"Can You See Yourself Flying," by Christie Otvos

Street Flight

Aviation meets urban sculpture in Arlington, Virginia.

A NASA program that ended in 2005 generated little more than this artists conception of the perfect easy-to-fly personal air car.

My Other Car Is a Podcopter

Bumper sticker in the year 2015? 2025? Ever?

Target date 2025: A pilotless, Mach 20 Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle.

Mach 20 or Bust

Weapons research may yet produce a true spaceplane.

Carol Sugars and Doug Roodante in their green machine.

Fly Canola!

Doug Rodante plans to fly his L-29 cross-country using cooking oil for fuel.

Peggy Krainz and pilot David Potuznik go for a spin over Gmunden, Austria. Krainz is also a general aviation flight instructor and plans to train wingwalkers.

My Wingwalker

If you think it's nerve-wracking on the wing, try being the one in the cockpit.

Beneath a replica Piper PA-12 wing, sits this Breezy pilot Matt Hlavac, near San Diego.

Out in the Breezy

With little fanfare (and less structure), the Breezy homebuilt spreads the message: Flying is fun.

Habersetzer operates out of Marabou Landing, a lodge about 230 miles southwest of Anchorage.

School of Hard Rocks

Loni Habersetzer teaches pilots how to land on the harshest terrain.

In the Dreamliners avant-garde cabin, one thing hasnt changed: Business class is better than coach.

How Boeing Put the Dream in Dreamliner

When aircraft designers wanted to make passengers feel happy, they turned to psychologists.

From the door and emergency exits of a China Eastern Airlines Airbus A330-300, evacuation slides are deployed. The fully inflated slide is 31 feet long.

How Things Work: Evacuation Slides

De-plane in the fast lane.

Commentary: Is Fatigue Fatal?

An accident blamed on the catch-all "pilot error" could have a single preventable cause.

Vietnam Memoir

25 years after the dedication of the Vietnam War Memorial...

Need for Speed

Airplanes with a mission: Fly faster.

Art Scholls Chipmunk (center, with the red and white stripes and the leading edges of the wings painted blue) hangs in the Boeing Aviation Hangar at the National Air and Space Museums Steven F.Udvar-Hazy Center.

Airplanes of the Stars

Show performers talk about their favorite rides.

Walt Pierce helps Pat Trenner try on his Stearman wing at 1978’s Oshkosh, Wisconsin Fly-in.

Wingophobia

Just a few minutes outside the cockpit was enough for me.

The British Army Parachute Regiment Freefall Team.

It's Show Time

Download our 2008 Airshow Guide.

A trio of Sport class racers skim the high desert.

Air Racing 101

A course in handling the course at the National Championship Air Races.

Radio-controlled models rest between rounds.

Radio Clash

Do model airplanes ever fight each other?

Rare Bear takes off for the Saturday Gold race. On Sunday, pilot John Penney finished first in the Unlimited class.

Notes from the Reno Races

Dispatches from the 2007 National Championship Air Races.

An XC-35 in flight.

How Things Work: Cabin Pressure

Why you remain conscious at 30,000 feet.

By 1927, airplanes were a national craze. At the original tour’s stop in Boston, crowds gathered for a closer look at the Ford 4-AT Tri-motor.

The Magical History Tour

Why are so many Golden Age airplanes traveling the country together this fall?

Jackson and his technicians recently refurbished a civilian transport that had been converted from a Douglas A-26 Invader.

Sticks for Hire

"Uh oh. Why is this piston rod left over?" Meet the pilots who are gutsy enough to fly freshly restored airplanes.

A pulse detonation engine, fueled by ethylene and air, fires on a test stand at a General Electric research center.

Son of a Buzz Bomb

An engine with a checkered past is the power of the future.

Researchers have been looking far and wide for biofuel sources, including switchgrass.

Fly Green!

Richard Branson and Boeing heap hope-and hype-on biofuels.

Thanks to the wonders of computer animation, Gerry Merrills theoretical Cloudster airplane takes an imaginary spin over Bryce Canyon.

Who Says a Jet Can't Be Cheap?

Gerry Merrill says he can build you one for $150,000.

The developers of Cargolifter CL 160, a German design, used to say that their craft could carry 26,000 pounds of food to disaster victims. But the Cargolifter itself needs aid now; its parent company has declared bankruptcy.

Spy Blimps and Heavy Lifters

The latest thing in airships.

A four-place kitplane with a pusher propeller, the Velocity SE FG offered a sturdy off-the-shelf airframe for a rocket-engine modification.

X-Racers

Can aviation's newest spectator sport lead to routine space travel?

Paul DiMares illustration of the Mach 20 Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle starts with a wireframe skeleton.

Picturing the Future

How a skilled artist fast-forwards to the hypersonic airplanes of 2025.

Sport pilots who choose to build the SeaRey kitplane can take off from and set down on both land and water.

20 Hours to Solo

Will a new pilot category restore the glory days of general aviation?

The Allegros instrument panel displays basic flight instruments as well as a transponder and a combination radio/GPS receiver.

Fun Factor

We take a light sport aircraft for a test drive.

Whos at fault when airplanes cross paths where theyre not supposed to? Controllers, pilots, and even the Federal Aviation Administration share the blame.

Danger: Airplane Crossing

Controlling airplanes on the ground is a thornier problem than controlling them in the air.

Even when scalawags shuffle airport letters, its hard to miss the spot on the empty Nevada desert where the Burning Man arts festival happens.

Magic Airport

Watch the Burning Man revelers pull an airport out of the desert...then make it disappear.

Inside a Douglas DC-6 passenger liner in the mid-1950s.

Clearing the (Cabin) Air

A new research program aims to answer the old question: Is the air in airplanes really unhealthy?

Alenias robots are major players in building the giant Airbus A380 passenger liner.

Alenia's Robots

They're not as wise as R2D2, but robots are essential in building aircraft like the Airbus A380.

A & S Interview: Leonard Bruno

The Library of Congress manuscript specialist looks after some of aviation's most historic documents.

Would you have spotted it? The writer and the CAP officers with him on his search flight kept missing this old aircraft wreck, one of six uncovered in the course of the Fossett search. The Nevada landscape is cruelly good at concealing wrecks.

Anatomy of a Search

Why the U.S. Civil Air Patrol couldn't find Steve Fossett.

Composite fuselage sections for Boeings 787 are being made in four factories around the world.

Alenia's Gamble

To help build the Boeing 787's composite fuselage, Italy spends a bundle.

An F/A-18 Hornet lights its afterburners to leap from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.

How Things Work - Afterburners

Jets get no kick from champagne, but a little fuel in the tailpipe...

Her Super Cub provides Debbie Gary a leisurely break from airshow flying.

Above & Beyond: Back in the Saddle

An airshow pilot describes the trials of the comeback.

How Things Work: Flying Upside Down

The tricks that keep the engine from knowing it’s not right side up.

On Renos hallowed ground, Red Bull deployed dashing new racers and elegant graphics.

Red Bull's Rodeo

Take two parts aerobatic skill, add daring, throw in obstacles and speed: Air racing's got a brand-new bag.

Reader Scrapbook

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July 2008

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Air & Space Interview

Brian Norris

A talk with an airshow operations coordinator.

New Worlds

An Eye on Mercury

MESSENGER's pictures were taken by a very used camera.