Flightdeck Friday – Fast Carriers and Their Fledglings

Usually these spaces are given over to aircraft or the operations and battles they have flown in.  The aviators normally are well represented as well, but there is another group, without whom from the dawn of aviation, none of this would have been possible – aviation maintenance personnel.  Long before the mission is flown and…

  Prologue It began in December, 1943 with the delivery of the 8th and 9th YP-59 Airacomets (s/n 42-108778 and 42-100779) to the Navy for investigation of bringing jets to aircraft carriers. By all accounts, one wouldn’t have been surprised if the Navy had passed on the concept based on initial impressions from these prototypes (also…