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.

Trending Topics

  1. Aerospace Inventions
  2. Lighter Than Air Aircraft
  3. Vietnam War
  4. Airplane Restoration
  5. Bombers
Page 20 of 21
On the way: a North American F-100C just after bomb release.

Target: Soviet weapons plant. Mission: Low-altitude bombing. Payload: Nuclear. Problem: Getting back.
May 2003 | By Marshall Michel

The Comet’s sleekly modern look raised the public’s confidence in the new mode of jet-propelled passenger flight. But military and economic uncertainties about the Comet made U.S. politicians nervous.

Why the cold war forced the British government to choose between keeping a friend and arming an enemy.
September 2003 | By Jeffrey A. Engel

The EWO and the MIRV: Cold war talk for an RC-135 crew's lucky day.
November 2003 | By Robert L. Brown

With a Caribou, Mohawk, Bird Dog, Hueys, and Cobras, Army aviators are teaching the loudest history lesson you ever heard.
November 2003 | By Shelby G. Spires

The X-35B lifts off the hover pit with its nozzle vectored for short-takeoffvertical-landing. To convert the engine’s operation from conventional takeoff to STOVL, the pilot moves a lever back about an inch. This opens four sets of doors behind the cockpit, allowing air to flow through the lift fan and starting the nozzle moving through its full range of travel. Simultaneously a clutch engages, transferring power from the engine to the lift fan.

All the nail biting, second guessing, and sheer engineering brilliance in the battle to build the better Joint Strike Fighter.
January 2003 | By Evan Hadingham

NASA once considered using the space shuttle to carry the X-37 to orbit, but those plans changed. When the craft does go into space, it will most likely ride atop an expendable launcher.

If Boeing's X-37 can maneuver politically as well as in space.
January 2003 | By Ben Iannotta

There's a lot more to the F4U than its past association with black sheep.
January 2003 | By Larry Lowe

U.S. Navy PBYs flew in every theater of the Pacific War, their long range ideal for patrolling the waters from the Solomon Islands to the Aleutian Islands.

The ninth life of a PBY-5A Cat.
January 2003 | By Phil Scott

Loaded with four 500-pound Paveway II bombs and a Pave Tack pod, this U.S. Air Force F-111F is ready for target practice. In the Persian Gulf War the aircraft was prized for its precision weapons delivery.

The F-111: In Australia, an airplane for all seasons.
March 2002 | By William Triplett

At the USAF Fighter Weapons School in 1957, the instructors were mean, but the aircraft were meaner.
January 2002 | By Robert A. Hanson

In the Pacific theater of World War II, naval bombers like the Privateer carried the little airplane-like Bat aloft, then released it to find its way, via radar, to its target.

ASM-N-2 Guided Missle
January 2002 | By Jim Sweeney

Are government and industry doing enough to make the sky secure?
January 2002 | By Lester A. Reingold

After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese planned to strike the United States with aircraft borne by giant submarines. If it worked, the Atlantic fleet would be trapped.
November 2001 | By Thomas S. Momiyama

From this Naval air station airships hunted U-boats in the Florida Keys.
September 2001 | By John Sotham

Lesson learned: never send a man to do a machine's job.
May 2001 | By Linda Shiner

The origins of the missing man formation.
May 2001 | By Daniel Ford

The ultimate in point jets, the Starfighter is not for the faint of heart, be it pilot or audience.

How two Lockheed F-104 Starfighters became airshow stars.
May 2001 | By Carl Hoffman

A 1/4-scale F-16 flutter model tested numerous "stores" configurations--bombs, missiles, fuel tanks--in the world

For every airplane, there's a region of the flight envelope into which it dare not fly.
March 2001 | By Peter Garrison

A munitions specialist prepares a bomb to be used during Operation Linebacker ove North Vietnam.

In December 1972, the B-52 bombers that North Vietnamese missile crews had been waiting for came to Hanoi. Night after night. Over virtually the same track.
January 2001 | By Marshall Michel

Norwegian troops (in rearmost rank) took over sponsorship of the First Kosovar Scouts, local school-age kids, when the Canadians returned home.

A helicopter pilot recalls his peacekeeping tour of duty over one of the world's most strife-torn regions.
January 2001 | By Jonathan Knaul

Advertisement


Follow Us

Air & Space Videos

A Mosquito in Flight

Restored from the hull up, a de Havilland Mosquito flies over New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf.

Flightseeing on Mount McKinley

A very close look at the mountaintops around North America’s highest peak.

A New Way to Navigate

GPS systems help pilots fly through rugged Alaskan terrain.

X-47B Carrier Launch

An unpiloted combat aircraft takes off from an aircraft carrier for the first time.

SpaceShipTwo Fires Up

Virgin Galactic sends its edge-of-space ship past Mach 1.

View All Videos »

Need to Know

Why do NASA launch times depend on lighting conditions?

It's all about the solar beta angle.

Air & Space Interview

NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun talks about technology and innovation to attendees at the AARP "Orlando @50+" Conference in Orlando, Fl., Oct. 1, 2010. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Bobby Braun

NASA's outgoing Chief Technologist talks about what's in the R&D pipeline





First Name
Last Name
Address 1
Address 2
City
State   Zip
Email