Air & Space Magazine | Smithsonian Magazine

When your batteries are dead and solar power is only a distant memory, you’re going to need something else in your power pack.

July 2003

The Champ

From the decks of World War II aircraft carriers to today’s airshow circuit-the journey of a Royal Australian Navy Fairey Firefly.

July 2003

ZWRRWWWBRZR

That’s the sound of the prop-driven XF-84H, and it brought grown men to their knees. It didn’t fly all that great either

July 2003

The crew of STS-26 (l. to r. Dave Hilmers, Rick Hauck, Dick Covey, George "Pinky" Nelson, and Mike Lounge) with President George H.W. Bush after the landing at Edwards AFB in California, October 3, 1988.

Is It Worth the Risk?

The astronaut who commanded the first shuttle flight after Challenger explains his decision.

July 2003

A 1942 Fairchild PT-19 Army Air Forces trainer, now owned by Wayne Boggs in Plant City, Florida, wears a Sensenich wood prop, model W86RA-61, for authenticity, and the prop even has original Sensenich decals.

Good Wood

Wooden propellers are like Louisville Sluggers: The distance

July 2003

Home-Grown Simulators

Nine guys who have raised puttering in the garage to an art form.

July 2003

Exit Strategy

Target: Soviet weapons plant. Mission: Low-altitude bombing. Payload: Nuclear. Problem: Getting back.

May 2003

There's always something new to see at Oshkosh, like this prototype Boeing 787, on display in 2011.

How to Do Oshkosh

What to see, where to eat, who to talk to, and how to make the most of the great big airshow in the quiet little town.

May 2003

Silver Bullet

No airplane in the world could outshine Howard Hughes’ H-1 Racer—until Jim Wright built a copy of it.

May 2003

What’s a Scud?

The Scud missiles causing so much anxiety in the world today are Soviet designs that originated in a weapon developed by the Nazis.

May 2003

Bill Borucki’s Planet Search

Finding another Earth may be easier than the Kepler project’s long quest for funding.

May 2003

How the 747 Got Its Hump

In the evolution of the airplane, Darwinian principles have applied unevenly

May 2003

The Pentagon’s Flying Saucer Problem

The weapon system that could have made the enemy die laughing

May 2003

Miracle: A view of flight as it turns 100

Inventions seldom resemble the refined devices that evolve from them

March 2003

Orville Wright (seated at right, with Wilbur) wears what’s known as “the Chevron,” a thick mustache that covers the top of the upper lip.
“He had sported a reddish mustache since high school,” writes Tom Crouch in his 2003 book The Bishop’s Boys. “Once full, almost a handlebar, it was now clipped short, just bushy enough to cover a pair of very thin lips that turned up at one corner when he smiled. He was the enthusiast of the pair, ever on fire with new inventions, and the optimist as well, the one who always saw the brighter side.”
There was a (small) outcry when Orville didn't make The Art of Manliness’ list of “35 Manliest Mustaches of All Time.” The father of aviation lost out to a puppet—the Swedish Chef from "the Muppet Show"—and a cartoon character, Yosemite Sam.

Meeting Wilbur and Orville

To understand the brothers, one historian found that what you know is less important than who you know.

March 2003

The Original

How the 1903 Flyer got where it is today.

March 2003

The Fleet

The Flyer’s 18 powered cousins.

March 2003

The 1903 Wright Flyer

Find out why the world’s first controllable airplane was a bear to control.

March 2003

I Have Today Seen Wilbur Wright and his Great White Bird

The airplane debuted to rave reviews.

March 2003

Aviation’s Birth Certificate

When a private collection of Wright Company papers went public, we discovered that many of our notions about the Wrights’ business practices were wrong.

March 2003