Editors' Picks
Area 51: Origins
America’s once-secret air base had humble beginnings.
Need for Speed
Airplanes with a mission: Fly faster.
Beyond the Moon
It’s not a place, exactly. But it could be NASA’s next destination.
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 13 of 31
When everything else fails, or fails all at once, pull the parachute that saves the whole airplane.
January 2011
| By Michael Klesius
After the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, more than 200 aircraft took up the fight to save the coast.
January 2011
| By Mark Huber
Executive Director, Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative
January 2011
| By Paul Hoversten
The defense research agency DARPA recently selected six companies to participate in a year-long program to transform a Humvee-like vehicle into an aircraft. Lockheed Martin and AAI Corporation are asked to supply something that can “avoid traditional and asymmetrical threats while avoiding road ...
October 25, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
On September 28, 1924, crowds cheered and sirens shrieked as the Army Service pilots known as "the Magellans of the Air" landed at Sand Point Field in Seattle, Washington, after completing the first round-the-world flight.They had set off on April 6, some six months earlier, determined to circumnav...
October 21, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
Project 100 Communications is selling the car that Steve Fossett had hoped would set a land speed record. "Over $4 million is invested in this project," says the sales brochure, which translates: No aluminum wheel kickers.The vehicle is based on racing legend Craig Breedlove's late 1990s Spirit of ...
October 20, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
As prizes go, this was a big one. In 1901, French oil tycoon and aviation patron Henry Deutsch de la Meurthe put up 100,000 francs (equivalent to more than $500,000 today) for the first airman who could fly a 7-mile circuit starting from a park in Paris, rounding the Eiffel Tower, then returning to...
October 19, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
On Tuesday, the energy drink giant Red Bull said it was postponing its Stratos effort, in which Felix Baumgartener will try to break Joe Kittinger's 1960 free-fall record, until a lawsuit is settled. Courthouse News Service reported in April that Daniel Hogan was suing Red Bull for stealing his Spa...
October 14, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
In September 1870, not long after the start of the Franco-Prussian War, the city of Paris was under siege by Prussian soldiers. By the 19th, the German army had blocked all communication into or out of the city. There was nothing worse, wrote French journalist Francisque Sarcey, than to "live cut o...
October 13, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
In the wake of several misleading news headlines, researchers at Cranfield University in the U.K. have had to set the record straight: No, they're not looking for aliens in Earth's atmosphere.But they are looking for microbes floating around in the stratosphere, at altitudes up to 22 miles. The...
October 06, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
Alex Spencer, curator of British aircraft and military flight materiél at the National Air and Space Museum, started his career some 20 years ago as a lowly intern. One morning, as he was riding the shuttle out to the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryl...
October 04, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
This MIT researcher's work is cool enough—he's trying to develop a small UAV that can land on a perch like a bird.But this slow-mo video of an owl coming in for a landing is what really wowed me:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA6XSrM0V_0
September 30, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
The bumper stickers available at the door read, "My other vehicle is unmanned."More and more, that's becoming true for a variety of government agencies—and not just the defense department—as was evident at the UAV Technology Fair held yesterday at the Rayburn House office building in Washington, D....
September 23, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
This looks like fun work.And the people on the SMAVNET Project think they set a record for the largest number of flying robots (10) deployed at a single time outdoors.
September 20, 2010
| By Tony Reichhardt
Where do old astronauts go? Some of them simply can't shake that need for speed, so they strap on exotic aircraft and sign up for the Reno National Championship Air Races. Of the three astronauts who have taken up air racing -- Hoot Gibson, Bill Anders, and Curt Brown -- Brown, a two-time Reno cham...
September 16, 2010
| By Pat Trenner
Jeb Corliss says if the birds can do it, so can he.
November 2010
| By Carl Hoffman
It's not new material, but if you haven't seen this, you owe it to yourself to take a couple minutes to watch. Austrian skydiver Paul Steiner did some ambitious wing walking earlier this year in this Red Bull video, with a pair of Blanix gliders flown by Ewald Roithner and Kurt Tippi high above the...
August 30, 2010
| By Mike Klesius
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