Aviation History & the Air and Space Museum

In 1940 the NA-73X, prototype of the North American P-51 Mustang, made its first flight, 86 years ago today. North American had proposed the design to the British Purchasing Commission in place of license-built Curtiss P-40s and completed the prototype in 102 days. The Allison engine was weak at altitude until the British fitted a Rolls-Royce Merlin in 1942, which with the laminar-flow wing gave the range to escort Eighth Air Force bombers to the target and back. 12,776 were built during the war, and about 150 still fly.

In 1907, at Issy-les-Moulineaux outside Paris, Henry Farman flew his Voisin-Farman I about 771 meters (2,530 feet) in 52 seconds, winning the Coupe d'Aviation Ernest Archdeacon for the longest flight of the year. Charles and Gabriel Voisin built the single-seat pusher biplane, close kin to the Voisin-Delagrange I, and it first flew on 30 September 1907. It was powered by a 53-horsepower Antoinette V-8 designed by Léon Levavasseur.

The EAA Aviation Museum in Oshkosh will build its 11 December Wright Brothers Memorial Banquet around the American Heritage Museum's Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina, on loan from the Collings Foundation and displayed in the Eagle Hangar. Built in 1941 as one of the earliest PBY-5As, it flew anti-submarine patrols and air-sea rescue in World War II and won Grand Champion WWII at AirVenture 2026. Rob Collings, the foundation's executive director and chief pilot, who oversaw its restoration, gives the keynote.

Starfighters Space says it will fly its STARLAUNCH 1 suborbital test vehicle under the wing of one of its Lockheed F-104 Starfighters in December, between its base at Kennedy Space Center and Cecil Spaceport in Jacksonville. The vehicle stays attached to test aerodynamics and integration; a drop test over the Atlantic and a powered demonstration are to follow. The company flies its F-104s from Kennedy and from Midland, Texas.

Doug Matthews, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former Navy F-4 Phantom instructor with 28,000 flight hours, will join the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum on 21 November. He founded Flight International, which ran an early contractor-operated adversary aircraft program for the Navy, and the induction announcement credits him with more than 100 U.S. and world records, among them a propeller-driven altitude record.