RAF | International Aviation HQ

28May

By Alya KulikovaNo Comments

Aircraft Digest

How The de Havilland Dove Became a British Aviation Icon

Background Founded in 1920 by veteran aircraft designer Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, de Havilland Aircraft originally made its fortune making one and two-seat biplane trainers under their now-famous Moth line. By the mid-1930's, however, de Havilland had expanded away from just producing biplane trainers, releasing a slew of single and two-engine biplane airliners like DH.83 Fox Moth and DH.84 Dragon. The company's most successful airliner - the DH.89 Dragon Rapide - wasn't released until the summer of 1934. As versatile as it was popular, the Dragon Rapide was as popular with foreign airlines as it was British ones. With the outbreak of WWII, Britain pressed its civil aircraft into military service for the war effort, including the Dragon Rapide where it was known as the Domi...

Embraer Phenom 100: The Most Versatile Very Light Jet Yet?

14Apr

By Gareth SeagullNo Comments

Executive

Embraer Phenom 100: The Most Versatile Very Light Jet Yet?

Since its introduction in 2008, the Embraer Phenom 100 has proven to be quite versatile. Not only is it used by private and corporate flyers, but also the military and many more operators... As of the time of writing, Embraer has produced almost 400 Phenom 100s (whilst having orders for many more!) since 2008, making it one of the fastest-selling very light jets of recent decades! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Development In 2002, Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, Embraer, released the Legacy 600, a business jet version of their famed ERJ-135 regional airliner. Within only a few years, the Legacy 600 had become quite successful, with Embraer having well over 100 orders for the jet. Seeing the success of the Legacy 600, as well as the increa...

Hurricane vs Spitfire: Britain’s Best WWII Fighter?

14Oct

By Gareth SeagullNo Comments

Aircraft Compare

Hurricane vs Spitfire: Britain’s Best WWII Fighter?

Both the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane served with the RAF prior, during and after WWII. During this time, both aircraft served alongside one another in combat, with people often wondering which was better. We recently compared the P-51 Mustang and Spitfire, where we were inundated with requests for a Hurricane-Spitfire comparison. Today, most people view both the Hurricane and Spitfire as some of the best WWII-era fighter aircraft ever made. This is alongside the Japanese Zero, Soviet Yak-3, North American P-51, German Bf.109 and the French Caudron C.714. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Hurricane vs Spitfire: What is a Fighter? The role of WWII fighter aircraft differ greatly from modern fighter aircraft. On top of this, mod...

Why were there so many aircraft manufacturers in the UK in the 1950’s?

7Sep

By Christopher HarrowNo Comments

History

Why were there so many aircraft manufacturers in the UK in the 1950’s?

At one point in time, there were hundreds of aircraft manufacturers in the UK. All of them producing aircraft on the bleeding edge of technology. But now, this has been reduced to a mere handful- and not really a handful, only five aircraft manufacturers remain in the UK - and only two are truly British. So what happened to the rest of them? Since the 1950's, aircraft manufacturers in the UK have come together, buying one another out. This was done so that they could compete with Boeing. They needed to be more centralized in order to remain competitive with Boeing, and produce aircraft for the RAF and British airlines. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Today, there are only really five major aircraft manufacturers in the UK. These are: Bombardier UK BAE S...

6Jul

By Christopher HarrowNo Comments

Aircraft Digest

F-35: America’s super jet

The Lockheed Martin F-35 is the United States Air Force’s newest and most powerful aircraft, is it the United States most significant aircraft yet? The Lockheed Martin F-35 is the United States' premier fighter aircraft, it was originally developed from the Lockheed Martin X-35 (pictured below). The development of the F-35, at the time called the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) as they hadn’t given out a contract for the development at the time. The development began in 1992, the two main contenders for the JSF contract were the Lockheed Martin X-35 and the Boeing X-32 (pictures below), the final design was chosen based on the X-35. Boeing X-32B on display at Patuxent Naval Air Museum Lockheed Martin X-35 on a test flight The X-35 was then christened as the F-35 Lightning II, it was design...

Eurofighter Typhoon: The aircraft Europe collaborated on

29Jun

By Christopher HarrowNo Comments

Aircraft Digest

Eurofighter Typhoon: The aircraft Europe collaborated on

As per our poll on Instagram on Wednesday, the Typhoon was chosen over the F-35 Lightning II for Aircraft Digest this week. The Eurofighter Typhoon II is a new fighter aircraft introduced to service in the British RAF in April 2006, it was meant to replace the Tornado, Harrier and Sea Harrier, it was a joint effort between the major aircraft manufacturers of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain. Why was the Eurofighter project started? The aircraft was developed as a counter to the Mig-29, as the Western European nations saw that the Mig-29 was more manoeuvrable than any aircraft currently in service with those nations at the time, manufactured by Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo, it was first flown on the 27 March 1994, and flew into service in 2006. It initially saw some di...

22Jun

By Christopher HarrowNo Comments

Aircraft Digest

Harrier: The Best British Jet?

So a few days ago, I was speaking with some former British Royal Air Force and United States Air Force pilots. And they were talking about how they missed the the BAE Systems and McDonnell Douglas Harrier jets of the past. Rather than this ‘American crap’ as one of the former RAF Pilots said (referring to the new F-35 Lightning II). The RAF pilots then started wining about how they detest the new F-35 that replaced the Harrier. So was it really as good as they say it was? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The Beginning It was originally developed by the UK-based aircraft manufacturer Hawker Siddeley in the 1960’s. Hawker Siddeley is now part of BAE Systems so it is sometimes called the BAE Harrier. It emerged as the only successful V/STOL (Vertica...