Aviation Archive
@aviationarchive • 44,615 subscribers
USAF Veteran — curator, colorizer, and HD/4k restorer of unique and rare military, aviation, WWI and WWII videos.🫡
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On 23 June 1951, after already landing successfully aboard the USS Midway, George Chamberlain Duncan was catapulted again alongside Edward L. Feightner, who was testing a Vought F7U Cutlass. Duncan found he was carrying too much fuel for a safe recovery, so he jettisoned his tip tanks and loitered while Feightner completed six landings. On his final approach a downdraft aft of the stern dropped his Panther below the deck; the ramp strike split the fuselage, sent the burning rear section onto the fantail, and sent the nose section tumbling down the deck with Duncan still inside. His helmet and canopy were torn free. Crewmen pulled him from the wreckage with scorched ears and burns; he returned to flying duties six months later. 🫡
Aviation Archive276,883 views • 3 days ago
Complete with a fake town and Ice Cream Parlor, in 1944 the Allies secretly laid flexible pipelines in the English Channel under the code name Operation Pluto to keep fuel flowing after the Normandy landings. These lines, based on adapted submarine cable technology and spooled out from special ships and giant floating reels called Conundrums, ran from England to ports like Cherbourg and later Boulogne. Pumping stations on the English coast were hidden in plain sight, disguised as ordinary seaside bungalows, cottages, and even Brown’s Ice Cream Parlor so German reconnaissance would see nothing but a quiet holiday town. By early 1945 the network was pumping nearly a million gallons of gasoline a day, and by VE Day it had carried well over 170 million gallons across the water, helping keep Allied tanks and trucks moving all the way into Germany.
Aviation Archive - Tim Farmer2,146,343 views • 2 months ago
In April 1945 American forces seized the German V-2 engine test stands at the Lehesten slate quarry in Thuringia and restarted static firings of the captured motors on the existing benches. They measured thrust output, combustion stability, and overall reliability under controlled conditions. The tests also let ordnance teams document the hardware and procedures before the site passed into Soviet hands later that summer. From the Mittelwerk plant the United States shipped out components sufficient for about 100 complete rockets, later assembling and launching 67 of them at White Sands. Britain received the remaining parts after the American haul and assembled eight rockets for its own tests, while Soviet forces took what was left in their zone and assembled roughly 30 for launches at Kapustin Yar.
Aviation Archive - Tim Farmer1,114,733 views • 2 months ago
In February 1969, U.S. forces sprayed weed killer from riverboats along the Saigon River in South Vietnam, stripping heavy vegetation that hid VC ambush sites for miles. The defoliant cleared cover used for attacks on shipping and patrols, improving visibility and reducing threats in the dense riverbanks. Operations like this targeted areas where thick jungle provided perfect concealment for enemy fighters.👀
Aviation Archive1,354,570 views • 3 months ago
Footage captures the controversial 1950 bombing run that dropped 850 tons of ordnance on North Korean front lines. A final shot shows a crew member loading a pearl-handled .45, its purpose left unclear - meant for the enemy, himself, or perhaps both, in case of a crash.
Aviation Archive124,908 views • 11 days ago
West Germany's F-104 Starfighter fleet remains one of the Cold War's grimmest aviation stories. 916 were purchased in 1961, with roughly one in four lost to crashes. Grounded by late 1966, the jets were upgraded and continued flying until 1991, by which point 292 had crashed and 116 pilots had died, earning the aircraft the nickname "The Widowmaker".
Aviation Archive58,310 views • 6 days ago
During World War II, the German Luftwaffe trained bomber gunners using a mechanical motion simulator known as the Wackeltopf (wobble pot). This forced them to master deflection shooting principles while simultaneously compensating for the physical disorientation of a unstable firing platform.
Aviation Archive - Tim Farmer938,103 views • 3 months ago
The German Luftwaffe used a high-tech ground simulator during WWII called the "Bombenteppich" (Bomb Carpet). Instead of flying, student bombardiers stood on a raised platform above a giant, mechanically driven conveyor belt painted with target terrain. The belt moved at the exact apparent ground speed of a combat aircraft. Cadets used real bombsights to track targets, calculate drift, and trigger mock releases. They weren't allowed to drop live ammunition from real planes until they mastered this moving map simulator.
Aviation Archive - Tim Farmer873,394 views • 3 months ago
On 22 December 1943 at the new Torokina fighter strip on Bougainville, Marine and Navy ground crews prepared 100-pound bombs that had been field-modified by wrapping them with .50 caliber rounds. 👀 These were loaded onto SBD Dauntless dive bombers operating from the still-expanding airfield. The modified bombs supported early Allied air strikes aimed at Japanese ground positions as part of the larger effort to isolate the major base at Rabaul. Seabee construction continued around the same strip while fighters and bombers flew daily sorties in the northern Solomons campaign.🫡
Aviation Archive554,841 views • 2 months ago
During WWII, in 1944 the U.S. Army built one of the largest-calibre guns ever produced, a 36-inch (914 mm) mortar they nicknamed Little David, having a larger calibre than both of Germany's Schwerer Gustav and Dora which were 31.5-inch (800 mm) railway guns. It fired a 3,650 lb (1,660 kg) shell at 1,250 feet per second (381 m/s) out to 9,500 yards(8.7 km). The complete weapon weighed 173,000 pounds and traveled in two loads—an 80,000 lb (36,000 kg) barrel and a 93,000 lb (42,000 kg) base—hauled by heavy tractors and ready to fire in about twelve hours. Meant first for the Siegfried Line and later for Japanese fortifications, it never fired a shot in combat.🫡
Aviation Archive - Tim Farmer481,848 views • 2 months ago
On September 27, 1964, the British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 prototype XR219 made its first flight from Boscombe Down in Wiltshire at about 8:28 a.m. CST. Chief test pilot Roland Beamont and navigator Don Bowen took the 89-foot-long white jet aloft with the landing gear locked down and the twin Olympus engines limited in power because of reliability concerns. The 14-minute flight went smoothly with no major problems, and Beamont described the handling as marvelous and close to design predictions. The aircraft was intended as a Mach 2 low-level tactical strike and reconnaissance replacement for the Canberra, powered by two Bristol Siddeley Olympus engines rated at 30,610 pounds of thrust each with afterburner and spanning 37 feet. Only XR219 ever flew, completing 24 test flights totaling about 13 hours before the program was cancelled on April 6, 1965. 🫡
Aviation Archive28,531 views • 5 days ago
Invented by the British in 1944, allied fighters used paper drop tanks of glue-soaked kraft paper to extend range. The lightweight tanks leaked after hours so crews filled them right before takeoff then dropped them after use saving metal and denying scrap to the enemy.🫡
Aviation Archive - Tim Farmer635,013 views • 4 months ago
There really aren't many refueling mishap videos out there. I think that is telling that it's a lower risk task than I imagined. But I am curious if this one is a Tomcat driver or boomer screw up? Something similar happened to my wife one time while getting gas. 😀
Aviation Archive3,488,859 views • 1 year ago
On April 24, 1952, a Nike missile successfully intercepted and completely destroyed in mid-air a remotely controlled QB-17 bomber high over White Sands. WSMR IGOR tracking telescope operator Joe Marlin photographed the intercept and won the 1955 Ernie Pyle Award for outstanding still photography in support of national security.🤘😎
Aviation Archive558,612 views • 3 months ago
On November 23, 1943, Ensign William W. Kelly put the first American plane down on Tarawa. His VF-18 Hellcat came off the USS Bunker Hill and touched Hawkins Field on Betio around noon local, 6 p.m. CST the evening before, on the last day of the fight. He buzzed the island, circled once, then fishtailed the F6F around Seabee bulldozers already grading the strip. The gear caught a rut, collapsed, and the Hellcat spun to a stop. Kelly climbed out, shook hands with the Marines who ran up, and asked if it was over. Pretty nearly, they told him. Wire reports gave the first landing to Butch O'Hare. O'Hare actually came in later, around 3 p.m. local, 9 p.m. CST, to look the field over as a divert for carrier planes.🫡
Aviation Archive61,527 views • 13 days ago
To comply with the START I treaty, the US Air Force had to eliminate 365 B-52 bombers from its inventory. Initially, the B-52s were chopped into pieces with a 13,000-pound guillotine supported by a crane because that was the only know way to stop a B-52.🫡
Aviation Archive - Tim Farmer765,640 views • 5 months ago