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Air & Space Magazine

Iranian F-14 pilots were part of an air force that endured 12-hour combat air patrols, a brutal regime, and a ruthless enemy.

Persian Cats

How Iranian air crews, cut off from U.S. technical support, used the F-14 against Iraqi attackers.

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The Grumman Cats

Just under nine lives that created a company legend.

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Star Quality

How did we love the Tomcat? On the 20th anniversary of Top Gun, we count the ways.

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Drama in the Cockpit

The last words of doomed airline crews make for riveting theater.

Celebrating the RCCA's 2006 National Combat Contest.

Fight Club

Model airplanes battle each other for dominance and acclaim.

Tales of the F-14

More recollections of the fabled fighter

Artist’s conception of several solar system bodies shown to scale: Earth, Pluto and its moon Charon (far left), Eris (top), Eris, and Earth’s moon. Which one doesn’t fit in?

Planethood: A Debate

Two leading scientific experts consider what to call Pluto in the wake of a controversial IAU finding.

Cassini views Enceladus in July 2005.

Mission to Enceladus

NASA summer students plot a course for Saturn’s mysterious ice world.

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Tomcat Photo Gallery

Tomcat Photo Gallery

DoD photo by Master Sgt. Keith Baxter, USAF

The Raptor Rocks

F-22s treat airshow fans to a maneuverability demo.

The roof of the building chosen to host El Paso's air marker required some ingenuity in siting the letters.

Show Me the Way to Go Home

Long before the Global Positioning System, pilots got from town to town by reading rooftops.

Sixty-five years ago, the island was burning during a two-hour aerial assault that drew the United States into World War II.

Where the War Began

A new aviation museum preserves Pearl Harbor’s past.

Lindbergh for Sale

Stanley King’s memorabilia collection.

Space Shuttle Atlantis is prepared for launch, July 2006.

Can the Shuttle Make It to 2010?

We ask a panel of experts to handicap NASA’s odds of success.

Radio-controlled models rest between rounds.

Radio Clash

Do model airplanes ever fight each other?

Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 sat on the ocean floor for 38 years before being recovered in 1999.

Home on the Plains

Gus Grissom’s Mercury capsule settles down in Kansas.

Slight tweaks to SMART-1's orbit over the course of the summer allowed engineers to direct its impact point.

Moonwhackers

Europe’s SMART-1 is the first of several lunar crashes on the drawing board.

Cold war B-52s flew an icy northern route on alert for a Soviet missile strike.

A Hard Day’s Night

Cold war B-52s flew an icy northern route on alert for a Soviet missile strike.

Would Patent #1,665,114 fly? Only in Tesla's dreams, say those in the know.

Nikola Tesla’s Curious Contrivance

“You should not be at all surprised if someday you see me fly from New York to Colorado Springs in a contrivance which will resemble a gas stove and weigh almost as much.”— Nikola Tesla, 1913

A KC-135 Stratotanker refuels an F-16 Fighting Falcon in the skies over New Mexico. (DoD photo by Senior Airman Jeffrey Allen, USAF)

Gas Guzzlers

The Air Force looks for economy at the pump.

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