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Stories from Tony Reichhardt

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Above & Beyond: I Have a Flameout

Above & Beyond: I Have a Flameout

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Oldies andOddities: Zeppo’s Gizmo

Oldies and Oddities: Zeppo’s Gizmo

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Letter From Bagram

Occasional dispatches from our man in Afghanistan.

The University of Miami’s QUEIA, for Quiet Ultra-Efficient Integrated Aircraft, has engines embedded in the top part of the trailing edge to increase lift. The high lift-to-drag ratio results in a lower stall speed, which translates to a take-off distance of only 1,579 feet, about a sixth that of the new Boeing 787.

Inexperience Wanted

Student engineers answer NASA’s call to design the airplane of 2058.

This 1928 Zenith biplane was a real people pleaser.

Postcard from Oshkosh

Air & Space picks the best of this year’s EAA Airventure.

Falcon 1 on the launch pad at Kwajalein.

Third Time’s the Charm?

Elon Musk tries again to reach orbit, with hopes for low-cost spaceflight riding on the outcome.

The P-47D carried eight guns and, on some models, rocket launchers.

Book Excerpt: Hell Hawks!

How P-47s became the tank busters of World War II

NASA's IKHANA research craft is a modified Predator B.

Do Drones Get Vertigo, Too?

Up there or down here, it can be a struggle to maintain “situational awareness.”

NASA's Robonaut once lived on the space station, but was more of a research experiment than a crew member.

Will Robots Replace Astronauts?

Which way lies our future in space? A discussion.

Steve Truglia practices for his 120,000-foot jump with a shorter fall over the countryside north of London, wearing a flight suit and helmet worn by Russian fighter pilots for high altitude missions.

Super Jump

The race is on to be the next human meteor.

Astronaut Jim Irwin explores the Hadley landing site on July 31,1971.

Back to Hadley Rille

A Japanese camera spies a moonscape last explored by astronauts a generation ago.

A Little Joe II during launch

Confidence Booster

This little known Apollo artifact caused astronauts to rest a little easier.

Testing a small-scale prototype of the space paper airplane in the University of Tokyo's hypersonic wind tunnel.

The Ultimate Paper Airplane

Japan’s bid to launch an origami aircraft from the space station

The F/A-22 Raptor performs aerial maneuvers during the Aviation Nation airshow on Nellis Air Force Base in November 2007.

Birth of the Kulbit

Not just maneuverability. Supermaneuverability.

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9/11: The Saga of the Skies

Chaos and control over Washington, while the Pentagon burned.

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Spenser Excerpt

Chaos and control over Washington, while the Pentagon burned.

In a typical two-ship formation, B-1Bs fly a 1998 training mission near Meteor Crater in Arizona, one of the few holes in the ground bigger than a B-1 could make.

The Bone is Back

Too trouble-prone for nuclear alert and sidelined in the first Gulf War, the B-1 is today the busiest bomber in the fleet.

Habersetzer operates out of Marabou Landing, a lodge about 230 miles southwest of Anchorage.

School of Hard Rocks

Loni Habersetzer teaches pilots how to land on the harshest terrain.

The gum wrapper is modern, but the medallion, scraps of paper, and builder's plate (with the aircraft's serial number) go back to the Hawker Hurricane's years of operation in World War II.

Stowaways

The strange things restorers find in old aircraft.

Three to get ready: Astronauts (from left) Satoshi Furukawa, Akihiko Hoshide, and Naoko Yamazaki are all in training for duty on the space station.

Konnichi Wa, Kibo

The International Space Station says hello to its newest addition, made in Japan.

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