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Commercial as well as military aviation has come of age -- the Jet Age. Supersonic Concordes streak to their destination at twice the speed of sound. Huge numbers of passengers and endless tons of freight are routinely moved by jetliners today, but these tremendous accomplishments did not happen overnight. Experiments to determine the feasibility of jet propulsion were being conducted a brief seven years after the Wright brothers' famous flight in 1903. A Romanian, Henri Coanda, built and attempted to fly a very primitive turbine engine airplane near Paris, France, in April 1910. However, experimentation with jet propulsion by Coanda and others continued but it was not until the eve of World War II that the first true turbojet plane was successfully flown. In August 1939, the Heinkel 178, an unconventional research plane of German design, proved the feasibility of jet powered aircraft. But the event was all but eclipsed by the storm clouds of World War II. Nonetheless, this little noticed flight at Marienhe Airfield, Germany, ushered in the Jet Age. World War II served to hasten the development of jet aircraft, and by 1944, Germany had introduced the Meserschmitt 262 -- a very capable jet fighter. Great Britain, Japan and the United States followed. Each had developed and flown operationally capable jet fighters before the end of World War II.
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The Jet Age is represented in the Museum by a growing collection of aircraft, one-of-a-kind models and historic jet engines. One particularly rare aircraft is the Ryan X-13 Vertijet -- only two were ever built. The plane was produced by Ryan Aeronautical Company for the U.S. Air Force to explore potential vertical take-off concepts. It flew at Edwards and Andrews Air Force Bases, and off the steps of the Pentagon in a final demonstration.
The MiG-15 and the F-86 are two of the world's best known jet age adversaries. The MiG-15 was developed in 1947 by the Soviet Union to intercept high flying B-29s but its name, MiG, is forever linked with the American F-86 Sabre jet because of the Korean War and the aerial engagements between these two historic jets during that conflict. The Museum has both an F-86 and a MiG-15 on display in its Jet Age area.
Another in the Museum's collection of military jets is the sleek McDonnell-Douglas A-4 Skyhawk -- the smallest operational jet ever to have served aboard the Navy's aircraft carriers. Introduced in 1955, the Skyhawk remained in operational service with the Navy for almost fourty years.
New designs in airframes and engines are continuing to evolve, and the Museum is constantly striving to upgrade its collection of Jet Age planes and artifacts to keep pace with these rapid advances. Much of the technology devised for jet aircraft has been applied to space vehicles, and it is toward outer space that we are now casting our explorative sights.
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| A rare MiG-15 (above) is on display in the Jet Age area along with the famous Douglas A-4 Skyhawk (below). |
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