Nell'estate del 1986, il velivolo più grande del mondo si trovava su una rampa a Lakehurst, nel New Jersey, a circa un chilometro e duecento metri dal luogo in cui l'Hindenburg era bruciato. Era lungo 105 metri. Si trattava di un dirigibile della Marina con quattro elicotteri imbullonati al di sotto. Il 1° luglio sollevò un...
On 24 November 1961, a machine that looked like somebody had bolted two helicopters to the wingtips of a transport aircraft lifted 16.4 tonnes to two and a half kilometres, set six world records in one flight, and landed thirty minutes later with its fuel warning...
Every fighter jet has the same fatal dependency: a long strip of concrete. Destroy the runway and the aircraft is a very expensive ornament. In the early 1950s, with NATO planners assuming their handful of airfields in Germany would be atomised in the opening hours of...
Il documento più importante di questa storia è un promemoria. Fu scritto il 27 giugno 1972 da un ingegnere di nome Dan Applegate, era lungo alcune pagine e diceva chiaramente cosa sarebbe successo. Venti mesi dopo accadde. Trecentoquarantasei persone morirono in un...
Qualcuno ha messo quattro cuscini di gommapiuma su una bocchetta di riscaldamento. È da lì che inizia. Non con un missile, non con un caccia sovietico, non con un cedimento strutturale catastrofico. Tre cuscini rivestiti di stoffa riposti su una bocchetta di aria calda sotto un sedile prima del decollo, e un quarto...
At about seven thousand five hundred feet over the swamp forests of the Soviet Far East, a young woman clipped on a parachute, opened a hatch in the glazed nose of a bomber, and jumped out into freezing air because the alternative was to be crushed when the aircraft...
Due compagnie di bandiera che collaborano discretamente dai primi anni '60 hanno firmato un nuovo accordo a Seul il 3 settembre. Di per sé, questo non desterebbe quasi alcuna attenzione. È la tempistica a renderlo interessante. Tra quattordici settimane, Asiana Airlines cesserà di esistere. Il 17...
Two Californian companies announced this week that they are going to build an autonomous aircraft together. They did not say what it is, who it is for, what it costs, or when it flies. Ordinarily that would be a press release to ignore. This one is worth a second...
The video is short and, if you have any imagination at all, deeply unpleasant. A Mi-8 descends towards a public highway on Sakhalin Island, main rotor blades sweeping low over a truck that is still driving along the road. Then the helicopter goes off the road and into...
An aircraft with three quarters the wingspan of an Airbus A320 and the weight of two adults took off from a runway in Saxony-Anhalt on 2 September, flew a wide, careful circuit for seventy minutes, and landed again. It never went higher than 180 metres. That is not a...
The Royal Air Force flies several aircraft that it cannot refuel. This is not a secret, and it is not new, but it is faintly absurd, and it has finally produced an answer. In a written answer on 2 September, Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke...
Russia is taking its export fighter to the Egyptian coast next week, and it is bringing something it has never shown anyone. Rostec, the Russian state defence conglomerate, says the Su-57E will fly at the El Alamein International Airshow from 8 to 10 September...
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