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David Sears

David Sears

David Sears is a New Jersey-based writer and historian. He has been named Naval History Magazine’s 2017 author of the year. Pacific Air.

An Me 262 replica flees a Mustang near the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach. For pilots of propeller-driven airplanes, used to small differences between top speeds, jets were a shock: Me 262s were 120 mph faster than P-51s.

The First Jet Pilots

First-hand accounts from the pilots who brought us into the jet age—sometimes the hard way.

Ralph Teetor (right), cruise control in hand, with William Prossner, president of Perfect Circle, in 1957.

The Sightless Visionary Who Invented Cruise Control

Self-driving cars were far from Ralph Teetor’s mind when he patented his speed control device

Arlo Guthrie

A Brief History of “Alice’s Restaurant”

The Arlo Guthrie classic starts off retelling the true story of what happened more than 50 years ago

Velvalee Dickinson, suspected spy.

The Spy in the Doll Shop

The FBI was confounded by mysterious letters sent to South America, until they came across New York City proprieter Velvalee Dickinson

Maybe the oddest accident report ever filed: the F9F Panther that flew itself.

The Panther That Flew Itself

Maybe the oddest accident report ever filed.

A team excavates the site near Allmuthen, Belgium where a U.S. Army Air Forces B-26 crashed 68 years ago.

Bring the Fallen Airmen Home

A volunteer group helps fund searches for the missing by selling rides in the types of aircraft they once flew.

The ball turret, like this one on a B-17 in England in 1943, was designed small to reduce drag, so its gunner usually was the shortest man in the crew.

How to Be a Ball Turret Gunner

To learn to shoot from a bomber, World War II airmen went to the movies.

On Oct. 30, 1964, a policeman dusts for fingerprints on case broken into by a cat burglar who made off with some $200,000 in jewels from the Museum of Natural History.

How Three Amateur Jewel Thieves Made Off With New York’s Most Precious Gems

The fascinating story of the hunt for Murf the Surf, a criminal who wasn’t quite the mastermind he made himself out to be

The squadron pilots pose on Valley Forge in July 1952, with 13 flight helmets for their fallen colleagues. Among the survivors are Cleland (back row, middle), Edinger (to his immediate left), and Balser (to Cleland’s right).

The Ordeal of VF-653

From a Navy Reserve pilot’s letters home, a picture of the darkest days of the Korean War.