CURRENT ISSUE
September 2006
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Features
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Where the War Began
A new aviation museum preserves Pearl Harbor's past.
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Tomcat Tribute
The Navy's fearsome fighter retires.
The Grumman Cats
Just under nine lives that created a company legend.
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Persian Cats
How Iranian air crews, cut off from U.S. technical support, used the F-14 against Iraqi attackers.
Star Quality
How did we love the Tomcat? On the 20th anniversary of Top Gun, we count the ways.
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Stronger Than Dirt
Lunar explorers will have to battle an insidious enemy—dust.
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Show Me the Way to Go Home
Long before the Global Positioning System, pilots got from town to town by reading rooftops.
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Keep Watching the Ice
Meet the satellites bringing data to the discussion of global warming
Flameout
Why the fire in a perfectly healthy jet engine can die.
Swing Wings
It's all done with computers (and good old-fashioned hydraulics).
Departments
A Hard Day's Night
Cold war B-52s flew an icy northern route on alert for a Soviet missile strike.
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