exported to about a dozen countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, including Spain, Greece, South Africa, Libya, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait andIraq.

Able to fly at Mach 2.2, the Mirage F1 proved itself during combat operations in several wars.  South African F1s shot down several Angolan MiG-21 "Fishbed" fighters in the early 1980s.   The Iraqisused it to shoot down high-performance F-14 Tomcats of the Iranian Air Force and also hit the American destroyer USS Stark with two Exocet missiles fired from an F1.   On the other side of the account, an unarmed EF-111 Aardvark became the only F-111 Aardvark to ever achieve an air-to-air kill, by forcing an Iraqi F1 to maneuver into the ground.

NASA ER-2 Earth Research 2 (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

This NASA ER-2 ("Earth Research 2") is a jet-powered glider which burns lighter fluid, has bits which fall off whenever it leaves the ground, is in constant danger of dropping out of the sky or breaking up in mid-air, and falls over every time it lands.

The ER-2 is a development of the CIA's U-2 spy plane, and it's this unusual role which explains all of the plane's peculiarities.   It has long, glider-like wings to enable it to climb very high, to at least 85000 feet.   The altitude requires the engines to be fueled using a very light hydrocarbon almost identical to lighter fluid.   When it's at its operating altitude, the difference between the U-2's stall speed and the speed of sound is only 12 miles per hour, so the pilot must constantly work to stay within that narrow range.   If the plane goes too slowly then it will stall, but if it goes too fast then its very lightly built fuselage and aerodynamic surfaces will break up.   Since the U-2 can stay in the air for 12 hours, it's an exhausting plane to fly, and it doesn't help that the pilot has to wear a space suit in case the cockpit depressurizes.   To decrease the amount of nitrogen in the bloodstream and prevent getting "the bends" the pilot starts breathing pure oxygen an hour before the flight begins.

The original design of the U-2 used the same fuselage as another plane designed by Kelly Johnson at Lockheed's "Skunk works", the F-104 Starfighter.   In order to save weight and improve the plane's aerodynamics, Johnson made many unusual choices when designing the undercarriage.   The first choice was to have no undercarriage at all, just a wheeled dolly for takeoff and a skid under the fuselage for landing, exactly the same arrangement as the Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet.   Later this was changed to a bicycle configuration, with two sets of wheels under the fuselage and two "pogo" or "pogo stick" outrigger wheels mounted into sockets under the wings.   When the plane takes off, these pogos fall off, so when the plane lands and slows down, the plane tips over and scrapes the ground on one of its titanium-sheathed wingtips.   As soon as the plane stops, the chase crew fits the pogos back under the wings and the plane can then taxi to its hangar.

For many years at the start of the Cold War the United States had been flying reconnaisance flights over Russia, some of which had been shot down.   It was hoped that the U-2 could fly high enough to evade both radar and defensive measures like fighters and ground-to-air missiles.   However the Russians could track the flights, and when they shot down Francis Gary Powers in 1960 they displayed the evidence and proved that the not permitted flights had been happening.    What's less well known is that other U-2s were also shot down, one over Cuba and five over China where they were being operated by the Taiwanese government.

P-40 Warhawk and P-51 Mustang (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

A P-40 Warhawk and the P-51 Mustang "Glamorous Gal" in formation during the 2006 Yankee Air Museum "Thunder Over Michigan" airshow.

Near the start of World War Two the British asked North American aviation to build Curtiss P-40s under contract, but North American said that they could produce a superior aircraft in about the same amount of time, and so the P-51 Mustang was born.

Even at the start of the war the Warhawk wasn't completely competitive with the main German fighter, the Bf109, and as the war developed it lost more and more ground.   However it continued to serve in places with fewer first-line enemy fighters until the end of the war, and by that time it had served in more theaters of operation than any other American fighter.   Because of its more advanced aerodynamics, particularly its laminar flow wing, the Mustang was about 30 miles per hour faster than the Warhawk, even when using the same Allison engine.   However the Mustang didn't reach its full potential until its American Allison engine was replaced by a British Rolls-Royce engine, which turned it into the most valuable land-based fighter in the American arsenal.

F-117 Nighthawk "Stealth Fighter" (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The F-117 Nighthawk "stealth fighter" was kept secret for over five years after it entered service and is now the first true stealth aircraftto have been retired.   Here you see it from a very unusual head-on angle which makes it obvious just how poor the pilot's forward field of view is.

The Nighthawk was developed as a "black project", and even its fighter designation was a deliberate subterfuge to hide its true purpose as a ground attack aircraft.   Although it can theoretically be armed with air-to-air missiles, in practice it only carries two 2000 pound laser-guided bombs, which are mounted internally to avoid radar reflections.   It doesn't even have guns - the four things poking out the front of the aircraft are part of the instrumentation for determining airspeed and other flight parameters.

Although it first flew in 1981, it didn't make its first public appearance until 1990.   Before its existence was revealed all flights were made at night, making life difficult for the pilots and their families.   Since they also do all of their military operations at night, it's no wonder that the plane was given the name "Nighthawk".   All 54 Nighthawks were based at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico until they retired in 2008, and they're now kept in storage at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, the place where they first flew.   The early stealth technology used on the F-117 made it very expensive to maintain, so it's now been replaced by the F-22 Raptor, which truly is a stealth fighter, but also has the ability to drop two 1000 pound bombs.

FJ-4 Fury (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

Designed by North American Aviation, who had developed the P-51 Mustang, the FJ-4 Fury was the US Navy's first swept-wing fighter.   It was a development of the F-86 Sabre designed for carrier use, just as the Sabre itself had been a land-based development of the early straight-winged FJ-1 Fury.   Although the FJ-4 shared the same name as the FJ-1, they were almost entirely different aircraft.

Owned by Dr Rich Sugden, this is the last FJ-4 Fury still flying.   It's shown here during the 2003 Oshkosh AirVenture airshow.

Mi-14 "Harke" helicopter (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

For many years the Russian aviation industry produced some of the world's best helicopters.   Although often not as technologically sophisticated as those produced in the west, Russian helicopters continue to hold many world records because of their ability to carry loads far beyond the capability of any American or western European helicopter.

The Mi-10 "Harke" was developed from the Mi-6 "Hook", and flew for the first time in 1962, the same year as the American SH-64 Skycrane, which is broadly similar.   However, the Mi-10 is much larger, 108 feet long with a rotor diameter of 115 feet, compared to 70 feet long and 72 foot rotor diameter for the Skycrane.   The Harke's greater size and power makes it able to lift 33000 pounds compared to only 20000 pounds for the Skycrane.

Yak-3 (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

This is a replica Russian Yak 3 fighter, built by the Romanian company Avioane Craiova in 2005 and owned by William Whiteside of California.   Here it's displaying at the 2009 Chino airshow, but it's also sometimes put through its paces at the Reno Air Races in Nevada.

The Yak 3 was a single seat fighter, but as with many aircraft owned by warbirds enthusiasts, this one has been converted to a two seater so that a passenger can be taken aloft.

This type of aircraft was one of the best fighters of World War Two, and it came as a nasty surprise to the Germans who first encountered it in 1944.   It was superior to the Bf109 and even to the Fw190 at altitudes below about 15000 feet.   A famous Luftwaffe directive from this time told German fighter pilots to "avoid combat below 5000 meters (16250 feet) with Yakovlev fighters lacking an oil cooler under the nose".

The Yak's excellent performance came about from a combination of the Yak's small size and light weight, coupled with a powerful engine and a streamlined body.   However, it was lightly armed with only a single 20mm cannon mounted in the propeller shaft and one 12.7mm gun (later increased to two) firing through the propeller arc.   It also had short range, a tendency for its plywood wings to delaminate and problems with its pneumaticflight controls.

TS-11 Iskra "Spark" (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The Polish Air Force jet display team, called the "White and Red Sparks", flying TS-11 Iskra ("spark") trainers at the 2006 Czech International Air Fair near the town of Brno.

The Iskra was developed as a jet trainer in Poland, first flying in 1960 using a British jet engine.   It was the first jet aircraftdesigned in Poland, and is now the oldest jet still in operation in that country.   About 75 of them were also exported to India, but these were retired in 2004.

The Iskra is certainly in the running for the "ugliest airplane" prize, along with other trainers like the Fouga Magister, theT-2 Buckeye and the TR-9 Spitfire.

P-38 Lightning (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is less revered than the P-51 Mustang, but the Lightning was the steed of America's two top aces, Richard Bong with 40 kills to his credit and Thomas McGuire with 38.

The Lightning was designed by Kelly Johnson, who later sealed his claim to fame by designing aircraft like the P-80 Shooting Star, F-104 Starfighter, the U-2 and the SR-71 Blackbird.   The P-38 was one of America's most unusual fighters of World War Two, being one of only two fighters with twin tails and the only one-man land-based fighter with two engines.   The P-38 and the P-47 Thunderbolt were the only two American fighters with turbo superchargers, and along with the P-39 Airacobra and its cousin the , the P-38 was one of the few American land-based fighters with tricycle undercarriage consisting of two main wheels and a nose wheel.

Yak-38 "Forger" (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The Yak-38 was a Russian naval fighter which could take off and land vertically, at least some of the time.

NATO assigned the reporting name "Forger" to the Yak-38 because of its similarities to the British Harrier "jump jet".   The Harrier has only one engine whose thrust is directed out four nozzles, but in addition to its main engine the Yak-38 had two small engines near the front which were only used for takeoff and landing.   The plane's computer could automatically land the aircraft on a carrier by receiving positioning information from one of the ship's computers.

The Yak-38 entered service in 1976, but problems quickly arose because it lacked the power to take off with a useful weapons load.   The problems became even worse when trials were undertaken in the humid air off the coast of Africa, the aircraft frequently being unable to take off at all.   When the planes were sent to Afghanistan for combat testing in 1980, the high altitude and hot temperatures meant they could only carry two 220 pound bombs.   Nevertheless the aircraft continued to operate until the 1990s before they were retired, this one now sitting amongst the clover at the Russian Air Force museum at Monino, near Moscow.

F-86 Sabre and MiG-15 "Fagot" (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The American F-86 Sabre and the Russian MiG-15 "Fagot" were the classic combat duo during the time period when theCold War first turned hot and fighting broke out in Korea.

The Sabre and the MiG both used innovations developed during World War Two by the Germans, and initially they were even powered by American and Russian versions of the same British-designed Rolls Royce Nene jet engine!   Not surprisingly, both aircraft were evenly matched in terms of performance, the Sabre being able to out-turn and out-dive the MiG, and the MiG being better in the climb and absolute ceiling.   The Sabre's eventual kill ratio of roughly 10:1 over the MiG is widely credited to the superior training of the American pilots, rather than the superiority of the Sabre itself.

Messerschmitt Bf109 "Emil" (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The Messerschmitt Bf109 (sometimes erroneously referred to as the Me109) was the main German fighter of World War Two.   It was produced in greater numbers than any other fighter before or since, a total of 33984 units, and comprised over 50% of total Nazi fighter production.  It still holds the record for the number of enemy aircraft destroyed, with over 2500 pilots becoming aces, 105 pilots destroying 100 aircraft or more and two claiming over 300 kills.

When it was introduced in 1937 the Bf109's performance made all other existing fighters obsolete, though that advantage was dissipated when the Hurricane entered service later that same year, and the Spitfire followed in 1938.  The Bf109 saw combat long before those British aircraft, fighting for General Franco during the Spanish civil war.  This early model Bf109E "Emil" flying during the 2005Yankee Air Museum "Thunder Over Michigan" airshow is shown in aSpanish civil war paint scheme, the black 'x' on the fuselage signifying that it flew there with the Kondor Legion.  It's the only Bf109 in North America still flying with its original Daimler engine, though there are several Buchons in the United States, Bf109s built by the Spanish after the war with British-designed Merlin engines.

During the early part of World War Two the Bf109 vied neck-and-neck for superiority with the Spitfire, but over time the German plane became less competitive, though it remained in production until the end of the war.  The instability caused by the Bf109's narrow undercarriage was a major problem, and it's said that more were lost in takeoff and landing accidents than were lost in combat.

Air Tractor AT-802A (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The Air Tractor AT-802A is a large turboprop cropduster which is also used to drop water or flame retardant on forest fires.

Cropdusting doesn't require speed, but it does call for a lot of maneuverability, and having a lot of power provides a margin of safety when banking and turning close to the ground.   The power of the AT-802A's  turboprop engine gives it this safety margin and also makes it able to lift an incredible 9500 pounds, more than the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, which had four engines and a crew of ten.

A fire-fighting version called the FireBoss is often fitted with floats to allow it to operate from lakes or rivers.   It's used for co-ordinating other fire-fighting planes, but it can also scoop water and drop it on the flames, like the Be-200 Altair and other water bombers.   As well as the usual tanks inside the fuselage, the FireBoss can also carry 70 gallons of water in its floats.   This isn't much use on a large fire, but it's very helpful for cleaning up hot spots after the main blaze has been quenched.

Ki-43 Hayabusa "Oscar" (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

An extremely rare Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa ("peregrine falcon", allied code name "Oscar") during the 1996 "Warbirds Over Wanaka" airshow in New Zealand.

The more well known Zero was a naval fighter, but the Hayabusa was a land-based Japanese army fighter.   Both were powered by radial engines, and shared much the same design philosophy, being lightweight and maneuverable, but lacking armor and firepower.   Only half as many Hayabusas were built as Zeroes, but the Hayabusa still shot down more aircraft than the Zero, mostly because it had more targets to shoot at and those targets were not as capable as the US naval fighters the Zero had to deal with.

Deliveries started in April of 1941 and the Ki-43 soon became the most important Japanese army fighter, gaining air superiority in the initial stages of the war in Malaya, the East Indies, Burma and New Guinea.   Once the initial wave of advances subsided the Hayabusa found itself outclassed by allied aircraft, but it had to soldier on until the end of the war because there weren't enough superior replacement aircraft.   Surprisingly the Ki-43 was used after the war, when captured aircraft were incorporated into the air forces of communist China, Taiwan, Indonesia and North Korea.   Some captured aircraft were even used to a limited extent by the French fighting against communist rebels in Indo-China.

F8F Bearcats (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

A pair of F8F Bearcats fly in tight formation at the 2009 Chino airshow.

The Bearcat was the last in a remarkable line of propeller driven naval fighter aircraft developed by the Grumman Corporation, whose reputation for building rugged aircraft earned it the nickname The Iron Works.  Grumman aircraft were the backbone of the US Navy's fighter force, starting with the F1F, F2F and F3F biplanes and then with wartime models like the F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat and the innovative F7F Tigercat, which saw only limited combat.

The Bearcat arrived just too late for service in World War Two, but it was used extensively afterwards, in Korea by American forces and in Vietnamby the French, before America committed troops to that conflict.   The Bearcat used the same R-2800 radial engine as its predecessor the Hellcat, but it was specifically designed to counter the kamikaze threat as allied forces closed in on the Japanese home islands, so it was made smaller and lighter than the Hellcat in order to be able to climb faster to meet the threat.   It succeeded admirably, coming in with a weight 20% less than the Hellcat, climbing 30% faster and flying 50mph faster.   In 1946 a production F8F posted a new time to altitude record by reaching a height of 10000 feet in only 94 seconds, a feat which was only bettered ten years later by a jet.