In this issue of Aviation Classics...

• Marinell makes it home
• xD-Day – the 339th’s story
• The Mustang ‘office’
• Mrs. Virginia and the Air Commandos
• Mustang evolution
• ‘The Duxford Eagles’
• The Tuskegee Airmen
• Warbird kaleidoscope
• Return to combat
• Their final flight
• See the full issue contents >>

Foreword by Editor, Jarrod Cotter

Welcome to Aviation Classics, a new series of high-quality glossy publications centred on the world’s greatest aircraft, the events in which they played crucial roles and those who flew, maintained and supported them.
I’d like to begin this issue of Aviation Classics by saying thank-you to the hundreds of people who came along to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Visitors Centre on 28 October 2009 to support our launch...
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News: RAF Museum’s Sir Douglas Bader anniversary exhibition & podcast launch

The opening of a new temporary exhibit commemorating Sir Douglas Bader, whose instinctive and extraordinarily spirited contribution to rebutting Luftwaffe air attacks during the Battle of Britain, took place at the Royal Air Force Museum Hendon on 10 February 2010. Bader’s already outstanding wartime achievements are all the more remarkable given that he suffered a double amputation in 1931 following a near fatal crash. In response to his flying accident, Bader committed a typically laconic reflection to his logbook, recalling: ‘crashed slow‐rolling near ground. ‘Bad show’...
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Preview article: Return to combat

When the Korean War began in June 1950, many retired F-51 Mustangs were rapidly brought back up to combat readiness to be used for ground attack missions.
In the early years after World War Two, piston-engined fighters that had only recently been considered the world’s best were retired from service as the jet age rapidly took its hold. During the early part of the Cold War there was an urgent requirement for advancing technology to meet the escalating arms race...
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