When a Fishing Boat Met a Fighter Jet — and Changed Supersonic Flight Forever
NASA’s X-59 QueSST aircraft, the direct descendant of the SSBD programme, broke the sound barrier for the first time in June 2026 — designed to produce a gentle thump instead of a thunderclap. (NASA) If you have ever seen a photo of the Shaped Sonic Boom...
The Air and Space Museum Turns 50 — and Opens Five New Galleries Today
Fifty years ago today — on 1 July 1976 — the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum opened its doors on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It was a bicentennial gift to a nation that had just landed men on the Moon, won a Space Race, and built an...
Dassault Falcon 10X: The Widest Cabin in Business Aviation Takes Flight
On 10 March 2026, more than 400 customers, partners, and aviation executives gathered in a new production hall at Bordeaux-Mérignac as Dassault Aviation pulled the curtain on the Falcon 10X — the largest, longest-ranged, and most technologically advanced business jet...
S7’s Boeing 737 Slides Into Siberian Mud — Days After Banning Co-Pilots From Landing
An S7 Airlines Boeing 737-800 slid off the end of the runway at Mirny Airport in Russia’s Sakha Republic on June 30, coming to rest in mud beyond the paved surface. All 173 passengers and six crew members walked away without injury. But the incident — classified...
The Most Expensive Aircraft That Never Made It
Share this story Every aircraft on this list looked, on paper, like a brilliant idea. Each had serious money, serious engineering and serious ambition behind it. And each ended the same way: cancelled, scrapped or quietly buried after burning through a fortune,...
The $13 Billion Helicopter That Never Flew a President
Share this story There is expensive, and then there is “costs more than Air Force One.” The VH-71 Kestrel, the helicopter that was supposed to become the next Marine One, somehow managed the second one. By the time anyone added it all up, the bill for 28...
Alaska and Hawaiian Hit 150 Starlink Jets
Share this story The Wi-Fi on your next Alaska or Hawaiian flight may now be faster than the connection in your living room. Alaska Air Group says roughly 150 of its aircraft are flying with SpaceX’s Starlink internet — and for a lot of passengers, it is...
Lufthansa’s €600 Million Robot Cargo Hub Opens
Share this story At Frankfurt Airport, the busiest cargo gateway in Europe, Lufthansa Cargo has switched on the first piece of a €600 million bet on automation. The centrepiece is a warehouse 42 metres tall that, for the most part, runs itself.The new fully...
Two Drones, Two New York Airports, One Week
Share this story United Flight 1513, a Boeing 737-700 inbound from Key West with 106 people on board, is on final approach to Newark Liberty on a Friday afternoon when the crew sees a small circular object — perhaps three feet across — flash past about a...
The Call-Sign Mix-Up That Stopped Flight 308
Share this story It is just after six o’clock on a Saturday evening at Miami International Airport. American Airlines Flight 308, an Airbus A319 loaded with passengers bound for Bermuda, has been cleared onto Runway 8 and is beginning to roll. Then the crew sees...
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