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By the war's end, the Air Service had accepted 893 Spad XIIIs from the French, and these aircraft equipped 15 of the 16 American fighter squadrons.The atomic bomb used at Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, was "Little Boy". After the Nieuport 28 proved unsuitable, the Air Service adopted the Spad XIII as its primary fighter. Army Air Service obtained fighters built by the Allies. "Since the United States entered World War I without a combat-ready fighter of its own, the U.S. Technical problems hampered production until late 1917, but nine different companies built a total of 8,472 Spad XIIIs by the time production ceased in 1919. "Each gun had 400 rounds of ammunition, and the pilot could fire the guns separately or together. Vickers machine guns mounted above the engine," according to the museum. With the Germans threatening to win World War I on the strength of their new fighter planes, the American military turned to the French Spad XIII, a small plane with a 220-horsepower engine that, according to the Air Force museum, had a top speed of 135 miles an hour, about ten miles an hour faster than the German fighters. On July 28, 1976, an SR-71 set two world records for its class - an absolute speed record of 2,193.167 mph and an absolute altitude record of 85,068.997 feet." From 80,000 feet, it could survey 100,000 square miles of Earth's surface per hour. "Throughout its nearly 24-year career, the SR-71 remained the world's fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft. 26, 1990, because of a decreasing defense budget and high costs of operation. Air Force retired its fleet of SR-71s on Jan. The first flight of an SR-71 took place on December 22, 1964, and the first SR-71 to enter service was delivered to the 4200th (later 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., in January 1966. According to the Air Force museum, the SR-71 was "a long-range, advanced, strategic reconnaissance aircraft developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft. Air Force also has a Blackbird, of which there were 32 built. This is an SR-71 Blackbird, seen at the Strategic Air Museum in Ashland, Neb.
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During these missions, normally lasting more than 30 hours and requiring numerous aerial refuelings, each B-2 delivered up to 40,000 pounds of precision weapons." "With a crew of only two - the pilot in the left seat and the mission commander in the right - a typical combat mission consisted of a non-stop flight from Whiteman Air Force Base to the target and back. As a result, the B-2 became virtually invisible to even the most sophisticated air defense radar systems.Based at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., the B-2 soon demonstrated its combat capabilities in Operation Allied Force over Serbia in 1999, Operation Enduring Freedom over Afghanistan in 2001, and Operation Iraqi Freedom over Iraq in 2003. According to the museum, "B-2 Spirit merged the high aerodynamic efficiency of the "flying wing" design with composite materials, special coatings and classified stealth technologies. Perhaps the most striking of all the planes in the museum is the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, which first emerged from its Palmdale, Calif., hangar on November 22, 1988. DAYTON, Ohio - For fans of the history of aerial warfare, there is probably no better place to visit than the National Museum of the United States Air Force, based here at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.Īs part of Road Trip 2013, CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman stopped at the museum and saw many of the most important aircraft in American history.