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Air & Space Magazine

At Convair Astronautics in San Diego, an aluminum ramp took visitors from the lobby to the executive offices.

Spaces of the Space Age

Bold missions called for bold architecture.

Pilot Greg Koontz (standing) flies an act that depends on the help of his Alabama Boys, Fred Masterson, Jason Hankins, and Walter Harvey (left to right, atop their mobile runway with Koontz’s Piper J-3 Cub).

Meet the Grunts

Behind the scenes, they make airshow stars shine.

Crew chiefs from Whiteman’s 509th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and 131st Bomb Wing give a B-2 a complete inspection, required every 1,000 flight hours.

The Stealth Bomber Elite

Fewer than 100 pilots climb the ladder to the B-2 cockpit

An F-84E attacks a ground target with rockets. In Korea, the F-84 was outclassed by the MiG-15 in dogfights, but was prized for bombing rail lines, troops, and vehicles.

The Thunderjet Had the Body of a Fighter and a Bomber’s Soul

The F-84 earned its reputation for ruggedness.

Lower Manhattan at one-meter resolution. The IKONOS satellite took this picture in 2000, when such detailed imagery was new on the market, and the Twin Towers (left, center) were intact.

Swarms of small, orbiting cameras are coming. To watch.

Spysats for Everyone

In 1904, Gustave Whitehead was photographed with his 1901 machine — on the ground.

Yes, the Wright Brothers Really Were the First to Fly

A Smithsonian curator evaluates recent challenges to the aviators’ place in history.

Boeing’s commercial Crew Space Transportation spacecraft, known as the CST-100, may replace Russia’s Soyuz to become the next spacecraft to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station. An illustration shows how the CST-100 might dock at one of the station’s ports.

Should the chief builder of the International Space Station be the company that offers taxi service there? Boeing thinks so.

Taxi to the Space Station.

Slats (at controls) and his father, Charles, show off Old Soggy in Cleburne, Texas, in November 1912.

The first flyer in Texas—and his airplane

Slats and Old Soggy No. 1

Space Shuttle Engines: Just the Stats

How I came up with the numbers that amazed.

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Diving In

Airmen practice water recovery scenarios.

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B-17 “Sentimental Journey”

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Did Life Come Here From Mars?

It’s still an intriguing theory, but still unproven.

Finding Luca’s Leak

Astronauts re-create the scary water leak that cut short a recent spacewalk

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Orion in Sharpest View Yet

Astronomers developed a new camera that can resolve a baseball diamond on the moon.

How To Hide an Airplane

Start with a camouflage paint job

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Ride Along With an Airshow Star

Sean D. Tucker takes us on one of his 250 mph aerobatic practice routines.

But Will it Fly?

Red Bull expands its wacky Flugtag competition to five cities this year.

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Kid Cannonball

Helmet required.

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Tight Squeeze

Post-flight inspection.

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Around the World in an Airship

Bayer airship pilot Haimo Wendelstein reflects on one of the mellowest forms of flying.

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