Editors' Picks

What the astronauts really said

Apollo "onboard voice" recordings captured the moon astronauts' conversations -- cussing and all -- when no one else was listening.

Drones for Hire

The newest eyes in the sky are drawing the attention of power companies, conservation groups, and the ACLU.

Five Reasons to Like NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission

So it's not the Moon or Mars. Get over it.

The Invention of Flight

Inventors, dreamers, daredevils, charlatans: Aviation's early years had them all.

Disaster at Xichang

An eyewitness speaks publicly for the first time about history’s worst launch accident.

Page 17 of 30
The boxy biplane of Belgium’s Pierre de Caters in 1909.

It didn't all happen at Kitty Hawk.
July 2009 | By Roger A. Mola

While a group of well-wishers recently marked the 100th birthday of Spanish Civil War pilot Frank Tinker, one aficionado took it a step further by simulating one of the American-born aviator's most famous victories, a shoot-down of a Messerschmitt Bf-109 in July 1937. See the video here:
July 13, 2009 | By Tony Reichhardt

Frank Tinker, the Arkansas-born pilot who became the most famous American mercenary in the Spanish Civil War, will be honored on the centennial of his birth at a ceremony in De Witt, Arkansas, on July 11. The event is being organized by Tinker's niece, Marcia Tinker Morrison, and the Grand Prair...
July 02, 2009 | By Tony Reichhardt

Wilbur Wright was a prudent man. Before flying over New York City’s harbor on the morning of September 29, 1909, Wright fastened a red canoe to the underside of his Model A biplane, figuring the canoe would transform the Model A into a makeshift floatplane should he need to make a water landing. Wr...
June 29, 2009 | By Diane Tedeschi

...or so thought Gemini/Apollo astronaut (and former test pilot) Michael Collins, as quoted in the 1970 book, First on the Moon: I like fighter pilots. I really do. They're good guys. As a group, I like them better than I like any other group. They're very independent people. They're not just talke...
June 25, 2009 | By Tony Reichhardt

Lieutenant Russell Maughan, a Utah-born Army pilot, winner of the Distinguished Service Cross in World War I, and holder of the world aerial speed record in 1923, tried twice that year to become the first person to fly cross-country in a single day. Both times he failed, brought down by a clogged g...
June 23, 2009 | By Tony Reichhardt

Vi Cowden during her service with the WASPs in the 1940s.

During World War II, WASPs proved that an airplane couldn’t tell the difference between a male and female pilot.
June 22, 2009 | By Jonna Dootlittle Hoppes

Nowadays, Amelia Earhart is remembered for her last, lost flight. But in her time, she was best known as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, an adventure that began on this day in 1928.Earhart wasn't the pilot, but a passenger. In the months after Lindbergh-mania hit America, publisher Geor...
June 17, 2009 | By Tony Reichhardt

Eric Brown at the Berkshire Aviation Museum. (Homepage photo: His 1969 Royal Navy Portrait)

Holder of the Guinness World Record for most types of aircraft flown.
July 2009 | By Rebecca Maksel

The USS Akron

An illustrated history of balloons and airships.
May 20, 2009 | By Tom D. Crouch

In my last post on Neil Armstrong, I mistakenly repeated the fable that as a test pilot, Armstrong once looked out the window of his X-15 rocket plane just prior to landing, and saw the Rose Bowl instead of the Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base. Makes for good bar talk. But here's the truth...
May 20, 2009 | By Mike Klesius

A paper fan shows an aerialist ascending.

July 2009 | By Tom D. Crouch

July 2009 | By J.R. Dailey

John Glenn’s transcontinental F8U flight led to his selection as an astronaut.

July 2009 | By George C. Larson, member, NAA

Victory Through Air Power proved no victory for Walt Disney, but at least Seversky (right) got some screen time.

July 2009 | By Stephen Joiner

The YB-49 demonstrated that putting jet engines on an airframe designed for piston engines made the aircraft faster but not better.

July 2009 | By General Robert L. Cardenas, U.S. Air Force (Ret.) As told to James P. Busha

Boeing B-47

A B-47 pilot remembers when an airplane—and Curtis LeMay—stiffened the spine of the Strategic Air Command
July 2009 | By Walter J. Boyne

Fear of Floating

Diagnosis: Collective Panic Attack. Cause: Count von Zeppelin.
July 2009 | By Dan Vergano

“Efforts to keep down our air power were begun as soon as the sound of the cannon had ceased on the Western Front in 1919,” said Mitchell (second from right).

Courtroom sketches from aviation's Trial of the Century.
July 2009 | By Rebecca Maksel

Crew members Russ Holmes, Jack Ruggles, William Vanderkloot, Ron Williams, and John Affleck (left to right) stealthily flew Churchill and other VIPs to crucial meetings around the globe.

A World War II flight engineer dishes on the most “I” of the VIPs he flew with.
July 2009 | By Graham Chandler

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Need to Know

Why do NASA launch times depend on lighting conditions?

It's all about the solar beta angle.





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