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Air & Space Magazine

Adding an aircraft engine to his motorcycle made Glenn Curtiss the "fastest man alive" in 1907.

1907 Curtiss Motorcycle

Adding an aircraft engine to his motorcycle made Glenn Curtiss the “fastest man alive” in 1907.

Space station astronauts get an odd view of the full Moon.

LEO Moon

Space station astronauts get an odd view of the full Moon.

Tony Jannus, the world's first airline pilot.

Airline Pioneer

Tony Jannus, the world’s first airline pilot.

A secretive rocket company unveils its new vehicle.

Goddard’s Coming Out Party

A secretive rocket company unveils its new vehicle.

On the edge of a Martian crater.

The Cliffs of Cape St. Mary

On the edge of a Martian crater.

Air racers enter the "track" in close formation, but crossing the finish line, there's always a Number One...and Number Two.

The Physics of Winning

What Reno air race winners know that losers don’t.

The C was the first B-25 with a navigator's blister (behind the cockpit).

Lake Murray’s Mitchell

For a B-25, it was a short flight and a 62-year layover.

Wildcats were dispatched in divisions of four to protect their aircraft carriers and other ships from Japan's medium bombers. Southerland led a division from the USS Saratoga on August 7, 1942, and was joined by another. Of the eight pilots, five returned.

Mystery on Guadalcanal

In the wreckage of a Wildcat lay clues to what happened in a famous World War II dogfight.

Heathrow's new control tower is located near Terminal Three. The control room, mounted on a steel mast, is five stories high and weighs more than 1,000 tons.

475,000 Takeoffs and Landings a Year

The Summer Games will bring 4,000 additional aircraft to London’s airports. Find out what it takes to keep Heathrow running smoothly on a normal day.

The Masters of Disaster ratcheted up the drama with a jet-powered Waco UPF-7 biplane and a Chevy truck.

Extreme Airshow

A fellow performer remembers the act that pushed too far.

The Soviets' first atomic bomb test in 1949, in background, prompted tense aerial duels between (top to bottom) Soviet Tu-95 bombers, F-101s, and F-102s. Bottom: The blast effects of a one megaton bomb exploding over Pittsburgh.

The Thin Aluminum Line

Supersonic airplanes and a screen of radar stood ready during the cold war to avert the end of the world.

The sculptural relief on the terminal's façade traces the progress of aviation and its influence on society.

Then & Now

No more New Orleans cover-up

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Catapult Test Video

The electromagnetic launcher in action.

Steam-powered catapults, expensive and difficult to maintain, are operating near their limits and will not be able to accommodate heavier aircraft planned for the future.

How Things Work: Electromagnetic Catapults

From zero to 150 in less than a second.

Scott hopes the duct tape reduces excess cooling airflow to the engine.

Build This Airplane for 10 Grand

How to get from the dollar store to the runway

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Moonbound

Who isn’t planning a lunar mission these days?

"Glacier Girl" at the Nellis AFB Airshow, November 2006.

Glacier Girl, Interrupted

Sixty-five years after its first attempt, the restored Lightning should finally reach England next year.

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The “Father of the 747”

Joe Sutter talks about the famed airliner’s birth

Multiple images of Mars taken on a single afternoon in November 2006 by the Mars Observer Camera on the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. The white areas are frost.

MGS, R.I.P.

A round of applause for one of the most productive planetary missions ever.

A frame from the 1942 Japanese film "Battle of Pearl Harbor and the Malay Coast" showing a Nakajima B5N1 "Kate" bomber taking off from an aircraft carrier.

Are there any photos of Japan’s World War II “invasion fleet?”

How to hide thousands of airplanes.

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