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Below are current event articles that relate to events, topics, and people found in Attack of the Hawkmen.
Bravery of British WWI 'suicide club' whose fighter pilots took on Germany and the Red Baron with only 15 hours' training and lasted on average just 11 days
dailymail.co.uk
6/4/2010
September 17, 1916. The sky above the Somme was quiet and still, and golden sunlight was seeping over the horizon, lighting up the mud, blood and broken bodies below. High in the sky, the German pilot in the Fokker Eindecker bi-plane had a knot in his stomach. But it was not borne of fear, even though this was his first combat mission - and could easily be his last. No, this pilot was excited to finally have made it to the killing zone.
Tinkering With History: Historic Aircraft, Winged Survivors
AmericanHeritage.com
5/3/2010
On April 26, 1944, the 72-year-old Orville Wright posed for a photograph at the controls of a Lockheed Constellation, a triple-tailed, four-engined behemoth that could reach 340 miles per hour and had a ceiling of 24,000 feet. Only four decades earlier, Wright had taken the Flyer, a fragile creation of wire, wood, and muslin, on the first controlled, powered, and human flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle.
America's 'Ace of Aces'
washingtontimes.com
12/31/2009
It was undoubtedly fortunate for Britain that America declared war on Germany on April 2, 1917, with the American Expeditionary Force, commanded by Gen. John Pershing, arriving in France in June of that year. But well before then, brave young Americans were engaging in deadly duels with German pilots in the skies above France.
'Red Baron' death certificate turns up in Poland
telegraph.co.uk
12/6/2009
Ninety-one years after Von Richthofen died after being shot down near the River Somme in France Maciej Kowalczyk, a genealogist, found the document in archives belonging to the western Polish town of Ostrow Wielkopolski.
First flapping, two-winged aircraft takes flight
MSNBC.com
7/24/2009
The world's first successful flight of a self-powered, rudderless, flapping aircraft has been achieved by engineers from AeroVironment. The NAV, or nano air vehicle, operates by using two flapping wings, which also function as the rudder, elevators, ailerons and engine. With its two wings, the NAV is able to hover, move forward and backwards, and change its elevation. In flight, the NAV almost appears to replicate the movements of a hummingbird.
Henry Allingham: Haunted by the Great War
telegraph.co.uk
7/18/2009
He was haunted by a nightmare memory of falling into a trench on the Western Front. With a clear mind, even as he reached his 113th birthday, he could recall the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Wright brothers' first flight two years later and seeing WG Grace bat sometime between 2003 and 2006, though he could not remember how many runs Grace scored. His experience of the trenches came was when he was looking for the remains of aircraft that had been shot down.
Bringing the Wright Flyer to Life
Smithsonian.com
5/20/2009
The Wright Flyer—perhaps the most famous airplane in the world—rests in a place of honor on the second floor of the National Air and Space Museum. In 1903, with Wilbur Wright at the controls, it flew at an altitude of ten feet in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. More than a century later, museum curator Bob van der Linden watched in awe as the Flyer zoomed down the museum's upstairs hallway before diving over the balcony and soaring out of the building. "Here," he says, "is where you bite your lip and remember: this is a fantasy."
Red Baron puzzle is missing a piece
Ottawacitizen.com
5/19/2009
Soldiers have taken keepsakes from the battlefield for hundreds of years, so Lieut. John Alfred Pope Haydon was only following military tradition when he brought back a swatch of fabric from the wing of a British aircraft, possibly downed over Vimy Ridge in April 1917.
A Camel's life
www.modelflying.co.uk
4/27/2009
Of all the terrible innovations with which the Great War ushered in the age of mechanised conflict, perhaps the most remarkable were the fighting machines that allowed the cavalry to take to the air. They brought with them a new concept - air power - to describe the struggle for technical and numerical advantage in this new arena.