Tag: aircraft

Hypersonic flight

Less than a hundred years ago, the Wright Brothers made the first powered airplane flight. Next month, NASA will fly a whole new type of airplane, faster than anything that has flown to date: not just supersonic (faster than the speed of sound) but hypersonic (MUCH faster than the speed of sound). Of course, NASA …

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The Moller Skycar

  One of the many striking scenes in the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace takes place on the planet Coruscant, a completely urbanized planet whose skies are filled with vehicles, moving in orderly lines just as cars move along our city streets. It’s one of the quintessential science fictional visions of the 20th century, found …

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Supersonic airliners

  The Concorde supersonic airliner first flew almost 30 years ago, and entered regular service more than 20 years ago. By now, the skies should be full of sleek supersonic jets ferrying people rapidly all around the globe. Instead, the Concorde only services a few high-profile routes–Paris to New York and the linke–while most of …

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Soaring

The airplane in front of us begins to roll, the 60-metre yellow nylon rope connecting us to it tightens, and suddenly the glider I’m in comes to life, jouncing across the grass airstrip. In seconds we rise into the cloud-studded sky. # All aircraft fly because their wings are shaped so that the air travelling …

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Flight

In this age of 747s and Concordes and supersonic jet fighters, it’s sometimes hard to realize that airplanes have existed for less than a century. Even manned gliders, which came before powered airplanes, have only been around for slightly over a hundred years. In fact, 1991 was the 100th anniversary of the first glider flight …

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