Rebecca Maksel

Rebecca Maksel is a senior associate editor at Air & Space.

NASA Art on Tour

A traveling exhibit from the space agency's right brain.

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Space Toys

Space toys can be big business. In 2007, a toy Robby the Robot inspired by the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet was given a retail estimate of $4,500. But that's chump change compared to what Masudaya's Target Robot (right) went for at a recent auction at Dan Morphy—a whopping $52,900.True, the 15-in...

The Gift of Art

A recent donation by Michael and Maureen Harrigan helps the Museum fulfill its mission.

The Horten Ho 229 V3 awaits restoration at the National Air and Space Museum's Garber facility.

The Luftwaffe’s Flying Wing

The Horten Ho 229 is on the short list for restoration at the Air and Space Museum.

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What's In a Name?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet wrote Shakespeare in 1594, but he wasn’t naming airlines, was he? Coming up with a catchy company name is hard, but it’s not that hard. The name can convey the romance of early air travel, much like “Pan American World Airways,” or “Trans World Airline...

Actress Ann Jillian joins Hope in a duet on the Forrestal in 1984.

Thanks For the Memories

Air crews recall their service as roadies for Bob Hope's USO show.

An all-volunteer crew works on the Museum’s Junior. From left: George Rousseau (by wing), Karl Heinzel (with cowling), Melissa Courtney (center), Joe Fichera (near tail), and Roger Guest (by prop).

The Thursday Regulars

In the Museum: The Thursday Regulars

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Plane Art

In late 2001, as a cost-cutting measure, Delta Air Lines decided to replace its first-class linen tray cloths with paper placemats. As flight attendant Jewel Van Valin told the Los Angeles Times in July 2008, the first time she set down a paper mat, a disgruntled passenger “stared at it and then ro...

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Designing a Better Torch

Think of Bombardier Aerospace, and one of the company's business airplanes—they build Learjet aircraft—might come to mind. But the well-known transportation and aerospace firm also designed the torch for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.The torch, which will twist and turn its way across Canada’s wintry...

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Ticket to Ride

The next time you book a flight online and print your own airline ticket, give a moment of thanks to IBM and American Airlines. If it weren’t for those two companies, we’d still be carving our tickets out of stone tablets.Commercial travel was so simple back in the 1920s. One airmail plane, one ava...

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Little, Big

Size matters. (Well, at least in the surveillance world.)And three projects under way take dimensions to whole new lengths. The LEMV (it stands for Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle) is a mammoth hybrid airship championed by the U.S. Army as part of a future fleet of reconnaissance vehicles...

Bob Hope and actress Ann Jillian entertain sailors and shipyard workers on the USS Forrestal in 1984.

Have Jokes, Will Travel

Backstage stories from Bob Hope’s USO tours.

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An Aerial View of Geology

Photographer Michael Collier and his Cessna 180 bring North America's coastal landscapes into focus.

India's Reincarnated Aircraft Carrier

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Not Your Father's World War II Movie

Ready to experience World War II in "4-D"? Head over to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans for the opening of Tom Hanks' latest production, Beyond All Boundaries.The 35-minute film takes viewers from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day, and will be shown exclusively in the museum's newly expanded ...

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Strike Out

Yes, our avian brothers committed feathered mayhem in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 classic The Birds, but is that any reason they should continue to be chucked into aircraft engines?Here’s the deal: All aircraft have to pass certification tests proving that the airplane can continue operating in the eve...

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Happy Birthday, Jane's!

Remember the Dewoitine D 26, the single-seat, single-engine parasol fighter trainer? Wondering how many were ever built? Open your trusty Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, and you’ll learn that 11 were produced for the Swiss Air Force.Jane’s will also tell you the first flight of the Douglas B-66 De...

“Any intelligent person who can learn to drive a car will be able to fly a postwar helicopter after a few easy lessons,” Frank Piasecki confidently told the Los Angeles Times in 1944. Piasecki’s PV-2 is shown here on display at the Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, top.

In The Museum: A Helicopter in Every Garage

In The Museum: A Helicopter in Every Garage

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Carrying the Fire

While there are still 105 days until the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, the Olympic Torch Relay has already begun.Some 12,000 people will participate in the relay, which runs from October 30, 2009 to February 12, 2010 (the longest relay in Olympic history). The relay part...

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Boilerplate, the Mechanical Marvel

Remote-controlled drones are commonplace over today’s battlefields, playing an important role in U.S. air superiority. But one of the first military uses of a robot is almost completely forgotten—the story of “Boilerplate,” part of the U.S. Army’s 1st Aero Squadron. Wait—you've never heard of Boil...

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