Editors' Picks
Printed in Space
If your star tracker breaks on the way to the moon, just hit Command P.
Area 51: Origins
America’s once-secret air base had humble beginnings.
Need for Speed
Airplanes with a mission: Fly faster.
The Invention of Flight
Inventors, dreamers, daredevils, charlatans: Aviation's early years had them all.
Vietnam Memoir
Stories from the war that shaped a generation.
Page 12 of 32
Once you get used to the slightly overcaffeinated host, this is a pretty cool project —to drop a bunch of paper airplanes from a high-altitude balloon and see where they land. The team launched their balloon earlier this month, as the video shows. But, from what I can tell on their website and Twit...
January 31, 2011
| By Tony Reichhardt
The latest in sightseeing tours, brought to you by Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin.
March 2011
| By Marshall Lumsden
When I first started flying, I bought half interest in a Cherokee 180, N7728N. My partner was a veterinarian who had owned his half for several years already. He only flew on Thursdays, and then only if the weather was beautiful. What a great deal for me — I had the plane available to me six days a...
January 21, 2011
| By Steve Satre
I had a nice trip over Christmas, which ended with the red-eye flight back from Las Vegas on Christmas night. We arrived in New York where the forecast was for blizzard conditions later in the day. I was happy to see that not one flake had yet fallen when we landed early on the morning of the 26th....
January 07, 2011
| By Steve Satre
We're still pretty blown away by this story. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has released its preliminary report on what happened shortly after takeoff on November 4, 2010, when the left inboard Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine of Qantas flight QF32, an Airbus A380 outbound from Singapore, went ...
January 05, 2011
| By Mike Klesius
I was in Stockholm for New Year's Day and I had never been in Sweden before. It's still kind of cool to visit a new place, and I think Stockholm is a city I'd like to see a lot more of.Knowing that it's located far to the north, I checked the times for local sunrise and sunset before leaving on my ...
January 04, 2011
| By Steve Satre
Proceed direct to National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. The 1980 movie, "Airplane!" is one of 25 films judged to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically" significant and therefore added to the Film Registry in 2010. The spoof of 1957's "Zero Hour" was named number 10 on the Amer...
December 29, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
For 27 years, the Concorde carried passengers across the Atlantic Ocean at twice the speed of sound, on the very edge of space. A flight from New York to London took a mere 3 ½ hours; the supersonic aircraft flew so high and so fast that American spyplanes were ordered to stay out of the Concorde’s...
December 27, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
Some pilots hate flying the red-eye flights, but I kind of like them. There aren't as many planes in the air in the wee hours, and the controllers are quick to give us direct routing. Out of Las Vegas, we're often cleared direct to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, before we've even gotten to Bryce Canyo...
December 22, 2010
| By Steve Satre
What looks like Ronaldo's nightmare is in fact the world's largest soccer ball airship, built by E-Green Technologies of Kellyton, Alabama. Why, you ask? It seems everyone's crazy about airships these days, for everything from military surveillance to tourism. E-Green just signed a deal with NASA's...
December 17, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
There was some pretty good winter weather this past weekend, and it caused a lot of cancellations and delays. I arrived in Detroit Saturday night, flying in from São Paulo, Brazil and I was scheduled to fly right back to São Paulo at 7:30 on Sunday evening.The forecast in Detroit was for three to s...
December 15, 2010
| By Steve Satre
Awesome. I love the little blast of air they get at around the 48-second mark.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmxM_CknSZw
December 14, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
On a recent flight I was looking at my TCAS display and wondering how we ever did without this wonderful bit of equipment. TCAS stands for Traffic Collision Avoidance System, and I saw my first one in the early 90s. Prior to TCAS we had a three-prong approach to traffic avoidance: Air Traffic Contr...
December 10, 2010
| By Steve Satre
When I'm taxiing around airports worldwide, I'm always amused to see that they still have windsocks. It's maybe the only thing from the first days of aviation that you'll still find at modern airports. It's low tech, but it gives a clear indication of wind strength and direction...at least to anyon...
November 30, 2010
| By Steve Satre
I live in a suburb of Washington, D.C., and heavy rush hour traffic is a common source of complaint around here. Downtown office workers often have drives that are routinely in excess of an hour and sometimes far longer.A long commute is a fact of life for a large percentage of airline pilots and f...
November 24, 2010
| By Steve Satre
Here's some interesting video taken by a passenger aboard the Quantas A380 that had a Trent 900 engine blow shortly after taking off on a flight from Singapore to Sydney on November 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4Pv9u_yHwIAnd later, the landing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EimwaGXr6p0&f...
November 23, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
I'm writing this longhand as we fly back from Frankfurt, Germany. We're over the North Atlantic, a few hours from landing in New York. Out here there are no controllers to talk to, and not much to do except monitor the instruments and make the occasional position report.It's been a routine trip. Go...
November 19, 2010
| By Steve Satre
I just had a nice stretch of days off and went on a five-day golf trip with my brother and 30 other guys. It was a little chilly on Amelia Island and I performed about like you'd expect a 15 handicapper to play. But it's not the golf that I want to talk about. Instead, I want to address a common mi...
November 18, 2010
| By Steve Satre
It's been a long, long time since my first solo flight in an airplane and I still remember the mixed emotions of excitement and fear. Glancing over at the empty right seat during the takeoff roll, I realized what a huge commitment I was about to make. As the plane climbed out, I couldn't get out of...
November 17, 2010
| By Steve Satre
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