Mustard

The rapid development of aircraft in the 1920’s and 1930’s far outpaced the development of aviation infrastructure to support them. Runways, even by the late 1930’s, were rare and often little more than an open grass field, useful only for the smallest and lightest of airplanes. It would be at least another decade until many cities developed suitable airports. But commercial aviation wasn’t going to wait around.

Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) refers to aircraft that can take-off, hover, and land vertically. To this day, the Dornier Do-31 remains the largest VTOL jet to take to the skies and the world’s only VTOL jet lift transport.

In August of 1945, as the world celebrates Imperial Japan’s surrender and the effective end of the second world war, the American’s make a puzzling discovery out in the Pacific. The US Navy has intercepted a Japanese submarine that’s unlike anything they’ve seen before. It’s by far the largest submarine ever constructed, at nearly twice the length of a typical German U-boat. But it’s what the submarine carries that truly baffles the Americans.

Concorde was the world’s most iconic airliner and one of the most technically ambitious projects in aviation history. Billions were spent on its development over a span of more than a decade. When the Concorde program was launched, it was to be the next giant leap forward in air travel. Many believed that mass supersonic commercial air travel would be commonplace by the end of the 1970s.

The Soviets built some of the largest and most technically advanced helicopters in the world. By 1957, the Mil Mi-6 had already emerged as the largest helicopter ever built, far out-sizing helicopters built in the west. But for the Soviet Union, the need to build a helicopter far larger than even the Mi-6, soon became a matter of national security.

In June of 1919, two daring British aviators made the world's first successful non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean from North America to Europe using a modified Vickers Vimey airplane. In just 16 hours, they achieved what up until that point, required days to accomplish by ocean liner. John Alcock and Arthur Brown’s transatlantic flight was celebrated around the world as a monumental achievement, but regular passenger carrying flights were still decades from becoming reality.

Throughout the 1950s, aircraft designers around the world began developing a unique aircraft configuration, called a tail-sitter. Unlike conventional airplanes, tail sitting planes rested on their tails and used engine power alone to lift off the ground before transitioning to vertical flight, and returning to land vertically once again on their tail. The configuration, although technically challenging to develop, would allow aircraft to operate without runways, fundamentally changing how and where air forces could use their aircraft.