world war ii

"Zwillings" are twin-fuselage variants of standard aircraft developed by Nazi Germany during World War II. They were constructed by joining two existing airframes with a central wing, and given a "Z" or "Zwilling" label following their conventional name. List: Aircraft Built: DFS 332...

The world-famous RKIIGA (Riga Red Banner Institute of Civil Aviation Engineers) will celebrate its 106th anniversary in May 2025. Its history started in 1919 when the School of Aviation Mechanics was opened in Kyiv, which later continued its work in Riga. The institute changed names several...

In 1929 physicist Hermann Oberth coined the idea for a behemoth space mirror that would reflect sunlight onto Earth during night time, thus creating an everlasting day, and significantly boosting crop yields. Sometime in late World War II, the concept was discovered by the Nazis, who sought to...

Gonna park this in the Bar for now, if there's a better spot the mods can move it. I'm looking for a good book on PT boat operations in WW2, and a separate book about Swift Boats in Vietnam (I doubt there's one book that covers both). Anyone got some suggestions? Books written by PT or Swift...

A crazy sounding idea, but it actually worked, it just never went operational and never will... View: https://youtu.be/65CUBgoAcMg?si=9P27Ybf4IP73GRpQ

Dad spent 1943 at Sherburn-in-Elemet photographing top secret trials of gliders for major landings such as Operation Varsity on this day March 24 1945. The secret trials were not so much about the gliders but how they handled carrying troops, panniers , field guns and even tanks (in...

Hello, my first time starting a thread on here so excuse me if I did something wrong. Between 1941 and 1945 Breguet studied a series of 3 aircraft projects of very large proportions designed to carry large quantities of passengers and freight at high altitudes. The projects were known as the...

From, La Science et la vie 1946-05-01, what was this ?.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg1z42pkj8o https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2025/0318/1502596-hemingway/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/18/john-paddy-hemingway-last-pilot-battle-of-britain-dies-105/...

Hi everyone, I am currently finishing to upload my early 2025 research in the French archives to my Google Drive repertories. Yesterday, I completed the upload of archive number GR 9 N 281, which contains notices of various developments between 1933 and 1938 (mid 1938 tops); including the...

This "design" apparently did exist as a specification for the Maru 6 program -- but since the plan was pretty much shelved with the defeat at Midway, nothing came of it. Assumedly, most (if not all) records of its existence were destroyed. Certainly, no official drawings survived (if they ever...

First, my apologies: Recent eye-surgery has temporarily hobbled my Google_Fu... ( APHont and Ctrl-Scroll zoom for the win...) IIRC, US sent but one (1) B-29 to UK to astonish and, yes, boost morale... If deployed in numbers, such as for Silver-plate / Saddletree delivery, some spares might...

Can anybody recommend this book? https://www.keymodelworld.com/article/crecy-publishinghikoki-propeller-twilight

Beloved singer and unparalleled French aerospace historian/writer died yesterday, the 2nd of March 2025, at 80 after a long battle with cancer: For those that are unfamiliar with his top selling history of Soviet and German aircraft, might you find in the below titles a glimpse of what was his...

Hello, Described in both Naval Fighters #75: Grumman F7F Tigercat and F7F Tigercat in Action is a zero-length launch rack for launching the 11.75" Tiny Tim rocket without need for a drop beforehand, developed at NOTS China Lake and intended for the F7F. Evidently it seems it's only for the...

Hello, recently I've come across a 1942 Data Sheet for the Lockheed Hudson Mk.V aircraft, and in this sheet it lists the aircraft having: * 2 x Fixed forward Firing .303s (500 rounds per gun) * 2 x .303s in Dorsal turret (2000 rounds per gun) * 1 x .303 in a ventral Position (1000 rounds per...

[I have taken the liberty of moving this discussion to its own new thread, to avoid stepping on the toes of Oberon_706's Australia-oriented thread.] Dilandu points out that Canada had 2 coasts to defend in the first half of the 20th century, although I believe that was considered in Ottawa to...

In reading "Diary of A Wartime Naval Constructor", DNC Sir Stanley Goodall's wartime diary, I can identify most of the ships referred to, but there are repeated references to a 20Kt Fast Oiler, probably for the 1945 Programme, where I'm coming up blank. 1942 P136. 11 November: … Bateson...

I imagine this probably never got beyond the napkin stage, but very curious if anyone has more detail on this. From a 2006 USNI article by Norman Polmar; https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2006/august/atomic-fish The thought of a Silverplate Avenger is moderately amusing.