Arado Ar E.500
The E.500 was a proposed heavy fighter design put forth by Arado Flugzeugwerke of Germany. The system was designed as early as 1936 and featured a crew of four consisting of a pilot, co-pilot, dorsal turret gunner and ventral...

Arado Ar E.530
The idea of twin fuselage aircraft was always in the minds of military aircraft engineers throughout the Second World War. Conceivably, these systems would offer up double the performance and capabilities of their single fuse...

Arado Ar E.555
Arado proposed this E.555 flying wing concept towards the end of 1943 as a high-speed long-range bomber. The flying wing concept had eluded aircraft engineers for decades but it was seen as a potentionally stable design allow...

Arado Ar E.560
The Arado E.560 series of developmental high-speed jet bombers saw a large evolution on paper. Design of the platform centered around the closing days of the Second World War and showed the extent to which the Germans were pl...

Arado Ar E.561
The Arado Ar E.561 was on the drawing boards as early as 1937. Classified as a heavy fighter, the type would have lived and died via its combination of firepower and performance. World War 2 brought about the need for purpose...

Arado Ar E.580
Once the Volksjager competition came around in 1944, Arado Flugzeugwerke went back to a 1943 design it had had and touched it up some, producing the E.580 design model. This aircraft was to be a single-seat, single-engine jet...

Bell X-1
The Bell X-1 was an advanced technology demonstrator that became the first aircraft in the history of aviation to break the speed of sound. Specifically designed to be airdropped from a B-29 Superfortress, the X-1 would then ...

Bell X-5
The X-5 was a developmental prototype model aircraft produced by the Bell Aircraft company of the United States of America. X-5 development was initiated through the capture of a German Messerschmitt fighter design (powered b...

Boeing X-32
The X-32 STOVL (Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing) technology demonstrator was the Boeing Company's response to the Department of Defense's "Joint Strike Fighter Program" beginning in 1994....

Caproni-Campini N1 (CC.2)
With the introduction of the N1 (may also be known as the CC.2), Italy became only the second nation in the world to achieve jet-powered flight (Germany being the first), though the development of this particular aircraft did...

Coanda 1910
This invention by Romanian inventor Henri Coanda amazingly appeared in 1910 as the world's first jet-propelled aircraft - just seven years after the Wright Brothers historic first flight and four years before the great air ba...

Curtiss XP-42
The Curtiss XP-42 was a further development of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk model though it would share some initial outward similarities to Curtiss' most well known aircraft - the P-40 Warhawk. Later in its development, the XP-42 w...

Douglas X-3 Stiletto
...

Focke-Wulf Ta 183 Huckebein
By this time in the war, Germany had already made a stout commitment to the production of fighter designs over bombers. Seeing it that she would be fighting a defensive war for some time to come, models such as the Messerschm...

General Dynamics F-16XL
Though appearing very much like the F-16 Fighting Falcon base model, the F-16XL was designed as a very different aircraft. The F-16XL was a conversion model development designed to study the effects of laminar airflow at supe...

Granville Gee Bee Z
...

Grumman X-29
The Grumman X-29 aircraft was a developmental technology demonstrator appearing in the latter years of the Cold War. The design was of a most unique shape - made notable by the forward-swept wings - and was the first aircraft...

Grumman XP-50
Firmly entrenched as an aircraft supplier to the United States Navy, the Grumman aircraft company set about to supply an equally lucrative deal with the US Army to produce a hybrid high-speed pursuit fighter and light bomber ...

Heinkel He 178
The Heinkel-produced He 178 has the distinct honor of becoming the world's first aircraft to fly solely with a turbojet engine. The aircraft was already in the design stage in 1936, eventually hitting the skies before the war...

Martin X-24A
...

Martin X-24B
...

North American X-10
...

North American X-15
...

Northrop Grumman YF-23 Black Widow II
The YF-23 Black Widow II was Northrop Grumman's (along with McDonnell Douglas Corporation) answer to the American ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter challenge as proposed by the US Air Force. The YF-23 faced off directly with the...

Northrop X-4
...

Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet
The XP-56 "Black Bullet" was designed by the Northrop company to an Army Air Corps proposal known as the R-40C. The XP-56 stood out as yet another radical design and focused on the flying wing concept while incorporating push...

Northrop XP-79
The XP-79 was another of Northrop's flying wing attempts with the initial project being conceived as a rocket-propelled model. The design was dominated by the large horizontal wing surface area with twin vertical tail surface...

Northrop YF-17 Cobra
The YF-17 Cobra was a Northrop Aviation creation through NASA to support further testing and research of aircraft at transonic speeds (meaning just underneath the speed of sound, or 700-780mph / 1,127-1,255kph). The YF-17 Cob...

Republic XF-12 Rainbow
The Republic XF-12 "Rainbow" was envisioned as the USAAF's new dedicated strategic reconnaissance platform in the latter years of World War 2, going head-to-head with Howard Hughe's XF-11 creation. Unfortunately for both, the...

Vultee XP-54 Swoose Goose
The Vultee-produced XP-54 was one of the more distinguishable prototypes designed during the Second World War. Produced through an empty canvas/blank check approach by an Army Air Corps initiative, the XP-54 (later nicknamed ...

Wright Flyer (Series)
Though the prospect of manned flight had been around for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, it would be the Wright Brothers - Orville and Wilbur - that would put theory to practice and produce the first in a series of h...