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 15 of 30
Grumman's first jet honors a son of the Bluegrass State.
January 2010
| By Barrett Tillman
Air crews recall their service as roadies for Bob Hope's USO show.
January 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
A new illustrated book brings aviation history to life.
November 17, 2009
| By Tom D. Crouch
A hundred years ago, the International Air Meet gave spectators a look into the future.
November 17, 2009
| By Paul Hoversten
Backstage stories from Bob Hope’s USO tours.
November 17, 2009
| By Rebecca Maksel
Workers at the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory announced on November 12 that through the use of submersibles, they had located at 2,600 feet two Japanese submarines that the U.S. military had scuttled off Oahu in 1946 after post-war assessment. One, the I-14, was designed to carry two Aichi M6A...
November 16, 2009
| By Pat Trenner
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 ...
November 06, 2009
| By Rebecca Maksel
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...
November 02, 2009
| By Rebecca Maksel
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...
October 27, 2009
| By Rebecca Maksel
A hundred years ago today, the U.S. military got its first pilot. On October 26, 1909, Frederick E. Humphreys, a 26-year-old Lieutenant with the Army Signal Corps, soloed for the first time in a Wright Flyer at College Park, Maryland, under the watchful eye of no less an instructor than Wilbur Wrig...
October 26, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
What was thought to be a lock of Amelia Earhart’s hair, on display at a Cleveland museum, is merely thread. In mid-September, the International Women’s Air and Space Museum included in its e-newsletter to IWASM members an explanation of the misunderstanding:
Last week we reported that a sample of h...
October 23, 2009
| By Pat Trenner
The grandson of Amelia Earhart's photographer will carry her scarf higher than she ever did—into orbit.
October 23, 2009
| By Jill Michaels
What do you write in your logbook after you've just piloted a rocketplane past the "sound barrier" for the first time? If you're Chuck Yeager, you keep it short: "#1 ok"That's the notation (then) Captain Yeager made in the Flight and Engineering Report for Bell XS-1 Ship #1 (serial no. 6062), aka "...
October 14, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
In 1947, no airplane had ever gone faster than the speed of sound.
December 1990
| By Stephan Wilkinson
If Richard Whitcomb wasn't the most important aerospace engineer of the past 50 years, he was certainly on the short list. The veteran of NASA's Langley Research Center died on Tuesday at the age of 88. Read about his contributions to aeronautics here, or watch a NASA-produced video at this link.By...
October 14, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
Alfred Nobel, the Swedish millionaire who originated the world's most prestigious science prizes, was also a compulsive tinkerer and filer of patents. Among the fields that caught his interest was rocketry, perhaps not surprising for the man who invented dynamite.Nobel wasn't the first to think of ...
October 05, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
Was it really Chuck Yeager? Or did George Welch beat him to it? If so, it happened on this day in 1947.
October 01, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
Normally, the folks at Profiles in History, based outside Los Angeles, auction off Hollywood memorabilia. On October 8-9, they'll sell what they're billing as "the single most important flight-worn aviation artifact to ever be offered at public auction"—the goggles worn by Amelia Earhart during her...
September 25, 2009
| By Tony Reichhardt
We recently got an announcement that a ca.-1912 hang glider, modeled after an 1896 design by Wright-brother mentor Octave Chanute, had been installed in the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California.
A 1912 Glider in the Pacific Design Center
Design centers are sort of shopping malls f...
September 17, 2009
| By Perry Turner
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