The Strangest Aircraft Graveyards on Earth
Somewhere in the Arizona desert, 4,000 aircraft are parked in perfect rows under a sun that never stops shining. F-16s with their canopies sealed in white latex. B-52s guillotined into pieces under arms-reduction treaties, left in the open for satellites to verify....
The Rutan Voyager: Nine Days Without Landing
On 14 December 1986, a spindly aircraft made almost entirely of paper, glue, and carbon fibre wobbled down the runway at Edwards Air Force Base with so much fuel aboard that its wingtips dragged on the concrete, damaging the winglets. Nine days, three minutes, and 44...
Lufthansa 787 Probe: What Broke on a Four-Month-Old Dreamliner
Update: This article provides the latest on the investigation into the Lufthansa 787 nose gear collapse at Frankfurt Airport. For our initial coverage, see Brand-New Lufthansa 787 Drops on Its Nose. Germany’s Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation...
United’s First A321XLR Just Landed in America
On Wednesday evening, a factory-fresh Airbus slipped onto the runway at Tampa International after ten hours over the North Atlantic. No water-cannon salute, no press conference — United and Airbus didn’t even put out a statement. But make no mistake: the...
Emirates Guts Its 615-Seat Monster A380
For nine years, one subfleet of Emirates A380s held a record nobody else wanted: 615 seats, the densest passenger configuration ever flown on a commercial aircraft. Two classes, no frills up top — just row after row of economy stretching across both decks of the...
Inside a Wind Tunnel
Every fighter jet, every airliner, every helicopter rotor blade — every wing that has ever carried a human being into the sky — started its life in a room full of moving air. The wind tunnel is the most unglamorous, most essential tool in aviation. It is where guesses...
De Havilland Comet: First, Beautiful, Deadly
The de Havilland Comet was beautiful. Sleek, four-engined, impossibly quiet compared to the propliners it replaced. On 2 May 1952, BOAC Comet G-ALYP departed London for Johannesburg — the world’s first scheduled jet airline service. Passengers sipped champagne...
Nine Wings on Lago Maggiore: The Caproni Ca.60
It is January 1921, and a crowd has gathered on the shore of Lago Maggiore near Sesto Calende. They are staring at a houseboat. Or a cathedral. Or perhaps a floating lumber yard that has sprouted wings — nine of them — and eight bellowing American engines. The thing...
Why Every Modern Airliner Looks the Same
Stand at any major airport in the world and watch the planes come and go. A Boeing 737 lands. An Airbus A320 takes off. A Dreamliner taxis past an A350. And unless you know exactly where to look — the nose shape, the winglet style, the engine nacelle profile...
When Samsung Owned the World’s Largest Helicopter
When you hear the name Samsung, you think of smartphones, televisions, memory chips, and maybe washing machines. You probably do not think of the world’s largest production helicopter — a 56-tonne Soviet-designed behemoth with an eight-blade rotor spanning 32...
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