2026-06-29
Where do I start... I guess at the beginning.
I have been studying warplanes since I was 8 and my uncle Dick Smith bought me a Revell 1/72 model kit of the Noth American P-51D Mustang and the Nakajima K-84 Hayate (Frank) and I went to look for more information on them at the library. More models followed and more trips to the library, and then I began buying warplane books. Flash forward 50+ years and I have built hundreds of airplane models, have 1000+ still in boxes in storage, and well over 1000 books on military aircraft, ad well as another 1000+ on military history in general. I typically read 3 books at a time and have read all my books at least once. I am literally a walking compendium of military aviation knowledge.
I have built many web sites on many subjects in my life but this is the first time I have tried to tackle the story of air power. The history of military aviation stretches to beyond the Wright brothers if you want to include balloons. We won't be covering balloons here. What we will cover is the story of military aviation starting in World War I and going right up to the present day. Right now my ability to build and update the web site is limited by my day job and my part time job as a farmer, and of course my reading time. That said most of my free time will be spent building and updating this web site. I am starting with the aircraft profiles first and will focus on WWII aircrafte to start, which is in itself a huge topic. We will start by covering all the major conflicts and then the smaller conflicts and even some of the brushfire wars. We will rely to a great extent on Wikipedia for contents such as this for a number of reasons. First it in itself is fairly complete and accurate, anything I could write would pale in comparison to the information made available by the thousands of authors contributing there, second they make that content available to web sites for free via an API, and finally it's the only way that I could ever hope to cover the thousands of topics I have in mind in the time I have left on this earth.
I am looking for a few like minded aviation enthustiasts that would like to volunteer to help put this page together. If you would like to participate drop me a note using our contact form at the bottom of the page or search me out on Facebook.
This site will always be a work in progress and never complete because history itself is a work in progress.
Jeff Barringer
This site is dedicated to the late Richard (Dick) Smith DDS without whose influence I would never set down this path.