JP Santiago, Author at Avgeekery.com

3 min

Boeing Actually Tried Rocket Assisted Takeoffs On the 727

It sounds almost too amazing to be true, but Boeing actually tested rockets on the Boeing 727. Their plan wasn’t as crazy as it sounds and it proved to be…

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4 min

Extreme Punchout: The Ejection Seat of the X-15

The hypersonic speed and extreme altitude performance of the North American X-15 demanded one of the most complex ejection seats ever put into service. Earlier NASA research rocket aircraft like…

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3 min

CHECK SIX: The F-4 Phantom’s F3H Demon Roots

We recently passed the one year anniversary of the retirement of the last F-4 (actually the QF-4) in the USAF inventory. And while other air forces still have a few…

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6 min

The First American Covert Overflights of the Soviet Union

Overflights started way before the U-2… The introduction of nuclear weapons at the end of the Second World War had a profound influence in many combat doctrines and none nowhere…

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3 min

Operation Moked: The Premiere of the Anti-Runway Bomb

In the run up to the 1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East, the Israeli Air Force was significantly outnumbered by the Arab air forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan…

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6 min

So Many Airbus Jets Were Born on Boeing Wings

With the formation of Airbus Industrie and the launch of the Airbus A300 jetliner, the different consortium partners finalized their workshare of the project- the tail section was the responsibility of…

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7 min

The Mach 3+ F-4 Phantom

In the 1960s the development of high-performance reconnaissance cameras offered greater resolution, but at a price- many of these systems were large and heavy and the current high-altitude spyplane of…

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6 min

“This is Where the Cowboy Rides Away”: The Last Departure of Southwest’s Lone Star One

I went out to Dallas Love Field last week on 17 May 2016 to catch Lone Star One, N352SW, departing on her last flight out to the desert. She retired the evening…

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9 min

The Early History of ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association, and the First Airline Strike

“Any normal person can handle an airplane,” said the owner of what would become American Airlines. Unions formed to counter safety issues and poor working conditions. The early history of the…

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6 min

The Boeing 767 and the Birth of Twin Engine Flying Over The Atlantic – How ETOPS Happened

Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 121.161 states “Unless authorized by the administrator, based on the character of the terrain, the kind of operation, or the performance of the airplane to be…

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7 min

Meet David Neeleman: The Guy Who Made His Millions Starting Airlines

Three years after the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act in 1979, the US airline industry was in the midst of upheaval as many of the legacy carriers that…

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4 min

Task Force 38’s Unheralded Contribution to the Fall of Japan

Contrary to common belief, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t make the invasion of Japan unnecessary. In fact, the invasion of Japan began on 1…