Kick-started by vast military orders, the US company Boeing wisely invested a great deal into developing very fine airliners. With great products, a big home market and governmental support it wasn’t surprising that Boeing soon dominated the civil marketplace. It was sheer madness to take this titan on, but that’s exactly what Airbus did. This upstart from the Old Continent smashed the door open with the A300 in 1974, but it was the A320 (entering service in 1988) that established Airbus as the ‘other’ big plane-maker. The A320 was the F-16 of the airliner world, introducing both the side-stick controller and fly-by-wire to the commercial world. The A320 scared the bejesus out of Boeing: at last the 737 had a worthy adversary. The A320 family grew, and soon Airbus was selling as many airliners as Boeing. By late May 2014 Airbus had produced 6,092 members of the A320 family. This year the lean and green A320neo will join the series. The future looks bright for the neo: In 2011 Malaysia’s AirAsia ordered 200 for 12.7 billion. By late 2013 Airbus was happily holding an order book for 2,523 neos. By becoming the Pepsi to Boeing’s Coca-Cola, Airbus powered an efficiency ‘arms race’ that benefited the holiday-maker and airlines alike. We salute the A320!

Marie Boustani

Alone, unafraid, the glow of CRTs and a prayer you won’t be seen.

A fighter that wasn’t a fighter.  A black project that was in fact black.  The F-117A was all of this.

The arrowhead shaped aircraft was the tip of the spear.  One man alone in the darkest hours before dawn only armed with two 2000 pound laser guided bombs and the technology not to be seen by RADAR.   The ‘117 made Stealth from black to light.  It became the face of the first Gulf War.

59 F-117As were built entirely by hand. Each a living, breathing machine, had its own personality. No one would call the stinkbug pretty.  But everyone is beautiful when you turn out the lights.

It took a lot to fly the aircraft physically, mentally, and emotionally. Three men died trying to learn the aircraft: spatial disorientation at night the cause.  Your first flight was your first solo, and at night. And when you got your Bandit call sign you couldn’t tell anyone.

Stealth now is a commonplace word. November 8, 1988 warfare changed, a new shape had appeared. That shape has returned home to Tonopah Range where it all began, retired.  Or is it?

By David M. Vanderhoof, The Airplane Geeks Podcast Co-Host & Plane Crazy Down Under’s Historian in Residence.

Hush-kit is reminding the world of the beauty of flight.

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I couldn’t tell you my favourite aircraft type – how to choose? But I could immediately tell you my favourite individual aircraft: on the 14th of September 2002 a Cessna 172, N9017H, won my heart. I’m probably not alone; with over 48,000 built, the 172 is the most produced aircraft in history (I just asked Cessna so I know this figure is right).

I encountered my Skyhawk on a summer internship in the US as a local flying school was offering a half-hour taster lesson for $49. The control panel seemed somehow familiar (as a teenager I’d clocked up countless hours flying Cessnas in Microsoft Flight Simulator on my ancient PC).

As we taxied out I realised that real flight offered an excitement that simulations could not even hint at. Everything was pure sensation- every bump and movement through the seat. Pedestrian though the Skyhawk might seem to some, for the duration of two circuits and bumps I was transformed. I was Blake, the pagan bird-man from JG Ballard’s story ‘The Unlimited Dream Company’. I was a godling at one with the aircraft.

Landing was as much an emotional as a physical come-down.

I never had a second lesson; Lack of funds and my return home meant a return to silicon-bound flying. But I still smile whenever I see a 172.

Jakob Whitfield has been obsessed with aeroplanes from a very early age. He keeps an occasional blog about the history of technology at http://thrustvector.wordpress.com

Find out about the latest Hush-Kit articles on Twitter: @Hush_kit

Who was Sweden’s flying farm girl?

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Lauren Richardson enjoying the world upside-down.

I love the Pitts Special – she has taught me more about my own nature and abilities than anything else in life ever has. Demanding and capable, this little beast will talk to you, guide you and help you through – she is almost viceless in the way she handles.

No single aircraft has so easily defined the nature of true fun flying and aerial acrobatics over the years as the iconic Pitts Special. Designed way back in the early 1940s by the American legend, Curtiss Pitts, this little biplane is still competitive in the world of aerobatics, even today!

Donate to the Hush-Kit blog if you love aircraft- buttons above and below.

Betty Skelton rocking the Pitts!

The Pitts is also something special to all women in aerobatics – look back at the early days with Betty Skelton and Caro Bailey being the very best in what was also the very best aeroplane.

Beautiful and purposeful, carrying a great deal of joyful performance, whatever this aircraft may lack it more than makes up for in character.

With symmetrical wings, the S1S is just as happy to view the world turned upside-down as ‘the right way up’. The world looks very different and perhaps more beautiful when you have to look up to see it.

Find out about the latest Hush-Kit articles on Twitter: @Hush_kit

Who was Sweden’s flying farm girl?

The Aero 45 is as much art as it is aircraft. How can I explain this Czechoslovakian aeroplane? Here is an amorphous, yet beautiful, thing that confounds simple description. In profile the Art Deco fuselage, with its arching roof, and flat belly, appears dolphin-like. Yet from the front, the large cabin windows give it an almost arthropodic or insect-like appearance. When viewed from above or below, it takes on the form of yet another animal; the long, narrow wings give it the look of a graceful, soaring shorebird.

The elegant Aero 45 was Czechoslovakia’s first aircraft after the German occupation had ended. The aircraft was a clear and bold statement that the small country’s aviation sector was ready to reclaim its pre-war glories, that it had lost none of its ability to produce a world-class aircraft.

There is true harmony in the design of this aircraft and in all of its equally gorgeous descendents. Every airframe element fits smoothly with the next and there is not a sloppy line or compromise to be seen. The designer clearly intended for the air to embrace this design to the utmost, and it’s difficult to see a spot on it where the air would not do just that.

Kevan ‘Pickled Wings’ Vogler 

Like me, I’m sure that many youngsters with an aviation interest grew up dreaming of flying the fast jets.  Also like me, I’ll wager that many never stopped long to think about the learning involved in flying those fast jets. I didn’t give it much thought until I spent time at RAF Linton-on-Ouse, where I met, and fell in love with, the Jet Provost, or ‘Jay Pee’ as she is forever to be known. Pleasing to the eye and a joy to fly, the JP was a product of the heyday of British aviation. It was a development of the piston-engined Provost, and one of the final designs from Hunting Percival Aircraft, before the company became part of the powerful British Aircraft Corporation (BAC).

First flown in 1954 she trained thousands of future front line pilots and I have yet to meet a JP pilot, either past or present, who doesn’t enjoy flying with her. She was so popular with pilots that a weapons capable version was developed, called the Strikemaster. Sadly the type was retired in 1993 but many found their way into the hands of civilian pilots. Most are privately owned and sometimes are displayed at airshows. If you ever get an offer to fly in one, take it!