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 StationSolar 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
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
![<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
"No tire-kickers"
So warns Pride Aircraft in its advertisement offering a pair of Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker Cs for sale. No "aircraft dreamers," either. So you'll have to be content to just read it and weep, or drool, but please, not on your moisture-adverse keyboard. Pride, which restores and sells what you might call "...
January 20, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
"How Can We Help?"
The aviation community has responded to the Haiti earthquake with tremendous resolve, so much so that the National Business Aviation Association and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association have established on their Web sites ongoing advisories on how pilots and aircraft owners can best serve the...
January 15, 2010 |
By Pat Trenner
What's In a Name?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet wrote Shakespeare in 1594, but he wasn’t naming airlines, was he? Coming up with a catchy company name is hard, but it’s not that hard. The name can convey the romance of early air travel, much like “Pan American World Airways,” or “Trans World Airline...
January 06, 2010 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Space Shuttle Jr.
After 2010, the only spaceplane in the U.S. inventory will be the Air Force's mysterious X-37.
January 2010 |
By Michael Klesius
Plane Art
In late 2001, as a cost-cutting measure, Delta Air Lines decided to replace its first-class linen tray cloths with paper placemats. As flight attendant Jewel Van Valin told the Los Angeles Times in July 2008, the first time she set down a paper mat, a disgruntled passenger “stared at it and then ro...
December 29, 2009 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Boeing's Christmas Tradition
Frequent contributor Stephen Joiner writes: “The 737 runway overshoot in Jamaica on December 8 reminds me of our Boeing Aircraft On Ground article (“Airliner Repair 24/7,” Oct./Nov. 2008), where Boeing’s Jim Testin told me gravely, “Something will ALWAYS happen on Christmas eve” (and then it did.) ...
December 25, 2009 |
By Pat Trenner
Sky Snake
Flexible blimps are bending the rules on UAV design.
December 18, 2009 |
By Michael Klesius
The Dream is Aloft
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner made its long-awaited first flight yesterday. The Seattle Times has full coverage here.Watch Boeing's video here (click on Webcast), or see just the takeoff (below) courtesy of the Everett (Washington) Daily Herald.
December 16, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Batstrike!
A loud thud. A shower of purple-white sparks. This can't be good.
December 14, 2009 |
By Randy Gordon
Down-Under Numbers
The September 2009 issue of Australian Aviation magazine contains the country’s Aircraft Census as of July 21. Some random selections:1 Airbus A319
38 Rotorway Exec 162Fs
4 Beech 17 Staggerwings
1 Bell 206A JetRanger
1 Boeing 707
111 Boeing 737s
207 de Havilland DH.82A Tiger Moths
1 Douglas C-54
1 ...
December 09, 2009 |
By Pat Trenner
Designing a Better Torch
Think of Bombardier Aerospace, and one of the company's business airplanes—they build Learjet aircraft—might come to mind. But the well-known transportation and aerospace firm also designed the torch for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.The torch, which will twist and turn its way across Canada’s wintry...
December 09, 2009 |
By Rebecca Maksel
NORAD's 54-year-old Tradition
NORAD, according to this history, has been tracking Santa since 1955, when a child's call to Sears Roebuck was mistakenly directed to the Continental Air Defense Command instead.Inevitable, I suppose, that in 2009 you can follow Santa on Facebook, YouTube, Google Earth and Twitter.
December 08, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Little, Big
Size matters. (Well, at least in the surveillance world.)And three projects under way take dimensions to whole new lengths. The LEMV (it stands for Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle) is a mammoth hybrid airship championed by the U.S. Army as part of a future fleet of reconnaissance vehicles...
November 17, 2009 |
By Rebecca Maksel
India's Reincarnated Aircraft Carrier
According to a report in Flight International, India’s defense ministry is buying Russian-built MiG-29K fighters as "part of a 2004 order...that was incorporated into a deal for the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov.”Wait—India has an aircraft carrier?That navy workhorse, the aircraft carrier, has ...
November 12, 2009 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Freeing Spirit
NASA's Mars rover prepares to escape the worst trouble of its life.
November 09, 2009 |
By Tony Reichhardt
Strike Out
Yes, our avian brothers committed feathered mayhem in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 classic The Birds, but is that any reason they should continue to be chucked into aircraft engines?Here’s the deal: All aircraft have to pass certification tests proving that the airplane can continue operating in the eve...
November 03, 2009 |
By Rebecca Maksel
Happy Birthday, Jane's!
Remember the Dewoitine D 26, the single-seat, single-engine parasol fighter trainer? Wondering how many were ever built? Open your trusty Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, and you’ll learn that 11 were produced for the Swiss Air Force.Jane’s will also tell you the first flight of the Douglas B-66 De...
November 02, 2009 |
By Rebecca Maksel
