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The Gloster Javelin is a twin-engined T-tailed delta-wing subsonic night and all-weather interceptor aircraft that served with Britain's Royal Air Force from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s. The last aircraft design to bear the Gloster name, it was introduced in 1956 after a lengthy development period and received several upgrades during its lifetime to its engines, radar and weapons, which included the De Havilland Firestreak air-to-air missile. The Javelin was succeeded in the interceptor role by the English Electric Lightning, a supersonic aircraft capable of flying at more than double the Javelin's top speed, which was introduced into the RAF only a few years later. The Javelin served for much of its life alongside the Lightning; the last Javelins were withdrawn from operational service in 1968 following the introduction of successively more capable versions of the Lightning. The Javelin was the RAF's first purpose-built all-weather interceptor aircraft. Aerodynamic features of the type included its adoption of the new delta wing and a large tailplane. Fuel and armaments were housed in the delta wing, and the engines and crew in the fuselage. The delta wing and tailplane combination had been deemed necessary by Gloster for effective manoeuvrability at high speed and for the aircraft to be controllable at low landing speeds. In one instance during testing, when both elevators had been torn off by elevator flutter, the Javelin remained controllable by using both the trimming capability of the large tailplane and thrust changes to control pitch. Changes from the prototypes included alterations to the rear fuselage and a central "pen nib" fairing extending beyond the engine nozzles, to eliminate buffeting of the rudder by the jet exhaust and increased sweepback of the wing's leading edge to improve high-speed handling. The Javelin was reportedly easy to fly even on one engine. The flight controls were fully power-assisted and production aircraft adopted a hydraulic 'feel' system for the pilot. The Javelin featured an infinitely variable airbrake; the airbrake proved to be extremely responsive and effective, allowing pilots to conduct rapid descents and heavy braking manoeuvres, enabling equally rapid landings to be performed. The turnaround time between sorties was significantly shorter than with the preceding Gloster Meteor, due to improved ground accessibility and engine ignition sequence. Unlike the Meteor, the Javelin was fitted with ejector seats, at the introduction to service of the type. No other operational fighter of the West even to the present day had a bigger wing, in terms of area, than the Javelin, and in the USSR, only the Tu-128 had a larger (about 10m2) wing. For details of develoment,operational history and 11 variants, click here.

The Junkers Ju 52/3m (nicknamed Tante Ju ("Aunt Ju") and Iron Annie) is a transport aircraft that was designed and manufactured by German aviation company Junkers. Development of the Ju 52 commenced during 1930, headed by German aeronautical engineer Ernst Zindel. The aircraft's design incorporated a corrugated duralumin metal skin as a strengthening measure, which was very unusual at the time. The Ju 52's maiden flight was performed on 13 October 1930. It was initially designed with a single engine, however, it was produced in quantity as a trimotor. The primary early production model, the Ju 52/3m, was principally operated as a 17-seat airliner or utility transport aircraft by various civil operators during the 1930s. Following the rise of Nazi Germany, thousands of Ju 52s were procured as a staple military transport of the nation. The Ju 52/3mg7e was the principal production model. The Ju 52 was in production between 1931 and 1952. In a civilian role, it flew with over 12 airlines, including Swissair and Deutsche Luft Hansa, as both a passenger carrier and a freight hauler. In a military role, large numbers flew with the Luftwaffe, being deployed on virtually all fronts of the Second World War as a troop and cargo transport; it was also briefly used as a medium bomber. Additionally, the type was deployed by other nation's militaries in conflicts such as the Spanish Civil War, the Chaco War, and the Portuguese Colonial War. During the postwar era, the Ju 52 had a lengthy service life with numerous military and civilian operators; large numbers were still in use by the 1980s. Even in the 21st century, several aircraft have remained operational, typically used for purposes such as heritage aviation displays and aerial sightseeing. The Ju 52 had a low cantilever wing, the midsection of which was built into the fuselage, forming its underside.[9][1] It was formed around four pairs of circular cross-section duralumin spars with a corrugated surface that provided torsional stiffening. A narrow control surface, with its outer section functioning as the aileron, and the inner section functioning as a flap, ran along the whole trailing edge of each wing panel, well separated from it. The inner flap section lowered the stalling speed and the arrangement became known as the Doppelflügel, or "double wing". The outer sections of this operated differentially as ailerons, projecting slightly beyond the wingtips with control horns. The strutted horizontal stabilizer carried horn-balanced elevators which again projected and showed a significant gap between them and the stabilizer, which was adjustable in-flight. All stabilizer surfaces were corrugated. The Ju 52 featured an unusual corrugated duralumin metal skin, which had been pioneered by Junkers during the First World War; the corrugation served to strengthen the whole structure over a smoother approach. The fuselage was of rectangular section with a domed decking, comprising a tubular steel structure that was entirely covered by the corrugated metal skin. A port-side passenger door was placed just aft of the wings; this entrance also acted as a loading hatch for freight, the lower half functioning as a platform to ease cargo movements. The cabin had a dimensional capacity of 590 cubic feet, and was lined with numerous windows stretching forward to the pilots' cockpit. The main undercarriage was fixed and divided; some aircraft had wheel fairings, others did not. A fixed tailskid, or a later tailwheel, was used. Some aircraft were fitted with floats or skis instead of the main wheels. A total of 4,845 aircraft of all variants was built. For details of the development, operational history and 28 civil and 21 military variants, click here.

The McDonnell F3H Demon is a subsonic swept-wing United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter aircraft. The successor to the F2H Banshee, the Demon was originally designed to use the Westinghouse J40 engine, but had to be redesigned to accept the Allison J71 after the J40 suffered severe problems and was ultimately abandoned. Though it lacked sufficient power for supersonic performance, it complemented day fighters such as the Vought F8U Crusader and Grumman F11F Tiger as an all-weather, missile-armed interceptor until 1964. It was withdrawn before it could serve in Vietnam when both it and the Crusader were replaced on Forrestal-class and similar supercarriers by the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. McDonnell's Phantom, which was equally capable against ground, fighter, and bomber targets, bears a strong family resemblance, as it was conceived as an advanced development of the Demon. The supersonic United States Air Force F-101 Voodoo was similar in layout, but was derived from the earlier XF-88 Voodoo, which also influenced the Demon's layout. Development work began in 1949, using a swept wing from the start rather than adapting a straight-winged design as was done with the Grumman F9F Panther. A competing contract was also awarded for the delta wing Douglas F4D Skyray. The Skyray, with a top speed of 722 mph (1,162 km/h), would become the Navy's first fighter to fly supersonic in level flight, while the Demon would never reach that level of performance. The original design work was based at its predecessor, the F2H Banshee. However, departing from its tradition of using two engines, the Demon would result in McDonnell's only single-engined carrier-based fighter, adopting under some Navy pressure, the Westinghouse J40 engine. That engine was being promoted by the Navy for its next generation of aircraft, and was to have thrust of over 11,000 lbf (49 kN)—three times that of the engines in the F2H Banshee. It was the first swept-wing design produced by McDonnell and among the first U.S. aircraft to have missile armament. The Navy desperately needed a high performance fighter to meet the challenge of the swept-wing MiG-15 encountered over Korea. Production of the F3H-1N was hastily ordered even before the first flight of the XF3H-1 prototype on 7 August 1951 by test pilot Robert Edholm. The first test flights of the operational design did not occur until January 1953, by which time the Korean War was winding down. The F3H Demon was originally designed around Navy's ambitious new Westinghouse J40 which was to offer enough power to use just one engine in a number of new aircraft designs. But the engine would ultimately fail to produce the promised thrust or run reliably. The engine was a major disappointment, producing only half of the expected power. Worse, it was temperamental and unreliable. Of 35 F3H-1N aircraft flown with the J40 engine, eight were involved in major accidents. The first production Demons were grounded after the loss of six aircraft and four pilots. Time magazine called the Navy's grounding of all Westinghouse-powered F3H-1 Demons a "fiasco", with 21 unflyable planes that could be used only for Navy ground training at a loss of $200 million. One high point of the J40 was the 1955 setting of an unofficial time-to-climb record, in a Demon, of 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in 71 seconds. The proposed F3H-1P reconnaissance version was never built. The J40 program was terminated sometime in 1955. For more information on the development and eight variants, click here.