Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Air Transportation

Why Aren’t There Electric Airplanes Yet? It Comes Down to Batteries.

Batteries need to get lighter and more efficient before we use them to power energy-guzzling airplanes

A Boeing 747 takes flight.

Traveling the World Was Never the Same Once the Boeing 747 Debuted

Wave goodbye to the beloved jet that took us to new heights

In July 1942, the "Lost Squadron," a unit consisting of two B-17 bomber planes and six P-38 fighters, landed on a remote Greenlandic glacier

Cool Finds

The Wreck of a WWII Fighter Plane Will Be Unearthed from a Greenland Glacier

The P-38 fighter is a member of the famed Lost Squadron, which landed on ice caps after running afoul of poor weather in July 1942

Sean D. Tucker says the Oracle Challenger III is "truly a magic carpet—just a dream to fly."

This One-of-a-Kind Biplane Embodies the Thrill of Airshow Flight

The Air and Space Museum’s new “We All Fly” gallery will encourage imaginations to soar

Trending Today

Remains of Tuskegee Airman Found in Austria

Researchers and archaeologists have recovered the remains of distinguished flyer Lawrence E. Dickson whose plane crashed during a mission in 1944

The Harmony is an all-electric vehicle designed by Texas A&M engineers.

Personal Flying Machines of the Future Won’t Look Much Like Jet Packs

Judging from the GoFly competition, they’re much more likely to resemble flying motorbikes

Fifty Years Ago, Airline Diplomacy Sought to Bring the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Closer Together

Hopes for a Cold War détente were sky high when the first American and Soviet flights took off 50 years ago

Airbus and Zodiac Aerospace have teamed up on lower-deck modules like this one, with sleeping berths.

Seven Airplane Innovations That Could Change How We Travel

In-flight virtual reality entertainment? Bunk beds in the cargo hold? These innovations may be the future of flight.

New Research

Your Summer Vacation Is a Carbon Emissions Nightmare

A new study of tourism supply chains shows that all those flights, zip-line tours and foie gras produce 8 percent of global carbon emissions

Would you be – or feel – safer if one of these people were a robot?

Would You Trust Drone Software to Pilot Your Flight?

Drones have already flown more hours than humans have. Now companies are looking to apply that data to commercial flight

How 9/11 Drastically Altered U.S. Flight Security

Two months after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government created the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA

Future of Energy

Greek Yogurt Fuels Your Morning…And Your Plane?

Researchers have developed a method for turning yogurt whey into bio-oil, which could potentially be processed into biofuel for planes

Doctors Once Prescribed Terrifying Plane Flights to “Cure” Deafness

Stunt pilots, including a young Charles Lindbergh, took willing participants to the skies for (sometimes) death-defying rides

The airship Italia

Flying to the North Pole in an Airship Was Easy. Returning Wouldn’t Be So Easy

It would take an international icon to toss aside a bitter rivalry to help a crew in need

Robots Will Lead Passengers to Their Gate at Seoul’s Airport

Today the humble shipping container is everywhere: 10 million of them arrived at U.S. ports in 2016 alone.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Now-Ubiquitous Shipping Container Was an Idea Before Its Time

North Carolina trucker Malcom McLean needed to invent not just the container, but the cranes and ships needed to move them

In the war years, Greyhounds were crowded with travelers, leading planners to look at a new technology: helicopters.

In a Fit of 1940s Optimism, Greyhound Proposed a Fleet of Helicopter Buses

“Greyhound Skyways” would have turned major cities into bustling helicopter hubs

Researchers discovered the effect in hamsters while trying to find a cure for jet lag in people.

Another Use for Viagra: Curing Hamster Jet Lag

It works—but only for hamsters (and maybe people) traveling east

Fulcrum BioEnergy converts household trash into biofuel for airplanes.

Future of Energy

Could Garbage Fuel Airplanes?

Fulcrum BioEnergy wants to divert trash from landfills and create cheap green energy

The taxi of the future doesn't drive—it flies.

Cool Finds

Dubai Will Get Self-Flying Taxis This Year

Bypass traffic with the taxi of the future

Page 4 of 8