Aircraft Types
Powered and unpowered aircraft, including fixed-wing, hybrid, rotary and lighter-than-air
Stranded
Four aircraft, 12 airmen, 25 days, 40 below zero, in the middle of nowhere.
September 2011 |
By Edward Farmer
Distance Runners
Unmanned aerial vehicles redefine the term "nonstop flight."
September 2011 |
By Michael Milstein
Lieutenant Ivan Baranovsky’s P-39
An airacobra's journey to the eastern front...and back.
September 2011 |
By Tim Wright
In the Museum: A Fleet’s Final Flight
A civilian flight trainer enters the collections.
September 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Oldies and Oddities: Lying Down on the Job
Piloting in the prone position
September 2011 |
By Graham Chandler
Coming Extractions
The Army’s CH-47 Chinook helicopter has flown a stunning but standard maneuver—the aft-wheel pinnacle landing—since 1962. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the move has reached its peak. This month as many as 5,000 pairs of boots will leave the ground, with a goal to extract 33,000 by next September. Many will exit the same way they [...]
August 10, 2011 |
By Roger Mola
Ride-Sharing With the Rich
How fractional jet owners get out of flying coach.
August 2011 |
By David Freed
Loser X-Planes
Every research aircraft poses a question. Sometimes the answer is "forget it."
August 2011 |
By The Editors
I Was There: When the DC-8 Went Supersonic
The day a Douglas DC-8 busted Mach 1.
August 2011 |
By Bill Wasserzieher
Flights and Fancy: How I Bagged an F-4J
Who would think a kite could down a fighter?
August 2011 |
By Michael Barton
Last One Out, Shut off the Helium
Fifty years ago, the Navy ended its lighter-than-air program.
August 2011 |
By George C. Larson, Member, NAA
Pilot Cam
A remote-controlled airplane, a camera, and a pair of goggles can put you in the (virtual) pilot's seat for as little as $500.
July 2011 |
By Mark Betancourt
That Old Crate
From Minnesota cratemakers, a new CG-4 glider like the ones they built in World War II.
July 2011 |
By Lynn Keillor
In the Museum: Wanted: TLC for Misunderstood Warbird
Challenging the Helldiver’s bad reputation.
July 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
From Zero to 250
Sikorsky’s X2 is more hot rod than helicopter.
July 2011 |
By George C. Larson, Member, NAA
The Akron and Macon’s Hail Mary Pass
“One of the interesting things about airships,” says Tom Crouch, a senior curator at the National Air and Space Museum, who gave a lecture on the subject this week as part of the Museum’s Ask an Expert series, is that they were “transitional technology. They were capable of doing a great many things before airplanes [...]
June 17, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Helicopter Missions: Vietnam Firefight
In 1966, Second Lieutenant Larry Liss was on the Czech-German border during a snowstorm, freezing his varlata off, when he saw something beautiful. It was a Bell UH-1 helicopter, still on the ground. The pilot—who was wearing short sleeves and drinking a cup of coffee—took one look at Liss and shook his head. “He said, [...]
May 31, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
