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.
The former Air Force historian asks, "Can anyone dispute that I had the most interesting job in the entire Air Force?"
May 2010
| By Perry Turner
A small band of helicopter pilots risked their lives to rescue wounded soldiers during World War II.
July 2010
| By Roger Connor
The F-15C is the only dedicated dogfighter left in the U.S. military fleet. Why isn't the Air Force replacing it?
July 2010
| By Michael Behar
A reader tips us off to the restoration of a rare bird.
May 17, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
For one mission in Vietnam, the best aircraft for the job was a bomber from World War II.
July 2010
| By David Lande
The memoirs of legendary ace Robin Olds.
May 17, 2010
| By The Editors
![<b><i>Writer and photographer Ed Darack</b></i> spent time in December 2009 with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 (VMM-261) in southern Afghanistan. In addition to Darack’s story, “Osprey at War,” featured in our April / May issue, we offer a slideshow of images taking during his stay.
<br><br>“The pilots put the tip lights on for safety during nighttime and at dawn and dusk,” says Darack. “They just started this one up—you can see the plume of white smoke.”
<br><br>Many of the Osprey pilots used to fly the Boeing CH-46 Sea Knight, known colloquially to the Marines as the “Phrog.” “Basically, coming from the CH-46, I felt safe in the Phrog because it had two .50-caliber machine guns,” says Captain Chris Meixell of VMM-261, “but with this airframe, we have triple-redundant flight controls, and those controls are routed in different parts of the airframe. The engines are 46 feet apart, which decreases the chances of both of them getting shot out by enemy fire, and [the MV-22] can climb to 9,000 feet in airplane mode on one engine. The fuel system is a suction type system, and if you take a round, it is just going to suck air, it is not going to spray fuel. The greatest safety advantage is the performance of the aircraft itself, which allows us to climb quickly out of small-arms and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile range.”](http://media.airspacemag.com/images/145*96/Osprey--4.jpg)
Scenes of a Marine unit flying the incredible, versatile Osprey.
March 15, 2010
| By Rebecca Maksel
In this tables-turned scenario, the airplane shoots down the missile.
May 2010
| By Damond Benningfield
U.S. Marine aviators to Malaysian MiG pilots: Show us what you got.
March 2010
| By Ed Darack
One of the most versatile aircraft of the Vietnam War appears on the verge of a comeback.
March 2010
| By William E. Burrows
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Bobby BraunNASA's outgoing Chief Technologist talks about what's in the R&D pipeline |
In the Magazine
