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Over Chicago,108 skydivers set a new record for the most people linked in a free-flying head-down dive.

Flight Today

Jumping Ship

No, it's not a disaster. It's a world record.

Also see: The Shuttle in a Different Light | Cities From the Sky | Weightless Workouts | Women Who Fly | Warbird Obsession | Animals Aloft | The Flying White House

UAV

Unmanned Traffic Jam

To the Federal Aviation Administration, civilian UAVs are the new barbarians at the gate.
By Douglas Gantenbein

How Things Work: Flying Upside Down

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

Rare Bear

Is Winning Everything?

For an air racing legend named Rare Bear, yes.
By Diane Tedeschi

Futuristic look, vintage airplanes

Wild New Yonder

The Air Force opens a virtual air base in Second Life.
By Tony Reichhardt

Boeing’s X-48B, a 500-pound blended wing-body demonstrator with a wingspan of 21 feet, banks over California’s Mojave Desert.

Batplane

Even around other X-planes, the X-48B looks weird.
By Peter Garrison

An upward spiral is one of Sean Tucker’s  gentler maneuvers.

Tumbling with the Stars

Today’s airshow performers do it gyroscopically.
By Debbie Gary

Reno Wrap-up

What was hot—and what was not—at the 2009 National Championship Air Races.

First Around the World

For balloonists Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, the end of one journey marked the beginning of another.

Broken microcapsules leave impressions seen through a microscope after a healing agent has bled out in a fracture plane of a composite material.

How Things Work: Self-Healing Airplanes

Several technologies that could put mechanics out of work.
By Tom LeCompte

Can Pete Buck adapt technology to convert a Sonex model into a practical electric airplane?

The Electric Airplane

Quiet, smooth, dependable—shouldn’t we be flying these by now?
By Peter Garrison

The pilot in his 100-horsepower Cassutt racer, in which he set world altitude and speed records.

The Man Who’s Flown Everything

Robert “Hoot” Gibson’s priorities: (1) Fly. (2) Fly some more.
By Robin White

Flights and Fancy: Brooders vs. Extroverts

By Darisse Smith

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

The Smithsonian’s Hollywood Moment

The makers of Night at the Museum took great pains to get it right.
By Rebecca Maksel

St. Onge, who shows off her Staggerwing at airshows in the Northeast, had her 1936 C17B done up in “Louise Thaden and Blanche Noyes colors” that replicate the paint scheme of the 1936 Bendix Race winner.

Sweet 17

When a Staggerwing casts its spell, it can surprise even Olive Ann Beech.
By James Wynbrandt

A cloaking device is made of copper rings, each surrounded by 10 layers of meta-material.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

Blinding us with science: the next generation of stealth.
By Damond Benningfield

Keepin’ it real: Firemen at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport brave smoke in a mockup many mistake for an airplane.

Fire Hazard

Where there’s smoke, there’s pollution. How can airport firefighters green it up?
By Sam Goldberg

The BA609.

Tiltrotors for the Rest of Us

An Osprey for commuters? Bring it on. Can we get a quiet car too?
By Mark Wolverton

Before the SpeedHawk, Piasecki studied how Cobras (pictured) and Apaches would fly with ducted propellers.

Hot-Rod Helicopters

There’s just no way to add 100 mph to the speed of a helicopter. Or is there?
By James R. Chiles

Inventions large and small have combined over the years to create the modern experience of air travel. And you don’t have to be a frequent flier to know that today’s airliner is still a work in progress: What you see today may not be there tomorrow.

Anatomy of an Airliner

Our maxim: The airlines giveth, and the airlines taketh away.
By The Editors

If engineers can corral liquid hydrogen, reshape pressure waves, and make fuel from algae, future airline passengers will travel around the world at hypersonic speeds in strange-looking aircraft.

The Perfect Airplane

Fast, green, and quiet. Come on, brainiacs, you can do it.
By Ed Regis

In Dads footsteps: Sean and Eric Tucker in 1983

Family Formation

The son of famed airshow pilot Sean Tucker follows in his father’s smoke trails.
By Jill Michaels

Sullenberger inside an MD-80 in 2001, with daughters Kate (left) and Kelly.

A&S Interview: Sully’s Tale

Chesley Sullenberger talks about That Day, his advice for young pilots, and hitting the ditch button (or not).
By Linda Shiner

Wegbereiter Ikarus

Flight Lines

Some of our favorite poems about aviation.
By airspacemag.com

Brad Barker in Houston in 2004. Barker was one of several murder suspects involved with the rocket belt he helped to build.

The Rocketbelt Caper

A true tale of invention, obsession, and murder.
By Paul Brown

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.
By Jason Paur

Women Who Fly

Portraits of female pilots

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

Fly Green!

Richard Branson and Boeing heap hope-and hype-on biofuels.
By Michael Milstein

Kentmorr airpark resident Anne Fichera owns a 1966 Thunderbird and a 1958 Aeronca

A Walk in the Airpark

Rest and renewal in a long-standing pilot community.
By Del Wilber

Flights & Fancy: Homage

By Peter M. Cleland

Every day, a network of virtual air traffic supports thousands of takeoffs.

Welcome to Cyberairspace

Where you can fly from Chicago to Atlanta without leaving your living room.
By Ed Regis

The Air and Space 2009 Airshow Guide

Use our interactive map to link to more than 150 events and share your airshow experiences.
By Air & Space staff

During a recent visit to the National Air and Space Museum, Gibson poses with models of some of his rides.

The Hoot List

All the aircraft the legendary pilot has ever flown.
By Robert L. Gibson

Bill Stein waves at fans after a performance in his Zivko Edge.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Our photo editor offers 12 tips to make your airshow album a work of art.
By Caroline Sheen

Tuning In

What to listen to when you're pretending to be a pilot.
By Diane Tedeschi

Photo Essay:The Blakesburg Fly-In

Antique airplanes—the cream of the crop—fluttered around corn country to celebrate an air mail birthday.

In December 2005, an Aerospatiale Alouette III landing at Escalante National Monument in Utah suffered ground resonance that tore the helicopter apart in four seconds. All aboard survived.

How Things Work: Ground Resonance

When is a helicopter like a Patsy Cline song? When it falls to pieces.
By Peter Garrison

One More Second

The masters of time are about to give us a little extra. Use it wisely.
By James R. Chiles

This Cozy made it across the country on fermented-plant fuel.

Moments & Milestones: Nobody’s Fuel...Yet

By George C. Larson, member, NAA

How Things Work: Flying Fuel Cells

Out of gas? Not a problem.
By Michael Klesius

Reader Scrapbook


Send In Your Photos

Check out our scrapbook of readers' aviation and space pictures. Then add your own.

Snapshot


Helo Halo

It's called the Kopp-Etchells Effect.

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  6. B-36: Bomber at the Crossroads
  7. Passing the Torch
  8. Jumping Ship
  9. Secret Space Shuttles
  10. Spooky Enterprise
  1. Oldies and Oddities: Blown Away
  2. The Bear Is Back
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  4. Plausible Denial
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  10. "My Body Will Collapse Like a Falling Cherry Blossom"

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Air & Space Videos

Space Station Fly-Around

Space Station Fly-Around

Take a narrated tour of the station with the same animation astronauts use in training.

Lunar Run

How a plasma-powered rocket would shoot for the moon.

The First Lunar Landing

The First Lunar Landing

One of history's great voyages, captured on 16mm film.

Aviation Training in the United States, 1917-18

WW I Pilot Training

Rare footage of Army pilots learning to fly Jennies in 1917.

Armstrongs Close Call

Armstrong’s Close Call

A fiery bailout while training to land on the moon.

Mercury Astronauts Meet the Press, 1959

Mercury Astronauts Meet the Press, 1959

...and answer the question: "What was your least favorite test?"

Marines Test the Joint Strike Fighter

Marines Test the Joint Strike Fighter

A Marine takes the new F-35 for a spin.

On the Prowl

On the Prowl

Climb into the cockpit for a flight in an EA-6B Prowler.

Dodging Missiles

Dodging Missiles

F-105 pilots recall the dangers of flying over North Vietnam.

F-105 Walkaround

F-105 Walkaround

Get a close look at the National Air and Space Museum’s Thunderchief.

PTQ: Put Together Quickly

PTQ: Put Together Quickly

Watch Boeing technicians repair an airliner—in two minutes.

Operation Tumbler-Snapper

Operation Tumbler-Snapper

Atomic bombs versus airplanes in the Nevada desert.

In the Magazine

In his portrait of the storied racer Rare Bear and its crew, photographer Tyson Rininger captures the sense of anticipation that surrounds air races. “Something’s coming,” this quiet night scene seems to suggest. “Tomorrow, it’s win or lose.”

November 2009

  • The Bear Is Back
  • Now You See It, Now You Don’t
  • Sweet 17
  • The Shining
  • How the Spaceship Got Its Shape
  • The Book of Hours

View Table of Contents »

Air & Space Interview

A&S Interview:
Burt Rutan

A wide-ranging talk with the magician of Mojave

New Worlds

Confidence Booster

This little known Apollo artifact caused astronauts to rest a little easier.

View full archiveRecent Issues

  • In his portrait of the storied racer Rare Bear and its crew, photographer Tyson Rininger captures the sense of anticipation that surrounds air races. “Something’s coming,” this quiet night scene seems to suggest. “Tomorrow, it’s win or lose.”
    Nov 2009


  • Sep 2009


  • Aug 2009

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Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine has been delighting aerospace enthusiasts with the best writing about their favorite subject since April 1986. As an adjunct of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Air & Space matches the grand scope of the Museum, encompassing every era of aviation and space exploration. With stories that range from the Wright Brothers to the design of NASA's next lunar lander, Air & Space emphasizes the human stories as well as the technology of aviation and spaceflight.

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