aviation

Why a Spy Balloon Inspires Such Fear and Fascination

by Alison Byerly

The ambiguity of our response to the Chinese spy balloon reflects the fact that balloons have always combined elements of technological innovation, spectacle, and surveillance. Today, they may be an unsettling visible symblol of the vast, mostly invisible, surveillance we live under. 

Last Pearl Harbor Fighter Plane that Still Flies a Historical Highlight at American Heritage Museum in Hudson

A series of accidents allowed a P-40 fighter plane to survive the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; after crashing in service a month later, the plane lay on a Hawaiian mountainside until 1985, when it was restored to flight condition using parts from other planes. It is now an attraction at the American Heritage Museum in Hudson, Massachusetts.

Flight Status

by Sarah Rose

During the Vietnam War, the women who served on special Pan Am flights flew into a war zone to transport soldiers. Why has their role been forgotten?

'The Women with Silver Wings' Review: Top-Flight History of Female Aviators

A review of historian Katherine Sharp Landdeck’s new book "The Women With Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II."

Give Harriet Quimby Her Due

Trailblazing aviator Harriet Quimby has never received the level of recognition she deserves in the American pantheon, despite her extraordinary life.

World War II-Era Planes at Cape Cod Airfield Vandalized, Sustain at Least $15,000 in Damages

The airport added, “Doing this to an aircraft is the equivalent to pushing down a World War II veteran just to watch him fall.”

Don’t Feel Sorry for the Airlines

by Tim Wu

Before providing airlines any assistance, we must demand that they change how they treat their customers and employees.

Landing at Dulles Airport, I Encountered a Case Study in How to Spread a Pandemic

by Cheryl Bernard

Upon landing, I spent three hours in a jammed immigration hall trying to decide which analogy fit better: the ignorant Middle Ages during the plague years or the most chaotic airport in the least developed country.

Boeing Brings 100 Years Of History To Its Fight To Restore Its Reputation

Analysts expect Boeing to weather this storm. The company has certainly survived other rough patches in its century-long history.

Fierce, feared and female: The WWII pilots known as the ‘Night Witches’

Their planes were rickety crop-dusters, but the Soviet women turned them into killing machines.

Sobering Stats: 15,000 U.S. Airmen Killed in Training in WW II

The B-24 bomber was nicknamed the “flying coffin” due to its many problems.

Revisiting the Wright Brothers and the History of Human Flight

by Ken Lawrence

What William Hazelgrove's Wright Brothers, Wrong Story gets wrong about the Wright brothers.

Women Couldn’t Fly Without A Man — Until She Changed Things

Magnolia’s Lynn Rippelmeyer tells how fate — in the form of some bad weather — allowed her and her mentor to make aviation history.

Women Were Pioneers of Flight

So why aren’t any airports named for them?

World War I photo hoax the very model of mischief

A biplane pivots out of control with smoke billowing from the fuselage. The World War I pilot, who has evidently bailed out, can be seen hurtling towards the ground.Another black and white photo of a dogfight shows British and German aircraft twisting to avoid an almost inevitable midair collision....The photos attracted enormous interest as there were very few images of aerial combat at the time.But it was not until 1984 that they were definitively debunked by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington when archivists realised Mrs Cockburn-Lange was actually Betty Archer, wife of Wesley David Archer, a model maker in the film industry. He had painstakingly made models of all the aircraft and superimposed them on aerial backgrounds....

Forgotten aviation pioneer’s aircraft to take to the air once more

If it had not been for a crushingly bad stroke of luck, Christopher Carlyon would likely be remembered as one of aviation’s greatest pioneers.As it was, the colliery worker from south Wales became one of history’s nearly men when a storm smashed his experimental aircraft before its first major flight, robbing him of a place in the record books.More than 100 years on though, his biplane is being built from scratch finally to take to the skies – or at least 10ft off the ground – and ensure Carlyon gets the recognition he deserves....

Were the Wright Brothers runners-up?

Were we wrong about the Wright Brothers?That's the shocking claim by Australian aviation historian John Brown, who told FoxNews.com he has photographic proof that German immigrant Gustav Whitehead flew over Connecticut in 1901 -- Orville and Wilbur were second.“Two years, four months, and three days before the Wright brothers, somebody else flew first,” Brown said via phone from Germany. "It’s really a radical revision of the history of aviation."Even “Jane’s: All the World’s Aircraft” -- widely considered the essential bible of flight -- has acknowledged Whitehead's achievement and Brown's research. With the headline "justice delayed is justice denied," editor-in-chief Paul Jackson wrote about the early aviator's story for the overview to the newly released 100th edition of the reference guide, published online on Saturday....