Aircraft
What Happened to Amelia Earhart?
On the morning of July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, New Guinea, on one of the last legs in their historic attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Their next destination was Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean, some 2,500 miles ...read more
Voyager completes global flight
After nine days and four minutes in the sky, the experimental aircraft Voyager lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing the first nonstop flight around the globe on one load of fuel. Piloted by Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, Voyager was made mostly of ...read more
Newly-Discovered Blueprints May Allow Legendary WWII Plane to Fly Again
It’s been called one of the greatest planes of World War II—and it might be making a comeback. The twin-engine wooden Mosquito, designed by British aviation whiz Geoffrey de Havilland, was one of the lightest and fastest airplanes in operation when it entered service in 1941. ...read more
7 Things You May Not Know About Howard Hughes
1. Hughes was a millionaire at 18. The 1901 discovery of oil at Spindletop, near Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry, and drew Hughes’ father, Howard Sr., a Harvard dropout, to East Texas to try his luck as a wildcatter. After becoming frustrated by ...read more
Malaysia Airlines flight vanishes with more than 200 people aboard
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members, loses contact with air traffic control less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur then veers off course and disappears. Most of the plane, and everyone on board, are never seen ...read more
6 Famous WWI Fighter Aces
1. Manfred von Richthofen The British called him the “Red Knight”; the French, the “Diable Rouge” (the “Red Devil”); but German pilot Manfred von Richthofen is best remembered by the immortal sobriquet the “Red Baron.” Born into a family of Prussian nobles in 1892, Richthofen ...read more
Can Drones Revolutionize Archaeology?
Archaeologists are increasingly discovering that the best way to find out what is hidden below the ground is to take to the skies. According to an article in the May 2014 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, researchers last summer employed a pilotless aircraft to ...read more
Airplane Food, From Sandwiches to Smoked Salmon
These days, when we think of the words “airline food,” it hardly conjures up a vision of gourmet cuisine. We’re more likely to think of stale crackers, a bag of party mix or those ever-present peanuts. But once upon a time, airplane food was actually delicious (and you didn’t ...read more
Wiley Post Makes History
Born in a tiny east Texas town in November 1898, Wiley Post moved frequently with his cotton-farming family throughout the region, finally settling in Oklahoma when he was 5. An indifferent student, Post struggled academically, abandoning school after the seventh grade. A chance ...read more
The Hunt for L’Oiseau Blanc
Nungesser, the pilot of L’Oiseau Blanc, was an aristocrat and French flying ace; Coli, his navigator, was a mariner and former infantryman who had lost one of his eyes in an earlier injury. The two men were competing for the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 reward offered by a New York ...read more
In Connecticut, Wright Brothers No Longer “First in Flight”
Just after midnight on June 5, the Connecticut Senate passed House Bill No. 6671, which states that “The Governor shall proclaim a date certain in each year as Powered Flight Day to honor the first powered flight by [the Wright brothers] Gustave Whitehead and to commemorate the ...read more
Wiley Post flies solo around the world
American aviator Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field in New York, having flown solo around the world in 7 days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes. He was the first aviator to accomplish the feat. Post, instantly recognizable by the patch he wore over one eye, began the journey on ...read more
Flight 800 explodes over Long Island
Shortly after takeoff from New York’s Kennedy International Airport, a TWA Boeing 747 jetliner bound for Paris explodes over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 230 people aboard. Flight 800 had just received clearance to initiate a climb to cruise altitude when it exploded without ...read more
Palestinians hijack German airliner
Four Palestinians hijack a Lufthansa airliner and demand the release of 11 imprisoned members of Germany’s Baader-Meinhof terrorist group, also known as the Red Army Faction. The Red Army Faction was a group of ultra-left revolutionaries who terrorized Germany for three decades, ...read more
First Allied jet-propelled aircraft flies
On May 15, 1941, the jet-propelled Gloster-Whittle E 28/39 aircraft flies successfully over Cranwell, England, in the first test of an Allied aircraft using jet propulsion. The aircraft’s turbojet engine, which produced a powerful thrust of hot air, was devised by Frank Whittle, ...read more
First commercial jet makes test flight
On July 27, 1949, the world’s first jet-propelled airliner, the British De Havilland Comet, makes its maiden test-flight in England. The jet engine would ultimately revolutionize the airline industry, shrinking air travel time in half by enabling planes to climb faster and fly ...read more
Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” die in a plane crash
Rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashes in Iowa a few minutes after takeoff from Mason City on a flight headed for Moorhead, Minnesota. Investigators blamed the ...read more
Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan crosses the Atlantic
Douglas Corrigan, the last of the early glory-seeking fliers, takes off from Floyd Bennett field in Brooklyn, New York, on a flight that would finally win him a place in aviation history. Eleven years earlier, American Charles A. Lindbergh had become an international celebrity ...read more
U.S. warship downs Iranian passenger jet
In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft. Two missiles were fired from the American warship—the aircraft was hit, and all 290 people aboard were killed. The attack came near ...read more
The Concorde makes its final flight
The supersonic Concorde jet makes its last commercial passenger flight, traveling at twice the speed of sound from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport on October 24, 2003. The British Airways jet carried 100 passengers, including ...read more
Soviets test supersonic airliner
The Soviet Union’s TU-144 supersonic airliner makes its first flight, several months ahead of the Anglo-French Concorde. The TU-144 so closely resembled the Concorde that the Western press dubbed it the “Konkordski.” In 1962, 15 years after U.S. pilot Chuck Yeager first broke the ...read more
First U.S. air combat mission begins
Eight Curtiss “Jenny” planes of the First Aero Squadron take off from Columbus, New Mexico, in the first combat air mission in U.S. history. The First Aero Squadron, organized in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, was on a support mission for the 7,000 U.S. troops who ...read more
Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to make solo, nonstop transatlantic flight
Five years to the day that American aviator Charles Lindbergh became the first pilot to accomplish a solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, female aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first pilot to repeat the feat, landing her plane in Ireland after flying across the ...read more
Amelia Earhart flies from Hawaii to California
In the first flight of its kind, American aviatrix Amelia Earhart departs Wheeler Field in Honolulu, Hawaii, on a solo flight to North America. Hawaiian commercial interests offered a $10,000 award to whoever accomplished the flight first. The next day, after traveling 2,400 ...read more