What a brilliant art project, on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona from January 28 until May 31, 2012.
The Boneyard Project was first devised by Eric Firestone and organized by curator Carlo McCormick. What the project entailed was the revival of “nose art” which was popularized during the World War II era. It involves reinterpreting the body of an aircraft – a sort of airplane graffiti.
via The Flop Box.
The US Navy’s latest stealth drone, I love the sleek design, it really does look more like a space ship than a normal plane…
This isn’t the 62-foot wide X-47B’s first time in the air. Rather, it’s the first time it’s been able to pull up its landing gear and go into full “cruise mode”—an important step that gives the craft a chance to flex all of its sophisticated onboard navigational and sensor equipment. It’s still experimental right now, but if and when it’s ever deployed for real, it’ll be able to pack 4,500 pounds of weaponry, refuel in the air, and land at sea. That’s a lot of killing power in a robot—and all guided by someone far away.
via Gizmodo
Love the story behind the pilots of the SR-71 Blackbird…
One day, high above Arizona , we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,’ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,’ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing.
Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,’ ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘ Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.’ We did not hear another transmis sion on that frequency all the way to the coast.
via Gizmodo
This stunningly up-close photograph of a Dassault Rafale at Sion Air Base in Switzerland earned a place in our cover competition’s “best of the rest” category. Taken with a Canon EOS 500D by AirSpace photographer Niels_Boswinkel.
An astonishingly beautiful new short animation directed by Damian Nenow, produced by Platige Image.
Beautiful and a little bizarre…
The plane, from dream to finish, immediately captured the attention of the world—as much for its striking form as its faster-than-sound function. It’s fascinating to view the design process as a sort of gradient here, as engineers continued to narrow the plane’s silhouette into the lean, bird-like bullet that actually broke the sound barrier. The original, fat-headed prototype isn’t without its own sort of bizarre charms, I’ll admit.
via Gizmodo
