Thunderstorm-generated wind shear was poorly understood until three major airline accidents compelled meteorologists and […]
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The First Weather Hunters Put Their Lives on the Line
Project Thunderstorm’s pilots flew in the worst conditions imaginable to gather data on the life cycle of thunderstorms.
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Marathons in the Air
There’s a good reason why the flight endurance record has stood since 1959: Who wants to spend more than 65 days crammed in a lightplane?
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Web Update: Spirit of St. Louis 2
The 91st anniversary of Charles Lindbergh’s record-making transatlantic flight has come and gone while […]
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Spirit of St. Louis 2
If all goes according to plan, a replica of Charles Lindbergh’s historic Spirit of […]
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The Bloody 100th
The Eighth Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group earned its nickname the hard way in the brutal skies over Germany.
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Percival Spencer’s Air Car: Everyman’s Amphibian
Percival Spencer’s 1941 Air Car design formed the template for two generations of amphibious […]
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Punching Out: Evolution of the Ejection Seat
The faster airplanes go, the faster we need to get out of them.
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The Man Who Almost Beat the Wrights Into the Air
More than 100 years ago, Samuel Langley’s team of specialists from the Smithsonian Institution proved to a small group of astonished observers that powered flight was possible. But they still had to prove that their Aerodrome could safely carry a man into the sky.
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Death on the High Road: The Schweinfurt Raid
In October 1943, Eighth Air Force bombers flew through hell to bomb Schweinfurt, Germany. For them, Schweinfurt meant only one thing: a killer town that was one of the most savagely defended targets along the aerial high road above Hitler’s Third Reich.