Military Heat

On April 7, 1943, James Elms Swett, division flight leader in Marine Fighting Squadron VMF-221 became an ace on his first combat mission. He shot down 8 enemy aircraft and was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor. His amazing achievements and mastery of the Wildcat were recreated using computer graphics for the History Channel series “Dogfights”. James Swett tells the story of that amazing day, when he became ace in just 15 minutes, on his first ever combat mission.

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In 2006 the US Navy VAW-116 “Sun Kings” Command and Control Squadron that deploys aboard USS Abraham Lincoln became famous after releasing their version of the “Pump It” music video, by the Black Eyed Peas. The video production started out as a way to fight off boredom on the long patrols but turned out to be quite a hit, with more than a million views on YouTube. The video was also aired on national television. (Read more…)

In the late 1960’s a secret program was undertaken by the US Air Force and Navy to evaluate flight characteristics of soviet built aircraft. The US acquired aircraft, radar systems, missiles as well as other hardware from friendly nations (Israel,Egypt,etc.) or aircraft used by their pilots to defect. The program continued until the early 1990’s, when the fall of the Soviet Union led to the end of the Cold War. (Read more…)