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Air & Space Magazine

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Ploughshares Into Swords

Air Tractor of Olney, Texas, a legend-in-its-own-time builder of cropdusters, or agricultural aircraft, has converted its popular AT-802 Air Truck into a counter-insurgency, close-air support, and surveillance warbird-wannabee. The armored AT-802U, which debuted at the June Paris Air Show, was arme…

Pluto (smaller sphere) and its moon Charon are the first guideposts of the Kuiper Belt. They may help reveal why planets long ago stopped forming in the outer solar system.

Where the Wild Things Are

We’re about to get a peek at the solar system’s final frontier.

The Six (foreground) awaits KLM decals for its role in the movie Bride Flight, having first gotten a new paint scheme.

The Six

If Lockheed’s Constellation was the hare, the Douglas DC-6 was the oh-so-reliable tortoise.

The sturdy B-24 that served as Churchill's personal transport.

Travels with Churchill

A World War II flight engineer dishes on the most “I” of the VIPs he flew with.

In NASA jargon, it’s called “egress” — the moment an astronaut leaves the hatch to begin a spacewalk (here, during shuttle mission STS-92 in 2000).

Step Outside

Shuck the spacecraft. 182 spacewalkers have.

Head games: Fierce concentration is what keeps airshow pilot Greg Poe from knocking his noggin during a low inverted pass. With equal focus, Poe and other aerobatic pilots control their aircraft even during the most chaotic tumbles.

Tumbling with the Stars

Today’s airshow performers do it gyroscopically.

“I am here to tell the truth,” Colonel Billy Mitchell told cheering American Legionnaires upon his arrival in Washington, D.C.

The Billy Mitchell Court-Martial

Courtroom sketches from aviation’s Trial of the Century.

A fire at Boston Logan International was started with Tekflame, but looks like — and acts like — conflagration of Jet A.

Fire Hazard

Where there’s smoke, there’s pollution. How can airport firefighters green it up?

Aerovironment’s Raven flies surveillance missions in Afghanistan and Iraq; it could do the same for homeland security.

Unmanned Traffic Jam

To the Federal Aviation Administration, civilian UAVs are the new barbarians at the gate.

Two decades after the scare, a zeppelin over the Thames was a fact of life. Here, the Graf Zeppelin, a commercial passenger ship, plies London’s skies.

Fear of Floating

Diagnosis: Collective Panic Attack. Cause: Count von Zeppelin.

While two 1,780-gallon drop tanks increased range, they also marred the bomber’s clean lines and produced drag.

The Dawn of Discipline

A B-47 pilot remembers when an airplane—and Curtis LeMay—stiffened the spine of the Strategic Air Command.

A paper fan shows an aerialist ascending.

In the Museum: Fashion Lighter Than Air

In the Museum: Fashion Lighter Than Air

The YB-49 demonstrated that putting jet engines on an airframe designed for piston engines made the aircraft faster but not better.

The Ride of My Life—on a Flying Wing

Test-flying the YB-49 in the late 1940s

Victory Through Air Power proved no victory for Walt Disney, but at least Seversky (right) got some screen time.

The Disney War Plan

The Disney War Plan

With data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor, scientists mapped Martian topography, with “D” the planned destination for the Phoenix lander.

Then & Now: Mars Travel Guide

Then & Now: Mars Travel Guide

John Glenn’s transcontinental F8U flight led to his selection as an astronaut.

John Glenn’s Project Bullet

John Glenn’s Project Bullet

“At the Wing Nuts Flying Circus airshow in Tarkio, Missouri, in July 2008, the black surfaces of a Cessna Bobcat [right] showed every drop of rain beading on its wings and engine cowling, telling the story of a rain delay." - Max Haynes

June July 2009 Sightings

June July 2009 Sightings

Eric Brown at the Berkshire Aviation Museum. (Homepage photo: His 1969 Royal Navy Portrait)

Guess How Many Airplanes Eric Brown Has Flown

The Guinness World Record holder has 487 different aircraft types on his life list.

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Nine new astronauts, and not a loser in the bunch

NASA’s newly named Astronaut Class of 2009 had better be a patient lot, because they probably won’t reach orbit anytime soon. But they can look forward to walking on the moon if and when we return there sometime in the 2020s. And even if we don’t, it must be pretty satisfying to be one of only nine…

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Topo Nuovo

A new topographic map, better than any.

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