Aircraft Types
Powered and unpowered aircraft, including fixed-wing, hybrid, rotary and lighter-than-airThe Turtle Flies!
Gamera, you'll recall from Japanese horror movies, was a giant, fire-breathing, flying turtle that used to terrorize Tokyo (and battle Godzilla) back in the 1960s.So what else would students at the University of Maryland—whose mascot is a terrapin—name their flying contraption, which yesterday appe...
May 13, 2011 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Crossing the Atlantic by Balloon (and Other Means)
When Jules Verne's novel Five Weeks in a Balloon: or, Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen was translated into English in 1869, it appeared with this publisher's note: "So far as the geography, the inhabitants, the animals, and the features of the countries the travellers pass ove...
May 12, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Helo With a Halo
Plenty of buzz going around about the mysterious stealth chopper left behind by U.S. Navy SEALs after they shot and killed Osama bin Laden last Monday morning, local time, in Pakistan.Having suffered technical problems and a hard landing, the helo apparently couldn't fly back out of bin Laden's com...
May 06, 2011 |
By Mike Klesius
“That’s Professor Global Hawk”
A remote-piloted warrior starts flying for science.
May 2011 |
By Kara Platoni
Take a Ride in a B-25
From engine fumes to exhilaration, here’s what to expect.
May 2011 |
By Phil Scott
Helicopter Missions: The Taliban Gambit
It's summer 2005. In Afghanistan, a four-man U.S. Navy SEAL team has been ambushed by the Taliban. A Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter is immediately sent to extract them, but as it approaches the rescue site, the Taliban fire a rocket-propelled grenade, hitting the Chinook's fuel tanks. All 16 crew ...
April 27, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Surviving the Hindenburg
When the Hindenburg flew toward the the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937, it was the airship's eleventh voyage to the United States. The nearly 804-foot-long ship, the pride of Nazi Germany, had been carrying passengers on excursion flights since 1910 without a single injur...
April 15, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Z2
The latest in sightseeing tours, brought to you by Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin.
March 2011 |
By Marshall Lumsden
100 Years of Naval Aviation
The Navy's first pilot and 10 more milestones.
March 2011 |
By The Editors
Oldies and Oddities: Buying the Farmhouse
Adventures in Navy ballooning.
March 2011 |
By Captain Marion Eppes, U.S. Navy (ret.)
Coaxial Cruising
Pretty cool video here of Sikorsky's latest whirlybird, the X2 demonstrator, which has hit 262 knots, or 300 miles an hour, a record for a helo. Nice acceleration too. The coaxial rotors spin in opposite directions to keep the aircraft from stalling at high speeds. It's no easy feat, as this articl...
February 01, 2011 |
By Mike Klesius
Junk Mail From Above
Once you get used to the slightly overcaffeinated host, this is a pretty cool project —to drop a bunch of paper airplanes from a high-altitude balloon and see where they land. The team launched their balloon earlier this month, as the video shows. But, from what I can tell on their website and Twit...
January 31, 2011 |
By Tony Reichhardt
The Other Gulf War
After the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, more than 200 aircraft took up the fight to save the coast.
January 2011 |
By Mark Huber
