Share this story An aeroplane has it easy. Point it down a runway, let the wings do the work, and a few simple controls take care of the rest. A helicopter has to make its own wind. Its wings are the rotor blades, whirling overhead at a few hundred revolutions per...
Share this story America’s air traffic controllers are finally getting the raise Congress approved for them in April. On Friday, 16 October, the US Department of Transportation and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) announced a deal that...
Share this story Airliners are usually broken up for parts when they are old, tired and worth more as spares than as aeroplanes. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 is none of those things. It is one of the two most in-demand narrowbodies on the planet, with airlines waiting years...
Share this story The car drove up a ramp that curled over until it was hanging upside down, stuck to the concrete by its own suction. Then it ran off the end into thin air, fired its thrusters, flipped itself upright and settled onto its wheels. That was the opening...
Share this story Somewhere over the Sonoran Desert there is a yellow and blue two-seater turning in the evening light, and the person who owns it also built it. Not assembled it from a crate over a weekend. Built it, over several years, in a garage, with a rivet gun....
Share this story A Reaper does not sneak. It orbits. For twenty hours at a stretch it flies long, patient racetracks over somebody else’s country at the speed of a fast train, hauling a sensor turret and a pair of Hellfires, in full view of anything with a radar...
Share this story Behind the two pilot seats on almost every airliner there is a small fold-down seat, sometimes two. It is called the jumpseat, and it is one of the most coveted seats in aviation. Off-duty pilots ride it to get to work. FAA inspectors use it to check...
Share this story On 14 October 2026, SWISS flew its Airbus A340 HB-JMB for the last time: one hour from Zurich to Twente in the Netherlands, where it will be taken apart. It is one of hundreds of airliners that reach the end of their lives every year. Most passengers...
Share this story Air traffic controllers spend their whole careers talking to cockpits they almost never get to sit in. That is about to change again. On Wednesday, 14 October, the FAA announced that it is bringing back its Flight Deck Training program, which lets...
Share this story There was no press release and no farewell party. On Wednesday, 14 October, SWISS Airbus A340-300 HB-JMB took off from Zurich as flight LX5202, rocked its wings three times in salute, and flew for about an hour to Twente airport near Enschede in the...
Share this story Look at an SR-71 head-on and the most striking thing is the pair of sharp cones in the front of its engine nacelles. They are not decoration. At Mach 3 those spikes, and the doors and ducts behind them, did a job no jet engine of the time could do on...
Share this story Few things in aviation look as dramatic as a Concorde going around: the needle nose drooped, the delta wing pitched up, four Olympus engines spooling up, and the whole aircraft climbing away from the runway it was about to land on. A clip of exactly...
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