Flight Journal

Flight Journal is the world’s number one historical aviation brand. It is the go-to publication for those seeking the aviation experience as seen from the cockpit by history-making pilots and through the lenses of the world’s best aviation photographers. The emphasis is on giving readers unexpected aviation information and making them part of landmark experiences in a way that is to be found in no other periodical.

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Flight Journal

ONE LUCKY BASTARD! TALES FROM AN ETO MUSTANG PILOT • 1942-45. It was a long time ago, but even today at 96, the events are crystal clear. It was about pilots and crews. It was about a whole generation of kids who grew up very quickly. It was about depending on people, in a way you would probably never again depend on someone, and they, in turn, depending on you. It was about people you just never forget. For most of us, it was a life-altering experience, and it stayed with us all our lives.

LUCKY BASTARDS’ CLUB

AIR COMBAT MUSEUM—HOME OF THE WORRYBIRD

KITTYHAWK JUNGLE RESCUE P-40 GETS A NEW LEASE ON LIFE • Confined in a microworld of levers, switches, and instruments, Royal Australian Air Force Flight Sergeant James Denman Harvey slid his Curtiss P-40’s eight-piece canopy backwards and looked down. Hammered by tropical heat and skin slippery in perspiration, he studied the surface of a newly captured airstrip called “Tadji.” Harvey and fellow No. 78 Squadron pilots believed ground engineers had repaired a landing area on the north coast of New Guinea after defeated Japanese soldiers scurried into the shrubbery on April 25, 1944.

FLYING INTO THE LION’S JAWS

THE F-5 AN AMERICAN TIGER • We all know about jet fighters such as the Phantom, Tomcat, Eagle, Viper, Hornet, F-22, and F-35, but what about the less-covered F-5? It doesn’t seem to secure as much time basking in the spotlight. Let’s indulge ourselves.

STRAPPING IN

AMERICAN TIGER OPERATORS

BOMBER CREW CHRONICLES B-17 CREWMEN REMEMBER THEIR GERMAN MISSIONS • Aboard each of the thousands of B-17 Flying Fortresses that left the soil of England bound for targets in Europe were 10 young men. Outwardly, they were no different from any late-teen or early-twenties boy you’d meet anywhere in America. Same faces, same names, same youthful vigor and sense of invincibility. But on their shoulders rested the hopes of a nation, a world at war.

THE MARINES’ LAST DOGFIGHT THE CORSAIR WAS ONE TOUGH BIRD • In June of 1941, at age 20, Joseph Paul Lynch entered the Naval Aviation Cadet program. He earned his wings and a Marine Corps commission in May of 1942. His first combat tour was in the Solomon Islands with VMF-112, flying F4F Wildcats and F4U Corsairs. Lieutenant Lynch was shot down once in the Solomons, but he ended his tour credited with three and a one-half Japanese aircraft. After spending over a year in the States instructing at Jacksonville, Florida, Captain Lynch returned to the Pacific with VMF-155, which defended the Marshall Islands. He was subsequently transferred to VMF-224 as a Corsair division leader at Okinawa.

THE REST OF THE STORY

The Army's L-19

REVIEW RUNWAY

A Human Record of War: Life magazine, 1965 • 1965…The April 16 cover story in Life was a photoessay by Larry Burrows, a British journalist best known for his war photography in Vietnam.

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