Military Aviation in Brief

       The interwar period saw developments in countries beyond just the West. The Soviet Polikarpov I-16 was developed in 1933, following Nikolai Polikarpov's conditional release from imprisonment on espionage charges in 1931. I-16s served in the USSR with the Soviet Air Forces, the Republic of China in the Chinese Nationalist Air Force, and the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. It acquired several names from its operators and opponents, with the Soviets dubbing it the " Ishak " (donkey), and the Spanish calling it the " Rata " (rat) or " Mosca " (fly). Over the duration of its service 10,292 I-16s were built including two-seated trainer aircraft. The I-16 was the primary fighter of the Soviet Air Forces up until 1941, when it was quickly discovered to be obsolete against more contemporary German aircraft.     At the time of its development t he I-16 was a revolutionary design, being the first low-wing monoplane with retractable landing g...

        It's time to move beyond World War I and into the Interwar period, between 1918 and 1939. The Boeing P-26 was a milestone development in 1931. It was the first all-metal monoplane to enter service with the U.S. Army Air Corps, but would be the last aircraft to serve with an open cockpit, fixed, non-retractable landing gear, and external wing braces. The P-26 was somewhat derogatorily called the "Peashooter" by its pilots, referencing either the long, thin tube housing the gunsight, or the gun blast tubes which prevented firing the guns from damaging the fuselage. It quickly became obsolete following further aviation developments, but served up until World War II. In fact, P-26s claimed the first American victories over Japanese airplanes when Philippine pilots responded to Japanese attacks on the islands following the attack on Pearl Harbor.     The P-26 was developed following a theory that fighters should be as light and small as possible for...

      Germany employed several notable combat craft throughout the first World War. In this post we'll focus on the Albatros D.III. Designed by  Albatros Flugzeugwerke, the D.III was a fairly straightforward development based on previous Albatros models. It entered German service in December of 1916, and was also license-built in Austria-Hungary. The Albatros is largely credited with bringing the German  Luftstreitkräfte  air superiority during the early months of 1917 in a period of the war known as Bloody April. Throughout the period, the British Royal Flying Corps suffered somewhere between 245 and 275 air losses. The Germans would lose 66 aircraft. The D.III undoubtedly made its mark on the war during Bloody April, but would be outclassed in the latter months of 1917 as new fighters such as the Sopwith Camel and SPAD S.XIII were introduced onto the battlefield.     The Albatros D.III  was an iterative design that built upon the previ...

     This week, we're diving into the SPAD S.XIII. The S.XIII was a biplane developed by the French company Société pour l'Aviation et ses Dérives , or SPAD. It was introduced in 1917, and was intended to be a combination of the previously successful S.VII along with the improved airframe of the S.XII. It saw service with the French  Aéronautique Militaire, the Royal Flying Corps and the US Army Air Service. In fact, the United States entered the war without an effective fighter and ended up adopting the SPAD S.XIII as its primary fighter. Over the duration of the war, the French delivered 893 S.XIIIs to the US Army Air Service, equipping nearly all of the American fighter squadrons. Overall, SPAD produced 8,472 S.XIIIs, making it one of the most produced fighters of the war.     The S.XIII  was a relatively conventional design for the time. It was a single-engine craft with wooden wings. The major difference from previous SPAD designs was its size and...