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Curator's pick

North American P-51 Mustang

The P-51 Mustang is an American single-seat, long-range fighter and fighter-bomber of the Second World War, also flown in the Korean War. North American Aviation designed it to a British order in 1940, and it became a different class of aircraft once the Rolls-Royce Merlin replaced its original Allison engine: with external tanks it could escort heavy bombers deep into Germany and back. Production across all variants is reported at 15,686, and the type went on to serve air forces around the world for decades after 1945.

Republic P-47 Thunderbolt

The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was a large single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber built by Republic Aviation in the United States during the Second World War. First flown in 1941, it served with the United States Army Air Forces as a high-altitude escort and became one of the war's principal ground-attack aircraft; more Thunderbolts were built than any other American fighter.

Lockheed P-38 Lightning

Lockheed's P-38 Lightning was the United States' twin-boom, twin-engine fighter of the Second World War. Designed before the war to a specification for a high-altitude interceptor, it matured into a long-range escort, fighter-bomber, night fighter and photographic reconnaissance aircraft, and fought in every theatre, most successfully in the Pacific, where its range and twin engines suited the distances. Lockheed and Convair built 10,038 Lightnings in all.

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

The B-17 Flying Fortress was Boeing's four-engined heavy bomber, designed in the 1930s for daylight precision bombing and first flown in 1935. More than 12,700 were built. Flying the American daylight campaign over Europe, it dropped more bombs than any other U.S. aircraft of the Second World War and earned a lasting reputation for bringing damaged crews home; fewer than 50 complete airframes survive.

Consolidated B-24 Liberator

The B-24 Liberator was Consolidated Aircraft's four-engined heavy bomber, first flown in 1939 and built in greater numbers than any other American military aircraft of the Second World War. Its efficient Davis wing gave it the range for bombing, maritime patrol and transport work in every theater; it was retired by the U.S. services soon after the war but flew on abroad, last with the Indian Air Force until 1968.

Boeing B-29 Superfortress

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the United States Army Air Forces' four-engined heavy bomber of the Second World War, designed by Boeing around pressurized crew compartments, remote-controlled gun turrets and the range to bomb Japan from distant island bases. First flown in 1942, it flew incendiary and mine-laying campaigns against Japan in 1944-45, and Silverplate B-29s dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It served again in the Korean War, was retired in the early 1960s, and about two dozen survive, two of them still flying.

Vought F4U Corsair

The F4U Corsair is an American carrier fighter and fighter-bomber designed and built by Chance Vought around the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine, and recognised by its inverted gull wing. First flown in 1940, it served with the United States Navy and Marine Corps in the Second World War and again in Korea; Vought, Goodyear and Brewster together built 12,582, and production ran longer than that of any other American fighter of its war.

Grumman F6F Hellcat

The Grumman F6F Hellcat was the United States Navy's principal carrier fighter of the Second World War. Designed by Grumman as a larger, far more powerful successor to the F4F Wildcat and put into production before testing was complete, it entered combat in 1943 and took air superiority in the Pacific from the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. American and British Hellcats were credited with 5,203 Japanese and 13 German aircraft destroyed for 270 of their own lost in air combat. Grumman built 12,275 by November 1945; after the war the type served on in training, reserve, night-fighter and drone roles, and survivors are preserved in museums, with a few still flying.

Grumman TBF Avenger

The Grumman TBF Avenger was the U.S. Navy's standard carrier-based torpedo bomber of the Second World War, designed to replace the outclassed Douglas Devastator and first flown in 1941. It fought from the Battle of Midway onward, most of the more than 9,830 built were produced by General Motors' Eastern Aircraft Division as the TBM, and after the war it served other navies and flew as a firefighting aircraft; survivors are preserved in museums and still flown today.

North American B-25 Mitchell

The B-25 Mitchell was a twin-engine medium bomber built by North American Aviation and named for General William "Billy" Mitchell, the air-power advocate. Ordered into production before a prototype had been tested, it served with the U.S. Army Air Forces, the U.S. Navy and five Allied nations in the Second World War, and won fame when sixteen Mitchells bombed Japan from the carrier Hornet in April 1942. North American built 9,817 before production ended in 1945. The last U.S. Air Force Mitchell retired in 1959, and restored examples still fly.

Supermarine Spitfire

British single-seat fighter designed by R. J. Mitchell for Supermarine and first flown in 1936. With the Hawker Hurricane it defended Britain against the Luftwaffe in 1940, then served on every major front of the Second World War as an interceptor, photo-reconnaissance aircraft, fighter-bomber and trainer. It remained in production throughout the war — 20,351 were built — and in service into the 1950s. About 240 are reported preserved today, approximately 60 of them airworthy.

Hawker Hurricane

The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter designed by Sydney Camm for Hawker Aircraft and first flown on 6 November 1935. The RAF's first eight-gun monoplane, it outnumbered the Spitfire during the Battle of Britain and was credited with the larger share of the victories, then served in nearly every theatre of the Second World War as a fighter, night fighter, fighter-bomber and naval aircraft. Over 14,000 were built, and about a dozen remain airworthy.

Avro Lancaster

The Avro Lancaster was a British four-engined heavy bomber of the Second World War. Developed by Avro from the twin-engined Manchester, whose engines had proved unreliable, it first flew in January 1941 and became the Royal Air Force's principal heavy bomber, carrying the largest bombs in the RAF's wartime inventory and flying the celebrated dams raid of May 1943. Some 7,377 were built in Britain and Canada. After the war the type served on in reconnaissance and maritime roles, in Canada into the 1960s, and two aircraft remain airworthy today.

de Havilland Mosquito

The de Havilland Mosquito was a British twin-engined combat aircraft of the Second World War, built largely of wood and powered by two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. Designed as an unarmed bomber that would rely on speed for protection, it proved adaptable to bombing, night fighting, reconnaissance and strike work, and more than seven thousand were built in Britain, Canada and Australia.

Handley Page Halifax

The Handley Page Halifax was a British four-engined heavy bomber of the Second World War, built by Handley Page and flown mainly by the Royal Air Force. Developed from a twin-engined design, it entered service in 1940 and, with the Lancaster, composed the majority of Bomber Command's Main Force in the last three years of the war. It also towed gliders, dropped agents and supplies, and served with Coastal Command. A total of 6,176 were built; three complete examples survive.

Messerschmitt Bf 109

The Bf 109 was the Luftwaffe's standard day fighter of the Second World War. First flown in 1935, it was built in larger numbers than any other fighter aircraft, developed through a decade of engine and armament changes, and remained in production until 1945. Licence-built versions in Czechoslovakia and Spain kept the design in service into the 1960s.

Focke-Wulf Fw 190

The Fw 190 was Germany's second great fighter of the Second World War: a radial-engined, single-seat design by Kurt Tank's team at Focke-Wulf that first flew in June 1939 and entered Luftwaffe service in 1941. It outclassed the RAF's Spitfire V on arrival and went on to serve as a day fighter, fighter-bomber and ground-attack aircraft on every front, in radial-engined A, F and G versions and the liquid-cooled, long-nose D series. Some 19,500 were built. A small number survive in museums today, and a handful fly, most of them modern reproductions.

Messerschmitt Me 262

The Me 262 was a German twin-jet fighter and fighter-bomber, and the first jet fighter to enter operational service. Designed by Messerschmitt before the Second World War and first flown in 1941 on piston power, it became operational in mid-1944, faster and more heavily armed than any Allied fighter. It came too late to affect the war's outcome, but it opened the jet age in air combat.

Junkers Ju 87

The Junkers Ju 87 — the Stuka — was a German two-seat dive bomber that first flew in 1935 and fought from the Spanish Civil War to the end of the Second World War. In a steep dive it was exceptionally accurate, and where the Luftwaffe held air superiority it was devastating; slow and poorly armed, it was defenceless where it did not. Late versions hunted tanks on the Eastern Front. Only two intact examples survive.

Heinkel He 111

The Heinkel He 111 was a German twin-engined medium bomber, designed in 1934 by Siegfried and Walter Günter and first flown in February 1935. Presented to the world as a fast civil airliner, it became the Luftwaffe's most numerous bomber in the early war years and served on every European front as a bomber, torpedo bomber and transport. Daylight operations over Britain in 1940 exposed its weak defences and it shifted largely to night work, yet it stayed in German production until 1944, and Spanish licence-built versions remained in service until 1973.

Mitsubishi A6M Zero

The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was the Imperial Japanese Navy's main carrier fighter of the Second World War. Designed by Mitsubishi and also built in numbers by Nakajima, it first flew in 1939 and entered service in 1940 as the Type 0 carrier fighter. Exceptionally light and manoeuvrable, it outclassed Allied fighters early in the Pacific war, but its unprotected fuel tanks and lack of armour told against it as faster, tougher Allied fighters appeared; even so, 10,939 were built, more than any other Japanese combat aircraft of the war, and it served to the war's end.

Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa

Single-seat fighter built by Nakajima for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and flown from 1941 to the end of the Second World War. Exceptionally manoeuvrable but lightly armed and, at first, built without pilot armour or self-sealing fuel tanks, the Hayabusa — code-named Oscar by the Allies — was the Japanese Army's most numerous fighter, with more than 5,900 built.

Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate

The Ki-84 Hayate ("Gale"), Allied reporting name "Frank", was a single-seat fighter built by the Nakajima Aircraft Company for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in the last two years of the Second World War. Fast, heavily armed and, unusually for a Japanese design, fitted with armour and self-sealing fuel tanks, it is generally regarded as Japan's best fighter to serve in large numbers; 3,514 were built. A single example survives, on display at the Chiran Peace Museum in Kagoshima, Japan.

Mitsubishi G4M

The Mitsubishi G4M was a twin-engine, land-based medium bomber flown by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service through the Second World War. The Allies called it the "Betty" and its own crews called it "Hamaki" (cigar), after its round fuselage. It was built for extreme range, which it achieved with unprotected wing fuel tanks and no crew armor, and it became the most produced Japanese bomber of the war — and, once Allied fighters could reach it in numbers, one of the most flammable.

Aichi D3A

The Aichi D3A (Allied codename "Val") was the Imperial Japanese Navy's principal carrier dive bomber of the Second World War. First flown in January 1938, it attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and was credited with sinking more Allied tonnage than any other Axis aircraft. Increasingly flown from land bases as the war turned, it remained in combat to the end, many of its last sorties as kamikaze attacks. Nearly 1,500 were built; almost none survived the war, and a single D3A2 is being restored to fly in California.

Cessna 140

The Cessna 140 is a two-seat, single-engine light aircraft built by the Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kansas, and first flown in 1945. Introduced in 1946 alongside the simpler Cessna 120, it was a metal-fuselage, fabric-wing taildragger aimed at the postwar market for training and personal flying. The 140A of 1949 replaced the fabric wing with an all-metal one. Production of the family ended in 1951 after 7,664 aircraft, and about a third of those built are still registered today.

Beechcraft Model 18

The Beechcraft Model 18 is a twin-engined light transport built by the Beech Aircraft Corporation of Wichita, Kansas. First flown in 1937, it remained in production for thirty-two years, and more than 9,000 were built in thirty-two versions. Designed as an executive and feeder-airline aircraft, it served worldwide in civil transport and utility work and, in military service, as a staff transport and as a trainer for navigators and bombardiers. Hundreds survive, in museums and in private hands.

Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing

The Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing is an American cabin biplane built by the Beech Aircraft Corporation of Wichita, Kansas. Its upper wing sits behind the lower one — the negative stagger that gave the type its name — and with retractable landing gear and a powerful radial engine it was faster than most military aircraft when it first flew in 1932. Sold as a fast executive transport and raced successfully in the 1930s, it served in the Second World War as the UC-43, GB and Traveller; 785 were built before the last was delivered in 1949.

Grumman G-21 Goose

The Grumman G-21 Goose is a twin-engined amphibious flying boat first flown in 1937, designed as an "air yacht" for wealthy Long Island commuters. It was Grumman's first monoplane, its first twin-engined aircraft and its first type to enter airline service. In the Second World War it served the armed forces of eleven nations, and afterward it built a long second career with small airlines in Alaska, the Caribbean and California.

Stearman Senior Speedmail

The Stearman Model 4 was a commercial biplane built by the Stearman Aircraft Company at Wichita, Kansas, first flown in 1929. Its two-seat versions were Junior Speedmails and its single-seat mailplanes Senior Speedmails; fast and strongly built, the type served airlines and oil-company fleets, and only forty were built. Survivors still fly in private hands, and several are preserved in museums.

Aichi E13A Jake

The Aichi E13A, known to the Allies as the Jake, was a three-seat twin-float reconnaissance seaplane that became the Imperial Japanese Navy's standard shipboard scout of the Second World War. Designed by Aichi and first flown in 1938, it entered service in 1941 and flew from cruisers, battleships, seaplane tenders and shore bases until 1945, scouting for the Pearl Harbor attack force and searching at Midway. Production totalled 1,418 aircraft, kept in separate accountings by builder: 133 by Aichi, 1,237 by Kyushu Hikoki and 48 by the 11th Naval Air Arsenal at Hiro. Long-ranged but unarmoured, it also flew rescue, transport, anti-shipping and, at the end, kamikaze work, and a handful of surrendered aircraft were taken over by other navies after the war, France in Indochina among them.

Aichi M6A Seiran

The Aichi M6A Seiran was a Japanese attack floatplane designed to be carried inside the giant I-400-class submarines and catapulted against distant targets, above all the Panama Canal. To fit the submarine's watertight hangar its wings rotated and folded flat, and its Atsuta V-12 gave it the speed of a land-based bomber. Aichi built 26, but earthquakes, bombing and a shrinking submarine fleet delayed the type, and its one planned operation, against Ulithi Atoll, collapsed as the war ended. No Seiran ever saw combat. The sole survivor is preserved by the National Air and Space Museum.

Airspeed Oxford

The Airspeed Oxford was a British twin-engine advanced trainer built by Airspeed Limited, developed from the company's Envoy airliner to Air Ministry Specification T.23/36. First flown on 19 June 1937, it became the Royal Air Force's first twin-engine monoplane advanced trainer and trained Commonwealth aircrews throughout the Second World War. Production is usually given as 8,751 aircraft, although the manufacturers' figures sum to 8,586 — a difference attributed to a cancelled Percival order. Oxfords also served as air ambulances, communications aircraft and radar calibration aircraft; the RAF withdrew its last in 1956, and 152 surplus aircraft were converted into the civil AS.65 Consul.

Ansaldo SVA

An Italian biplane family of the First World War, designed by Umberto Savoia and Rodolfo Verduzio and built by Ansaldo from 1917. Conceived as a fighter but too steady for that work, the SVA became a fast reconnaissance and light bombing aircraft whose speed let it operate without an escort; the Italian Air Force counts about 1,700 built, with production continuing into the mid-1920s and, by Volandia's count, users in 11 countries. Its defining moment was the 87th Squadron's leaflet flight over Vienna on 9 August 1918, and two SVA.9s flew the Rome-Tokyo raid in 1920. Three single-seat examples survive in museums.

Antonov An-2

The Antonov An-2 is a Soviet single-engine biplane utility aircraft, the first design of Oleg K. Antonov's OKB-153 bureau. Its first flight came in 1947; Antonov had designed it for farm work, to take over from the Polikarpov Po-2, and it was built around rough-field utility: twelve passengers or more than 4,000 pounds of freight, carried into and out of unprepared strips in almost any weather. More than 18,500 were produced, many under license in Poland and China, in dozens of variants, and examples still fly worldwide.

Arado Ar 234 Blitz

The Arado Ar 234 Blitz was the world's first operational jet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. Built by Arado in Germany and first flown in 1943, it was designed for high-speed reconnaissance and adapted to carry bombs; in service from August 1944, its speed made it almost impossible to intercept. It equipped a single bomber unit and flew reconnaissance to the end of the war. The sole survivor is displayed by the Smithsonian in Virginia.

Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle

The Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle was a British twin-engined aircraft designed as a medium bomber that could be built from wood and steel without light alloys. It first flew on 20 March 1940, but production — principally by A.W. Hawksley Ltd, using parts from more than 1,000 subcontractors — ran only to December 1944, with 602 built. By the time it reached the RAF in quantity in January 1943, it had been passed over as a bomber, and it spent its career as a transport and glider tug with the airborne forces, taking part in the Sicily, Normandy and Arnhem operations before retirement in February 1946. No example is known to survive.

Armstrong Whitworth Argosy

The Armstrong Whitworth Argosy was a British three-engined biplane airliner of the 1920s, and Armstrong Whitworth's first airliner design. Seven were built for Imperial Airways, which flew them on its European routes from 1926, each aircraft named after a city. In 1927 an Argosy launched the 'Silver Wing', the first named air service, between London and Paris, and from 1929 the type helped work the Empire air mail routes towards India and South Africa. Imperial Airways retired the Argosy in 1935, and the last example flew until December 1936.

Avia B-534

The Avia B-534 was a Czechoslovak single-seat biplane fighter designed by František Novotný and built by Avia around a licence-built Hispano-Suiza 12Y engine. First flown in 1933, it became Czechoslovakia's standard fighter, with 328 equipping 21 squadrons in September 1938 and 568 completed by 1939; the partition of the country kept it out of Czechoslovak combat, and it fought the Second World War instead with Slovakia, Bulgaria, Germany and other operators. Its last victory, in September 1944, was the last recorded by a biplane fighter, and no complete example survives.

Avia B.71

The Avia B.71 was the Czechoslovak licence version of the Soviet Tupolev SB (ANT-40) fast bomber. Under a 1937 agreement Czechoslovakia received 61 Soviet-built aircraft fitted with Avia-built Hispano-Suiza engines and Czech armament, and Avia, Aero and Letov were to build 161 more under licence. None was completed before the German occupation of March 1939: the delivered aircraft were seized, and licence production ran under the Protectorate from July 1939 to April 1941, when Avia and Aero completed 111 aircraft, used by the Luftwaffe mainly for training and target towing, with part sold to Bulgaria.

Avia S-199

The Avia S-199 was a Czechoslovak fighter built after the Second World War from the Messerschmitt Bf 109G airframe, re-engined with a Junkers Jumo 211F bomber engine after the stock of Daimler-Benz DB 605s was lost in a 1945 fire. The substitution made it heavy, torque-bound and unpopular, but more than 550 were built; it served Czechoslovakia until 1957 and became the first fighter of the Israeli Air Force in the 1948 war.

Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow

The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a two-seat, delta-wing supersonic interceptor built by A.V. Roe Canada at Malton, Ontario, to defend North America against Soviet bombers crossing the Arctic. Developed from 1953 and first flown on 25 March 1958, it used fly-by-wire controls and flew on interim engines while its Canadian Orenda Iroquois was readied. Five aircraft flew before the federal government cancelled the programme on 20 February 1959 and ordered the completed aircraft and records destroyed; no complete example survives.

Avro Tudor

The Avro Tudor was a British four-engined airliner developed from Avro's Lincoln bomber, and Britain's first pressurised airliner. Designed under the Brabazon Committee's postwar programme for the North Atlantic route, it needed two years of stability work before BOAC rejected it in 1947. British South American Airways flew the lengthened Tudor IV, but Star Tiger and Star Ariel disappeared over the Atlantic in 1948 and 1949 and were never found. Tudor 5s served as fuel tankers in the Berlin Airlift, and converted freighters worked on into the 1950s. Only thirty-eight were completed, split across seven marks, and the type was retired in 1959.

Avro Vulcan

The Avro Vulcan was a British delta-wing strategic bomber, operated by the Royal Air Force from 1956 to 1984 as part of the V-force nuclear deterrent. First flown on 30 August 1952, it was built in two main versions, the B.1 and the larger B.2, and 134 production aircraft were completed. After the deterrent passed to the Royal Navy in 1969 it served as a conventional bomber, and in 1982 flew the Black Buck raids against Argentine positions in the Falkland Islands. One aircraft, XH558, returned to flight in civilian hands in 2007 and flew displays until 2015.

Avro York

The Avro York was a British four-engined transport aircraft built by Avro during the Second World War from the Lancaster bomber, whose wings, tail, undercarriage and Merlin engines it kept behind a new square-section fuselage of double the capacity. First flown in July 1942, it served RAF Transport Command, which took 208 Yorks, and civil operators led by BOAC and British South American Airways, which took 45 civil York Is; RAF Yorks flew over 58,000 sorties in the Berlin Airlift of 1948–49. The last examples were retired in 1964, and two complete Yorks are displayed in British museums.

Bachem Ba 349 Natter

The Bachem Ba 349 Natter was a German rocket-powered interceptor of the Second World War, designed by Erich Bachem's company and built largely of wood for vertical launch from a tower. Guided at first from the ground, the pilot was to fire a salvo of unguided rockets at a bomber formation, then be thrown clear to parachute down while the rocket motor fell separately for reuse. The type never saw combat: its sole manned flight killed the pilot, and two examples survive.

Beechcraft AT-10 Wichita

The Beechcraft AT-10 Wichita was a twin-engined advanced trainer built by Beech Aircraft Corporation at Wichita, Kansas, primarily from wood, so that aluminium could be spared for combat aircraft. First flown in 1941, it trained United States Army Air Forces pilots making the transition from single-engined trainers to multi-engined fighters, transports and bombers. Beech built 1,771 in 1942–43 and Globe Aircraft a further 600 in 1944, 2,371 in all. The plywood structure weathered badly, and after the war most were scrapped or stripped for their engines; one intact example survives at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, and one is being restored to fly.

Bell P-39 Airacobra

The Bell P-39 Airacobra was an American fighter built around an unusual mid-engine layout, with its Allison V-1710 mounted behind the pilot and a 37 mm cannon firing through the propeller hub. Denied its turbosupercharger, it disappointed American and British pilots at altitude, but under Lend-Lease nearly 5,000 went to the Soviet Union, where low-level Eastern Front fighting suited it and leading Soviet aces scored heavily in the type. Of 9,588 built, a few survive in museums, several of them wrecks recovered from New Guinea.

Bell UH-1 Iroquois

The Bell UH-1 Iroquois, known to its crews as the Huey, is a turbine-powered utility helicopter built by Bell Helicopter Corporation for the United States Army. It came from a 1954 Army competition for a medical evacuation helicopter, first flew in 1956, and in Vietnam became the central aircraft of the Army's airmobile warfare, flying troop transport, medical evacuation, gunship and command missions. Production by Bell and its licensees passed 16,000 helicopters across the Huey family. The Army flew its last UH-1 in 2016; Hueys remain at work with other operators and preserved in museums.

Bell X-1

The Bell X-1 was a rocket-powered research aircraft built by Bell Aircraft for a joint program of the NACA, the U.S. Air Force and Bell, created to explore flight at and beyond the speed of sound. Air-launched from a bomber, it became the first airplane to fly faster than sound, in October 1947, and the data it gathered shaped the design of the high-performance aircraft that followed.

Bell X-2 Starbuster

A swept-wing, rocket-powered research aircraft built by Bell Aircraft Corporation for the U.S. Air Force and the NACA, designed to explore aerodynamic heating and stability and control beyond the X-1's regime. Its two airframes flew from 1952 to 1956: one was destroyed by an explosion over Lake Ontario in 1953, and the other reached 126,200 feet and then Mach 3.196 in September 1956, before inertial coupling destroyed it on that final flight and killed its pilot.

Bell XV-3

The Bell XV-3 was a tilt-rotor research aircraft built by Bell Helicopter for a joint U.S. Army and Air Force program exploring the convertiplane idea: an aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but cruises like an airplane. Two were built. Between 1955 and 1966 the XV-3 became the first tilt-rotor to convert fully between vertical and horizontal flight, and although rotor instability and limited performance kept it a testbed, its data shaped the tilt-rotor designs that followed, through the XV-15 to the V-22 Osprey.

Bellanca 28-70

The Bellanca 28-70 was a one-off long-range racing monoplane built by Bellanca in 1934 for Colonel James Fitzmaurice, sponsored by the Irish Hospitals' Trust, to fly the MacRobertson Race from England to Australia. It first flew on 1 September 1934 but never started the race: officials would not clear it at its design weight, and Fitzmaurice withdrew. After an abandoned London-to-Baghdad record attempt and a 1935 landing accident, it was rebuilt in 1936 with a 900 hp engine as the 28-90, set a New York-to-London record with James Mollison as Dorothy, and was sold to Republican Spain in 1937. It was the prototype of the 43 production 28-90 Flash aircraft; no example is documented to survive.

Blackburn Firebrand

The Blackburn Firebrand was a British single-seat naval strike fighter built by Blackburn Aircraft Limited for the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. Designed as a carrier fighter around the Napier Sabre engine, it lost the Sabre to the Hawker Typhoon and was re-engined with the Bristol Centaurus and re-roled as a torpedo fighter. Its development took so long that it entered service only in September 1945; it equipped two front-line squadrons before the Westland Wyvern replaced it in 1953, and no example survives.

Blackburn Ripon

The Blackburn T.5 Ripon was a two-seat carrier torpedo bomber and reconnaissance biplane built by Blackburn Aircraft to Air Ministry Specification 21/23. First flown on 17 April 1926 and powered in British service by the Napier Lion, it equipped Fleet Air Arm carriers from 1929 until the Baffin began replacing it in 1934; British orders came to 92 aircraft across the II, IIA and IIC marks. Finland bought one pattern aircraft and built 25 more under licence, flying them in the Winter and Continuation Wars until 1944. One Finnish-built Ripon survives in a Finnish museum.

Blackburn Skua

The Blackburn B-24 Skua was a two-seat carrier fighter and dive bomber built by Blackburn Aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm. Ordered before its prototype flew, it entered service in November 1938 as the Navy's first monoplane and its first dive bomber. On 10 April 1940 its squadrons sank the German cruiser Königsberg at Bergen, the first major warship sunk by air attack. Outclassed as a fighter, it left front-line service in 1941 and ended the war as a trainer and target tug; 192 were built, and no intact example survives.

Blériot 110

A French long-distance record aircraft built by Blériot Aéronautique to a design by Filippo Zappata and flown by two pilots. The only example, later named Joseph Le Brix, set the world closed-circuit distance record three times from Oran between 1931 and 1932, reaching 10,601 kilometres, and in 1933 set a straight-line distance record from New York to Rayak in Lebanon. After two more years of unsuccessful record attempts, it was scrapped.

Blohm und Voss BV 141

A German reconnaissance aircraft of radical asymmetric layout, designed by Richard Vogt at Blohm und Voss to give its three-man crew the clearest possible view: the engine and tail rode in a boom to port while the crew sat in a glazed gondola to starboard. It flew well from February 1938, but it never entered production or service and no example survives.

Boeing 247

The Boeing 247 is a twin-engine, all-metal airliner that first flew on February 8, 1933, and is called the world's first modern airliner by the National Air and Space Museum. It entered service with United Air Lines in 1933, about 50 percent faster than its competitors, but only 75 were built, 60 of them for Boeing's own airline group. Shut out of the type, Trans World Airlines turned to Douglas, whose DC series soon made the 247 obsolete in its turn.

Boeing 707

The Boeing 707 was the first commercially successful jet airliner: a four-engined, swept-wing transport developed from Boeing's privately funded Dash 80 prototype of 1954. First flown in December 1957, it entered service with Pan American in October 1958 and made jet travel routine on domestic, transcontinental and transatlantic routes through the 1960s and 1970s. Its widened, six-abreast fuselage set the pattern for Boeing's later narrow-body airliners, and military versions kept the family in production until 1991, long after the airliners retired.

Boeing B-47 Stratojet

The Boeing B-47 Stratojet was a six-jet strategic bomber that first flew in December 1947 and became Strategic Air Command's first large jet bomber fleet of the Cold War. Its 35-degree swept wing and pod-mounted engines set the layout that later bombers and jet airliners followed. Boeing, Douglas and Lockheed built 2,032 in bomber, reconnaissance and weather variants; the last Air Force Stratojet retired in 1969, and 23 airframes survive in American museums.

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an eight-engined strategic bomber that first flew in April 1952 and remains in United States Air Force service more than seven decades later. Designed to carry nuclear weapons deep into the Soviet Union, it became the backbone of Strategic Air Command's deterrent, then flew conventional bombing campaigns in Vietnam, the 1991 Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Boeing built 744, the last delivered in 1962; only the B-52H variant remains in service, assigned to Air Force Global Strike Command, and planned engine and radar replacements are intended to keep the fleet flying into the 2050s.

Boeing F4B

The Boeing F4B was a single-seat biplane fighter built by Boeing for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, with a near-identical Army counterpart, the P-12. First flown in 1928 as a company private venture, the series became the primary fighter of both services in the early 1930s; total production of the F4B/P-12 series reached 586 aircraft. It was the last wooden-winged biplane fighter Boeing produced for the U.S. military. Front-line service ended in the late 1930s, second-line and training use ran into the early 1940s, and a handful of aircraft survive in museums.

Boeing P-26 Peashooter

The Boeing P-26 "Peashooter" was a single-seat fighter built by Boeing for the U.S. Army Air Corps, the service's first all-metal monoplane fighter. First flown in 1932, it combined all-metal monoplane construction with an open cockpit, fixed landing gear and wire-braced wings, and served as the Air Corps' front-line fighter through the mid-to-late 1930s. Export Model 281s fought in Spain and China, Philippine aircraft fought the Japanese invasion in December 1941, and Guatemala operated the type until 1957. Two originals survive: one displayed by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and one flown by Planes of Fame Air Museum.

Boulton Paul Defiant

The Boulton Paul Defiant was a British two-seat turret fighter of the Second World War. Designed in the mid-1930s to destroy unescorted bombers, it carried all four of its machine guns in a powered turret behind the pilot and had no forward-firing armament. Its squadrons claimed heavily over Dunkirk in May 1940, but the claims far exceeded the actual losses, and once German fighters learned to attack where the turret could not bear, the type was withdrawn from daylight operations. It then served as a night fighter during the Blitz, and later in gunnery training, target towing, electronic countermeasures and air-sea rescue. Of 1,064 built, one complete aircraft survives, at the RAF Museum Cosford.

Breguet 521 Bizerte

The Bréguet 521 Bizerte was a French long-range maritime patrol flying boat built by Breguet for the French Navy. Developed from the licence-built Short Calcutta, it first flew on 11 September 1933 and entered service in 1935. Only 37 were built, the last three finished after France's surrender in 1940. The type served with five French squadrons, continued with the Vichy Navy, and was taken over by the Luftwaffe for air-sea rescue; a single aircraft returned to French use in 1944.

Bristol 170 Freighter

The Bristol Type 170 Freighter was a twin-engined cargo aircraft built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company and first flown in December 1945. Designed during the war as a rugged transport able to carry heavy loads, vehicles included, it loaded through clamshell nose doors into an unobstructed hold, with the flight deck perched above the doors. It became best known as a car ferry, flying cars and their passengers across the Channel for Silver City Airways; the passenger version was the Wayfarer and the lengthened Mk 32 the Superfreighter. Bristol built 214 by the end of production in 1958, and the type also served air forces including New Zealand's. Only a handful survive, one of them now under conservation at Filton, where the type was built.

Bristol Beaufighter

The Bristol Beaufighter was a British twin-engine heavy fighter of the Second World War, developed from the Beaufort torpedo bomber. Carrying early airborne interception radar, it became the RAF's principal night fighter during the Blitz, and later served widely as a maritime strike and torpedo aircraft in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

Bristol Sycamore

The Bristol Sycamore, the Bristol Aeroplane Company's Type 171, was the first British-designed helicopter to fly and the first British helicopter to receive a certificate of airworthiness. Designed under Raoul Hafner by the company's new Helicopter Department, the single-engined type first flew in July 1947 and entered RAF service in 1953, equipping nine squadrons mainly on search and rescue, casualty evacuation and training work, including operations in the Malayan Emergency. About 180 were built by 1959 and sold to Australia, Belgium and Germany as well as to civil operators; the RAF retired its last in 1972, and survivors are preserved in museums in Britain and Australia, with one still flying in Austria.

Bücker Bü 133 Jungmeister

The Bücker Bü 133 Jungmeister is a German single-seat aerobatic biplane introduced by Bücker Flugzeugbau in 1935 as a single-seat development of the two-seat Bü 131 Jungmann. Its fabric-covered steel-tube fuselage and wooden wings carried a 160 hp Siemens Sh-14A radial in most production aircraft, and its agility made it the Luftwaffe's standard advanced trainer and a dominant competition aircraft of the 1930s and 1940s. Wikipedia puts production at around 250, including 52 licence-built by Dornier in Switzerland and 25 by CASA in Spain, and survivors remain popular with airshow pilots.

Caproni Ca.135

The Caproni Ca.135 was an Italian twin-engine medium bomber designed by Cesare Pallavicino at Caproni's Bergamo subsidiary and first flown on 1 April 1936. Both fetched histories put production at 115 aircraft of all versions, scoped as 32 of the first version for Italy — eight of them later converted for Spain and the remainder re-engined — six Tipo Perù aircraft for Peru, and the Piaggio-engined Ca.135bis, which the Italian article counts as 68 aircraft for Hungary in all and the English article as 67 delivered and operated, one aircraft having been lost on its delivery flight. Italy never used the type on an operational mission; its combat career was Hungary's, on the Eastern Front in 1941–42, while Peru's six flew reconnaissance and transport work in 1941.

Caudron C.445 Goéland

The Caudron C.445 Goéland was a French six-seat light twin of wooden construction, the principal production model of the Goéland family that first appeared in 1934. The Armée de l'Air adopted it as the C.445M for communications and crew training, Air Bleu flew it on night mail routes, and it was exported to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Spain. Production continued under German occupation, with aircraft built for the Germans and others requisitioned, while further Goélands served the Vichy regime and French units operating from Britain. Production restarted after 1945, including 510 post-war C.445/3s, and Air France employed the type as a crew trainer for many years. The family's production totalled 1,702 aircraft, among them 114 C.445s and 404 C.445Ms; no Goéland survives today.

Caudron C.714 Cyclone

The Caudron C.714 Cyclone was a French light fighter of wooden construction, designed under Marcel Riffard at Caudron-Renault and developed from the company's racing aircraft. Its prototype flew in April 1938 and the French Air Force ordered twenty, with options for many more, but the production aircraft that arrived from January 1940 proved seriously underpowered, and the type was withdrawn from French service within months. Eighty were earmarked for Finland's Winter War, of which only six arrived and none fought. The C.714's only combat was with the Polish Groupe de Chasse I/145 in June 1940, whose pilots were credited with twelve confirmed victories before France fell. About ninety were built in all, and one complete airframe was preserved in Finland.

Cessna AT-17 Bobcat

The Cessna AT-17 Bobcat was the military form of Cessna's Model T-50, a five-seat twin-engine light transport introduced to the civil market in 1939. The United States Army took it as the AT-8 and AT-17 multi-engine trainer and, from 1942, as the UC-78 light transport; the U.S. Navy flew it as the JRC-1 and the Royal Canadian Air Force as the Crane. Built largely of wood, it earned the nickname "Bamboo Bomber" in Army service. Cessna built 5,399 aircraft of the type for civil and military use, and cheap war-surplus examples afterwards gave it a long second career in civil hands.

Consolidated NY-2

The Consolidated NY-2 was the most numerous variant of the US Navy's NY trainer family, a longer-span development of the NY-1 with a 220 hp Wright J-5 engine, of which 181 were built for Navy and Marine training. One specially instrumented NY-2, flown by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund's Full Flight Laboratory at Mitchel Field, carried Jimmy Doolittle on the first blind flight on 24 September 1929: a takeoff, circuit and landing made entirely on instruments.

Consolidated P2Y

The Consolidated P2Y is a twin-engined patrol flying boat developed for the US Navy from the company's Commodore airliner line and first flown in 1932. A sesquiplane whose small lower wing carried its stabilizing floats, it equipped Navy patrol squadrons through the 1930s and made the long-range formation flights — among them the first non-stop formation flight from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor in January 1934 — that taught the Navy how to deploy patrol aircraft across the Pacific. It left front-line service in 1941 and finished its US career as a trainer.

Consolidated PBY Catalina

The Consolidated PBY Catalina was an American patrol flying boat that first flew in 1935 and became the U.S. Navy's most successful flying boat of the Second World War. Its range and durability suited it to maritime patrol, anti-submarine work, night attack and air-sea rescue in every theatre. Production by Consolidated and its licensees reached 3,282 by August 1945, a record for flying boats, and the type flew on with other air forces and as a fire bomber for decades.

Convair B-36 Peacemaker

The Convair B-36 Peacemaker was a six-engined piston bomber, later given four auxiliary jet engines, designed during the Second World War to bomb Germany from bases in the United States. It first flew in August 1946 and served with Strategic Air Command from 1948 to 1959 as the backbone of the early Cold War nuclear deterrent, alongside a large family of RB-36 reconnaissance versions. Production is counted differently by different sources, at 383 to 385 aircraft. The B-36 never flew in combat, and four complete aircraft survive.

Convair F-102 Delta Dagger

The Convair F-102 Delta Dagger was a supersonic delta-wing interceptor built by Convair for the United States Air Force, where it became the backbone of Air Defense Command's defence against Soviet bombers. Developed from the XF-92A research aircraft for the Air Force's 1954 Ultimate Interceptor requirement, the YF-102 first flew in October 1953 but could not reach supersonic speed; after a four-month redesign around Richard Whitcomb's area rule, the revised YF-102A exceeded Mach 1 in December 1954. Production aircraft entered service in April 1956, armed with Falcon missiles and rockets in an internal weapons bay and no gun, and Boyne's Airpower Classics profile counts 1,000 built, including the two-seat TF-102A trainer. The type later served briefly in Vietnam, passed to the Air National Guard and to Greece and Turkey, and was retired from United States service in 1976; many survivors became target drones, and others are preserved in museums.

Convair XB-46

A medium jet bomber prototype built by Consolidated Vultee — Convair — for the 1944 Army Air Force competition that produced America's first jet bombers. Three prototypes and a static test airframe were ordered, but shrinking postwar budgets cut the programme to a single aircraft, completed without armament as a testbed after funds for the other two were redirected to the company's XA-44 project. It first flew on 2 April 1947 and handled well, yet the North American B-45 took the interim production contract and Boeing's swept-wing B-47 made the straight-wing design obsolete; the programme was cancelled in August 1947. The prototype flew on as a testbed until 1949, then served pneumatic-system trials in 1950. No example survives: the nose section sent to the Air Force Museum in 1951 apparently did not survive there, and the rest of the airframe was scrapped in February 1952.

Convair XFY-1 Pogo

The Convair XFY-1 Pogo was an experimental turboprop tailsitter built for a U.S. Navy programme that sought a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) fighter able to operate from the decks of ordinary ships and protect convoys. Convair and Lockheed received contracts in May 1951; Convair completed one flying XFY-1, driven by an Allison YT40 turboprop turning two 16-foot counter-rotating propellers. Test pilot James F. "Skeets" Coleman began tethered flights inside a Moffett Field airship hangar in April 1954, made the first free flight on 1 August 1954, and on 2 November 1954 flew the transition from a vertical takeoff to horizontal flight and a vertical landing. The concept worked, but flying the aircraft demanded exceptional skill, and the Navy closed the programme in 1956; the Pogo is now held by the National Air and Space Museum.

Couzinet Arc-en-Ciel

The Couzinet Arc-en-Ciel ('Rainbow') was a family of French wooden trimotor monoplanes built by the Société des Avions René Couzinet to prove that landplanes, rather than flying boats, were the right aircraft for long overwater routes. The first Arc-en-Ciel flew in 1928 and was lost in a crash weeks later; the third, the Couzinet 70, crossed the South Atlantic from Senegal to Brazil under Jean Mermoz in January 1933 and went on to work Air France's South Atlantic mail route as the Couzinet 71. Production orders were cancelled in 1935, and the sole Couzinet 70 was destroyed in 1940; no Arc-en-Ciel survives.

Curtiss A-8 Shrike

The Curtiss A-8 Shrike was a two-seat ground-attack aircraft built by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company for the U.S. Army Air Corps. Designed in 1930 and first flown in June 1931, it was Curtiss's first all-metal military monoplane, with full-span leading-edge slats and trailing-edge flaps, though its wing was still wire-braced and its two cockpits stood far apart. Only a prototype and thirteen service-test aircraft were built, and eleven of the test aircraft were redesignated A-8 after trials. The Army's production order for 46 A-8Bs was instead filled by the radial-engined A-12, after the YA-10 trial showed an air-cooled radial better suited to the attack role.

Curtiss Condor

The Curtiss Condor of this record is the T-32 Condor II of 1933, a two-bay biplane airliner built by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company at St. Louis — not the 1929 Model 53 Condor it was derived from, nor the B-2 Condor bomber behind that. Its 21 production aircraft were fitted as 12-passenger night sleepers for American Airways and Eastern Air Transport, and American marketed them as the world's first complete sleeper-planes. The Army Air Corps and Marine Corps flew small numbers as executive transports, one aircraft surveyed Antarctica with Byrd's 1933–35 expedition, and export and freighter Condors worked in Latin America and China into the 1940s. Curtiss built 45 T-32s in all; the all-metal monoplanes overtook the type within a few years, and no intact example survives.

Curtiss F11C Goshawk

The Curtiss F11C Goshawk was a single-seat carrier fighter and dive bomber built by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company for the U.S. Navy, and the last of the Curtiss Hawk biplanes produced for the American military. In spring 1932 the Navy bought two prototypes: the Cyclone-engined XF11C-2, developed from the company's export Hawk II, and the all-metal XF11C-1. It chose the XF11C-2 and ordered twenty-eight production aircraft, which entered service with VF-1B aboard Saratoga in February 1933 and were redesignated BFC-2 in March 1934. A retractable-gear development served separately as the BF2C, while the same basic design sold widely overseas as the Hawk II.

Curtiss P-40 Warhawk

American single-seat fighter developed from the P-36 Hawk around a liquid-cooled Allison V-12, built in large numbers from 1939 to 1944 and flown by most Allied air forces. Outclassed at altitude by the best opposing fighters, it fought hardest at low level in North Africa, the Pacific and China, where Chennault's American Volunteer Group made it famous.

Dassault Étendard IV

The Dassault Étendard IV was a French carrier-borne strike fighter, the Aéronautique Navale's first supersonic fighter. It was built in two versions, 69 Étendard IVM strike aircraft and 21 Étendard IVP reconnaissance aircraft, delivered between 1961 and 1965, and served aboard the carriers Clemenceau and Foch from 1962. The strike version retired in 1991, while the reconnaissance version, which flew the type's combat missions over Lebanon, Bosnia and Kosovo, remained in service until 2000. The design formed the basis of the Super Étendard.

Dassault Mirage III

The Mirage III is a French tailless-delta fighter designed by Dassault Aviation in the 1950s. The first Western European combat aircraft to exceed Mach 2 in level flight, it was built in large numbers for France and for export, fought in the Middle East and the South Atlantic among other places, and remains in Pakistani service in upgraded form long after most operators retired it.

Dassault Mystère IV

The Mystère IV was France's first transonic fighter-bomber: a new design behind its resemblance to the Mystère II, with a thinner, more sharply swept wing, flown first on 28 September 1952. The United States funded 225 aircraft for the French Air Force, most production aircraft were bought under an offshore procurement contract, and 411 were built in all. Exported to Israel and India, it fought at Suez in 1956, in the Six-Day War of 1967 and in India's wars of 1965 and 1971, and it stayed in French service into the 1980s. Several examples survive in museums.

Dassault Ouragan

The Dassault M.D.450 Ouragan was France's first production jet fighter, a straight-wing fighter-bomber designed by Dassault Aviation as a private venture and first flown in 1949. It served briefly at the front line in France, was bought new by India as the Toofani, fought with Israel in 1956 and 1967, and ended its career with El Salvador in the 1980s.

de Havilland Comet

The de Havilland DH.106 Comet was the world's first jet airliner. Built at Hatfield and first flown in 1949, it entered BOAC service in 1952, flying higher and faster than any airliner before it. In 1953 and 1954 two Comets broke up in flight, and the investigation traced the cause to metal fatigue in the pressurised cabin, a failure mode the industry had not understood. Grounded and redesigned with a stronger structure and oval windows, the Comet 4 returned in 1958 and opened the first transatlantic jet service, but larger American jets took the market it had created. Comets flew on with airlines, the RAF and research agencies until 1997, and the type's descendant, the Nimrod, served until 2011.

de Havilland DH.34

The de Havilland DH.34 was a single-engined biplane airliner built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company, first flown on 26 March 1922. It was designed around its operators' requirements: a Napier Lion engine, wooden two-bay wings and a cabin for nine passengers between them. Daimler Airway put it into service on the Croydon–Paris route a week after the first flight, and it was flown intensively by Daimler, Instone Air Line and, from 1924, Imperial Airways. Eleven were built, including one for the Soviet airline Dobrolyot. Six were lost in accidents in four years of service, and Imperial's fatal Purley crash of December 1924 prompted Britain's first public inquiry into a civil air accident. Imperial retired the type in March 1926, and no example survives.

de Havilland DH.50

The de Havilland DH.50 was a British single-engined biplane transport of 1923, designed as a successor to the wartime DH.4 and DH.9 and carrying four passengers in an enclosed cabin. De Havilland built only 17 at Stag Lane; the other 21 of the 38 built were licence-produced in Australia, Belgium and Czechoslovakia. Alan Cobham's long-distance flights to Cape Town and Australia made the type's reputation, Qantas built and operated it in numbers, and one became the first aircraft used by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The last examples were lost during the Second World War, and the DH.50 displayed at Longreach today is a replica.

de Havilland DH.86

The de Havilland DH.86 Express was a four-engined biplane airliner designed and built in four months in 1933 for the Empire Air Mail Service between Singapore and Australia, and first flown in January 1934. It launched Qantas's overseas operations and served Imperial Airways and other Empire operators, but a series of fatal accidents in Australia and Europe exposed stability flaws that investigations traced to its rushed design, and Australia briefly suspended its certificate of airworthiness. Sixty-two were built before production ended in 1937, and impressed aircraft served the RAAF, the RNZAF and British forces during the Second World War. The last was written off in 1958, and only wreckage remains survive, at the Qantas Founders Museum at Longreach.

de Havilland DH.88 Comet

The de Havilland DH.88 Comet is a British two-seat racing monoplane built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company for the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race from England to Australia. Only five were built. The privately entered G-ACSS Grosvenor House won the race in under 71 hours, and Comets went on to set long-distance records and to be evaluated by governments as mail planes. Two survive: Grosvenor House, flown by the Shuttleworth Collection until it was damaged in an August 2026 incident, and Black Magic, under restoration.

de Havilland Dove

The de Havilland Dove (DH.104) was a British twin-engined short-haul airliner built to the Brabazon Committee's Type VB feederliner requirement as the all-metal successor to the Dragon Rapide biplane. It first flew on 25 September 1945 and entered service with Central African Airways in December 1946. Production, as the sources scope it, totalled 544 aircraft built between 1946 and 1967, including 127 Devons for the RAF and 13 Sea Devons for the Royal Navy. Civil Doves flew feeder, executive, air ambulance and survey work around the world, the type served with the armed forces of more than 20 countries, and examples were still reported airworthy in 2025.

de Havilland Hornet

The de Havilland Hornet was a British single-seat, twin-engined fighter that carried the Mosquito's wooden construction into a smaller, faster airframe built for long-range operations in the Far East. It first flew in July 1944 but entered service only after the war, equipping RAF day fighter squadrons at home before fighting as a strike aircraft during the Malayan Emergency; a naval version, the Sea Hornet, served with the Fleet Air Arm. De Havilland built 209 Hornets and 178 Sea Hornets, the type was withdrawn by 1956, and no complete example survives.

Dewoitine D.520

The Dewoitine D.520 was a French single-seat fighter designed by Émile Dewoitine's team and built by SNCAM and SNCASE. First flown on 2 October 1938, it was the best fighter available to the French Air Force in 1940 and could hold its own against the Messerschmitt Bf 109E, but engine-cooling troubles delayed it and it reached units only in February 1940, in numbers too small to affect the Battle of France; production stood at 437 aircraft by the June 1940 armistice. The type's service then split along the lines of the war itself: 349 more were built for the Vichy French State and 139 for the Axis forces, Germany used its D.520s as trainers while Italy and Bulgaria flew theirs in combat, Vichy aircraft fought the Allies in Syria and North Africa, and aircraft recaptured from the Germans fought for France again at the Liberation. It ended its career as a trainer, the last example flying on 30 September 1953, and three survive in French museums.

Dornier Do 17Z

The Dornier Do 17Z was the main production version of the Luftwaffe's slim-fuselaged "Flying Pencil" bomber, redesigned with a deep glazed nose and heavier defensive armament after combat experience in Spain. It fought through the early campaigns of the Second World War and the Battle of Britain, where it proved the most vulnerable of the German medium bombers, and was leaving front-line service by 1941. One aircraft survives: a Z-2 raised from the Goodwin Sands in 2013 and conserved by the RAF Museum.

Dornier Do 18

The Dornier Do 18 was a German twin-engine flying boat of the 1930s, developed from the Wal line as a transoceanic mail plane for Deutsche Luft Hansa and first flown on 15 March 1935. Its diesel engines and catapult launches from tender ships let Luft Hansa open a South Atlantic mail service and set a non-stop seaplane distance record between England and Brazil in 1938. The Luftwaffe took the type as its coastal reconnaissance flying boat, and a Do 18 shot down over the North Sea on 26 September 1939 was the first German aircraft brought down by British forces in the Second World War.

Dornier Do 26

A German all-metal flying boat built by Dornier Flugzeugwerke for Deutsche Lufthansa's planned Lisbon to New York airmail service, the Do 26 first flew on 21 May 1938. Only six were built: the two civil aircraft flew South Atlantic mail in 1939, and all six, impressed or built as armed military aircraft, were used in the 1940 invasion of Norway, where three were lost. No complete example survives; wreckage of two of them lies off Narvik, and components from one are displayed at the Narvik War Museum.

Dornier Do 335 Pfeil

The Dornier Do 335 Pfeil was a German heavy fighter of the Second World War built around two engines mounted in line in one fuselage, the front one pulling and the rear one pushing. The layout made it one of the fastest piston-engined aircraft ever flown, but it arrived too late and in too small numbers to see combat, and only one example survives, in the Smithsonian's collection.

Douglas A-1 Skyraider

The Douglas A-1 Skyraider is a single-seat, piston-engined attack aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, first flown on 18 March 1945 as the XBT2D-1 and produced as the AD until the 1962 redesignation made it the A-1. Designed as a combined dive-bomber and torpedo-bomber, a successor to types such as the SBD Dauntless, it arrived too late for the Second World War but became a mainstay of the Korean and Vietnam wars, flying close support, interdiction and rescue-escort missions for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force and for several foreign air arms. Douglas built 3,180 in twelve years of production; Skyraider pilots were twice credited with downing MiG-17 jets over Vietnam, and survivors now fly as warbirds and stand in museums.

Douglas A-20 Havoc

The Douglas A-20 Havoc is the American twin-engine attack bomber that France ordered before the U.S. Army did. Designed by Douglas as the Model 7B and first flown on 26 October 1938, it was ordered by France in February 1939 as the DB-7, while the Army Air Corps ordered its own A-20s that June. Britain named the bomber versions Boston and the night-fighter and intruder versions Havoc — the name the USAAF adopted for the family — and the American night-fighter conversion became the P-70. Production ended on 20 September 1944: Boeing's historical accounting counts 7,478 built, 7,098 of them by Douglas and 380 by Boeing at Seattle, while History of War counts 7,385. The Soviet Union was the biggest user, receiving 3,125 aircraft. Few survive; museums display several, and in 2025 the restored New Guinea wreck Hell'n Pelican II was returned to Papua New Guinea.

Douglas A-26 Invader

The Douglas A-26 Invader is a twin-engine attack bomber built by the Douglas Aircraft Company — not the Martin B-26 Marauder, a different bomber whose retirement freed the B-26 designation that the Air Force gave the Invader in 1948, confusing the two types ever since. First flown on 10 July 1942 and in service from 1944, the Invader was, in Smithsonian Magazine's words, the fastest U.S. bomber of World War II, and it went on to fight in Korea and Vietnam, the last as the On Mark-rebuilt B-26K, renamed A-26A in 1966. Douglas built 2,503; surplus aircraft became executive transports and fire bombers, and examples still fly.

Douglas B-23 Dragon

The Douglas B-23 Dragon was a twin-engined medium bomber developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company as a successor to the B-18 Bolo, working from the DC-3 airliner. First flown in 1939, it was the first American bomber fitted with a tail gun, but the B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder soon outclassed it and only 38 were built. None saw combat: the type flew patrol, training, transport and test work, eighteen aircraft becoming UC-67 utility transports. Declared surplus after the war, many Dragons flew on as executive transports, and a handful survive today.

Douglas C-47 Skytrain

The Douglas C-47 Skytrain was the military transport developed from the DC-3 airliner, first flown on 23 December 1941. Douglas built 10,174 of them and the design was license-produced in the Soviet Union; in British and Commonwealth service it was the Dakota. C-47s served with all the Allied air forces carrying cargo and troops, dropping paratroopers, towing gliders and evacuating casualties, and they went on to fly in the Berlin Airlift and, converted as AC-47 gunships, in Vietnam. Many remain in operation and on museum display today.

Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket

The Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket was a swept-wing research aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company for the U.S. Navy and flown in a joint program by the NACA, the Navy-Marine Corps and Douglas from 1948 to 1956. Three aircraft were built, flying in jet, jet-and-rocket and all-rocket configurations. On 20 November 1953 the second Skyrocket, dropped from a Navy bomber and flown by Scott Crossfield, became the first aircraft to reach Mach 2. The program's data on swept-wing behavior and pitch-up informed the design of later fighters, and all three Skyrockets survive.

Douglas DC-3

The Douglas DC-3 is a twin-engine airliner that first flew on December 17, 1935, and became the first airliner able to make money carrying passengers alone, without a mail subsidy. Adapted for war as the C-47 Skytrain, it served with air forces around the world, and decades after production ended examples are still at work carrying cargo.

Douglas DC-8

The Douglas DC-8 was Douglas Aircraft Company's four-engined jetliner, developed from an unsuccessful bid for an Air Force jet tanker contract and first flown on 30 May 1958. It entered service with Delta Air Lines in September 1959 as Boeing's chief rival, and in August 1961 a test aircraft became the first airliner to exceed the speed of sound, in a dive. Douglas built 556 by 1972, the family growing from the original series to the stretched Super 60s and the re-engined Super 70s. Most survivors became freighters, NASA flew one as an airborne science laboratory until 2024, and a handful still fly cargo today.

Douglas SBD Dauntless

The Douglas SBD Dauntless was the U.S. Navy's standard carrier-based scout and dive bomber in the first half of the Pacific war. Developed from a Northrop design under Ed Heinemann, it sank four Japanese carriers at Midway in June 1942 and was credited with sinking more than 300,000 tons of enemy shipping, before the Helldiver replaced it in front-line service from 1944.

Douglas TBD Devastator

The Douglas TBD Devastator was the U.S. Navy's first all-metal monoplane torpedo bomber, entering fleet service in 1937 as the most modern carrier aircraft of its day. By 1942 it was outclassed: its squadrons helped sink the light carrier Shōhō at the Coral Sea, but at Midway 35 of the 41 Devastators sent against the Japanese carriers were shot down and their torpedoes scored no hits. Withdrawn from front-line service and replaced by the Grumman TBF Avenger, the type was gone by the end of 1944, and no complete example survives.

Douglas X-3 Stiletto

A jet research aircraft built by Douglas Aircraft Company to explore sustained Mach 2 flight, low-aspect-ratio wings and the large-scale use of titanium. Two were approved but only one was completed: substitute Westinghouse J34 engines left it severely underpowered, and it passed Mach 1 only in dives, reaching Mach 1.208. Its lasting contribution was an inadvertent 1954 demonstration of roll coupling that fed a NACA research programme, and a wing form later used in the F-104. The aircraft survives at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.

English Electric Canberra

Britain's first jet bomber, designed by English Electric to a 1944 requirement for a Mosquito successor and first flown on 13 May 1949. The unarmed Canberra relied on speed and altitude for protection, set world records in the 1950s, and was built in Britain (901 aircraft), assembled under licence in Australia (48), and produced in the United States, much modified, as the Martin B-57. Exported to more than fifteen countries, it flew in wars from Suez to the Falklands, and the RAF's last reconnaissance Canberras retired only in 2006.

English Electric Lightning

English Electric's Mach 2 interceptor, developed from the P.1 research aircraft: the interim P.1A flew in August 1954 and the P.1B fighter prototype on 4 April 1957, with production later taken over by the British Aircraft Corporation. Its two Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets were stacked one above the other in a slim fuselage, and its radar, missiles and cannon were developed as one weapon system. The Lightning equipped nine RAF frontline squadrons from 1960 to 1988, was exported to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and 337 were built including prototypes.

Fairey Swordfish

The Fairey Swordfish was a British carrier-borne torpedo bomber flown by the Fleet Air Arm in the Second World War. A fabric-covered biplane powered by a single radial engine, it looked obsolete when it entered service in 1936, but it crippled the Italian battle fleet at Taranto in 1940, helped to sink the Bismarck in 1941, and spent the rest of the war hunting U-boats over Atlantic convoys. Two Swordfish still fly today with the charity Navy Wings at Yeovilton.

Farman F.60 Goliath

The Farman F.60 Goliath is a French twin-engine biplane designed in 1918 as a heavy bomber and converted into an airliner when the First World War ended, weeks after its first flight. The Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace calls it the first French civil transport aircraft. More than sixty were built over ten years; Goliaths began regular Paris–London flights in 1920, were built under licence in Czechoslovakia, and were developed into bomber and torpedo variants. No complete example survives: the museum at Le Bourget holds the only surviving fuselage.

Fiat BR.20 Cicogna

The BR.20 Cicogna ("stork") was a twin-engine medium bomber built by Fiat Aviazione, the first all-metal Italian bomber to enter service. Designed by Celestino Rosatelli, it flew on 10 February 1936 and entered service that September; more than 500 were built, scoped by variant as at least 233 of the original model, 264 to 279 of the improved BR.20M and 15 of the final BR.20bis. It fought in Spain from 1937, in Japanese service over China, and then across the Mediterranean, over Britain with the Corpo Aereo Italiano, in North Africa and on the Eastern Front. Outpaced by newer fighters, it ended the war on maritime patrol and training duties; the last example was retired in 1946 and none survive today.

Fiat CR.42 Falco

A biplane fighter built by Fiat Aviazione, the CR.42 Falco was the last biplane fighter to enter production — remaining on the line until 1943 — and became the most numerous Italian fighter of the Second World War; the RAF Museum counts 1,709 built between 1938 and 1943. First flown on 23 May 1938, it fought for Italy across the Mediterranean and North and East Africa, joined the Battle of Britain from Belgium in 1940, and was exported to Belgium, Hungary and Sweden. Four complete examples survive in European museums, one of them under restoration to fly in England.

Fiat G.50 Freccia

The Fiat G.50 Freccia (Arrow), built by Fiat Aviazione and first flown on 26 February 1937, was Italy's first all-metal monoplane fighter. Around 778 were built, most of them by Fiat's CMASA subsidiary: 212 G.50s, 421 of the longer-range G.50bis and 108 two-seat G.50B trainers. Manoeuvrable but underpowered and lightly armed, it was evaluated in Spain in 1939 and fought over France, Belgium, Greece and North Africa. Its most successful service was with Finland, which ordered thirty-five against the Soviet Union and kept the type in front-line use until 1944. A single G.50bis survives, in Belgrade.

Fiat G.91

The Fiat G.91 is a light strike fighter designed by Giuseppe Gabrielli and built by Fiat Aviazione, the winner of NATO's 1953 competition for a standard Light Weight Strike Fighter. First flown on 9 August 1956, it is a small, subsonic, single-seat jet powered by a Bristol Siddeley Orpheus and built to operate from semi-prepared airstrips. Production was split between Fiat, which built 174 aircraft for Italy, and Flugzeug-Union Süd, which licence-built 294 in Germany, the first jets built there since the Second World War; counting prototypes and pre-production aircraft, 756 were completed before production ended in 1977. Italy, West Germany and Portugal operated the type, Portugal flying it in combat in its African colonies; Italy retired the last G.91s in 1995.

Fieseler Fi 103 V-1

The Fieseler Fi 103, better known by its propaganda name V-1, was a German pulsejet-powered flying bomb of the Second World War, and the world's first operational cruise missile. Designed by the Fieseler company with an Argus pulsejet engine, it flew a preset course under autopilot and dived on its target when a range counter ran out. More than 20,000 were launched against British and continental targets between June 1944 and March 1945; almost 6,200 people were killed in Britain. Simple and cheap in concept, it forced the Allies into a major defensive effort, and the United States copied it as the JB-2, carrying its influence into postwar cruise-missile development.

Fieseler Fi 156 Storch

A German liaison and observation aeroplane built by Fieseler, the Fi 156 Storch first flew on 24 May 1936 and became the Luftwaffe's standard army co-operation aircraft, valued above all for its ability to take off and land over very short distances. Around 2,900 were produced between 1937 and 1945 in Germany, France and Czechoslovakia, and production continued after the war in France as the Morane-Saulnier Criquet, with 925 built by 1965, and in Czechoslovakia as the Mráz K-65 Čáp. The type is remembered for two flights: the September 1943 rescue of Mussolini from the Gran Sasso, and Hanna Reitsch's flight into besieged Berlin in April 1945. Many examples survive, and several still fly.

Focke-Wulf Fw 190D Dora

The Focke-Wulf Fw 190D, nicknamed the Dora, was the long-nose, high-altitude development of the Fw 190 fighter, created by replacing the radial engine with a liquid-cooled Junkers Jumo 213. German pilots rated it the finest piston-engined fighter in Luftwaffe service and more than a match for the P-51D, but it entered service only in the autumn of 1944, and between 650 and 700 were completed. Four D-model aircraft survive, all of them in the United States.

Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor

The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor was a German four-engined aircraft that began as a Deutsche Luft Hansa airliner and became the Luftwaffe's long-range maritime patrol bomber. First flown on 27 July 1937, it made the first nonstop heavier-than-air flight from Berlin to New York in August 1938. Converted for war, it hunted Allied convoys across the Atlantic in 1940–41 before Allied fighters and escort carriers ended its ascendancy; by late 1943 it served mainly as a transport. Focke-Wulf built 276 between 1937 and 1944. A single complete aircraft, reconstructed from fjord-salvaged wreckage, is displayed at Berlin Tempelhof.

Focke-Wulf Fw 58 Weihe

The Focke-Wulf Fw 58 Weihe was a German twin-engine multi-role aircraft, first flown in the summer of 1935 and in Luftwaffe service from 1937 as an advanced crew trainer, particularly for navigation, and as a light transport, communications aircraft and air ambulance. Around 1,350 were built, most of them the unarmed Fw 58C with its faired-in nose, and twenty-five B-2s were built under licence in Brazil; the type served through the Second World War in second-line roles and was exported to several countries in Europe and beyond.

Focke-Wulf Ta 152

The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 was a German high-altitude fighter of the Second World War, developed under Kurt Tank from the Fw 190 to intercept Allied bombers far above the altitudes earlier fighters could reach. Powered by a supercharged Junkers Jumo 213 with methanol-water boost, in long-wing H and shorter-wing C versions, it was rushed into production late in 1944 after only a few dozen hours of testing. Engine trouble and shortages kept most of the few dozen completed aircraft on the ground, and its brief service with JG 301 ended with the H models grounded in April 1945. A single example survives, in the National Air and Space Museum.

Focke-Wulf Ta 400

The Focke-Wulf Ta 400 was a six-engined heavy bomber designed in Germany in 1943 for the Amerikabomber programme, the Reich Air Ministry's attempt to field a bomber able to strike the United States from Europe and return. Designed under Kurt Tank as both a bomber and a long-range reconnaissance aircraft, it combined six BMW 801 radial engines — later supplemented on paper by two jet engines — with a pressurized crew compartment and heavy defensive armament, and its design work was spread across German, French and Italian firms. The Air Ministry cancelled the programme in October 1943, judging it a poor use of materials and labour; no prototype was ever completed, and everything published about its performance rests on the designers' own estimates.

Fokker D.XXI

The Fokker D.XXI was a Dutch single-seat fighter designed by Fokker in 1935 for the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force: an inexpensive, rugged monoplane of welded steel tube, fabric and wood with a fixed undercarriage and a Bristol Mercury radial. The Netherlands ordered 36, and the type was also built under licence in Finland — its largest operator — and in Denmark. Already obsolescent in 1939, it fought in Finnish hands through the Winter War and the Continuation War, in which the Finnish Air Force credited it with 191 victories, and it was the only relatively modern fighter the Netherlands could field against the German invasion of May 1940. Finland retired the last examples in 1949; one complete original, FR-110, survives at the Finnish Air Force Museum, and a faithful replica flies in the Netherlands.

Fokker D.XXIII

The Fokker D.XXIII was a Dutch single-seat fighter prototype whose two engines sat in tandem in the fuselage, one driving a tractor propeller ahead of the cockpit and the other a pusher propeller behind it, so that an engine failure could not drag the aircraft sideways. Designed by Marius Beeling, it first flew on 30 May 1939. Rear-engine cooling problems dominated a short test programme of eleven flights; the undercarriage was damaged in April 1940 and the programme was abandoned when Germany invaded that May. The sole prototype was captured and scrapped in 1941.

Fokker G.I

The Fokker G.I was a Dutch twin-engined, twin-boom heavy fighter, designed in secret by Fokker as a multirole jachtkruiser (air cruiser) and first flown on 16 March 1937. Shown at the Paris Air Show before it flew, it equipped two Dutch fighter units and fought in the German invasion of May 1940, in which most of the fleet was destroyed on the ground; captured aircraft later trained Luftwaffe Bf 110 crews. Sixty-two production aircraft were built, in Mercury and Wasp variants. No original survives; a replica is displayed at the Nationaal Militair Museum.

Gee Bee R-1 Super Sportster

The Gee Bee R-1 Super Sportster was a single-seat racing aircraft built by Granville Brothers Aircraft of Springfield, Massachusetts, for the 1932 National Air Races. Around a Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial it wrapped the smallest airframe its designers could manage: a teardrop fuselage wider than its engine and a cockpit set just ahead of the tail. Flown by Jimmy Doolittle, it won the 1932 Thompson Trophy and set a world landplane speed record. Demanding to fly and unstable at low speed, it was wrecked and rebuilt once, then destroyed in a second fatal Bendix Trophy accident in 1935; no original survives.

Gloster Gamecock

The Gloster Gamecock was a British single-seat biplane fighter developed from the Grebe, replacing that type's unreliable Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar engine with a Bristol Jupiter radial and moving the twin Vickers guns inside the fuselage. It entered RAF service in 1926 and became a popular air-show performer, but its accident record was severe: 22 of the RAF's 90 aircraft were lost in landing or spin accidents, and the type left British front-line service in 1931. Finland adopted the improved Gamecock II, building 15 under licence as the Kukko; Finnish Gamecocks served through the 1930s and fought in the Winter War, one forcing down a Soviet DB-3 bomber in January 1940.

Gloster Gladiator

The Gloster Gladiator was a British single-seat biplane fighter, the RAF's last biplane fighter and its first with an enclosed cockpit. Developed by the Gloster Aircraft Company from the Gauntlet as a private venture, it entered service in 1937 already overshadowed by monoplane fighters, yet fought in Norway, over Malta and in the Middle East in the early Second World War, and was exported to 13 countries. It is best remembered for the defence of Malta in June 1940, where a handful of Sea Gladiators, popularly named Faith, Hope and Charity, were for ten days the island's only fighters.

Gloster Meteor

The Gloster Meteor was Britain's first jet fighter and the only Allied jet to see combat in the Second World War. First flown in 1943, it entered squadron service in July 1944 against the V-1 flying bomb, and Gloster and Armstrong Whitworth developed the plain, straight-winged twin-jet into day and night fighters, trainers and reconnaissance aircraft. The F.8 was the RAF's air-defence backbone in the early 1950s, and Australian Meteors fought in Korea. In all 3,947 were built between 1943 and 1955; two still fly as ejection-seat testbeds.

Grumman E-1 Tracer

The Grumman E-1 Tracer was the United States Navy's first purpose-built carrierborne airborne early warning aircraft. Developed through the C-1 Trader from the S-2 Tracker line, it carried a Hazeltine AN/APS-82 radar in a large fixed radome above its twin-tailed fuselage and flew with a crew of four. Its prototype flew in December 1956, and eighty-eight production aircraft, designated WF-2 and renamed E-1B in 1962, entered fleet service from 1960. Ordered as an interim type, the Tracer, known colloquially as the "Willy Fudd" and the "Stoof with a Roof", directed carrier fighters during the Vietnam War before the E-2 Hawkeye replaced it; the last examples left Navy service in 1977.

Grumman F4F Wildcat

Carrier fighter of the United States Navy and Marine Corps at the start of the Pacific war: outmaneuvered by the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the F4F Wildcat relied on heavy armament, armor and rugged construction, and on tactics such as the Thach Weave, to hold the line until stronger fighters arrived. Britain's Fleet Air Arm flew it as the Martlet. In 1943 production passed to General Motors' Eastern Aircraft Division, whose FM-1 and FM-2 served from escort carriers to the war's end; on Smithsonian Magazine's accounting, 7,860 Wildcats were built in total, 5,280 of them by General Motors.

Grumman F5F Skyrocket

The Grumman F5F Skyrocket, flown as the XF5F-1, was a twin-engined, single-seat carrier fighter prototype built for the United States Navy. Ordered as a single prototype in June 1938 and first flown on 1 April 1940, it paired two Wright Cyclone radials with a fuselage so short that the wing's leading edge stood ahead of the nose. Its climb impressed the pilots who tested it against contemporary fighters in 1941, but newer single-engined monoplanes had outclassed it before testing finished, and it never entered production. The prototype flew on as a test aircraft until December 1944, and its trials informed the F7F Tigercat.

Grumman F8F Bearcat

The Grumman F8F Bearcat was an American single-engine carrier fighter, Grumman's last piston-engined fighter, built as the successor to the F6F Hellcat. Grumman designed it around climb: a smaller, lighter airframe than the Hellcat's, wrapped around a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, so it could rise quickly to meet attackers. It first flew in August 1944 and its first squadron was operational in May 1945, but the Second World War ended before it saw combat in American service. Grumman built 1,265 before production ended in 1949. The Bearcat fought later with France in Indochina and served with Thailand and South Vietnam, then found lasting fame as an air racer: modified Bearcats broke the piston-engine speed record and dominated racing at Reno.

Grumman FF Fifi

The Grumman FF "Fifi" was a two-seat biplane carrier fighter of the early 1930s and Grumman's first complete aircraft. The record spans the FF-1 fighter, the SF-1 scout and the FF-2 trainer conversion built by Grumman, plus the 52 licence-built Canadian Car & Foundry G-23s exported as the Spanish GE-23 Delfín and flown by Canada as the Goblin Mk.I. The FF was the first carrier aircraft with retractable landing gear, served with the U.S. Navy from 1933, fought in the Spanish Civil War and guarded Canada's east coast in 1940–42. The sole survivor, a Nicaraguan G-23 restored as an FF-1, is displayed at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola.

Handley Page Hampden

The Handley Page Hampden was a British twin-engined medium bomber that entered RAF service in 1938, one of Bomber Command's three modern twin-engined bombers at the outbreak of the Second World War. Its narrow fuselage made it fast but cramped and weakly defended; driven from daylight operations, it bombed by night until Bomber Command withdrew it in September 1942, then served Coastal Command as a torpedo bomber. Production totalled 1,432 aircraft: 502 by Handley Page, 770 by English Electric and 160 built in Canada.

Handley Page Harrow

A twin-engine heavy bomber built by Handley Page as a stop-gap for the RAF's rapid pre-war expansion, the H.P.54 Harrow was ordered in August 1936, before the prototype flew, and was superseded as a bomber before the Second World War began. It spent the war as a transport and air ambulance — the converted ambulance form was renamed the Sparrow — and the last Harrows were retired in May 1945.

Handley Page Hermes

The Handley Page Hermes was a British pressurised airliner built by Handley Page as the civil counterpart of the RAF's Hastings transport. The first prototype was lost on its maiden flight in December 1945, and the production Hermes IV did not enter BOAC service until 6 August 1950, on routes to West and South Africa. Handley Page built 29 in all at Radlett: one Hermes I and one Hermes II prototype, 25 Hermes IVs and two turboprop Hermes V development aircraft. BOAC replaced the type with Canadair Argonauts in 1952, but second-hand aircraft flew on with British independent airlines on trooping and charter work until 1964. Only a fuselage survives, at Duxford.

Handley Page Heyford

The Handley Page Heyford was a British twin-engine biplane heavy night bomber, the last biplane heavy bomber to serve with the RAF. Built to Specification B.19/27, it first flew in June 1930 with its fuselage hung from the upper wing, a layout that gave the crew an unusually good view from a cockpit seventeen feet off the ground. Handley Page delivered 124 production aircraft between 1933 and 1936, and eleven squadrons flew the type; it stood armed and ready at the Munich crisis of 1938, yet never fired a shot in anger, and it left front-line service on 2 September 1939. It flew on as a trainer and glider tug until 1941, and no complete example survives.

Handley Page HP.42

The Handley Page HP.42 was a four-engine biplane airliner built by Handley Page for Imperial Airways, entering service in 1931. This record covers the family as the sources frame it: the long-range Eastern HP.42 and the shorter-range, higher-capacity Western HP.45. Eight aircraft were built, four of each variant, and their two Pullman-style cabins made them the airline's land-based flagships. In nine years of civilian service the fleet flew more than ten million miles without a fatality, a record scoped to civilian service: one aircraft burned in a hangar fire in 1937, and the seven that reached the war were all destroyed by the end of 1940, the last condemned airframe being scrapped in 1941. None survives.

Handley Page Victor

The Handley Page Victor was a British jet strategic bomber built by Handley Page, the last of the RAF's three V-bombers to enter service. It first flew on 24 December 1952 and joined the RAF in 1958 as a carrier of Britain's nuclear deterrent. Handley Page built 86 in all — two prototypes, 50 B.1s and 34 B.2s — and after the bombers were retired in 1968 many were converted to reconnaissance aircraft and in-flight refuelling tankers. As a tanker it supported the Black Buck raids in the 1982 Falklands conflict and flew in the 1991 Gulf War, staying in service until 1993, longer than the Vulcan or the Valiant. Four aircraft survive in British museums.

Handley Page W.8

The Handley Page W.8 was a British biplane airliner first flown in 1919: Handley Page's first purpose-built civil airliner, developed from the wartime O/400 bomber. This record covers the Type W family as the sources frame it — the twin-engined W.8 and W.8b, the three-engined W.8e and W.8f Hamilton, the W.9 Hampstead and the W.10. Twenty-five were built for civil service, twelve by Handley Page and thirteen by SABCA in Belgium. They served Handley Page Transport, Imperial Airways and Sabena, on the London–Paris route and other European services, from 1921 until the HP.42 replaced them in 1931. The two W.10s that outlasted airline service became flight-refuelling tankers for Sir Alan Cobham's company; none is known preserved in a British museum.

Hawker Horsley

The Hawker Horsley was a British single-engined biplane bomber designed by George Carter and Sydney Camm for Hawker Aircraft. Built first in wood, then in mixed wood-and-metal construction and finally all-metal, it served the Royal Air Force as a day bomber and torpedo bomber from 1926 to 1935, was sold in small numbers to Greece and Denmark, and briefly held the world distance record in May 1927. Production totalled 124 aircraft, including two prototypes, six for Greece and two Dantorps for Denmark. After retirement the type flew on as an engine testbed, including early trials of the Rolls-Royce Merlin, and no example is recorded preserved in a British museum.

Hawker Hunter

The Hawker Hunter is a transonic British jet fighter developed by Hawker Aircraft for the Royal Air Force and first flown in 1951. A single-seat, swept-wing design built around the Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet, it entered service in 1954 as a day interceptor and later served mainly as a fighter-bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, with two-seat trainers alongside. Production, including licence building in Belgium and the Netherlands, reached 1,972 aircraft, and the type served with 21 overseas air forces. Lebanon, the last military operator, retired it in 2014, while contractor-operated Hunters still fly in support roles.

Hawker Sea Fury

The Hawker Sea Fury was a British carrier fighter and fighter-bomber developed by Hawker Aircraft from its Tempest line and first flown, as a naval prototype, in February 1945. It entered Royal Navy service in 1947 as the service's last piston-engined fighter, fought in the Korean War — where a Sea Fury was credited with shooting down a MiG-15 jet — and was widely exported, with about 860 built including Fokker licence production in the Netherlands. Many survive in civilian hands, and modified examples became leading Unlimited-class racers at Reno.

Hawker Tempest

The Hawker Tempest was a British single-seat fighter that began as the Typhoon II, a rework of the Hawker Typhoon with a thinner laminar-flow wing to cure the performance the Typhoon lost at altitude. The Sabre-powered Mk V entered service in January 1944 and made its name against the V-1 flying bombs and on armed reconnaissance over north-west Europe. The Centaurus-powered Mk II and the Sabre V Mk VI arrived too late for the war but served afterwards, including transfers to India and Pakistan; in all, 1,401 Tempests were built.

Hawker Typhoon

The Hawker Typhoon was a British single-seat fighter-bomber of the Second World War. Designed to succeed the Hurricane and built around the powerful Napier Sabre engine, it disappointed as a high-altitude interceptor but excelled at low level, first against tip-and-run raiders and then, armed with bombs and rockets, as the RAF's principal ground-attack aircraft in north-west Europe in 1944-45. Of 3,317 built, almost all by Gloster, only one complete example survives.

Hawker Woodcock

The Hawker Woodcock was a British single-seat biplane night fighter of the 1920s, the first fighter built by the Hawker Engineering Company and the first aircraft bearing the Hawker name to serve with the RAF. Designed to Specification 25/22, the Jaguar-powered prototype failed its trials; George Carter's redesign, the Jupiter-powered Woodcock II, entered service in 1925 with Nos. 3 and 17 Squadrons. Production was small and the career short: the type was grounded in 1928. An improved version built for Denmark, the Danecock and the licence-built Dankok, served into the mid-1930s, and one Dankok is reported preserved in Denmark.

Heinkel He 100

Heinkel's bid to build a fighter faster than the Messerschmitt Bf 109 the Luftwaffe had already chosen. First flown in January 1938, the He 100 used a tightly cowled Daimler-Benz DB 601 and evaporative cooling to reach exceptional speed, and on 30 March 1939 Hans Dieterle set the world speed record in one at 746.66 km/h. The Luftwaffe never ordered it into production. Six prototypes were sold to the Soviet Union and three pre-production aircraft to Japan; the twelve production aircraft stayed at Heinkel's works and were used to publicise an imaginary service fighter, the "He 113". No original survives; a full-scale replica is on display at the Planes of Fame Air Museum.

Heinkel He 162 Salamander

A single-seat jet fighter built by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke under the Volksjäger ("People's Fighter") emergency programme, the He 162 went from contract to first flight in 74 days in late 1944. Built largely of wood to save strategic materials, it reached one Luftwaffe fighter wing in token numbers in 1945, was never certified ready for combat, and had no effect on the outcome of the war.

Heinkel He 178

A small Heinkel testbed built around Hans von Ohain's HeS 3 turbojet, the He 178 made the world's first turbojet-powered flight on 27 August 1939. Demonstrated to the German Air Ministry, it was rejected as impractical and never entered service.

Heinkel He 219 Uhu

A night fighter built by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke, the He 219 Uhu was one of only two aircraft of the Second World War designed from the outset for night fighting. First flown in November 1942, it combined intercept radar with heavy cannon armament, but its programme was cancelled in May 1944 and production continued only in small numbers: NASM counts 294 constructed and 268 put into service. The sole complete survivor, an A-2 captured in Denmark in 1945, is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center.

Heinkel He 280

The Heinkel He 280 was a German twin-jet fighter prototype, the first jet fighter to fly. Heinkel began it after the Air Ministry showed little interest in the He 178; it flew first as a glider in September 1940 and under jet power the following spring. Persistent engine trouble and official preference for the Messerschmitt Me 262 ended the programme in 1943, after nine prototypes; it never entered service, and no complete example survives.

Heinkel He 46

The Heinkel He 46 was a two-seat parasol-wing monoplane built for short-range reconnaissance and army co-operation, first flown in late 1931 as a biplane and redesigned when its small lower wing blocked the crew's view downward. It equipped the Luftwaffe's short-range reconnaissance squadrons through the mid-1930s, served in Spain and with Hungary and Bulgaria, and was being replaced by the Henschel Hs 126 from 1938, yet small numbers fought over Poland in 1939 and the type returned for night harassment missions on the Eastern Front in 1943.

Heinkel He 70 Blitz

The Heinkel He 70 Blitz was a German single-engined monoplane designed as a fast four-seat airliner for Deutsche Lufthansa and first flown on 1 December 1932. Its elliptical wing, smooth flush-riveted skin and retractable landing gear made it one of the fastest airliners of its day; the prototypes set eight international speed records and Heinkel built 324 in all. The Luftwaffe adapted it as a light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, it served in Spain with the Condor Legion, and a licence-engined variant, the He 170, served Hungary. Its wing and streamlined form fed into the later He 111, but no example of the type survives today.

Henschel Hs 123

The Henschel Hs 123 was a German single-seat biplane dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft, first flown on 1 April 1935. Built as a stopgap until the Junkers Ju 87 was ready, it disappointed as a dive bomber in Spain but proved outstanding at close support, and front-line units kept it in service. Only 265 were built, in 1936–37; they fought over Poland, France, the Balkans and the Eastern Front, the last withdrawn in 1944 as the supply of airframes ran out. A 1943 request to restart production failed because the jigs had been scrapped. No example is known to survive.

Henschel Hs 129

The Henschel Hs 129 was a German twin-engine ground-attack aircraft built by Henschel Flugzeugwerke AG, designed from the start around an armoured cockpit and heavy cannon for attacking tanks at low level. First flown in 1939, it entered Luftwaffe service in 1942 and fought chiefly on the Eastern Front, with a troubled deployment to North Africa. Continually up-gunned, it ended with a 75 mm anti-tank cannon in the B-3; 865 were built before production ended in September 1944, and no complete example survives.

Horten Ho 229

A twin-jet flying wing designed by brothers Reimar and Walter Horten, the Ho 229 was built to meet Hermann Göring's 1943 requirement for a fast, long-ranged warplane. Only two prototypes flew, an unpowered glider and a single jet-powered aircraft that crashed on its third test flight, and the type never entered service. The unfinished V3 survives at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

Hughes H-1 Racer

The Hughes H-1 Racer is a one-off American racing monoplane built for Howard Hughes in 1935 to be the fastest landplane in the world. Hughes flew it to a world speed record of 352 mph in September 1935 and nonstop across the United States in under seven and a half hours in January 1937. Its flush-riveted skin, retractable landing gear and two interchangeable wing sets made it a landmark of drag reduction, and the original aircraft is now held by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.

Hughes XF-11

The Hughes XF-11 was a twin-engined photographic reconnaissance prototype built by Hughes Aircraft Company for the United States Army Air Forces. Developed from the secretive D-2, it was designed for 400 mph at high altitude, but it was not completed until after the Second World War had ended. The first prototype crashed on its maiden flight in July 1946, critically injuring Howard Hughes; the second flew in 1947, was tested by the Air Force as the XR-11, and was scrapped in 1949. No example survives.

IAR 80

The IAR 80 was Romania's indigenous Second World War fighter: an all-metal, low-wing monoplane designed and built by Industria Aeronautică Română, first flown in 1939 and in service from 1941. Developed from IAR's licence work on the Polish PZL P.24 and powered by a licence-built Gnome-Rhône radial, it fought on the Eastern Front, defended the Ploiești oil refineries against American bombers, and was developed into the IAR 81 dive bomber. More than four hundred served, the type stayed in frontline use until the end of the war, and no complete original survives.

Ilyushin Il-14

The Ilyushin Il-14 is a Soviet twin-engine piston airliner and transport, developed from the Il-12 as a replacement for the DC-3 and its Soviet-built version, the Lisunov Li-2. First flown in 1950, it entered Aeroflot service in 1954 and was produced in three countries: 1,065 in the Soviet Union, 80 under licence by VEB Flugzeugwerke in East Germany and 203 by Avia in Czechoslovakia, whose Av-14s flew airline, military and survey work into the 1990s. The type served across the Soviet bloc and was widely exported before the Antonov An-24 and Yakovlev Yak-40 replaced it; a few examples were reported still airworthy in Russia in the 2010s.

Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik

The Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik was a Soviet armored ground-attack aircraft of the Second World War. Built around a steel armored shell that protected its crew, engine and fuel, it attacked German armor and troops at low level on the Eastern Front and was produced in larger numbers, over 36,000, than any other military aircraft in history. Few survive today; examples are preserved in museums in Europe and the United States, and one flies in Washington State.

Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle

The Ilyushin Il-28, NATO reporting name Beagle, is a Soviet twin-engined jet bomber that first flew in 1948 and entered service in 1950. Soviet factories built 6,316 of them between 1949 and 1955; Avia licence-built the type in Czechoslovakia as the B-228, and Harbin built it in China without a licence as the H-5. Exported widely, it was deployed to Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, and North Korea is reported to remain its last operator.

Junkers F 13

The Junkers F 13 was a German single-engine airliner that first flew on 25 June 1919 and became the first all-metal transport aircraft to enter production service worldwide. Its corrugated duralumin skin, cantilever wing and enclosed cabin for four passengers set the pattern that airliners have followed since. Production is most often put at 322 aircraft, built at Dessau and under licence abroad, and at the type's mid-1920s peak it was estimated to be carrying some 40 percent of world air traffic. Five originals survive in museums, and a flying reproduction returned the type to the air in 2016.

Junkers Ju 390

The Junkers Ju 390 was a German six-engined long-range aircraft of the Second World War, a stretched derivative of the Ju 290 built for the Amerikabomber programme, which sought a bomber able to strike New York from bases in Europe. The first prototype flew on 20 October 1943 and performed well, but the production contracts were cancelled in mid-1944, and whether the second prototype was ever completed is disputed. The type is best known for the claim that one of its flights reached to within 12 miles of New York in 1944: the story traces to wartime prisoner interrogations, and later research has rejected it.

Junkers Ju 52

The Junkers Ju 52 was a German transport aircraft designed by Ernst Zindel. First flown in 1930 with a single engine, it became in its three-engine Ju 52/3m form the standard European airliner of the 1930s and the Luftwaffe's primary transport of the Second World War, carrying 17 passengers or three tons of freight. A total of 4,835 were built, and a handful still fly.

Junkers Ju 88

The Junkers Ju 88 was a German twin-engined combat aircraft, first flown in 1936, that served through the Second World War as a bomber, dive bomber, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft and torpedo bomber. Designed to a high-speed bomber requirement, it stayed in production until 1945 and was built in almost 15,000 examples, the most of any German twin-engined type of the period. Only two complete wartime aircraft survive on museum display.

Junkers W 33

The Junkers W 33 was a German single-engined all-metal transport monoplane of the 1920s, developed from the Junkers F 13 airliner and powered by a Junkers L5 inline engine. Built at Dessau from 1927 to 1934, with a few assembled in Sweden and the Soviet Union, it worked as a transport and mailplane for operators in many countries and set world endurance and distance records in 1927. One aircraft, the Bremen, made the first east-to-west crossing of the Atlantic by aeroplane, flying from Ireland to Canada in April 1928 against the prevailing winds; it is now displayed at Bremen Airport.

Kawanishi H6K Mavis

The Kawanishi H6K was a four-engined maritime patrol flying boat built by the Kawanishi Aircraft Company for the Imperial Japanese Navy, which designated it the Type 97 Large Flying Boat; the Allies knew it as "Mavis". First flown on 14 July 1936 and in service from January 1938, it was built for very long patrols over the Pacific and served from the Sino-Japanese War through the whole Second World War as a patrol, bombing and transport aircraft, while civil examples carried mail and passengers for Japan's national airline. Production totalled 215 aircraft; in front-line service the type was replaced by the Kawanishi H8K.

Kawanishi N1K Shiden

The Kawanishi N1K began as the Kyofu, a floatplane fighter first flown in 1942, and was converted into the land-based N1K1-J Shiden and the redesigned N1K2-J Shiden Kai. Powered by the powerful but troublesome Nakajima Homare engine, the Shiden Kai is regarded as the best Japanese naval fighter produced in quantity, but it entered operational service only in 1944 and about 1,500 of all models were built. Four Shiden Kais survive in museums in the United States and Japan.

Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-Kai

The Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-Kai ("Modified Violet Lightning"), codenamed "George" by the Allies, was a land-based fighter built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the final year of the Second World War. A thorough redesign of the mid-wing N1K1-J Shiden — itself a landplane conversion of a floatplane fighter — it moved the wing low, shortened the landing gear and simplified production. The Smithsonian calls it the best Japanese naval fighter produced in quantity; it equipped elite units such as the 343rd Kōkūtai, but only about 400 were built. Four survive in museums in the United States and Japan.

Kawasaki Ki-100

The Kawasaki Ki-100 was a Japanese Army fighter created in early 1945 by fitting a Mitsubishi radial engine to Ki-61 airframes left engineless by their unreliable liquid-cooled engines. Intended as a stopgap, it proved manoeuvrable, rugged and reliable, and Allied pilots found it a formidable opponent in the war's final months. Only one survives, on display at the RAF Museum London.

Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu Nick

The Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu ("Dragon Killer"), known to the Allies by the reporting name "Nick", was a two-seat, twin-engined heavy fighter built by Kawasaki for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in the Second World War. Conceived in the late 1930s as a long-range fighter in the class of the Messerschmitt Bf 110, it reached combat only in the autumn of 1942 after a long and troubled development, and proved unable to match agile single-engined fighters. It served instead in ground-attack and anti-shipping work, and, fitted with upward-firing cannon, as the Army's only night fighter to see action, defending the Japanese home islands against B-29 raids in 1944–45. Of the 1,700 built, a single example survives, at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center.

Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien

The Kawasaki Ki-61 Hien ("Swallow"), known to the Allies by the reporting name "Tony", was a single-seat fighter built by Kawasaki for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in the Second World War. Unusually for a Japanese design it was powered by a liquid-cooled engine, the Ha-40, a licence-built Daimler-Benz DB 601, and its long nose led Allied intelligence to mistake it first for a German and then for an Italian aircraft. Fast and well protected by Japanese standards, it fought from New Guinea in 1943 to the defence of Japan in 1945, but the Ha-40 proved unreliable and hard to maintain in the field. Only a handful of airframes survive.

Kyushu J7W Shinden

The Kyushu J7W1 Shinden ("Magnificent Lightning") was an Imperial Japanese Navy interceptor prototype of radical layout: the main wing sat at the rear of the fuselage, a smaller wing at the nose, and a radial engine in the rear fuselage drove a pusher propeller. Designed under Captain Masaoki Tsuruno and built by Kyushu Hikoki, it was ordered into production before it flew, but engine cooling problems and the collapse of Japanese industry delayed the first flight until 3 August 1945. Tsuruno flew it three times, for 45 minutes in total, before the war ended; no production aircraft were completed, it never entered service, the second prototype never flew, and the first prototype survives at the National Air and Space Museum.

Lavochkin La-7

The Lavochkin La-7 was a Soviet single-seat piston fighter of the Second World War, the final development of the La-5 and of a design family dating to 1938. Aerodynamic refinement and metal wing spars made it faster than the La-5FN on the same Shvetsov ASh-82FN engine, and it entered Soviet service in 1944, fighting through the last year of the war in Europe; 5,753 were built. Czechoslovakia was the only export operator, and the type is closely associated with the Soviet ace Ivan Kozhedub.

Letov Š-328

The Letov Š-328 was a two-seat Czechoslovak biplane, the pre-war Czechoslovak Air Force's most widely used single-engined observation and light bomber aircraft. Developed from the Š-28 family for a Finnish order that was cancelled, it entered Czechoslovak service in 1935 and 412 were built. After Germany's March 1939 occupation most were taken over by the Luftwaffe; the type also served Slovakia and Bulgaria, whose aircraft were named Vrana, and Slovak insurgents flew it against the Germans in 1944.

Lioré et Olivier LeO 45

The Lioré et Olivier LeO 45 was a French twin-engined medium bomber designed to a 1934 requirement and first flown in January 1937. Its production version, the LeO 451 with Gnome-Rhône radial engines, was France's best medium bomber of 1940 but reached front-line units too slowly to affect the Battle of France. The type went on to serve Vichy France, the Free French, Germany and Italy, was built in two separate production runs either side of the 1940 armistice, and ended its career in post-war test and transport conversions, the last examples retiring in 1957.

Lockheed C-130 Hercules

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport designed by Lockheed to a 1951 U.S. Air Force requirement for a tactical airlifter that could use short, unprepared strips. First flown in August 1954 and built at Marietta, Georgia, ever since, it pairs a high wing and rear loading doors with a tall, unobstructed hold, and it has been adapted to roles from gunship and tanker to firefighting and hurricane research. More than 2,500 have been delivered to some 70 countries, and the current C-130J Super Hercules keeps the type in production seven decades after its first flight.

Lockheed Constellation

Lockheed's Constellation family, the "Connie", was a four-engined, pressurized airliner designed for TWA to Howard Hughes's specifications and first flown in 1943 as the military C-69. Put into airline service after the Second World War, its speed, range and distinctive triple-tail, dolphin-curved shape made it the defining piston-engined airliner of the late 1940s and 1950s, in civil and military transport service, until jets overtook it at the end of the 1950s.

Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is a single-engine supersonic fighter designed by Kelly Johnson's Skunk Works team for Lockheed and first flown on 4 March 1954. It was the first U.S. jet fighter in service to sustain Mach 2, a narrow fuselage wrapped tightly around a General Electric J79, with a wing of only 21 feet 11 inches span. The U.S. Air Force introduced it in 1958 but bought only 296 of the 2,578 built; well over half were licence-built in Canada, Europe and Japan, and fifteen NATO and allied air forces flew the type. Starfighters flew 5,206 sorties in Vietnam, set world speed, altitude and time-to-climb records in their early years, and in German service lost 292 of 916 aircraft, earning the name Witwenmacher, 'widowmaker'; the type's export sales were later tainted by the Lockheed bribery scandal. Italy, the last military operator, retired the F-104S in 2004, NASA flew research Starfighters until 1994, and a few remain in civilian operation today.

Lockheed Model 9 Orion

The Lockheed Model 9 Orion was a single-engined American airliner of 1931, the last wooden type Lockheed built and, by the accounts cited here, faster than any American military aircraft of its day. Swissair's two Orions ran what AeroHaber calls the fastest airline service in Europe in 1932. United States rules ended the type's passenger career in 1934, and only 35 were built. A single survivor, converted from an experimental Altair and flown by Jimmy Doolittle for Shell Oil, is displayed in Swissair colours at the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne.

Lockheed U-2

The Lockheed U-2 is a single-seat, single-engine jet built by Lockheed's Skunk Works for the CIA as a high-altitude strategic reconnaissance aircraft. From 1956 it photographed the Soviet Union from above 60,000 feet, work that ended over Soviet territory when one was shot down in 1960; U-2 photographs of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis. Enlarged, modernized descendants remain in U.S. Air Force service, and NASA flies the type's ER-2 variant as a high-altitude research aircraft.

Lockheed Vega

The Lockheed Vega was a wooden high-wing monoplane introduced in 1927 as the first product of the Lockheed Aircraft Company. Designed by Jack Northrop, its molded plywood monocoque fuselage and internally braced cantilever wing made it fast for its day, and it served as a small airliner and private transport. The type is remembered for its record flights: Amelia Earhart's solo crossings of the Atlantic and the United States in 1932, and Wiley Post's two flights around the world, the second of them solo, in 1931 and 1933. Lockheed built 131 Vegas, and the two most famous survivors are held by the National Air and Space Museum.

Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon

The Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon was an experimental tailsitter built for a U.S. Navy programme that sought a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) fighter able to operate from the afterdecks of conventional ships and protect convoys. Two prototypes were ordered in 1951, but only one was completed and flown; because the more powerful Allison T54 engine the design was drawn around never became available, it flew on a temporary conventional undercarriage and made 32 flights in 1954-55, transitioning between horizontal and vertical flight in the air but never taking off or landing vertically. The Navy cancelled the project in June 1955, and the flying prototype is now displayed at the Florida Air Museum in Lakeland, Florida.

Macchi C.202 Folgore

Italy's Daimler-Benz DB 601-engined fighter of 1941–43, adapted by Mario Castoldi from the radial-engined C.200 Saeta and judged by the Smithsonian the best fighter the Regia Aeronautica fielded in significant numbers. NASM puts production at about 1,500 built between 1941 and 1943, Macchi itself building fewer than 400 and Breda and S.A.I. Ambrosini the balance. The Folgore fought over Malta and North Africa and, briefly, on the Eastern Front, served on with the Co-Belligerent Air Force after the 1943 armistice, and survives in just two examples.

Macchi M.C.72

A single-seat racing floatplane designed by Mario Castoldi and built by Aeronautica Macchi for Italy's Schneider Trophy effort. Its Fiat AS.6 engine, two V-12s driving counter-rotating propellers, carried Francesco Agello to 709 km/h over Lake Garda in October 1934, a speed no piston-engined seaplane has matched since.

Martin B-10

The Martin B-10 was an all-metal monoplane bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore and first flown in 1932. Funded by the company as a private venture, the prototype outpaced the Army Air Corps' biplane fighters at its trials and earned Glenn L. Martin the 1932 Collier Trophy; the type became the Air Corps' standard bomber of the mid-1930s. Exported as the Model 139, it saw combat in Chinese and Dutch service against Japan. One intact example survives, an ex-Argentine Navy aircraft on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

Martin B-26 Marauder

The Martin B-26 Marauder was a twin-engine medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company, first flown in 1940. Designed for speed around a small, heavily loaded wing, it demanded fast takeoffs and landings and suffered many training accidents early on, earning a grim reputation and Congressional scrutiny. Retraining and design changes made it an effective tactical bomber: Marauder crews flew more than 100,000 sorties, mainly against Germany, and the type ended the war with the lowest loss rate of any Allied bomber the Army Air Forces flew. Martin built 5,266, and few survive; the best known is the Smithsonian's Flak-Bait.

Martin P3M

The Martin P3M was a twin-engined parasol-monoplane patrol flying boat built by the Glenn L. Martin Company for the U.S. Navy. It was the production version of Consolidated's XPY-1, the Navy's first monoplane flying boat: Consolidated built and flew the prototype, but Martin won the contract to build it in quantity by underbidding its creator. Only nine were built, three P3M-1s and six P3M-2s, and after a short front-line life the improved Consolidated P2Y displaced the type into training and utility duties.

Martin PBM Mariner

The Martin PBM Mariner was a twin-engined patrol flying boat built by the Glenn L. Martin Company for the United States Navy. First flown in February 1939 and in squadron service from October 1940, it was larger and faster than the Consolidated Catalina it supplemented, and by the end of the Second World War it had taken over many of the older boat's duties. Mariners hunted U-boats in the Atlantic, flew patrol, bombing and rescue missions across the Pacific, and served on into the Korean War; the last operational Mariner retired from the Coast Guard in 1958. Martin built 1,366, and a single PBM-5A survives, displayed at Tucson on loan from the Smithsonian.

Martin XB-48

Six-jet medium bomber prototype from the Glenn L. Martin Company, first flown on 22 June 1947. The XB-48 was one of the "Class of '45" designs drawn from the War Department's 1944 requirement: it paired six early, low-thrust J35 turbojets — three in each of two wide nacelles — with a straight-wing airframe in the B-26 Marauder tradition, and it was the first aircraft designed with bicycle-type tandem landing gear. Boeing's swept-wing B-47 outperformed it, development continued only as a backup, and the type was canceled in 1948 with two prototypes built and no production. Its landing-gear arrangement passed on to the B-47 and B-52.

Messerschmitt Bf 110

The Messerschmitt Bf 110 was a German twin-engined heavy fighter of the Second World War, conceived as a Zerstörer: a long-range destroyer meant to escort bombers and clear their path. It entered service in 1939 and did well in the early campaigns, but over Britain in 1940 it could not match the RAF's single-seat fighters and suffered heavily as a daylight escort. Fitted with radar, it found a second career as a night fighter and became the backbone of Germany's night defences. More than 6,000 were built, production lasting until March 1945, and the type outlived the aircraft designed to replace it.

Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet

The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was a German rocket-powered interceptor of the Second World War, designed by Alexander Lippisch's team at Messerschmitt. It was the first and only rocket-powered interceptor to see operational service: it climbed faster than any contemporary fighter, but its motor burned its fuel in minutes, its propellants were dangerously unstable, and it reached squadrons only in the war's final year, too late to affect the bombing campaign it was built to stop.

Messerschmitt Me 264

The Messerschmitt Me 264 was a German four-engined bomber designed for transatlantic range: Messerschmitt's entry in the Amerikabomber programme, meant to strike New York City from French or Azores bases, and later developed instead as a long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft for the Kriegsmarine. Three prototypes were built; only the first flew, from 23 December 1942, and testing showed difficult handling. Development was cancelled in October 1943 and the project formally closed in September 1944; all three prototypes were destroyed or wrecked in bombing raids, and none survives.

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1 was a Soviet high-altitude interceptor, the first production aircraft of the Mikoyan and Gurevich bureau. Designed around a large Mikulin inline engine and built largely of steel tube and wood to save light alloys, the I-200 prototype flew on 5 April 1940 and was ordered into production before its dangerous handling faults could be cured. Only one hundred were built in 1940 before the improved MiG-3 took over the line; issued to fighter regiments in 1941, most were destroyed in the opening days of the German invasion.

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 was a Soviet single-seat jet fighter, first flown in late 1947, that shocked the West when it appeared over Korea in 1950. Built around a swept wing and engines copied from the British Rolls-Royce Nene, it fought the American F-86 Sabre in the first large-scale jet-versus-jet battles. More than 12,000 were built in four countries, and the type served with air forces around the world for decades.

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 Fishbed

The MiG-21 Fishbed is a Soviet supersonic jet fighter designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau in the 1950s. A small, simple, Mach 2 tailed-delta interceptor, it was built in larger numbers than any warplane since the Second World War and exported to dozens of air forces, fighting in the Middle East, South Asia and Vietnam. Licensed production in India and Czechoslovakia, and China's F-7 version, spread it further still, and a few air forces fly it seventy years on.

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 was a Soviet high-altitude interceptor developed from the MiG-1 to remedy its faults, taking over the Factory No. 1 production line in December 1940. More than 3,100 were built in little over a year — the published accountings differ on the total — but the Eastern Front air war was fought at low altitude, where the MiG-3 was outclassed and lightly armed, and production was ended in favour of the Ilyushin Il-2. The surviving aircraft finished the war with the Soviet air defence forces.

Mil Mi-4

The Mil Mi-4 (NATO reporting name 'Hound') is a Soviet transport helicopter built by the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant. Designed in response to the American H-19 Chickasaw and the Korean War, it first flew in 1952 and entered service in 1953, and for several decades it remained the main helicopter type in the Soviet armed forces and the Civil Air Fleet. More than 4,000 were built, including the Harbin Z-5 production version built in China, and variants filled transport, anti-submarine, search-and-rescue and air-ambulance roles for operators in dozens of countries. The Mi-8 replaced it in Soviet service; survivors are preserved in museums, and a North Korean video released in 2014 showed the type still in limited service there.

Miles Master

The Miles Master was a British two-seat advanced trainer of the Second World War, built by Phillips & Powis Aircraft — the company renamed Miles Aircraft in 1943 — at Woodley, South Marston and Doncaster. Designed to match the performance and handling of the RAF's Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, it first flew on 31 March 1939 and entered service shortly before the war. Production totalled 3,249 aircraft in three marks distinguished chiefly by their engines: the Rolls-Royce Kestrel (Master I), the Bristol Mercury (Master II) and the Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp Junior (Master III). Masters trained pilots at Advanced Flying Units, towed gliders and targets, and served with several Allied air forces; no complete example survives.

Mitsubishi F1M Pete

The Mitsubishi F1M 'Pete' was a two-seat observation floatplane flown by the Imperial Japanese Navy throughout the Second World War. Designed in the mid-1930s to be catapulted from battleships and cruisers and to spot for their guns, the last biplane type in Japanese naval service proved useful far beyond its intended role, flying patrol, escort, strike and fighter sorties from warships and island seaplane bases across the Pacific. Published accountings of its production disagree, giving totals between 944 and 1,124 aircraft.

Mitsubishi Ki-46 Dinah

The Mitsubishi Ki-46 'Dinah' was a twin-engine reconnaissance aircraft flown by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force throughout the Second World War. Designed to outrun interception, it first flew in November 1939 and ranged across the Pacific at high altitude, photographing Allied positions from China to the Mariana Islands; 1,742 were built in all. One complete example survives, displayed by the RAF Museum at its London site.

Mitsubishi Ki-67 Hiryu Peggy

The Mitsubishi Ki-67 Hiryu ("Flying Dragon"), reported by the Allies as "Peggy", was a twin-engine bomber built for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and also flown by the Navy as a torpedo bomber. Designed to a specification handed to Mitsubishi in February 1941 and first flown on 27 December 1942, it matched medium-bomber performance with the armour and self-sealing fuel tanks that earlier Japanese bombers lacked. Production reached 698 aircraft by the end of the war, but deliveries only began in the summer of 1944, so its service over Formosa, Saipan and Okinawa came too late to affect the outcome.

Morane-Saulnier MS.406

The Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 was a French single-seat fighter, the production development of the M.S.405 prototype that first flew on 8 August 1935, built to a 1934 French Air Force requirement. It was France's most numerous fighter of the Second World War: 1,037 were completed in France before the collapse of June 1940, with limited production continuing under German supervision afterwards, and Wikipedia's accounting puts the French-built total at 1,176. Outmatched by the Messerschmitt Bf 109E in speed, armour and armament, though able to out-turn it, French squadrons flying it were credited with 269 confirmed victories, against 696 confirmed victories for French single-engined fighters as a whole in 1940. After the armistice it fought on with Vichy forces in Syria, Madagascar and Indochina; Finland flew it in the Winter and Continuation Wars and re-engined 41 aircraft with captured Soviet engines as the Mörkö-Morane; and Switzerland built it under licence as the D-3800 and developed the D-3801, which served until 1959. The examples preserved today are Swiss D-3801s.

Nakajima B5N Kate

The Nakajima B5N, known to the Allies as the Kate, was the Imperial Japanese Navy's standard carrier torpedo bomber of the Pacific War. Designed in the mid-1930s and first flown in 1937, it attacked with a torpedo or with bombs, from carriers and from land bases, and it led the torpedo and high-level bombing at Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Production totalled 1,149 aircraft. Replaced in front-line service in 1944, the type ended the war in secondary roles and kamikaze attacks. No intact example survives; the most complete remains are on display at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum.

Nakajima B6N Tenzan Jill

The Nakajima B6N Tenzan, code-named Jill by the Allies, was the Imperial Japanese Navy's standard carrier torpedo bomber of the final years of the Second World War and the successor to the B5N. Its first flight came in 1941, but its Nakajima Mamoru engine proved unreliable and delayed service entry until 1943; the main production model, the B6N2, switched to Mitsubishi's Kasei engine, and Nakajima built 133 B6N1s and 1,133 B6N2s and B6N2as. By the time it arrived in numbers, Japan had lost most of its large carriers and its experienced aircrews, and the type fought its biggest actions from a shrinking carrier force and then from land bases.

Nakajima G10N Fugaku

The Nakajima Fugaku ("Mount Fuji") was a planned Japanese ultra-long-range heavy bomber of the Second World War, designed under Project Z to take off from the Kuril Islands, bomb the United States and fly on to land in German-occupied France. Conceived by Chikuhei Nakajima around six projected 5,000 hp engines, it was cancelled in July 1944 before construction began: no prototype was built, nothing survives, and every performance figure published for it is a design projection.

Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi

The Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi was a single-seat special-attack aircraft built by Nakajima in the last months of the Second World War. Ordered by the Japanese Army in January 1945, it was designed for cheap mass production by semi-skilled workers, from steel, wood and aluminum, with a landing gear that dropped away after takeoff and a single bomb of up to 800 kg. It first flew in March 1945; 104 were built by Nakajima and one by the Mitaka institute, but none was used operationally. The Smithsonian's example, displayed on loan at the Pima Air & Space Museum, is believed to be the only survivor.

Nakajima Ki-27 Nate

The Nakajima Ki-27, the Army Type 97 Fighter codenamed "Nate" by the Allies, was the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service's first monoplane fighter and still its most numerous fighter when the Pacific War began in December 1941. It won the Army's fighter trials on manoeuvrability rather than speed, and Nakajima built 2,005 of them; a wider accounting that adds Tachikawa and Manchurian production totals 3,368. It gave Japanese pilots their first combat experience over China and against the Soviet Union at Khalkhin Gol in 1939, but it was lightly armed and unprotected, and it ended the war as a trainer and kamikaze aircraft. One Ki-27 survives, at the Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.

North American B-45 Tornado

The North American B-45 Tornado was the United States Air Force's first operational jet bomber: a straight-wing, four-jet aircraft that first flew on 17 March 1947 and entered service in 1948. North American built three XB-45 prototypes, 96 B-45A bombers, ten B-45Cs and 33 RB-45C reconnaissance aircraft. The bombers served mainly as a nuclear deterrent in Europe, while RB-45Cs flew reconnaissance over Korea and, in RAF markings with RAF crews, over the Soviet Union. The B-47 replaced it, the type left operational service by 1959, and three intact examples survive in American museums.

North American F-100 Super Sabre

North American Aviation's F-100 Super Sabre was the first operational fighter capable of supersonic speed in level flight. First flown on 25 May 1953 and developed from the F-86 Sabre, it entered service as a day fighter and matured into a fighter-bomber that flew more than 360,000 combat sorties in Vietnam, among them the first Wild Weasel radar-suppression missions. North American built 2,294; the type later served with the Air National Guard and allied air forces, and retired airframes went on to target-drone conversions and museum display.

North American F-107 Ultra Sabre

North American Aviation's F-107A, informally called the Ultra Sabre, was a Mach 2 tactical fighter-bomber developed from the F-100 Super Sabre for a U.S. Air Force competition. Its variable-area engine intake sat on top of the fuselage, leaving the belly free for a semi-recessed weapon. Only three prototypes were built; the Air Force chose Republic's F-105 instead, chiefly because it had a full internal bomb bay. The prototypes finished their careers as research aircraft with NACA and NASA, and two survive in museums.

North American F-82 Twin Mustang

The North American F-82 Twin Mustang was a twin-fuselage, long-range escort and night fighter built by North American Aviation, first flown in 1945 as the P-82. It was designed to escort B-29 bombers on very long missions against Japan, but arrived too late for that war; instead it served the young U.S. Air Force as a bomber escort and radar-equipped all-weather interceptor, and fought in the opening weeks of the Korean War. North American built 272 of them; the type was retired in 1953, five survive, and one flies again.

North American F-86 Sabre

North American Aviation's F-86 Sabre was the United States' first operational swept-wing jet fighter. First flown in 1947 and in service from 1949, it fought the Soviet-built MiG-15 over Korea, where Sabre pilots claimed a large victory margin that historians still contest. Production ended in 1956 after more than 8,000 aircraft, with further Sabres built under license abroad, and survivors remain fixtures of museums and air shows.

Northrop A-17

A two-seat, single-engine monoplane attack aircraft developed from the Northrop Gamma and built by the Northrop Corporation for the U.S. Army Air Corps, for which it was the standard attack aircraft of the late 1930s. The Air Corps bought 110 fixed-gear A-17s and 129 retractable-gear A-17As, the latter delivered as Douglas took over Northrop and sold export versions as the Douglas Model 8. Declared surplus in 1940, most surviving A-17As passed to Britain and the Commonwealth as the Nomad and trained aircrew in Canada and South Africa, while export Model 8s fought briefly with the Netherlands, Peru and Iraq. A few aircraft survive in museums, among them a Canadian Nomad raised from Lake Muskoka in 2014.

Northrop P-61 Black Widow

The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was the first American aircraft designed from the outset as a night fighter, built around an airborne radar that let its three-man crew find and attack enemy aircraft in darkness and bad weather. Developed from a January 1941 Army contract, the prototype flew on 26 May 1942. The big twin-boom fighter reached combat in mid-1944 and served in every theater of the war's final year, intercepting aircraft by night and ranging into enemy territory on intruder missions. Northrop built 706, and only four survive: three on museum display and one under restoration to fly.

Northrop T-38 Talon

The Northrop T-38 Talon is a two-seat, twin-jet supersonic trainer that first flew in 1959 and entered U.S. Air Force service in 1961. Developed from Northrop's N-156 lightweight fighter project, it was the first trainer built for supersonic flight; 1,187 were produced between 1961 and 1972. Most surviving Air Force aircraft have been modernized as T-38Cs with glass cockpits, and the type still flies the advanced pilot-training syllabus, while NASA flies its own Talons to keep astronauts proficient. Structural renewal programs are intended to keep the fleet working until the T-7A replacement begins taking over in 2033.

Northrop YB-35

The Northrop YB-35 was a flying-wing heavy bomber developed for the U.S. Army Air Forces from a 1941 requirement for a bomber able to reach Germany from North America. First flown in June 1946, it carried its crew, fuel and bombs inside one wing of 172 ft span, powered by four piston engines driving pusher propellers. Gearbox and propeller problems kept test flying to a minimum, the production contract was cancelled, and the Air Force ended the programme in 1950 after converting several airframes to the jet-powered YB-49. Every example was scrapped and none survives.

Northrop YRB-49

The Northrop YRB-49A was a jet reconnaissance conversion of the flying-wing bomber line: one YB-35A airframe fitted with six Allison J35 engines, two of them in pods beneath the wing to free space for fuel, and with camera stations for photographic reconnaissance. Northrop was authorized to begin work in 1948, when an RB-49A production order was promised, but production work was ordered ended in January 1949 and only the single prototype was ever completed. It made 13 test flights in 1950 and 1951 and was scrapped in 1953; none survives.

Percival Proctor

The Percival Proctor was a British radio trainer and communications aircraft of the Second World War, developed by Percival Aircraft Limited from the Vega Gull tourer. Ordered to Specification 20/38, it first flew on 8 October 1939 and remained in production through the war; 1,143 were built, 250 of them for the Royal Navy. Successive marks trained radio operators — the Proctor III for Bomber Command among them — while others flew communications work, and the enlarged Proctor IV stayed in RAF service until 1955. A civil Proctor 5 followed after the war, but the wooden fleet was grounded in the 1960s as its glued joints degraded; a few survive, in museums and, rebuilt, in the air.

Petlyakov Pe-3

The Petlyakov Pe-3 was a Soviet twin-engined heavy fighter converted from the Pe-2 dive bomber in a four-day crash programme in August 1941, after the first German night bombing of Moscow exposed the need for a night fighter. About 360 were built, including the improved Pe-3bis; heavy losses in daylight ground-attack work pushed the type toward reconnaissance, and it remained in service until 1945.

Piper PA-18 Super Cub

The Piper PA-18 Super Cub is a two-seat, single-engine, high-wing light aircraft that Piper Aircraft introduced in 1949 as a strengthened development of the PA-11 Cub Special. Built at Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, it became a standard bush plane and utility aircraft: about 8,500 civil Super Cubs were delivered, and more than 1,800 went to the U.S. and foreign military services as the L-18 and L-21 liaison and training aircraft. Production at Lock Haven ended in 1983 and resumed briefly at Vero Beach from 1988. The type remains in widespread private use for backcountry flying, and its design continues in derivatives built by other companies.

Polikarpov I-15

The Polikarpov I-15 was a Soviet gull-wing biplane fighter of the 1930s, designed as the manoeuvrable dogfighter in a two-type fighter doctrine. First flown in October 1933, it fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, where Spanish pilots named it Chato, "snub-nose", and later in China and Mongolia, but it was outclassed by newer monoplanes before the Second World War began. Its developments, the I-15bis and I-153, kept the family in service into the 1940s, and a few I-153s survive, some of them flying.

Polikarpov I-16

The Polikarpov I-16 was a Soviet single-seat fighter that entered service in the mid-1930s as the world's first low-wing monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear. Designed by Nikolai Polikarpov's bureau, the squat radial-engined fighter fought in Spain, China and Finland, and was still the Soviet Union's most numerous fighter type when Germany invaded in 1941. A handful of examples restored from Russian wrecks fly today.

Polikarpov Po-2

The Polikarpov Po-2 is a Soviet two-seat biplane that began as a standard military trainer and became one of the most-produced aircraft in history, with about 33,000 built. Designed by Nikolai Polikarpov and first flown in 1927 as the U-2, it served the Soviet Union as a trainer, liaison aircraft, crop duster and air ambulance, and in the Second World War as a night bomber — most famously with the all-women 588th Light Night Bomber Regiment, the "Night Witches". Renamed Po-2 in 1944, it flew combat missions again in Korea and stayed in production, in the Soviet Union and under licence in Poland, into the 1950s.

Polikarpov R-Z

The Polikarpov R-Z was a Soviet two-seat reconnaissance bomber of the mid-1930s, a major redesign of the R-5 built at Moscow's Zavod No.1 and powered by an M-34N engine. It first flew in January 1935, and 1,031 had been built when production ended in 1937. The R-Z fought in Spain, where Republican crews knew it as the Natacha, against Japan at Khalkhin Gol and against Finland in the Winter War, and it was being replaced by the Ilyushin Il-2 when Germany invaded in 1941.

Potez 650

The Potez 650 was a French twin-engine paratroop and troop transport of the Second World War, a military derivative of the Potez 62 airliner family built by Aéroplanes Henry Potez, whose prototype reportedly first flew in June 1936. Fifteen were built and issued mainly to France's two air-infantry groups, which set parachuting records but were never used operationally and were dissolved in July 1940; reassigned to transport units, the type then flew in the Vichy airlift to Syria in 1941, and a radial-engined export variant, the Potez 651, served Romania. The last recorded flight of a Potez 65 was in July 1945.

PZL P.11

The PZL P.11 was a Polish all-metal gull-wing fighter designed by Państwowe Zakłady Lotnicze under Zygmunt Puławski and first flown in August 1931. An advanced design when introduced, it was built in Poland as the P.11a, P.11b and P.11c and under licence in Romania as the IAR P.11f. Poland's main fighter in September 1939, it was by then outclassed, yet its pilots were credited with at least 110 victories in the campaign. A single P.11c survives, in the Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków.

Reggiane Re.2001 Falco II

The Reggiane Re.2001 Falco II was an Italian single-seat fighter of the Second World War, developed from the Re.2000 by replacing its Piaggio radial with the 1,175 hp Alfa Romeo RA.1000, a Daimler-Benz DB 601 built under licence. First flown in 1940, it entered service in late 1941 and fought over Malta and Sicily and in the defence of Italy as a day fighter, the CB fighter-bomber and the CN night fighter. Engine supply, which gave the rival Macchi C.202 first call, kept production small and its accounting is contested: 237 aircraft in Wikipedia's accounting, with History of War putting completions between 237 and 252 and the variant counts disagreeing between sources. Only nine aircraft survived Italy's division in 1943. Its afterlife rests on two survivals: the sea-recovered pre-production aircraft MM.8071 in Italian Air Force care, and the wreck of a Malta loss exhibited by the Malta Aviation Museum from 2026.

Reggiane Re.2005 Sagittario

The Re.2005 Sagittario was a single-seat fighter built by Reggiane around the Daimler-Benz DB 605 engine, produced under licence by Fiat as the RA.1050 Tifone. One of Italy's three Serie 5 fighters, it first flew in May 1942 and entered squadron service with the 22nd Group in April 1943, fighting over Naples and Sicily. An order for 750 aircraft came in February 1943, but only twenty-nine pre-production aircraft were complete when the armistice of 8 September 1943 split Italy, and the survivors were divided between the Co-Belligerent Air Force, the fascist air force in the north and the Germans. No complete aircraft survives; the rear fuselage of one is displayed at the Gianni Caproni Museum of Aeronautics in Trento.

Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis

The Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis is the single-seat monoplane Ryan Airlines built in San Diego in 1927 for Charles A. Lindbergh's attempt on the Orteig Prize. Designed by Donald A. Hall from the Ryan M-2, it carried Lindbergh on the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight, from New York to Paris on May 20-21, 1927. After a year of exhibition flying it was presented to the Smithsonian Institution, where it remains on display.

Ryan X-13 Vertijet

The Ryan X-13 Vertijet was an experimental pure-jet tailsitter built by Ryan for the U.S. Air Force to test whether a fighter could operate without runways or carriers. Two prototypes were built around a Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet; the aircraft hung from a mobile trailer, took off vertically, transitioned to horizontal flight, and landed by hooking a wire on the trailer. After a first conventional flight in December 1955, Girard made the first vertical takeoff and landing in May 1956, and on 11 April 1957 the second prototype completed the full cycle from the trailer. The Air Force ended development in 1957 for want of an operational requirement, and both prototypes survive in museums.

Saab J 21

The Saab J 21 was a Swedish single-seat fighter and attack aircraft of unconventional layout: a license-built Daimler-Benz engine behind the pilot drove a pusher propeller between twin tail booms, freeing the nose for cannon and giving the type one of the first ejection seats fitted to a production aircraft. First flown in 1943 and in service from December 1945, it was built in fighter and fighter-bomber versions and was later converted to jet power as the Saab 21R.

Saab J 21R

The Saab J 21R was Sweden's first jet aircraft: a jet-powered development of the piston-engined Saab 21, created by rebuilding the twin-boom pusher fighter around a de Havilland Goblin turbojet. First flown on 10 March 1947, it was, with the Soviet Yakovlev Yak-15, one of only two fighters successfully converted from piston to jet power. Sixty-four were built, but the type disappointed as a fighter and served mainly as the A 21R attack aircraft before retirement in the 1950s; no original example survives.

Saab J 29 Tunnan

The Saab J 29 Tunnan was a Swedish single-seat jet fighter that first flew on 1 September 1948, its round fuselage wrapped around a de Havilland Ghost engine earning it the nickname "the Flying Barrel". It was the first Western European production fighter with a swept wing after the Second World War. Saab built 661 between 1950 and 1956 in fighter, fighter-bomber and unarmed reconnaissance versions, and the type served the Swedish Air Force into the 1970s. Austria operated 30 from 1961 to 1972, and Swedish Tunnans flew combat missions for the United Nations in the Congo in 1961–1964. Today a single J 29F still flies with the Swedish Air Force Historic Flight.

Saro Lerwick

The Saro Lerwick was a British twin-engined maritime patrol flying boat built by Saunders-Roe for RAF Coastal Command. Ordered off the drawing board to Air Ministry Specification R.1/36, it first flew in 1938 but proved unstable both in the air and on the water, and only 21 were built. It served mainly with No. 209 Squadron from 1940, was withdrawn from front-line service in 1941 as Catalinas arrived, and the survivors were scrapped by early 1943.

Savoia-Marchetti S.55

The Savoia-Marchetti S.55 was an Italian twin-hull flying boat designed by Alessandro Marchetti and first flown in 1924. Its two hulls carried the passengers and cargo, its crew sat in the thick centre wing, and two engines in tandem above the wing drove tractor and pusher propellers. Built in civil and military versions, it set world records, served the Regia Aeronautica as a maritime bomber and patrol aircraft, and won fame through the mass formation Atlantic crossings of 1930 and 1933 led by Italo Balbo. Only one original survives, in Brazil, joined in 2023 by a full-size replica in Italy.

Savoia-Marchetti S.64

The Savoia-Marchetti S.64 was a large wooden monoplane built in Italy in 1928 for a single purpose: to capture the world's long-distance flight records. Designed by Alessandro Marchetti around one Fiat engine mounted above a wing that was largely fuel tank, it set world records for closed-circuit distance and endurance in the summer of 1928, then flew non-stop from Montecelio to Brazil, a flight the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale recognised as a world straight-line distance record of 7,188 km. The first aircraft was donated to Brazil after that flight. A second, improved aircraft, the S.64bis, retook the closed-circuit records in 1930 and was lost in a fatal crash at sea in 1931.

Savoia-Marchetti SM.84

The Savoia-Marchetti SM.84 was an Italian three-engined bomber and torpedo bomber of the Second World War, built as a modernised successor to the SM.79 Sparviero: it kept the SM.79's wing and three-engine layout but added a new fuselage, a twin tail and more powerful Piaggio P.XI engines. First flown on 5 June 1940, it entered service in February 1941. Production is unsettled between the accounts: 309 delivered in the Italian accounting, 329 in the English Wikipedia's total. The type disappointed in service, with handling markedly poorer than the SM.79's; its best-known action was the torpedo hit on HMS Nelson in September 1941, bought with heavy losses, and it fought through the Malta convoy battles of 1942 before being phased out in favour of the CANT Z.1007bis and the SM.79 itself. A few flew on as transports after the armistice of September 1943, and the post-war Italian Air Force kept survivors flying until 1949.

Short Sunderland

The Short Sunderland was a British long-range maritime patrol flying boat built by Short Brothers for the Royal Air Force. Developed from the company's Empire airliner flying boats, it entered service in 1938 and spent the Second World War hunting U-boats and watching over convoys, from the Atlantic to the Far East. It stayed in front-line RAF service for over twenty years, flying in the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War before retiring in 1959. Short Brothers built 749, and a few survive in museums.

Sikorsky S-40

The Sikorsky S-40 was a four-engine amphibious flying boat built by Sikorsky for Pan American Airways and first flown in 1931. Only three were built, all for Pan Am; the first, christened American Clipper, began the airline's Clipper naming tradition and served as its flagship. The three aircraft carried 38 passengers on Pan Am's Caribbean and Latin American services, flew more than 10 million miles without incident in civilian service, and finished their careers as US Navy trainers in the Second World War. None survives.

Sikorsky S-61

Twin-turbine anti-submarine helicopter family designed and built by Sikorsky Aircraft under the company designation S-61, spanning the U.S. Navy's SH-3 Sea King (originally HSS-2), the presidential VH-3s, the civil S-61L and S-61N airliners, and license-built Sea Kings from Westland in the United Kingdom, Agusta in Italy and Mitsubishi in Japan, plus Canadian assembly from Sikorsky kits. First flown in 1959, it combined submarine detection and attack in one aircraft, recovered Mercury, Gemini and Apollo crews after splashdown, carried U.S. presidents, and remains in service in several countries more than six decades later.

Sud Aviation Caravelle

French rear-engined twin-jet airliner, developed by SNCASE and produced by Sud Aviation. The first jet airliner designed with its engines mounted at the rear of the fuselage, it entered service in 1959, sold to airlines on every continent, and was built until 1972.

Sukhoi Su-2

The Sukhoi Su-2 was a Soviet reconnaissance and light bomber of the Second World War, and the first aircraft designed by Pavel Sukhoi. Developed inside the Tupolev bureau from the ANT-51, which took a production place in the 1936 Ivanov contest, it entered production as the BB-1 and was renamed Su-2 in 1940. Under-armed and vulnerable in the ground-attack role, it took heavy losses in 1941-42 and was withdrawn from the front line in 1942 as the Ilyushin Il-2 took over, finishing its service in training, reconnaissance and artillery-spotting work before retirement in 1944. Published production totals disagree, at 893 to 910 aircraft.

Supermarine S.6B

A British racing seaplane designed by Reginald Mitchell and built by Supermarine for the 1931 Schneider Trophy contest. Refined from the S.6 around a more powerful Rolls-Royce R engine, it won the trophy outright for Britain in September 1931 and then set an absolute world air speed record of 407.5 mph. Only two were built; the race winner survives at the Science Museum in London.

Supermarine Southampton

The Supermarine Southampton was a British military flying boat designed by R. J. Mitchell and built by Supermarine for the Royal Air Force. Developed from Mitchell's civilian Swan, it entered service in August 1925 and became the RAF's principal inter-war patrol flying boat, famous for long-distance formation cruises such as the Far East Flight of 1927-28. The RAF took eighteen wooden-hulled Mk Is and forty-eight metal-hulled Mk IIs, and the type served for eleven years; the restored wooden fuselage of one Mk I is on display at the RAF Museum in London.

Supermarine Type 224

Supermarine's single-prototype fighter to Air Ministry Specification F.7/30, designed by R. J. Mitchell and first flown in February 1934. The evaporative cooling of its Rolls-Royce Goshawk engine proved troublesome and its speed and climb fell well short of prediction, so the Air Ministry rejected it and the production order that followed went to the Gloster Gladiator. Mitchell set the design aside and started again; the lessons he drew from the Type 224 fed the complete redesign that became the Spitfire. The prototype ended its career as a target in 1937.

Travel Air 4000

The Travel Air 4000 was a three-seat, open-cockpit biplane built by the Travel Air Manufacturing Company of Wichita, Kansas. It was the radial-engined member of the biplane family that began with the Model A, sharing the welded-steel-tube airframe of the OX-5-powered Model 2000 but fitted first with Wright Whirlwinds and later with a wide range of other air-cooled radials. Around 100 were built from 1927 under the 4000 name, in many lettered variants for sporting flying, mail carrying and training. Travel Airs worked as barnstormers and crop dusters across the United States, and the 4000 has had an unusually long afterlife: examples are held by museums across North America and a few still fly.

Tupolev ANT-25

A Soviet single-engined record aircraft designed under Andrei Tupolev for extreme range, the ANT-25 first flew in 1933 and only two were built. In June 1937 Valery Chkalov's crew flew one non-stop from Moscow over the North Pole to Vancouver, Washington, the first transpolar flight; three weeks later Mikhail Gromov's crew flew a second ANT-25 to San Jacinto, California, setting a world distance record.

Tupolev SB-2

The Tupolev SB, developed as the ANT-40, was a Soviet twin-engined high-speed bomber designed in Andrei Tupolev's bureau by a team led by A. A. Arkhangelski and first flown in 1934. Two Soviet factories built 6,831 of them; the type fought in Spain, China, Mongolia and Finland, and still formed 94 percent of the Soviet operational bomber force when Germany invaded in 1941, by which time modern fighters had overtaken the speed that had once protected it.

Tupolev Tu-16 Badger

The Tupolev Tu-16, known to NATO as the Badger, was a twin-engined jet strategic bomber built in the Soviet Union. Developed as the Tu-88, it first flew on 27 April 1952 and entered service in 1954. More than 1,500 were built in three Soviet plants, in bomber, missile-carrier, reconnaissance and electronic-warfare variants. Egypt and Iraq flew it in combat in Middle Eastern wars, and China licence-built it as the Xian H-6. Soviet and Russian Tu-16s were retired by the 1990s.

Tupolev Tu-2

The Tupolev Tu-2, known to NATO as the Bat, was a twin-engined Soviet high-speed frontline bomber of the Second World War. Designed by Andrei Tupolev's team while they worked in an NKVD prison design bureau, a sharashka, it first flew on 29 January 1941. Production built up from 1943 after an early halt, and more than 2,200 aircraft were built in all; the Tu-2S became the standard variant and fought through to the Battle of Berlin in 1945. The Soviet Air Force retired the type in 1950, but exported aircraft served abroad for decades, and China's air force kept its last Tu-2s until 1982. A small number survive in museums.

Vickers Viking

The Vickers VC.1 Viking is the post-war British twin-engined airliner — not Vickers' 1919 amphibian of the same name — built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Brooklands from the wing and undercarriage of the Wellington bomber. It first flew on 22 June 1945 and opened British European Airways' scheduled services in September 1946. In all 163 were built, production ending in 1948; BEA flew them until 1954, after which they passed to independent airlines, and only six survive.

Vickers Vimy

The Vickers Vimy is a British twin-engined biplane heavy bomber designed by Rex Pierson and first flown on 30 November 1917. Built to bomb targets in Germany, it reached the RAF too late to fight in the First World War, but became the service's main heavy bomber of the early 1920s and found lasting fame in 1919, when Vimys made the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic and the first flight from England to Australia. Wartime orders ran past 1,000 aircraft, though only a fraction of that total was ever completed, and the last examples left use in the 1930s.

Vickers Warwick

The Warwick was a twin-engined aircraft built by Vickers-Armstrongs to Specification B.1/35 as a heavy bomber, and intended as the larger counterpart of the Wellington. Its development was delayed for years by the lack of suitable engines — the Rolls-Royce Vulture proved unreliable — and production aircraft mostly used the American Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp. The type entered production in 1942, but only sixteen were completed as bombers, four-engined types having taken that role. The rest served as Coastal Command air-sea rescue and general reconnaissance aircraft and as transports with Transport Command and BOAC, and the type was out of service by the end of 1946.

VL Myrsky

The VL Myrsky ("Storm") was a Finnish fighter designed and built by the State Aircraft Factory, Valtion lentokonetehdas, during the Second World War. Finland ordered the design in 1939 so that its air force would not depend on foreign suppliers for a modern fighter. Built largely of wood to conserve scarce metal, the prototype flew in December 1941, but aeroelastic flutter destroyed all three prototypes and killed two test pilots. The production Myrsky II reached reconnaissance squadrons only in August 1944; fifty-one aircraft were built in all. The type flew against the Soviet Union in the Continuation War and against Germany in the Lapland War, but the substitute glues in its wooden structure failed in Finnish weather, and it was withdrawn in 1947. No Myrsky survived intact, and since 2013 volunteers and two Finnish museums have been restoring one airframe, MY-14, for the Finnish Air Force Museum.

Vought F8U Crusader

The Vought F8U Crusader — redesignated F-8 in 1962 — was a single-seat, supersonic carrier fighter built by Chance Vought for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and the last American fighter designed with guns as its primary weapon. Its two-position variable-incidence wing let it exceed 1,000 mph yet still land aboard carriers, and 1,261 were built: 1,072 fighters and 144 photo-reconnaissance aircraft for the U.S. services, and 42 F-8E(FN)s for the French Navy. Photo Crusaders photographed the Soviet missile sites in Cuba in 1962, and over Vietnam the type was credited with 18 MiG victories against three air-combat losses. France, the last operator, retired its fighters in December 1999; the Philippines had flown second-hand F-8Hs until 1991.

Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III

The Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III was a single-seat supersonic carrier fighter built by Chance Vought as a fleet-defense interceptor and successor to the F-8 Crusader. First flown on 2 June 1958, it was faster than McDonnell's rival F4H-1 Phantom II and more maneuverable, but its lone pilot carried the whole intercept workload, and on 17 December 1958 the Navy chose the two-seat, more versatile Phantom. Five aircraft were built and three flew; the flown aircraft passed to NASA, which used them briefly, including sonic-boom measurements at Langley, before all were scrapped. No example survives.

Waco CG-4 Hadrian

The Waco CG-4 was the standard American assault glider of the Second World War, designated CG-4A by the United States Army Air Forces and named Hadrian in British service. Designed by the Waco Aircraft Company of Troy, Ohio, after Germany's glider coup at Fort Eben-Emael in 1940, it was an unpowered aircraft of wood and metal under fabric, flown by two pilots and loaded through an upward-hinged nose with 13 troops, a jeep or a 75 mm howitzer. Sixteen American companies completed 13,909 of them. Towed into action behind C-47s, CG-4As served in Sicily, Normandy, Burma, the Netherlands, the Rhine crossing and the Philippines; most were wrecked where they landed, but a few survive, restored, in museums.

Westland Lysander

A British army co-operation and liaison aircraft built by Westland Aircraft, first flown on 15 June 1936 and in RAF service from 1938. Designed to Air Ministry Specification A.39/34 by Arthur Davenport under W. E. W. 'Teddy' Petter, its automatic slats and flaps gave it exceptional short-field performance. Heavy losses in France in 1940 ended its army co-operation career, but that same short-field ability made it the mount of the RAF's special duties squadrons, which landed by moonlight in occupied France to deliver and recover agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Production totalled 1,786 aircraft, including 225 built under licence in Canada; a small number survive, and three still fly.

Westland Wapiti

The Westland Wapiti was a two-seat general-purpose biplane built by Westland to replace the Airco DH.9A, reusing the older type's wings and struts around a new fuselage because the tight-budget 1926 specification demanded maximum use of DH.9A components. First flown on 7 March 1927, it entered RAF service in Iraq in 1928 and spent the 1930s on army-cooperation work in India and the Middle East. History of War counts 517 built for the RAF between 1928 and 1932; of the South African Mk IIIs, four were built at Yeovil and 27 in South Africa. The type also served in Australia, Canada, China and India, an Indian squadron still flew it in action in April 1942, and a single example survives in New Delhi.

Westland Whirlwind

The Westland Whirlwind was a British twin-engined, single-seat fighter of the Second World War, built by Westland Aircraft to Air Ministry specification F.37/35 for a fighter armed with four cannon. First flown on 11 October 1938, it was fast at low altitude, with four 20 mm cannon grouped in its nose, but its Rolls-Royce Peregrine engines were unreliable and lost power with altitude, and in December 1940 production was cut back to the first 112 aircraft. Only Nos. 263 and 137 Squadrons operated it, on convoy patrols and low-level cross-Channel strikes, until 1943. No complete example survives; a full-scale reconstruction is under way for the Kent Battle of Britain Museum.

Yakovlev Yak-18

The Yakovlev Yak-18 (NATO reporting name "Max") was a Soviet tandem two-seat primary trainer that entered service in 1946 and became the standard trainer of the Soviet Air Force and the DOSAAF aero clubs. Originally powered by a Shvetsov M-11 radial, it was redesigned with tricycle landing gear as the Yak-18A, built under licence in China as the Nanchang CJ-5 (379 built), flown by North Korea as a night harassment bomber in the Korean War, and developed into single-seat aerobatic versions that won world championships in 1966 and 1970. About 40 originals are estimated to survive.

Yakovlev Yak-3

The Yakovlev Yak-3 was a Soviet single-seat fighter of the Second World War, developed from the Yak-1 through the Yak-1M prototype that first flew in February 1943. Small, light and powered by a Klimov VK-105 engine, it was built to outfight German fighters at low altitude over the Eastern Front, entered service in 1944, and was flown by the Free French Normandie-Niemen regiment, whose pilots flew their aircraft home in 1945. Wartime production totalled 4,848. Most Yak-3s flying today are 1990s new builds and reproductions rather than wartime survivors.

Yakovlev Yak-7

The Yak-7 was a Soviet fighter of the Second World War that began as the UTI-26, a two-seat advanced trainer developed from the Yak-1. Converted into a single-seat fighter in 1941 as losses mounted, it reached operational squadrons before the end of that year and served most numerously as the Yak-7B; 6,399 aircraft of all variants were built. The type later reverted in part to its training role, its development line led to the Yak-9, and it was retired in 1946.