Propeller Aircraft
My Other Vehicle Was a Spacecraft
Now that the space shuttle has retired, astronauts are rediscovering the joys of flying airplanes.
July 2012 |
By Phil Scott
Titanic’s Wireless Operators: The Original Texters
Text messaging, from 1912 to 2012.
May 14, 2012 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Sikorsky Wants to Pick Your Brain
AND the company will pay you for the privilege.
March 09, 2012 |
By Pat Trenner
Hardest to Fly?
Piloting an Apache helicopter almost always meant both hands and feet doing four different things at once.
February 03, 2012 |
By Rebecca Maksel
High-Speed Helicopters Come of Age
By adding a little push, compound helicopters push the speed limit up to 300 mph.
January 30, 2012 |
By George Larson
Lieutenant Ivan Baranovsky’s P-39
An airacobra's journey to the eastern front...and back.
September 2011 |
By Tim Wright
The Raiders Remember
In an annual ceremony, the last of the Doolittle Raiders recall their part in victory over Japan.
September 2011 |
By Paul Hoversten
In the Museum: A Fleet’s Final Flight
A civilian flight trainer enters the collections.
September 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
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
Loser X-Planes
Every research aircraft poses a question. Sometimes the answer is "forget it."
August 2011 |
By The Editors
In the Museum: Wanted: TLC for Misunderstood Warbird
Challenging the Helldiver’s bad reputation.
July 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
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
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
