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August 2011

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Features

Patty Wagstaff’s latest mission: use the discipline of aerobatics to combat the chaos of California wildfires (photo-composite).

Patty Wagstaff’s Second Act

An airshow superstar adds firefighting to her repertoire.

A Dassault Falcon 2000, a Maybach luxury auto, and freshly swept stairs: NetJets set up this publicity shot in Switzerland, but for fractional jet owners, such fantasy is the reality.

Ride-Sharing With the Rich

How fractional jet owners get out of flying coach

Michael Silvestro

The Competition

The Competition

Possibly the world’s pointiest jet

Loser X-Planes

Every research aircraft poses a question. Sometimes the answer is "forget it."

Located in Sweden’s isolated far north, the tiny town of Kiruna, with its Esrange rocket range, hopes to become a major space tourism attraction.

Spaceport at the Top of the World

How an ore-mining town in Sweden sees a new identity over the horizon.

Eight spoilers on each wing add aerodynamic brakes to the A380’s mechanical ones

How Things Work: Stopping the A380

Hint: Plan ahead.

In a joking nod to George Abbey's power over manned spaceflight, astronauts (like STS-5's Bob Overmyer) sometimes carried his photo into orbit.

Mr. Inside

George Abbey had more influence on human spaceflight than almost anyone in history, but few outside the field know his name.

The flight and ground crews for the DC-8 supersonic run included flight test engineer Richard H. Edwards

I Was There: When the DC-8 Went Supersonic

The day a Douglas DC-8 busted Mach 1

Giuseppe Genchi, who found a trove of engine parts at the University of Palermo, spent countless hours restoring an 11-cylinder rotary engine from World War I.

Genchi’s Obsession

A grad student in Italy salvages Germany's rarest World War I airplane engines.

Just past the standing figure, a chamber with movable sidewalls controls the Mach number of air entering the diffuser.

The Perfect Wind Storm

In the 1950s, engineers at Cleveland's brand-new supersonic wind tunnel battled shock waves, unstarts, and the local power company.

An cutaway of the supersonic wind tunnel.

Know Which Way the Wind Blows

Know Which Way the Wind Blows

Departments

Viewport

Viewport: Power Hungry

Viewport: Power Hungry

J.R. Dailey
In the Museum

In the Museum: My Vostok Is Bigger Than Your Mercury

Launching two very different capsules—and a space race.

Above & Beyond

Above & Beyond: Mantz Versus the Volcano

Filming for Cinerama with a fearless flyer

James Morrison
Flights & Fancy

Flights & Fancy: How I Bagged an F-4J

Who would think a kite could down a fighter?

Michael Barton
Moments and Milestones

Last One Out, Shut off the Helium

Fifty years ago, the Navy ended its lighter-than-air program.