When his wingman’s guns jams, Navy Lt. (j.g.) Edward “Butch” O’Hare, flying a Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat, finds himself the only thing standing between nine attacking Japanese bombers and his ship, the USS Lexington off New Britain. He shoots down five of the Mitsubishi G4M (Allied code name “˜Betty’) bombers and forces the crews of another four to miss their target. O’Hare, the Navy’s first ace of World War II, is awarded the Medal of Honor.
The KC-Z4, a blended wing body tanker concept being developed by startup JetZero, could fuel larger groups of aircraft at longer range to hold more targets at risk, company officials say.