Aircraft
Military, commercial and experimental vehicles designed for flight in the Earth’s atmosphere
In the Museum: Wanted: TLC for Misunderstood Warbird
Challenging the Helldiver’s bad reputation.
July 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Above and Beyond: Warner and the Whale
How we turned the A3D into a tanker.
July 2011 |
By Hadley Dixon
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
The 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
