Vintage Aircraft

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Pilot Magazine

| June 1, 2025

The Goodyear blimp

The name Goodyear is inextricably connected to the city of Akron, Ohio. It’s where in 1898 the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company was founded by brothers Charles and Frank Seiberling. The company quickly evolved from manufacturing bicycle and carriage tires to automobile tires and expanding into aviation, supporting the U.S. World War I efforts with airships and balloons.

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Article

| May 21, 2025

Kentucky tornado wreaked havoc at vintage aircraft fly-in

A tornado that struck southern Kentucky May 16 destroyed buildings, tossed vehicles through the air, and led to the deaths of at least 19 people according to official reports. The storm, which the National Weather Service categorized as an EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, also touched down on the London/Corbin/Magee Airport, damaging businesses and wrecking several aircraft.

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Article

| January 30, 2025

Douglas R4D set to celebrate anniversary of Allied victory

The Commemorative Air Force is preparing a 1944 Douglas R4D-6S named Ready 4 Duty for a 12-week, 12,000-mile transatlantic trip to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II. The flight, dubbed the Navy to Victory Tour, will honor the success and sacrifices of American and Allied sailors.

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Image Gallery

| December 23, 2024

Crossing the Atlantic with the D-Day Squadron

When you’re 300 miles off the southern coast of Greenland, trucking along at 130 knots 10,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean in an 81-year-old airplane, there is little use in looking back.

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Pilot Magazine

| November 1, 2024

Magnificent obsession

James O’Hara had been fascinated by the P–38 Lightning since childhood. At age 14, during World War II, he carved a lifelike model of the twin-engine Lockheed fighter from balsa wood. Later in life, when O’Hara became an aerospace engineer and professor at Tulane University, he collected P–38 paintings and artifacts. And in 1994, after becoming a private pilot in his early 60s, he started building a two-thirds scale P–38 that he intended to someday fly with wife Mitzi.

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Pilot Magazine

| October 9, 2024

Brilliant Businessliner

That N4312N won the classic aircraft Grand Champion – Gold Lindy award at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2023 was not surprising. This 1948 Cessna 195 is a flying art deco masterpiece.

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Pilot Magazine

| September 1, 2024

Eastern jet with a western makeover

The slender nose of the L–39 Albatros jet rises sharply into deep blue Florida sky while I strain against the Gs and glance at the spinning digits on the altitude readout.
“Keep pulling,” L–39 owner and pilot Jimmy Hayes advises from the front seat of this sleek, fully westernized former Warsaw Pact jet. “Make sure you stay below 18,000 feet.

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Pilot Magazine

| September 1, 2024

The Wright stuff

What did I get myself into?

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Pilot Magazine

| September 1, 2024

Homecoming

After World War II ended, the primary trainers of the era were worn out. The U.S. Navy put word out that it wanted a new primary trainer, and the Fairchild Aircraft Co. in Hagerstown, Maryland, responded with a mock-up of the Model 92 XNQ-1 aircraft.

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Pilot Magazine

| August 1, 2024

Endangered species

Power off, 20 degrees of barn-door-effective split flaps, and a forward slip produce a gentle plunge and sudden rushing sound that takes a moment to realize is the airflow hitting the blue-and-yellow fabric fuselage at an angle.

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Article

| May 28, 2024

Dancing with a Tiger Moth

The runways at Rangitata Island Aerodrome on the ruggedly beautiful South Island of New Zealand are charted “closed periodically for grazing and mowing,” and the past is very much alive.

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Article

| May 8, 2024

Pioneer reborn

In 2023, Junkers Aircraft, the boutique German maker of retro-themed aircraft that roll out of the factory looking like collector's items, all carrying the lines and heritage of Hugo Junkers into the present, introduced the A50 Junior—the original metal monoplane—with modern avionics, and a modern engine that required a compromise.

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Article

| March 14, 2024

The Moth whisperer

In aviation, de Havilland enthusiasts cannot talk about their aircraft without coming across the name of Henry Labouchere.

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Article

| February 22, 2024

'Out of Africa' Gipsy Moth goes under the hammer

The 1929 de Havilland DH60M Gipsy Moth flown by Robert Redford’s character Denys Finch Hatton in the award-winning 1985 movie Out of Africa is being offered for auction by RM Sotheby’s in Miami on March 2.

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Feature

| February 22, 2024

Reimagined

Years ago, I was manning the phones for a kit aircraft company in the western United States. I answered one of the first calls of the day and a voice asked in accented but perfectly understandable English if we had a weighted flop tube for a fuel tank in stock and could ship it soon. We did, and I asked where we might be shipping it.

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Flight Training Magazine

| February 22, 2024

An inspired design

Some airplanes possess a certain kind of magic that’s as real as it is undefinable.

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Article

| February 14, 2024

Mission accomplished

Two World War II-era aircraft are several steps closer to being completely restored.

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Pilot Magazine

| January 17, 2024

Wesley's Waco comes home

When Wacos were coming off the production line in Troy, Ohio, did the builders have any idea how long their craftsmanship would endure?

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Pilot Magazine

| November 1, 2023

Cadillac in cruise

I’d been tracking the Staggerwing on FlightAware, yet when the cream-colored Beech Model D17S appeared overhead at Winter Haven Regional Airport, its shift from a green blip on an iPhone screen to magnificent, full-throated presence felt surprising.

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Pilot Magazine

| October 3, 2023

A Cessna 195 restoration that ‘makes no sense’

This gleaming Cessna 195 stands out even before you know its colorful history.

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Pilot Magazine

| September 22, 2023

My COVID project

By Ben Moses

A half-century ago, one month after getting my private ticket and with 60 hours in my logbook, I bought a two-year-old Beechcraft Musketeer and parked it at Teterboro Airport (TEB) in New Jersey, across the river from New York City. I got my instrument rating in it and flew the fun little bird around the East Coast for years.

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Image Gallery

| September 21, 2023

'Largest gathering of Wacos ever'

The sound of radial engines filled the air at Waco Field in Troy, Ohio, just north of Dayton.

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Pilot Magazine

| August 28, 2023

Flying Mentors

Marrying into an aviation family has taught me two things: everything is always subject to change, and I should never get attached to any certain airplane. The first point might be true for most aviation families, but the second point is a little more unique.

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Article

| July 27, 2023

‘This was an enormously difficult aircraft to restore’

A little dirt doesn't bother Marla Simon-Boone—as long as it’s not on an airplane.

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Pilot Magazine

| June 28, 2023

Happy to be here

Meet my friend David. He is, as he will tell you, from Atlanta, Georgia, and a more stereotypical Southern gentleman you’d be hard to find.

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Article

| May 25, 2023

Flying Fortresses grounded pending wing spar inspection

An FAA airworthiness directive grounded the few remaining Boeing model B–17E, B–17F, and B–17G airplanes to address wing spar issues found during a preflight inspection of a B–17 in 2021. At least one operator vowed to have its World War II bomber back in the air soon.

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Pilot Magazine

| May 2, 2023

Yesterday’s wings, today

Maybe it’s just me, but in recent months it seems that there’s been little in the way of new designs filling out the light sport aircraft end of the general aviation spectrum.

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Pilot Magazine

| March 22, 2023

Flying anachronism

The Howard 500 was already obsolete on the day of its maiden flight. Big, bold, powerful, and fast, the art deco giant was made from the very best from the piston era.

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Pilot Magazine

| March 21, 2023

The first Air Force One

By Tim Wright

“After putting several million dollars and a few years into this, we’re thinking: ‘You know, we really need this done and we can’t do it ourselves,’” says Phil Douglas, executive director of the nonprofit First Air Force One.

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Pilot Magazine

| March 1, 2023

Love at first sight

By Collin Callahan

Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that make the biggest difference in our lives. That’s certainly the case for Jason Capra.

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