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The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin.It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy intercontinental-range strategic airlift capability, one that can carry outsized and oversized loads, including all air-certifiable cargo.
The Sikorsky bomber had a wingspan just a few feet shorter than that of a World War II Avro Lancaster, while being able to carry a bomb load of only 3% of the later aircraft. [ 2 ] The Handley Page Type O /100 owed a lot to Sikorsky's ideas; of similar size, it used just two Rolls-Royce Eagle engines and could carry up to 2,000 lb (910 kg) of ...
Antwerp housed the largest Allied contingent of nine Squadrons. It had been incessantly attacked by V-1 cruise missiles and V-2 SRBM ballistic missiles, and had been given a strong anti-aircraft defence. [54] At 08:00, two formations of 18 Bf 109s of I. and III./JG 77, led by Major Siegfried Freytag, took off with their pathfinders. At the same ...
The B-29 was the largest aircraft to have a significant operational role in World War II and remains the only aircraft in history to have ever used a nuclear weapon in combat. Air warfare was a major component in all theaters of World War II and, together with anti-aircraft warfare , consumed a large fraction of the industrial output of the ...
February 15 – Italian aircraft based at nearby Mek'ele, Ethiopia, maintain at least 12 aircraft over the battlefield all day during the Battle of Amba Aradam against Ethiopian troops. It is a forerunner of the World War II "cab rank" technique of keeping airborne aircraft continually on call over a battlefield to bomb enemy positions when needed.
Before World War II, the Germans saw the potential for aircraft powered by the jet engine constructed by Hans von Ohain in 1936. [15] [16] After the successful test flights of the world's first jet aircraft—the Heinkel He 178—within a week of the invasion of Poland which started the conflict, they adopted the jet engine for an advanced fighter aircraft.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 forced Western air forces to undergo a shift from the massive numbers felt to be necessary during the Cold War to smaller numbers of multi-role aircraft. The closure of several military bases overseas and the U.S. Base Realignment and Closure program have served to highlight the effectiveness of aircraft ...
This is a list of the most-produced aircraft types whose numbers exceed or exceeded 5,000. Any and all types of aircraft qualify, including airplanes , airships , balloons , gliders (sailplanes) , helicopters , etc.