Aviation Eras
Periods of innovation in the history of aviation from early flight to the modern age
240,000-mile Filing Extension
"Dear Mr. Taxman: I'm sorry I missed the deadline. I was, uh, hmm, in a spaceship flying to the moon?"On the evening of April 15, 2010, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's John H. Glenn lecture series honored four legendary men of Apollo 13 on the 40th anniversary of their hair-raising ...
April 16, 2010 |
By Mike Klesius
Not Your Average Seagull
On April 13, Bonhams auction house will offer a 1917 Curtiss MF "Seagull" Flying Boat for sale. The MF (which stands for "Modernised F-boat") was developed in 1917 from the original F model, a design the U.S. Navy had been using since 1912/1913. (The F model was the most successful of the pre-war C...
April 09, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Solar Impulse Takes Flight
Solar Impulse, the prototype of an airplane meant to fly around the world powered only by sunlight in 2012, made its maiden flight from Payerne, Switzerland yesterday. According to flight test leader (and former astronaut) Claude Nicollier, “We reached all objectives, especially the safe landing, w...
April 08, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
The Corsair in Zazzy Red Lipstick
A makeshift screen hung from a support rig that read “Three Tons.” Dave Morris, a curator from Britain’s Fleet Air Arm Museum, projected on it three slides: Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus,” a Ming vase, and a Chippendale end table. “What if these were yours?” he asked the audience at the National Ai...
April 05, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
Why I Love Trade-A-Plane
The yellow broadsheet, published three times a month out of Crossville, Tennessee, is the go-to paper for all things aircraft. Warning: can be habit-forming. It's like picking up a map: you get blissfully lost in the details. Here's a sample of the latest classifieds.Under Help Wanted:"Need 1 g...
March 29, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
Elinor Smith, 1911 - 2010
In 1928, Elinor Smith, at age 16, became the youngest pilot to earn a license, which was signed by Orville Wright. She made headlines later that year by flying under New York City’s four East River bridges. With Bobbi Trout as co-pilot, they became the first women aviators to refuel an airplane in ...
March 24, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
Wanna Be a Tuskegee Airman?
Or at least play one? Then keep an eye on the casting calls for George Lucas's next film, Red Tails, currently shooting in San Francisco.From a recent announcement:
Beau Bonneau Casting in San Francisco is currently working on a George Lucas Film "Red Tails" starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrance...
March 22, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Robert M. White, 1924 - 2010
Former World War II POW, Korean War veteran, and Air Force test pilot Bob White died on March 17, St. Patrick's Day. "The old Irishman went home at 11:55 last night," his son, Greg, wrote in an e-mail to relatives and friends this morning. Major General White retired from the Air Force in 1981 wit...
March 18, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
A&S Interview: Chris Kraft
NASA's first Flight Director assesses the state of the space program 40 years after Apollo.
March 2010 |
By Michael Klesius
The One-Dollar Pietenpol
Some airplanes, like some friendships, improve with age.
March 2010 |
By Linda Shiner
![<b><i>Writer and photographer Ed Darack</b></i> spent time in December 2009 with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 (VMM-261) in southern Afghanistan. In addition to Darack’s story, “Osprey at War,” featured in our April / May issue, we offer a slideshow of images taking during his stay.
<br><br>“The pilots put the tip lights on for safety during nighttime and at dawn and dusk,” says Darack. “They just started this one up—you can see the plume of white smoke.”
<br><br>Many of the Osprey pilots used to fly the Boeing CH-46 Sea Knight, known colloquially to the Marines as the “Phrog.” “Basically, coming from the CH-46, I felt safe in the Phrog because it had two .50-caliber machine guns,” says Captain Chris Meixell of VMM-261, “but with this airframe, we have triple-redundant flight controls, and those controls are routed in different parts of the airframe. The engines are 46 feet apart, which decreases the chances of both of them getting shot out by enemy fire, and [the MV-22] can climb to 9,000 feet in airplane mode on one engine. The fuel system is a suction type system, and if you take a round, it is just going to suck air, it is not going to spray fuel. The greatest safety advantage is the performance of the aircraft itself, which allows us to climb quickly out of small-arms and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile range.”](http://media.airspacemag.com/images/200*133/Osprey--4.jpg)
A Tiltrotor Squadron in Afghanistan
Scenes of a Marine unit flying the incredible, versatile Osprey.
March 15, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
A Family Affair
Bernard Pietenpol’s happiest moments came when he was flying one of his homebuilt airplanes—with a child or two in tow.
March 15, 2010 |
By Diane Tedeschi
More Animals Aloft
You’re wandering through the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center when you notice the parachute. An extremely small parachute. This thing couldn’t keep Anne Morrow Lindbergh aloft. So who was it for? Turns out it was made for a lion cub named Gilmore, the pet of air racer and...
March 09, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Space Toys
Space toys can be big business. In 2007, a toy Robby the Robot inspired by the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet was given a retail estimate of $4,500. But that's chump change compared to what Masudaya's Target Robot (right) went for at a recent auction at Dan Morphy—a whopping $52,900.True, the 15-in...
March 05, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Legends of Vietnam: Bronco's Tale
One of the most versatile aircraft of the Vietnam War appears on the verge of a comeback.
March 2010 |
By William E. Burrows
The Other Harlem
In 1930s Chicago, at the corner of 87th Street and Harlem Avenue, Cornelius Coffey made aviation history.
March 2010 |
By Giles Lambertson
The First Supersonic Bail-Out
How does it feel to eject from an aircraft going nearly 800 miles per hour?Terrible.But test pilot George Smith managed to survive his harrowing ordeal on this day in 1955, after bailing out of an F-100A diving at Mach 1.05 toward the ocean. As recounted in TIME magazine months later, the 40-g dece...
February 26, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
The Capt. Marlon Green
When Marlon Green wanted a flying job with Continental Airlines more than 50 years ago, the company wouldn't give him the time of day. Now they've named an airplane after him.Green, who died last year at the age of 80, had to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court to get hired as the first Afric...
February 19, 2010 |
By Tony Reichhardt
