98 Fun Facts About Military Aircraft

Which First World War fighter does Snoopy imagine flying in Peanuts as he duels the Red Baron?

The Sopwith Camel took its name from a humped metal fairing on its nose that pilots joked about; the name was never official. Snoopy's doghouse stands in for the biplane as he imagines himself a flying ace.

The Mitsubishi A6M, which entered navy service in 1940, took its 'Zero' nickname from the last digit of what?

The imperial year 2600 fell in 1940, so the Navy's 'Type 0 carrier fighter' label used its final digit; pilots called it the Reisen, or zero fighter. Designer Jiro Horikoshi met the Navy's demands by stripping out every ounce of weight.

Which American bomber, in service since 1955, was slated in 2025 to keep flying into the 2050s?

The B-52 Stratofortress last left the factory in 1962, so the youngest airframes would be about 90 years old by the 2050s; crews call it the BUFF, for Big Ugly Fat Fella.

Why were black-and-white 'invasion stripes' painted on Allied aircraft for the Normandy landings in June 1944?

To prevent friendly fire: planners feared thousands of aircraft would swamp the electronic friend-or-foe system, and for secrecy the order to paint the stripes went out only days before D-Day.

Which Grumman fighter, retired by the US Navy in 2006, had a single foreign customer, Iran?

The F-14 Tomcat was sold to the Shah's Iran in 1976, three years before the revolution; the new regime then flew its Tomcats in the war with Iraq, decades before the last American one left USS Theodore Roosevelt.

US Army helicopters such as the AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook are, by tradition, named after what?

Native American tribes have given the Army's helicopters their names for decades; the AH-64 became the Apache in late 1981, after the Apache tribe. The Huey is officially the Iroquois for the same reason.

What nickname do crews give the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, in US Air Force service since 1977?

Warthog suits a jet built to be tough rather than pretty: its cockpit sits inside 1,200 lb of titanium armour known as the 'bathtub'. The official name honours the P-47 Thunderbolt of the Second World War.

Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Mitsubishi A6M fighter, is the hero of which 2013 animated film by Hayao Miyazaki?

The Wind Rises is a fictionalised life of the engineer, voiced by Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno; Miyazaki wove in a romance borrowed from the Tatsuo Hori novel that gave the film its title.

In 1983 an Israeli pilot landed which fighter after a mid-air collision sheared off almost all of its right wing?

The F-15 Eagle stayed controllable because its broad fuselage generated lift on its own; pilot Zivi Nedivi only saw the wing was gone after landing, as leaking fuel had hidden the damage.

Which Sydney Camm fighter, derived from the Fury biplane, inflicted most of the Luftwaffe's losses over Britain in 1940?

The Hurricane was overshadowed in the public mind by a sleeker rival, yet it fought in every major theatre of the war; its retractable undercarriage and Merlin engine were pushed past a sceptical Air Ministry.

Which British twin-engined bomber and fighter of the Second World War was built mostly of wood?

The Mosquito was conceived as a bomber so fast it needed no guns, an idea the Air Ministry doubted even after the prototype flew; by 1941 the 'Wooden Wonder' was among the fastest aircraft in service.

Why does the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the most-produced fighter in history, carry the prefix 'Bf' rather than 'Me'?

Its maker was Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, the 'Bavarian Aircraft Works', when the design was submitted, so the air ministry kept the Bf prefix even after the firm became Messerschmitt AG in 1938.

Which B-17, star of a 1944 documentary, was among the first US heavy bombers to complete 25 missions and fly home?

Memphis Belle was named for pilot Robert Morgan's sweetheart Margaret Polk, and its crew toured America selling war bonds; the restored bomber has been on show at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton since 2018.

The Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter of the Vietnam era is universally called the 'Huey' because of what?

Its earlier HU-1 designation was read aloud as 'Huey', and the nickname outlived the 1962 switch to UH-1 so completely that the official name, Iroquois, is rarely heard.

Pilots of which fighter, first flown in 1974, nicknamed it 'Viper', partly after a Battlestar Galactica starfighter?

The F-16 is officially the Fighting Falcon, but crews preferred Viper, partly for its snake-like look and partly for the Colonial Viper from the TV show airing as it entered service. Its first flight happened by accident during a taxi test.

Which country quit the Eurofighter programme in 1985 to build its own carrier-capable fighter instead?

France wanted a lighter, carrier-capable jet and a leading role, so it withdrew to pursue its own ACX project, which became the Rafale; Spain also hesitated that summer but rejoined within weeks.

Which Nevada test site was acquired by the CIA in 1955 to flight-test the Lockheed U-2 in secrecy?

Area 51 was christened 'Paradise Ranch' by Lockheed's Kelly Johnson, to coax workers out to what the CIA later called a new facility in the middle of nowhere.

The US Navy Fighter Weapons School, 'Top Gun', was founded in 1969 at which California naval air station?

Miramar, in San Diego, hosted the school until it was merged into the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center at NAS Fallon, Nevada, in 1996; the base itself then passed to the Marine Corps.

Which bomber, the most-produced American military aircraft ever, rolled off Ford's Willow Run line at one an hour?

The B-24 Liberator line at Willow Run began badly, with labour trouble, rapid staff turnover and only a trickle of bombers in 1942; once the bugs were worked out, by 1944 it reached one an hour.

Which four-engined RAF bomber did 617 Squadron fly on the Dambusters raid against the Ruhr dams in May 1943?

The Lancaster was chosen for Operation Chastise because its long, unobstructed bomb bay could take Barnes Wallis's spinning 'Upkeep' bouncing bomb; the Möhne and Eder dams were breached that night.

The US Air Force 'Boneyard' at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base stores thousands of aircraft outside which Arizona city?

Tucson was chosen for its low humidity, scant rainfall, alkaline soil and 2,550-foot altitude, all of which slow rust and corrosion; the facility is formally the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group.

How many aerial victories traditionally make a pilot an 'ace', a term French newspapers coined in World War I?

Five kills became the benchmark after French papers hailed Adolphe Pégoud as l'As once he had downed five German aircraft; roughly 5% of combat pilots have accounted for most air-to-air victories ever since.

Which transport, derived from the DC-3 airliner, dropped paratroops on D-Day and was the RAF's 'Dakota'?

The C-47 Skytrain carried some 13,000 American paratroopers to Normandy on D-Day; crews called it the 'Gooney Bird', a nickname some trace to the albatrosses of Midway Island.

Which US Navy carrier fighter, flown by 'Pappy' Boyington's Black Sheep squadron, had a distinctive inverted gull wing?

The F4U Corsair's inverted gull wing kept its landing gear short while a 13-foot propeller cleared the deck; early Corsairs bounced so badly on landing that they went first to land-based squadrons.

The RAF was created on 1 April 1918 by merging the RNAS, the Navy's air arm, with which Army air service?

The Royal Flying Corps was the Army's flying arm, and the merger at the end of the First World War produced what was then the largest air force in the world; its first solo operation came in 1925 against Mahsud tribesmen in Pink's War.

Which British fighter stayed in production from before the Second World War until after it ended?

The Spitfire's semi-elliptical wing, detailed by Beverley Shenstone with sunken rivets, was made as thin as possible to cut drag; R. J. Mitchell's team settled on the shape in 1934 to reconcile thinness with internal space.

What did UN pilots in Korea call the airspace near the Yalu River, site of the first large-scale jet-versus-jet battles?

MiG Alley, the north-western corner of North Korea where the Yalu meets the Yellow Sea, pitted Soviet-built MiG-15s against American F-86 Sabres; the first jet-on-jet combat came when three MiG-15s attacked about ten USAF F-80s.

Which company built the MQ-1 Predator and its successor, the MQ-9 Reaper, for the US Air Force and the CIA?

General Atomics built the Predator as an unarmed spy drone, the RQ-1; once it carried Hellfire missiles, the Air Force renamed it MQ-1 in 2002, with M for multi-role.

In 1976 Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko defected to the West by landing his MiG-25 interceptor in which country?

Japan let American technicians help take the jet apart at Hyakuri Air Base; they found it fast but not the superfighter the West had feared, and Japan then shipped it back to the USSR in crates.

Which American pilot, nicknamed 'Uncle Wiggly Wings', dropped sweets to Berlin's children during the 1948–49 airlift?

Gail Halvorsen promised a group of children he would wiggle his wings so they would know his plane; once the story reached America, schoolchildren and sweet makers sent candy for him to drop.

Which American bomber, whose development cost more than the Manhattan Project, did the Soviets copy as the Tupolev Tu-4?

The B-29 Superfortress was reverse-engineered from examples that made emergency landings in the USSR, an effort involving 900 factories and 105,000 drawings; its own $3 billion programme was the war's most expensive.

Which delta-winged RAF bomber flew the 1982 Black Buck raids to the Falklands, then the longest bombing missions ever?

The Vulcan was built for medium-range missions in Europe and lacked the reach, so each raid meant a 7,600-mile, 16-hour round trip from Ascension Island on air-to-air refuelling; the targets were Stanley's runway and radars.

Which Rolls-Royce engine, with four swivelling nozzles, gives the Hawker Siddeley Harrier its vertical lift?

Pegasus sends cold fan air through its front pair of nozzles and hot exhaust through the rear pair; the idea of vectoring thrust for vertical take-off came from French designer Michel Wibault.

Which Lockheed transport, first flown in 1954, is the longest continuously produced military aircraft in history?

The C-130 Hercules passed 70 years of production in 2024; in 1963 a Navy crew even landed one on the carrier USS Forrestal and flew it off again, with no arrester hook or catapult.

Which McDonnell fighter, built 5,195 times, is the only aircraft flown by both the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels?

The F-4 Phantom II was designed as a missile-armed interceptor with no gun at all; later models, among them the F-4E the Thunderbirds flew, gained an internal cannon.

Which RAF pilot flew in the Battle of Britain despite losing the lower part of both legs in a 1931 aerobatics crash?

Douglas Bader was retired from the RAF after the crash but won his way back into a cockpit in 1939; he scored his first victories over Dunkirk and then led the 'Big Wing' formations he championed.

Which stealth bomber, first flown in November 2023, honours the airmen Jimmy Doolittle led over Tokyo in 1942?

The B-21 Raider got its name in September 2016 with Richard Cole, the last surviving Doolittle Raider, present at the ceremony.

Which company's X-32 lost the Joint Strike Fighter contest in 2001 to Lockheed Martin's X-35?

Boeing's X-32 needed parts removed on the ground to switch between hovering and supersonic flight, while Lockheed's rival made the change in the air; the winner became the F-35.

Which Luftwaffe ace, history's top scorer with 352 victories, claimed his last just hours before Germany's surrender?

Erich Hartmann was nicknamed 'Bubi', roughly 'Kid', for his youthful looks, and 345 of his victories came against Soviet aircraft on the Eastern Front; his wingman days under Walter Krupinski taught him to 'get in closer'.

Who became the first woman to break the sound barrier, on 18 May 1953, in a borrowed Canadair-built Sabre jet?

Jacqueline Cochran, wartime head of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, borrowed the RCAF's only Sabre Mk.3 for the attempt; her friend Chuck Yeager flew on her wing as she went supersonic over Rogers Dry Lake.

Which Cambridgeshire airfield, a Battle of Britain sector station, is now Britain's largest aviation museum?

Duxford still uses hangars that stood through the Battle of Britain, though one from the First World War is gone: it was blown up on camera for the 1969 film Battle of Britain.

Marcel Dassault, born Bloch, took his surname from his brother's Resistance code name, a pun on the French for what?

'Assault tank' is char d'assaut, which General Darius Paul Bloch had shortened to 'Chardasso' as his nom de guerre; Marcel changed his name to Bloch-Dassault after the war and to Dassault alone in 1949.

A Soviet physicist's 1962 work on radar reflections, dismissed at home as useless, shaped which faceted Lockheed stealth jet?

The F-117 Nighthawk's flat panels came from equations by Pyotr Ufimtsev, published abroad because Moscow saw no military value in them; Lockheed's Denys Overholser read them and built software on them.

Which flying-wing pioneer behind the 1940s YB-49 was shown a secret B-2 model shortly before his death in 1981?

Jack Northrop, by then unable to walk or speak, was cleared to hold a scale model of the B-2, which has the YB-49's exact 172-foot wingspan and uses fly-by-wire to tame the instability of his flying wings.

Eric 'Winkle' Brown made history aboard HMS Ocean in December 1945 by landing what on its deck?

A jet aircraft: Brown's Vampire made the first carrier landing by a pure jet; a month earlier an American Fireball, half piston-engined, is said to have landed on its jet alone when the piston engine failed.

Which American flying boat, flown by RAF Coastal Command from Lough Erne, found the battleship Bismarck on 26 May 1941?

The PBY Catalina that found Bismarck had an American at the controls: Ensign Leonard Smith, a US Navy observer flying with the RAF crew months before his country entered the war.

Which RAF interceptor stacked its two Rolls-Royce Avon engines one above the other inside the fuselage to reach Mach 2?

The Lightning's stacked, staggered engines were Teddy Petter's answer to minimising frontal area while packing in enough thrust; the wing sweep was pushed to 60 degrees to get to Mach 2.

Which General Dynamics jet, first flown in December 1964, pioneered variable-sweep wings and terrain-following radar?

The F-111 Aardvark takes its name from the long-nosed, insect-eating African animal, and it was also the first aircraft with afterburning turbofans; NASA's 1958 outboard-pivot idea is what made swing-wings practical.

Which Lockheed spy plane, the fastest air-breathing crewed jet ever, simply accelerated to outrun missiles?

SR-71 Blackbird crews cruised above Mach 3.2, faster than any Soviet interceptor could fly. Titanium made up 85% of the airframe so that it could survive the heat.

Which bomber, named after the mother of its pilot Paul Tibbets, dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945?

Enola Gay got its name only the day before the mission, when Tibbets took command of the aircraft. His mother had herself been named after the heroine of a novel.

Which test pilot broke the sound barrier in October 1947 in a rocket-powered Bell X-1 he named Glamorous Glennis?

Chuck Yeager made the flight with two ribs broken in a riding fall two nights earlier. The X-1, named after his wife, now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

The VC-25 jets that usually carry the US president as Air Force One are military versions of which airliner?

Boeing 747 airframes beat the rival DC-10 to the contract. 'Air Force One' is strictly a call sign, used by any Air Force aircraft that has the president aboard.

What nickname did German troops give the Soviet all-female regiment that bombed them after dark from slow biplanes?

Night Witches idled their engines and glided in to bomb, and the rush of air is said to have reminded German soldiers of broomsticks. The regiment flew more than 23,000 sorties.

Which pioneering World War I fighter pilot gave his name to the Paris stadium that hosts tennis's clay-court Grand Slam?

Roland Garros fitted steel wedges to his propeller blades and in April 1915 scored the first kill by a fighter firing straight through its own propeller. The stadium was named for him in 1928.

Which sunglasses brand grew out of Bausch & Lomb's 1930s work to cut sky glare for US Army Air Corps pilots?

Ray-Ban dates from 1936, after Army flier John Macready asked for glasses that would tame the intense blue and white of the sky. The Aviator remains one of its best-known styles.

Allied airmen of World War II nicknamed their inflatable life jacket after which famously curvy Hollywood actress?

Mae West lent her name because the inflated vest gave its wearer an equally generous chest. Airmen whose lives it saved at sea could join the Goldfish Club.

Which giant flying boat, built by Howard Hughes as a wartime transport, flew only once, for about a mile, in 1947?

Spruce Goose was a critics' nickname and a misnomer. Wartime limits on aluminium meant the aircraft was built of wood, but almost all of it was birch.

Which Hollywood star flew heavy bombers over wartime Europe and retired an Air Force Reserve brigadier general?

James Stewart was already an Oscar winner when he joined up, and his 1959 promotion made him the highest-ranking actor in American military history.

Which American transport, the first military tiltrotor, lifts off like a helicopter then cruises like a turboprop?

V-22 Osprey first flew in 1989 but was not fielded until 2007. Being the first tiltrotor built for military service meant many years of testing and redesign.

Which US Air Force radar plane, built on the 707 airliner, carries a rotating dome above its fuselage?

E-3 Sentry is the aircraft usually called AWACS. Its maker first proposed a purpose-built airframe, but tests showed it would not outperform the 707 that was already flying.

Which animal is the NATO reporting name for the Tupolev Tu-95, a Soviet bomber driven by contra-rotating propellers?

Bear follows the NATO rule that bomber names begin with B. The Tu-95 is one of the loudest military aircraft because the tips of its propeller blades move faster than sound.

Which country builds the Saab JAS 39 Gripen, a fighter designed to be rearmed by conscripts at dispersed airstrips?

Sweden planned to scatter its jets in wartime, so a small team of conscripts can refuel and rearm a Gripen in about ten minutes. The name means griffin.

Which swing-wing strike jet, built by the three-nation Panavia consortium, flew low-level RAF raids in the Gulf War?

Tornado crews flew many of that war's low-altitude strike missions. The jet first flew in 1974, and the partner nations had set up a joint company to build it back in 1969.

Which country scrapped its Avro Arrow interceptor in February 1959, a day its aviation industry calls 'Black Friday'?

Canada's decision put 14,528 Avro employees out of work at once, and nearly 15,000 more jobs went in the supply chain. The finished aircraft were then destroyed.

Which biplane torpedo bomber, nicknamed the 'Stringbag', sank one battleship and damaged two more at Taranto in 1940?

Fairey Swordfish got its 'Stringbag' nickname not from its struts and wires but from the seemingly endless variety of stores and equipment it was cleared to carry.

Which armoured Soviet attack plane, nicknamed the 'Flying Tank', is the most-produced military aircraft design ever?

Ilyushin Il-2 output reached 36,183 during the war. When deliveries slipped, Stalin told factory managers that the Red Army needed the plane as much as air and bread.

Which U-2 pilot, shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was later exchanged for a KGB colonel on a Berlin bridge?

Gary Powers came home in February 1962 in a swap for the Soviet spy known as Rudolf Abel. The negotiations were dramatised in the 2015 film Bridge of Spies.

Which secretive Lockheed design shop, creator of the U-2 and F-117, took its name from the comic strip Li'l Abner?

Skunk Works began as 'Skonk Works', an engineer's joke about the stench from a plastics factory next door. The nickname is now a registered Lockheed Martin trademark.

Which swing-wing bomber, cancelled by Jimmy Carter in 1977 and revived by Ronald Reagan, do crews nickname the 'Bone'?

B-1 Lancer earned the nickname from its designation spelled out, 'B-One'. Reagan, who had attacked the cancellation on the campaign trail, ordered 100 of the bombers in October 1981.

Which Lockheed airlifter, one of the largest military aircraft, 'kneels' on its landing gear to load through its nose?

C-5 Galaxy has its cockpit set high above the cargo deck so that the whole nose can open for loading. It is the largest aircraft to operate in the Antarctic.

Which US surveillance drone became the first pilotless aircraft to cross the Pacific, flying to Australia in 2001?

Global Hawk made the crossing from Edwards Air Force Base in California to RAAF Base Edinburgh in 22 hours. The drone can stay in the air for more than 30 hours on one sortie.

Which country builds the Bayraktar TB2, an armed drone exported to the militaries of more than 30 other nations?

Turkey developed the Bayraktar TB2 after the United States banned exports of armed drones to it. The drone's name means 'standard-bearer'.

Who sold the US Army Signal Corps the world's first military aeroplane, for $30,000, in August 1909?

The Wright brothers first had to show that the machine could carry two people at 40 miles per hour. The original is now in the National Air and Space Museum.

Which American officer, court-martialled in 1925 for savaging his superiors over air power, gave his name to the B-25?

Billy Mitchell had staged the 1921 trials in which bombers sank a captured German battleship. The B-25 was the first American military aircraft design to be named after a person.

Which former racing driver became America's top-scoring ace of World War I, with 26 aerial victories?

Eddie Rickenbacker raced at Indianapolis before the war, bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1927 and later spent years as the head of Eastern Air Lines.

Which Basque town, bombed by Germany's Condor Legion in April 1937, became the subject of a huge Pablo Picasso painting?

Guernica was attacked on a Monday, traditionally the town's market day. Picasso's anti-war canvas was commissioned by the Spanish Republic for the 1937 Paris world's fair.

Allied transport crews who flew 'the Hump' in World War II crossed which mountain range to keep China supplied?

The Himalayas' eastern end lay between the airfields of India and Chiang Kai-shek's forces. Crews flew it without reliable charts, radio navigation aids or weather information.

Which British engineer designed both the bouncing bomb and the geodetic lattice airframe of the Vickers Wellington?

Barnes Wallis first worked out his geodetic lattice for the gasbag framing of the R100 airship. He later designed the giant Tallboy and Grand Slam 'earthquake' bombs.

Which RAF officer patented his design for a turbojet engine in 1930, while still in his early twenties?

Frank Whittle worked out the idea in a thesis he wrote as an RAF cadet, and a fellow officer talked him into patenting it. The first British jet aircraft flew with his engine in May 1941.

Which British firm, the leading maker of ejection seats, runs a 'Tie Club' for every airman whose life its seats save?

Martin-Baker started out building aircraft and turned to escape systems in 1944, when the government asked it to find a way for pilots to bail out of fast fighters.

Which jet engine component sprays extra fuel into the exhaust for a burst of thrust, a system the British call reheat?

Afterburner use burns fuel so fast that it is kept to short periods such as take-off, combat and supersonic dashes. Its appeal is that it avoids fitting a larger, heavier engine.

In US military designations such as KC-135 and KC-46, the letter K marks an aircraft built for which role?

Aerial refuelling aircraft carry K for 'tanker' under the designation system that all the US services have shared since 1962. C marks a cargo carrier, so a KC can do both jobs.

Which rocket plane, flown by Neil Armstrong in his test-pilot days, holds the crewed aircraft speed record of Mach 6.7?

X-15 flights also climbed so high that eight of its pilots qualified as astronauts. The three civilians among them had to wait until 2005 to receive their astronaut wings.

Which six-engined Mach 3 bomber prototype was lost in 1966 when a chase jet struck it during a formation photo shoot?

XB-70 Valkyrie number two went down after an F-104 flying alongside collided with it. The surviving prototype is on show in the US Air Force's national museum in Ohio.

Which air combat exercise has the US Air Force staged over the desert from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, since 1975?

Red Flag was born of Vietnam. A study found that a pilot's chances of survival rose sharply after ten combat missions, so the exercise lets crews fly those ten in safety.

The National Museum of the US Air Force, the world's largest military aviation museum, stands near which Ohio city?

Dayton's museum is also the oldest of its kind. It dates to 1923, when a local airfield began saving technical artefacts, and now shows more than 360 aircraft and missiles.

Which country's pilot made the first bombing raid from an aeroplane, dropping grenades over Libya in November 1911?

Italy's Giulio Gavotti carried four grapefruit-sized grenades in a leather pouch. Bombing from balloons was banned by treaty, but his government argued that aeroplanes were not covered.

In air combat brevity code a 'bogey' is an unidentified contact; which word means one positively identified as an enemy?

Bandit means only that the contact is confirmed as an enemy, not that crews may shoot. A further call, 'hostile', tells them that clearance to fire has been given.

Which Mediterranean island was defended in June 1940 by a few Gladiator biplanes nicknamed Faith, Hope and Charity?

Malta had only a handful of obsolete Sea Gladiators when the raids began, some of them assembled from shipping crates. No more than three flew at once, which is how the trio of names arose.

Which operation, begun in March 1965, was the sustained US bombing campaign against North Vietnam that ran until 1968?

Rolling Thunder was designed as a gradual squeeze, with targets controlled from Washington in the hope that measured pressure would make Hanoi back down. It lasted more than three and a half years.

What grim nickname is given to the US Air Force's E-4B, built as a flying command post for use during nuclear war?

Doomsday plane crews keep one E-4B on alert at all times, with a watch team aboard around the clock, so that the president would still have a command post after an attack.

Thaddeus Lowe's Balloon Corps spied on enemy lines from tethered gas balloons during which nineteenth-century conflict?

American Civil War aeronaut Lowe won his post by telegraphing President Lincoln from a balloon 500 feet up in June 1861, a message he called the first ever sent from an aerial station.

Which children's author flew RAF fighters in World War II and wrote his first published story about a desert crash?

Roald Dahl fractured his skull and was blinded for weeks when his Gladiator came down in 1940. A magazine retitled his account to say he had been shot down, which was not true.

What name is given to the thin metal strips aircraft scatter to confuse radar, code-named 'Window' by wartime Britain?

Chaff was worked out in 1942 by British researcher Joan Curran, who proposed dumping packets of aluminium strips to create a cloud of false echoes. German scientists had found the same trick.

The Caterpillar Club, founded in 1922 and named in honour of the silkworm, is open to anyone saved by what?

A parachute descent from a disabled aircraft is the only way in, and the name honours the silk threads of the first canopies. Members receive a certificate and a lapel pin.

Pilots from which occupied country formed No. 303 Squadron, among the top-scoring RAF units of the Battle of Britain?

Poland's exiled airmen claimed 126 German aircraft even though they joined the battle two months late. Fighter Command's chief doubted the outcome would have been the same without them.

Which future Luftwaffe chief ended World War I as an ace commanding the fighter wing once led by the Red Baron?

Hermann Göring took over the famous 'Flying Circus' in July 1918 and finished the war with 22 victories and the Pour le Mérite, Prussia's highest military honour.

The 'MiG' in Soviet fighter names joins the surname of Artem Mikoyan with that of which fellow designer?

Mikhail Gurevich co-founded the design bureau with Mikoyan in December 1939. The small 'i' between their initials is simply the Russian word for 'and'.