x planes

“Quartet of fleet F-94 all weather jet fighters leaving foaming white wake as they maneuver high over Thule Air Base. (Photo by George Silk//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Wargames, 1941 (via D. Sheley on Flickr)

“Operation MALLARD: aircraft prepared for the reinforcement of the British airborne assault, assembled at Tarrant Rushton, Hampshire, on the afternoon of 6 June (1944). On the runway are General Aircraft Hamilcar heavy lift gliders, preceded by two Airspeed Horsa troop-carrying gliders, while parked on each side of them are Handley Page Halifax glider-tugs of Nos. 298 and 644 Squadrons RAF.” (via)

“Cross section of the massive glider landing operations at a French objective of the U.S. Army 9th AF. Gliders and tow planes can be seen circling, and, at left, gliders which have already landed are seen close together. Note smashed gliders there..” (via)

“Flying in formation are these Douglas C-47’s used by the troop carrier air division of the 12th Air force to carry hard and rugged paratroopers and to tow gliders laden with airborne troops to Southern France…30/08/1944” (via)

Curtiss P-40N Warhawks of the 80th Fighter Group’s squadron “The Burma Banshees” (via)

the Edgley EA-7 Optica (via)

“Firewatch 76 leading the Martin Mars. Photo: Coulson Flying Tankers” (via)

A US Navy F-4 Phantom intercepts a Soviet M-4 Bison (centre-right), 24th Sept 1972.

Note the US Navy aircraft carrier (centre-left), and the fact this this image was taken by a 44Sqdn Royal Air Force Vulcan! (via)

“Shadows grow as P-51’s of the 7th Fighter Command at Sunset fly back home to Iwo Jima. Missions used to last eight hours or longer.” (via)

“Planes on the landing strip”
photo by Lev Polikashin, 1970 (via)

Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus, 1931 (via)

“Buckingham Palace Flypast, June 1980”

(via andywsx’s Flickr)

“This impressive scene was photographed when the NASA 747 carrier aircraft and five T-38 aircraft flew over the Space Shuttle Orbiter 101 “Enterprise” while it was parked on the runway at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. The Orbiter 101 had just completed a five-minute, 31-second unpowered mission during the second free-flight of the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Test series, on September 13, 1977, at the Dryden Flight Research Center.”(via)