Table of contents for May/June 2026 in Flight Journal

IN THE GREAT SWEEP OF WORLD WAR II aviation history, attention often falls on the machines that attacked—fighters clawing for altitude, bombers droning toward distant targets. Yet scattered across the vast oceans of the war were aircraft whose mission was not destruction, but salvation. The Consolidated PBY Catalina was one of those aircraft. Slow, ungainly, and often dismissed as outdated even during the war, the Catalina became something extraordinary in the hands of the U.S. Army Air Forces’ Emergency Rescue Squadrons. To a downed airman floating in the endless Pacific, the white flying boat circling overhead meant something more than an airplane. As Lt. Laurence B. Craig so eloquently described, it meant warmth, food, safety—and the possibility of seeing home again. In this issue, RAF pilot and historian Clive Rowley…

The landing will be slightly across the great swells of the ocean but straight into the wind. The wings are level, the ball centered, no drifting slip will catch a float and trip them into a diving water loop. Their past experiences have ingrained in the flying boat crew a terror of the risk of landing on the open ocean. It hangs suspended, its white hull just a few feet above the white caps. With a sigh, the wings stall and it settles into the sea. The anticipated crash drives the crew into their seats. The plane becomes a mammoth speed boat rushing through the rough sea at seventy miles an hour. Despite the force of its arrival the sea rejects it, and the plane is batted back into the…

“WHEN I GLANCED TO THE RIGHT, I saw a smoke trail coming up the river, 90 degrees to my flight path and holding steady at my altitude of about 100 feet. As it approached, I could clearly see the missile and thought, ‘This is going to pass right between us.’ Then, to my surprise and horror, it did a 90-degree turn right in front of me and into one of the CH-53 helicopters.”—Chuck O’Connell, F Troop, 4th Air Cavalry 1972 Easter Offensive In March 1972, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) staged the largest invasion of South Vietnam since the Tet Offensive of 1968. Invading across the DMZ from the north, the NVA easily overran the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) and captured the city of Quang Tri. The sheer size of…

HISTORY HAS A WAY OF REWRITING ITSELF. If there is any lingering doubt, look no further than the record of the French Air Force in World War II. In the wake of a shattering defeat at the hands of Germany’s Luftwaffe in 1940, the conventional wisdom arose more from apologists than from professional airmen. Among the explanations for the Armee de l’Air’s performance were contentions that the French were outnumbered, ill equipped and/or poorly led. In fact, though there were deficiencies, in some areas the French air arm was as capable as Britain’s or Germany’s. Yet the Blitzkrieg launched in May 1940 needed only six weeks to conquer France and Belgium and eject their British allies from the continent. It had not always been so. France led the world in…

WHEN ALLIED AIRMEN strapped on their aircraft for a combat mission during World War II, especially when piloting a heavy bomber like the B-24 Liberator over the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the situation usually provoked the same thoughts from pilots and crew members alike. “Will we get this overloaded and overweight behemoth off the ground and safely into the air? Will this be a milk run? What if we encounter Japanese fighters? Will the flak be as thick and as accurate as on the last mission? Can we find our way back home?” There was always a chance something would go wrong. The thoughts of multiple, unforeseen problems were kicked around in the heads of the Liberator crews long before takeoff. The best-laid mission plans rarely went off without…

“TO A COLD, WET AND HUNGRY AIRMAN, sitting in a rubber dinghy in enemy waters, 600 miles from the nearest friendly base and 600 yards from the nearest enemy installation, the PBY is a breathtakingly beautiful sight. The happy airman sees not only a great white flying boat. He sees more. He sees his friends, his wife, his parents and his children. He sees food and warmth and safety. He sees home.”– Lt Laurence B. Craig, 2nd Emergency Rescue Squadron BY (AO-10) Catalina pilot in the Pacific USAAF air-sea rescue When the U.S. entered World War Two, the Army Air Force was neither prepared nor equipped for rescue operations at sea. In 1942 and 1943, the rescue of downed airmen in the sea was conducted by the U.S. Navy and…

ARGUABLY ONE OF THE MOST IMPRESSIVE CLASSIC JETS, even nearly seven decades after the type entered service, surely is the DH Sea Vixen “Foxy Lady” XP924 (civil registration G-CVIX). The Sea Vixen today is owned by Navy Wings, a United Kingdom non-profit organization that is dedicated to preserving and flying historic aircraft. The de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen was a two-seat jet fighter originally designed to be an aircraft for both the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm functioning as an all-weather, missile-armed, high-speed jet fighter. Although the RAF selected the Gloster Javelin, the Royal Navy subsequently placed an order for 145 aircraft. The first production Sea Vixen flew in 1957 and officially entered in service with the Fleet Air Arm in 1959, with the designation of Sea Vixen…