Military Plans Tests in Search for an Alternative to Oil-Based Fuel

When an F-16 lights up its afterburners, it consumes nearly 28 gallons of fuel per minute. No wonder, then, that of all the fuel the United States government uses each year, the Air Force accounts> for more than half. The Air Force may not be in any danger of suffering inconveniences from scarce or expensive fuel, but it has begun looking for a way to power its jets on something besides conventional fuel.

Su-27s for Mexico

The Mexican navy is undergoing a significant expansion to its aviation element responding to concerns over its ability to protect key areas such as the Bay of Campeche oil field. Nearing the end of a five-year program to modernise its current fixed and rotary wing assets, the service is looking to increase the sophistication air defence and maritime strike tasks.

Mexico’s naval aviation authorities examined options such as the possible procurement of Aero Vodochody’s L-159, but soon set their sights on a more capable platform, recently examining Saab’s Gripen and Sukhoi’s Su-27 as possible candidates.

The deputy head of Mexico’s naval ministry, Armando Sanchez Moreno, recently announded that Mexico’s navy intends to purchase Su-27 airplanes for the purpose of forming the first strategic air control element in the country.

He stated that Su-27 fighters have a number of advantages and that it is planned to locate the first Mexican Sukhoy fighter element at a base in the region of Campeche.

Mexico's navy also recently acquired E-2 Hawkeye from Israel.

For some years I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. . . . I have been trying to arrange my affairs in such a way that I can devote my entire time for a few months to experiment in this field.

When Wilbur Wright wrote those words to Octave Chanute on May 13, 1900, he initiated a correspondence of more than two hundred letters, part of a rich historical record fo the careers of two brothers who changed the world. Wilbur and his younger brother Orville shared the belief that man could fly, and together they worked to solve the mystery that had eluded experimenters for centuries.

Milestones of Flight: 5/13

2005 - First flight Dassault Falcon 900DX.

The 900DX's excellent thrust-to-weight ratio will enable customers to easily use smaller airports previously inaccessible to large-cabin aircraft. Also, the 900DX will burn nearly 40% less fuel than other large-cabin aircraft.

1980 - First flight of the An-3 agricultural airplane by S.A. Gorbik and P.D. Ignatenko. photos.

1948 - Kathleen Kennedy Hartington, John F. Kennedy's sister, was one of ten people killed when their Skyways de Havilland Dove 1 plane crashed in the Ardeche mountains during a storm. Kathleen had been flying to a family reunion on the Riviera.

1940 - The first successful free flight of a true helicopter is made by Igor I. Sikorsky’s single-rotor VS-300.

1927 - Colonial Air Transport offers a sightseeing trip from Teterboro, New Jersey, around New York City for just $8, less than the price of a similar trip in a taxi.

1913 - First flight of the first four-engine airplane. With a wingspan of 89 ft. and a gross weight around 9,000 lb., Mr. Sikorsky's S-21 was simply The Grand. When it first flew on May 13, 1913, Igor Sikorsky became the world's first four-engine pilot.

Milestones of Flight: 5/12

1968 - Lt. Col. Joe M. Jackson lands a C-123 Provider under heavy fire in South Vietnam to rescue personnel, earning the Medal of Honor.

1964 -American flyer Joan Merriam Smith lands her Pipe Apache to complete the second round-the-world flight by a woman; she took 56 days.


1963 - American flyer Betty Miller lands in Brisbane, Australia, to complete the first transpacific flight by a woman; she left Oakland, California, on April 30.

1949 - The USSR ends its blockade of Berlin, Germany; the Western airlift continues to build up supplies in the city.

1936 - First flight of the prototype Messerschmitt Bf 110.


1927 - First flights of the A.S. Yakovlev AIR-1 and the K.A. Kalinin K-2.

Maiden Flight of a Model B-52

It took over 2 years to build. It has a wing span of about 22 feet and takes multiple pilots, as there are so many things to control. Watch the movie of the maiden flight.

Ansari X Prize Founder: First Female 'Space Tourist'?

Anousheh Ansari (of Ansari X-Prize) has been accepted by Russia's Space Agency as the first female space tourist. She will fly to the International Space Station in spring 2007.

Milestones of Flight: 5/11

1996 - All 110 people on board a ValuJet DC-9 were killed in the crash caused by a fire generated from oxygen generators lacking safety caps, which were being illegally transported aboard the plane. The pilot, Captain Candi Kubek, was the first woman commercial jetliner captain to die in a U.S. plane crash.

1938 - First flight of the N.N. Polikarpov VIT-2 "aerial tank destroyer."

1927 - Charles Lindbergh lands his new Ryan airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, in St. Louis after a record non-stop overnight flight from San Diego of 14 hours, 25 minutes.

1926 - The first airship flight over the North Pole and the first crossing of the Arctic Ocean is made by Roald Amundsen of Norway, Umberto Nobile of Italy, Lincoln Ellsworth of the United States, and their crew in an Italian-built semi-rigid airship, N-1, Norge.

1914 - P.N. Nesterov and Mechanic G.M. Nelidov fly a Nieuport-IV 1,277 kilometers from Kiev to Gatchin in 7 hours and 45 minutes.

1911 - Edouard Niéport, a racing cyclist before he went into aircraft construction, sets a new speed record of 74.4mph flying his “Nieuport” monoplane powered by a 28-hp engine.

1881 - Theodore Von Karman, Hungarian aeronautical engineer who designed the Bell X-1 airplane, is born.

The X-1 was the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound. He made scientific insights on the nature of aerodynamics, which he demonstrated through a highly intuitive style of applied mathematics. In 1911, he made an analysis of the alternating double row of vortices behind a bluff in a fluid stream, now famous as Karman's Vortex Street, which occur when the air stream that flow around a body fails to stick to the shape, but instead breaks off behind it into a wave .

Milestones of Flight: 5/10

1997 - First flight of the series-built Il-96T from the Voronezh aircraft plant.

1983 - Airspur Helicopters introduces the Westland 30 helicopter into scheduled airline service.

1972 - In Vietnam's largest air battles, 11 MiGs are downed and Lts. Randall Cunningham and William Driscol, in an F-4J Phantom, become the war's first American "Aces."

1961 - A Convair B-58A cruises at a speed of 1,302mph (2,095kph) and wins the Blériot trophy, created 30 years ago for the first airplane to maintain a speed of more than 2,000 kph for more than 30 minutes in a closed circuit.

1943 - First flight of the Il'yushin Il-8 attack aircraft.

1929 - The Distinguished Flying Cross was awarded to Lieutenant A. J. Williams by the Secretary of the Navy for extraordinary achievement in aerial flight during March 1928 in which he studied the action of aircraft in violent maneuvers and inverted flight, and developed and applied principles of operation which contributed directly to safety in flight and the development of more accurate methods of testing the performance capabilities of aircraft.

1919 - The recently formed Avro Transport Company in Manchester opens Britain’s first scheduled air service. A fare of four guineas (£4.20) is being charged for the journey of 50 miles. The company is using four Avro 504K aircraft, modified to carry two passengers.

Repeat the feat

NASA, X Prize Foundation¹ Shoot For the Moon.

¹ Dr. Peter Diamandis, chairman and chief executive officer of the X PRIZE Foundation receives the 2006 Lindbergh Award.

Milestones of Flight: 5/8

1973 - The Airbus A300B prototype makes the type’s first fully automatic landing in Toulouse, France.

1935. -The U.S. Commerce Department announces in Washington, D.C. that blind-landing radio equipment developed by a U.S. Army Air Corps team under Captain Hegenberger is to be installed at all major airports between New York and Los Angeles.

1929 - First use of pesticides on forests in Russia from the air.

1929 - The Bureau of Aeronautics announced the policy of providing all carrier airplanes with brakes and wheel type tail skids, following successful operations of T4M so equipped in tests carried out aboard Langley in conjunction with the elimination of the fore-and-aft wire arresting gear.

1929 - US Navy Lieutenant Apollo Soucek, flying a Wright Apache equipped with a 425-hp. Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine set a new world record for Class C landplanes, reaching 39,140 feet over Anacostia.

1926 - The first federal legislation regulating civil aeronautics is passed by the U.S.Congress. The Air Commerce Act authorizes the Weather Bureau to provide meteorological service over routes designated by the Secretary of Commerce.

Northrop to build oblique wing demonstrator

From an article from Jane's DEFENSE WEEKLY. Of course, this is not the first time that an oblique wing demonstrator has been built.


For instance, the Rutan Aircraft Factory builtthe AD-1 Oblique Wing Demonstrator research aircraft (N805NA) to test the "skew-wing" system of variable geometry more than two decades ago. It was powered by Two Microturbo TRS-18 turbojet engines, each producing 220 pounds of static thrust at sea level. The public was able to see it at the Edwards Air Force Base open house on September 20, 1981.

Streamlines.com a source of information for aircraft modelers has had articles about working (flying) models since the 1990s.

Feds' Watch List Eats Its Own

That's the headline on a Wired News story about federal employees and military service members who have endured delays at airports because their names match those on terrorist watch lists.

Milestones of Flight: 5/7

1992 - MILESTONE IN SPACE ENDEAVOUR (US) , the space shuttle blasted off on its maiden voyage. The Endeavour launch, as the $2 billion replacement for the Challenger, was the 47th shuttle mission. While capturing and correcting the orbit of a satellite, the astronauts set new U.S. records for duration of spacewalk and the number of astronauts outside the craft.

1979 - Air France is the first airline to operate the Lockheed L-1011-500, a long-range version of the TriStar with shorter fuselage, more powerful engines, and improved aerodynamics.

1968 - Il-18 flown by B.M. Konstantinov and crew sets world records for speed of a turboprop airplane in a straight line of 727.840 km/hr and in a 100-km closed circuit of 708.000 km/hr.

1944 - First flight of the MiG OKB's experimental I-222 stratospheric Interceptor.

1939 - First flight of the V. M. Petlaykov "100" STO NKVD high-altitude fighter (series built as the Pe-2 dive bomber).

1937 - The first successful pressurized airplane cabin is achieved in the Lockheed XC-35.

Pilots called it "Can't See 35" because of limited visibility from cockpit. The US Army won the Collier Trophy for it. The Lockheed XC-35, with commercial serial number 3105 and military serial number 36-353, was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1948.

1936 - Amy Johnson (Amy Mollison) lands at Wingfield Aerodrome, Cape Town, South Africa, to set a new record of 3 days, 6 hours, 26 minutes for a flight from England.

Amy Johnson learned to fly in 1928 at Stag Lane Aerodrome, near Edgware, where de Havilland Moths were built. Unusually, she also gained a ground engineer's licence - the first woman to do so in Britain.

Johnson was determined to make her mark in aviation. In the age of Empire, the 10,000-mile solo flight to Australia seemed the obvious choice and she wanted to be the first woman to make this journey. She set about writing innumerable letters seeking financial support. Eventually Lord Wakefield, head of the Wakefield-Castrol oil company and a great patron of aviation, agreed to share half the cost of a second-hand aircraft with the Johnson family. She bought a de Havilland Gipsy Moth and named it Jason, after the brand name of the kippers produced by her family's firm in Hull.

In May 1930 Johnson set out. She had underestimated the stress and difficulty of long-distance flying alone. She damaged the aircraft twice on landing, in India and Burma, and in tropical storms was 'never so frightened in my life'. But she pressed on and, landing in Darwin after nineteen-and-a-half days of flying, found she had become the most famous aviation heroine in Britain. Her flying career continued through the 1930s. In 1941 she disappeared in bad weather while on a wartime aircraft delivery flight. Her loss remained a mystery but it is now thought she was mistakenly shot down by British anti-aircraft fire over the Thames.

1913 - Simon Ramo , American engineer, is born.

He made notable contributions to electronics and was chief scientist (1954-58) of the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program.