military aircraft: Quick Facts

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Tupolev Tu-22M, a Russian variable-wing supersonic jet bomber first flown in 1969. It was designed for potential use in war against the NATO countries, where it was known by the designation “Backfire.”

AH-64 Apache helicopter

Hydrogen gas generator being used to inflate an observation balloon during the American Civil War, 1862.

The Zeppelin airship Schwaben hovers low above an open field near a crowd of people preparing for its landing at Potsdam.

A German Zeppelin airship flies above several warships in Kiel Bay, Germany, during a World War I maneuver.

World War I; zeppelin

World War I scene with English soldiers operating large artillery cannons on a field at Roye, France, as a biplane scout flies overhead.

British Vickers F.B.5 pusher biplane on grass with three uniformed men; one sits at the machine gun, another on the fuselage, and a third poses by the landing gear.

Fokker Eindecker

A 1917 Albatros D.Va, a German fighter plane of World War I.

Orville Wright: flight of the first military airplane, 1909

Surveil the surroundings from a military balloon aircraft utilized throughout World War I

What Was the Battle of Britain?

Watch President Roosevelt outline his Four Freedoms and learn how Britain defeated Germany's Luftwaffe

Witness X1-E taking off under a B-29 from Edwards Air Force Base, California

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reconnaissance aircraft multirole combat aircraft Fieseler Fi 156 Storch KC-135 Stratotanker naval aircraft 11 of the World’s Most Famous Warplanes Bomber fighter aircraft attack aircraft uncrewed aerial vehicle airplane air-cushion machine helicopter kite armoured vehicle Taser airship Blowgun balloon flame thrower

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Key People

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Orville Wright

American aviator

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Wilbur Wright

American aviator

Fieseler, Gerhard

Gerhard Fieseler

German aviator

Jacqueline Cochran

Jacqueline Cochran

American pilot

Glenn Hammond Curtiss.

Glenn Hammond Curtiss

American engineer

Andrey N. Tupolev, Soviet aircraft designer, 1968.

Andrey Nikolayevich Tupolev

Soviet aircraft designer

John Knudsen Northrop, American aeronautical designer, 1949.

John Knudsen Northrop

American engineer

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Ben R. Rich

American engineer

Focke-Wulf Fw 190, German fighter plane of World War II.

Kurt Tank

German aircraft designer and test pilot

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Sir Barnes Wallis

British military engineer

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Marcel Dassault

French industrialist

Anthony Fokker

Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker

Dutch aircraft manufacturer

Messerschmitt, 1941

Willy Messerschmitt

German engineer

Donald Douglas, 1970

Donald Douglas

American aircraft designer

Junkers, Hugo

Hugo Junkers

German aircraft designer

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Louis-Charles Bréguet

French aircraft builder

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yakovlev

Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yakovlev

Soviet aircraft designer

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Ernst Heinrich Heinkel

German aircraft designer

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Geoffrey de Havilland

British aircraft designer

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Glenn L. Martin

American inventor

NASA's Reduced Gravity Program provides the unique weightless or zero-G environment of space flight for testing and training of human and hardware reactions. NASA used the turbojet KC-135A to run these parabolic flights from 1963 to 2004.

Man-Made Birds in the Sky