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Bill Walton
Bill Walton is a life-long aviation enthusiast and expert in aircraft recognition. As a teenager Bill helped his engineer father build an award-winning T-18 homebuilt airplane in their Wisconsin basement. Bill is a freelance writer, an avid sailor, engineer, announcer, husband, father, uncle, mentor, coach, and Navy veteran. Bill lives north of Houston TX with his wife and son under the approach path to KDWH runway 17R, which means they get to look up at a lot of airplanes. A very good thing.
Latest stories
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BREAKING: Contract Awarded For Blue Angels Transition to Super Hornet
If you’re the sort of inquisitive or just plain nosy Avgeek who regularly checks the US Department of Defense website for contract information, you may have missed a barely-there notification listed on 13 August 2018. The contract to which I refer was right there, in between contracts awarded to Boeing for some CFM56-7B27AE engines and […] More
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Tornado: That Swing Wing Juggernaut From Across the Pond
The Panavia Tornado was jointly developed beginning during the late 1960s by Italy, the United Kingdom, and West Germany as the answer to a requirement for a Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA). European NATO countries had been flying several American-designed jets for many years by that point. The RAF had looked at the General Dynamics F-111K […] More
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BREAKING: Utah Man Crashes Cessna 525 CitationJet, One Dead
On Monday 13 August 2018 at 0238 local time a Cessna 525 CitationJet, serial number 525-0099 and registered as N526CP, crashed into a residence located at 594 East Canyon Road located just southeast of Payson in Utah. There was only the single pilot on board the jet. Two people were in the house at the […] More
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Watch: The Air Force Trots Out the Whole Supersonic Aircraft Lineup
The film “Mission Sonic Boom” was produced in 1959 and explains the phenomenon of sonic booms. Supersonic flight was actually fairly commonplace by the time the film was made. The film features the Convair B-58 Hustler bomber, the North American F-100 Super Sabre fighter, the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo interceptor, the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor, […] More
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in Blog, Commercial, Vintage
JAL Flight 123: When a Seven Year Old Shoddy Repair Job Brought Down a 747
On Monday, 12 August 1985 at 1812 local time, Japan Airlines Boeing 747SR-46 jetliner serial number 20783/230 registered as JA8119 and operating as JAL Flight 123 or JAL 123, departed runway 15L at Tokyo Haneda Airport bound for Osaka International Airport with 524 souls on board- 3 flight crew, 12 flight attendants, and 509 passengers. […] More
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Watch: Skyhawk 518 Will Make You Want to Throw Down For Your Own Scooter
Private A-4 Skyhawk aircraft are becoming more and more common these days. Several companies have stockpiled former boneyard resident jets and they’ve slowly been coming on the open market after meticulous restorations. The jet in these videos, registered as N518TA, is (at least in part) Douglas TA-4J Skyhawk Bureau Number (BuNo) 158486 (CN 14291). Skyhawk […] More
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Watch: Jet Warbirds Beat Up the Field at EAA Airventure 2018
Jet Warbird Day at EAA AirVenture 2018 was a feast for fans of jet-propelled classics. Several types participated in the show, including North American F-86 Sabre fighters, the world’s only operational North American FJ-4 Fury carrier-based fighter, Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star trainers and their Canadair CT-133 cousins, a bevy of Aero L-39 Albatros jet trainers, […] More
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Watch: Blue Angels Tradition Recalls the Phantom II Era
The US Navy Flight Demonstration Team, the Blue Angels, made a huge change in 1969. Having flown the Grumman F11F-1 (later F-11) Tiger for the previous 11 seasons, the Blues transitioned to the McDonnell Douglas F-4J Phantom II for the 1969 show season. The shift to the Phantom II required changes to the maneuvers flown […] More
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War Hoover: The Fabulously Flexible Lockheed S-3 Viking
Lockheed’s S-3 Viking carrier-based antisubmarine aircraft was developed to replace the venerable Grumman S-2 Tracker. To replace a versatile and frankly well-liked aircraft like the Tracker would take an excellent aircraft in its own right; one with not only next-level technology but also ground-breaking capabilities for carrier-based antisubmarine warfare (ASW). The thing was, even though Lockheed […] More
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Bockscar: The Aircraft and The Second Mission That Almost Didn’t Happen
Perhaps the second most famous Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber ever, B-29-36-MO Air Force serial number 44-27927, flew a mission that up until three days earlier had never been flown. 44-27927 was a specially modified block 35 B-29. The aircraft was built not by Boeing but by the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Plant in Bellevue, Nebraska. […] More
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Can’t Get Enough Six: Ultimate Interceptor Trivia for the Delta Dart Fan
Author’s Note: Delta Dart trivia certainly doesn’t tell the whole F-106 story. Good thing we did an in-depth Six story appearing right here. Let’s start with the need for speed. The F-106A Delta Dart interceptor was the world’s fastest single engine jet fighter aircraft. Bar none. Full stop. People tend to forget that in 1959 an F-106A topped […] More
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in Blog, Commercial, Videos
Watch: Cal Fire S-2T Firefighting Trackers Are Busy Every Fire Season
Born to hunt Soviet submarines, Grumman’s S-2 Tracker or Stoof has been adapted to do several jobs over the years. From the C-1A Trader COD to the Stoof with a Roof E-1 Tracer AEW platform and the ubiquitous US-2 utility transport, the aircraft has done everything asked of it. Nowadays a few Stoofs and CODs […] More
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