Modern Aviation
An era from 1991 to the present marked by achievements in air and space flight, including unmanned aerial vehicles and the International Space Station
F-16s Don’t Think You’re Cute
As reported on AOL: “Myrtle Rose, a 75-year-old grandmother of nine and pilot, was intercepted by two F-16 fighter jets over suburban Illinois on Thursday when her small airplane crossed into airspace that had been restricted because of President Obama’s arrival in the Windy City.” A few days later, AvWeb reported that Rose’ first thought upon [...]
August 09, 2011 |
By Pat Trenner
Rural Airport Subsidies: How Far Is Too Far?
As the crow flies, the Hagerstown Regional Airport (HGR) in Maryland is 64 miles from the much busier runways of Baltimore Washington International (BWI), to its east. How far a drive is it, though? And more importantly, how far is it in political terms? Under the Essential Air Service program enacted in 1978, federal subsidies [...]
August 08, 2011 |
By Roger Mola
D.B. Cooper (Still) Missing
After investigating a thousand suspects since a person who called himself (or herself) D.B. Cooper skyjacked a Boeing 727 on November 24, 1971, the FBI thought it finally had a “credible” tip. Until last night, that is, when CBS News reported that the Cooper lead had fizzled and the FBI was expected to formally rule [...]
August 02, 2011 |
By Roger Mola
A & S Interview: Ron Davies
A former museum curator of air transport rallies for high-speed rail.
August 2011 |
By Pat Trenner
Print Your Own Airplane
According to some tech-watchers, 3-D printing will be the Next Big Thing. Load a bunch of raw material into your home mini-factory, download a 3-D CAD file, fire up the machine, and voilà, out comes a replacement part for your refrigerator or a copy of your door key (running to the hardware store is so [...]
July 29, 2011 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Saving Gas Over the Top
An Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker may haul more than 31,000 gallons to refuel other aircraft, but for long-haul missions, it needs to watch every drop of its own fuel. That’s why, when a KC-135 crew flew from Washington state to Kyrgyzstan over the North Pole last month, the Air Force brass was pumped. It wasn’t [...]
July 28, 2011 |
By Roger Mola
Stop That Stick Figure
The Transportation Security Administration has finally faced the naked truth. After the agency’s advanced imaging technology (AIT) airport scanners stirred controversy by exposing too much of a passenger’s human form, the TSA will switch to new software that makes the images less realistic. Screening agents—who had been isolated in a remote closet to view the [...]
July 25, 2011 |
By Roger Mola
Rutan’s Last Project: What The…?
Today I read, with some head-scratching, about Burt Rutan’s latest creation, a “roadable aircraft” called Bipod. Flying cars have been built, flown, driven, and failed to sell since dinosaurs roamed the earth, yet here was the monumentally gifted designer and his company, Scaled Composites, introducing a particularly homely vehicle (twin fuselages simply make it twice [...]
July 19, 2011 |
By Pat Trenner
The Not-So-Friendly Skies
Escalating baggage fees. No more in-flight meals. Delayed flights. Loud cell-phone talkers. And let’s not forget the drunks. It may be that intoxicated passengers are the most dangerous of all. AvWeb recently reported that drunk passengers caused the crash of a Cessna 185 in 2010. (“The [Transportation Safety Board] postulates that a rear-seat passenger pushed [...]
July 14, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Pressing Your Flight Attendant’s Buttons
With a sunny and hopefully unmistakable new design for its flight attendant call button, Boeing illuminated passengers on which button to press but in the dark as to when to press it at all
June 27, 2011 |
By Roger Mola
Top Gun: Polar Bears Need Not Apply
How did he ever pass flight school, much less become a top gun pilot? I’m talking about the mascot from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, of course. That’s right, the insane polar bear that hijacks an F-16 and rockets into space before each of the team’s hockey games (video below). Consider the facts: An [...]
June 23, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
A Fleet’s Last Lesson
Gene Breiner got a little choked up when he handed over his 1929 Fleet Model 2 to the National Air and Space Museum at “Become a Pilot” Day on Saturday. He dedicated it to “all the people who learned to fly in her, and all the people I took for their first and last airplane [...]
June 20, 2011 |
By Linda Shiner
NASA Art Returns to Washington
Since 1963, hundreds of artists (and musicians, poets—even one fashion designer) have interpreted NASA’s aeronautic and space projects. The artists were given carte blanche to create what they wanted, in any medium, on any subject. In celebration of NASA’s 50th anniversary in 2008, more than 70 diverse artworks from the program began touring the country [...]
May 27, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Senior Aviatrix
She thought she'd like to fly again. And so she flew. Helene Dax, 87, a former pilot, had filled out a survey form at the Brookdale Senior Living center where she lives in Denver. Brookdale, which caters to people challenged with Alzheimer's and dementia, and Jeremy Bloom's Wish of a Lifetime found...
May 16, 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
Inside Joke
Admit it: Sometimes you want to skip all the technical hoo-hah and get straight to the jokes. For your enjoyment, today we're resurrecting a bit of aircraft maintenance humor that has been roaming the Internet since 1997, and circulating on hard copies before that. The jokes have been attributed to...
April 21, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Tankers Away
And the winner is: The Boeing Company.Michael Donley, Secretary of the Air Force, announced today that Boeing will supply the U.S. Air Force with 179 tankers derived from the company's 767 widebody to replace the aging KC-135 refueler fleet. The contract is estimated at $35 billion and is expected ...
February 24, 2011 |
By Mike Klesius
Getting Up
Ever wonder what kind of takeoff a Viking Twin Otter can achieve with a stiff headwind and no sumo wrestlers on board?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG6eJP7SBQI&feature=related
February 15, 2011 |
By Mike Klesius
Working the Ramp
They work in all weather loading and unloading your suitcases, the mail, freight, even dead bodies and wild and domestic animals. They deice the airplane in winter, and clean it between each flight. So spare a thought for the airline industry's baggage handlers.Liesl Miller Orenic, an associate pro...
February 03, 2011 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Cool-Headed Qantas Dudes
We're still pretty blown away by this story. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has released its preliminary report on what happened shortly after takeoff on November 4, 2010, when the left inboard Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine of Qantas flight QF32, an Airbus A380 outbound from Singapore, went ...
January 05, 2011 |
By Mike Klesius
