Roger Mola

Roger Mola is the Air & Space researcher.

Seaman Matthew Kortie of the USS George H.W. Bush Deck Department stands watch as signalman during a weekly replenishment at sea. An aircraft carrier’s Supply Department may do more than a dozen jobs, including paying and feeding sailors, managing repair parts, equipping its medical and dental staffs, and running barbershops, convenience stores, and its own version of a Starbucks.

Black Shoes and Brown Shoes: Beyond the Flight Deck of an Aircraft Carrier

In a floating city of several thousand people, there’s a lot to do beside just flying airplanes.

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and U.S. Navy Blue Angels fly their joint "Super Delta" formation over Naval Air Base El Centro, California in March.

The Thunderbirds Are Back With a New, More Crowd-Friendly Routine

And at some airshows this season, they’ll be teaming up with the Blue Angels.

Museum of the Moon, October 2017, Leeds, England.

Apollo at 50: A Celebration Guide

The 50 best films, events, books, websites, and souvenirs.

In a 2015 photograph taken from the International Space Station, Kansai International Airport’s artificial islands and 1.86-mile bridge stand out in Japan’s Osaka Bay.

The Airport Is Sinking

An engineering miracle is still no match for Mother Nature.

The F-35 helmet is an information-display device, showing targeting data, status of the aircraft systems, and visual and infrared views of the world outside the airplane. The blue circle on the helmet is its night-vision camera.

Super Helmet

F-35 pilots get X-ray vision and other magic powers.

Carrier Air Wing 5 departed USS Kitty Hawk for this seven-ship formation, shot in 2007

Flights Over Fuji

Pilots can’t resist taking photos against one of the world’s most beautiful backdrops.

During Operation Enduring Freedom, these sailors aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower took time from maritime security operations to drop into the north Arabian Sea.

Everyone in the Ocean!

Swim Call on a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier

Georges Guynemer (left) and his gunner during World War I.

The French Air Service Nearly Rejected This WW1 Ace

Georges Guynemer was turned down five times before he got the chance to fly.

The Data Stops Here: Analysts at distributed ground system number 1 (DGS-1) sift and disseminate the ISR sensor data flowing into Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, headquarters of the 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing. The 480th ISR is lead wing for 27 DCGS facilities in the Air Force, which are staffed by some 6,000 air personnel.

The Intel Net

The sprawling, secretive process between sensor and action.

Staff Sergeant Daniel Fink sprays pesticide to rid the cargo hold of a C-17 Globemaster III of any Zika-carrying mosquitoes that may have stowed away.

Zika Goes on the No-Fly List

At Dover Air Force Base, crews are trying to keep mosquito stowaways off their cargo airplanes.

The Minuteman missile often rises through its own smoke ring, but not always. In this photo taken last March at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, the missile began turning seconds after launch, while a gusty wind pushed the ring away.

Minuteman, the Missile that Blows Smoke Rings

That distinctive puff is 55 years old today.

The Space Fence radiates microwave energy in a broad fan that, as Earth rotates, covers almost the entire planet; it can also track individual objects.

How Things Work: Space Fence

The new early-warning system to protect spacecraft from orbiting junk.

Another performer gets ready to go on.

Cage of Drones

Demos, glitches and crashes at the National Drone Show.

Manikins packed with sensors to measure G-force and other effects are ready for a crash test at the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia.

Happy Birthday, Dummies

At age 75, the anthropometric manikin is smarter than ever.

An F/A-18E Super Hornet from the Tophatters of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 14 flies past aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis in April 2013.

About That F-18 Photo

Nope, it’s not a fake.

The Explorer I balloon being inflated at the Stratobowl on July 28, 1934, in preparation for an ascent.

Winning the Stratobowl in 1935

A geologic formation became the perfect launchpad for flights into the stratosphere.

Even an Olympic sprinter couldn’t beat an F/A-18C Hornet. But as this aircraft touches down on the Nimitz, Boatswain’s Mate Vanzel Simmon, a hook runner, bolts alongside and then straight for the tail, ready to manually pull the hook off the arresting wire if it does not disengage on its own.

The Complex Choreography of Carrier Landings

“Hook and release” is not as simple as it sounds.

On April 28, 1936, a Kellett KD-1 autogiro hopped over the Capitol Dome and touched down to a warm welcome in the parking lot on the East Front of the Capitol.

That Postal Worker Who Landed at the U.S. Capitol Wasn’t the First

It wasn’t even the first gyrocopter.

If you need a haircut on this South Pacific island, look for the Warhawk Barber Shop with its barber pole made of a bomb shell.

Gallery: One Airman’s Trash...

Discarded parts of WWII aircraft were recycled for all kinds of purposes.

Workers assemble cylinders on a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine.

The Biggest Industrial Boom in U.S. History

How Roosevelt’s fireside chat changed American culture.

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