Sopwith Camel (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The Sopwith Camel was the most effective British fighter of world war one, credited with shooting down almost 1300 enemy aircraft, more than any other Allied fighter.

A saying of the time was that the Camel would give you either "A wooden cross, a red cross or a Victoria cross", meaning either a grave marker, a serious injury tended by Red Cross medical staff, or the highest British military decoration.   The saying came about because of the flying characteristics of the Camel, which were treacherous for an inexperienced pilot but advantageous for a skilled pilot.

Like most fighter aircraft of this time, the Camel had a rotary engine, which meant that the engine cylinders were arranged in a circle and then the propeller was fixed directly to the engine.   When the engine was running all of the cylinders and the propeller were spinning around at several hundred RPM.   In contrast, many World War Two aircraft usedradial engines, where the cylinders remain stationary and spin a shaft to which the propeller is fixed.

The torque of a rotary engine makes the fuselage of the aircraft rotate as a reaction to the turning of the engine.  If the pilot tries to turn the aircraft he has to fight against the torque when turning in one direction and he is helped by the torque when turning in the other direction.   So the Camel would turn right very rapidly, but only slowly to the left.   If a pilot wanted to turn 90 degrees to the left it was often quicker to turn 270 degrees to the right!

Almost all of the weight in the Camel was within the first seven feet of the aircraft and this magnified the torque effect, allowing the Camel to turn right about twice as fast as any other fighter, a considerable advantage when dogfighting but a problem when trying to fly normally.   If the pilot stalled the plane then it would immediately spin, and the Camel was known for killing pilots who entered a spin.   The Camel's maneuverability was further enhanced by another design feature which would normally be considered a flaw - it was very tail-heavy and the nose kept trying to push upwards.   It was hard work for the pilot to counteract this, but it meant that the Camel would perform loops very easily, another advantage in combat.

B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The B-2 Spirit is the world's only stealth bomber, with an extraordinary shape driven by its mission, and a price tag which makes it literally worth its weight in gold.

The B-2 might look futuristic, but the basic design isn't new at all, the same manufacturer Northrop did two very similar designs just after World War Two, the propeller-driven XB-35 and the jet-driven YB-49.   With no vertical tail it looks completely other-worldly, but the B-2 actually flies much like any other more conventional aircraft.   This one is called "The Spirit of New York", and is based at Edwards Air Force Base rather than atWhiteman AFB in Missouri, which is the only operational base for them in the United States.   You can see that they've put the Edwards "ED" tail code on the landing gear door, since there's no tail to put it on!   What's less obvious is that the lettering on the undercarriage doors was done incorrectly and so the letters lean the opposite way to all other B-2s.

Each B-2 costs somewhere between $2.2 and $2.4 billion apiece, making it by far the most expensive plane in the world.   This price tag is primarily due to the small number built, only 21 rather than the 132 which were originally requested.   The empty plane weighs 158,000 pounds, and with gold currently at about $1000 an ounce, this makes each plane worth the same weight of gold.

Flying wings like the B-2 are very efficient aerodynamically, with much less drag than ordinary aircraft.   This gives the plane greater range, but it also makes it reluctant to come down, so the crews land the plane with a distinct downward trajectory, much like naval aviators flying onto aircraft carriers.   There's no drag chute, so to reduce the landing run the two rudders on each wing are deflected in opposite directions to act as air brakes.   In this photograph you can see this, and also the covers which open up to allow air to flow into auxiliary inlets for the jet engine, a necessity when the plane is moving slowly during takeoff or landing.

Sukhoi Su-27SMK "Flanker" (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The Sukhoi Su-27 is one Russian response to the F-15 Eagle, which was itself an American response to the MiG-25 "Foxbat".

All Russian military aircraft were assigned a reporting name by the western military alliance NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and fighters were given names starting with the letter "F".   In the case of the Su-27, the reporting name was "Flanker".

Like the F-15, the Flanker has twin tails and two engines, but that's about where the external similarities end.   The Eagle is square and boxy, but the Flanker is curved and as elegant as a greyhound.   It's therefore very appropriate that it's the aircraft used by Russia's premier jet display team, the Russian Knights.

Sukhoi have developed many models of the Su-27, this one is an Su-27SMK which was displaying at the 2005 MAKS airshow at Zhukovsky airfield outside Moscow.

F-15 ACTIVE Test Plane (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The F-15 ACTIVE is a modified version of the first F-15 Eagle fighter which was ever delivered.   It's on loan to NASA from the USAF for use as a testbed for advanced aircraft technologies like canards and vectored thrust.

It was hoped that these features would result in aircraft which could take off in shorter distances and therefore operate from air bases in Europe or elsewhere which had been damaged by enemy action.   The new technologies were certainly successfully, allowing the F-15 ACTIVE and its earlier incarnation the F-15 S/MTD to take off at speeds as low as 42 mph, and to land in only 1650 feet, compared to the 7500 feet of a conventional F-15.   The vectored thrust feature was used on the F-22 Raptor, butAmerican military aircraft designers decided not to use canards, leaving those for European fighter aircraft like the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale and Saab Gripen.

F-4D Phantom II (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The F-4 Phantom II has a loyal following of "Phantom Phanatics" who consider it the greatest American fighter of the Vietnam war.

This is the Collings Foundation F-4D "Triple Nickel", the only civilian-operated Phantom II in the world.

The F-4 exceled not only as an air-to-air fighter, but also as a ground attack platform and in the reconnaisance role.   It's also one of a tiny number of aircraft which have operated equally effectively with the air force and the navy.   It was so successful that it remained in production from 1958 to 1981 and over 5000 aircraft were built.   It operated with numerous foreign air forces including Australia, Israel, Japan and the United Kingdom; Germany, Greece and Turkey are still using them.   The United States flew it in the Wild Weasel role in the first Gulf War and numerous QF-4s still operate in the United States as high-performance target drones.