Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2019 i Air & Space

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER with planetary science happened long before I started work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). My father was a rocket engineer, and when I was 14, he took me along to the launch of the Viking spacecraft to Mars. NASA held talks where families could meet the scientists, and one of them, Carl Sagan, explained to me that there might be signs of life on Mars if we could only turn over the right rocks. The idea of turning over rocks on another planet to find answers was incredibly exciting, and that conversation sparked in me the single trait that is essential to the success of any scientist: curiosity. NASA has sent many spacecraft to visit Mars since that time—even naming one of the rovers for surface…

Beneath the ice of Antarctica, more than 5,000 sensors—maintained by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory—keep watch for tiny flashes of blue light as subatomic particles traveling at the speed of light collide with molecules of ice. In May, one such sensor, a 25-pound sphere known as a Digital Optical Module, or DOM, instead of being sent to the South Pole, found itself arriving in Washington, D.C. to become part of the Smithsonian’s permanent collection. “It’s quite an impressive technical feat,” says David DeVorkin, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum, who nominated the sensor for acquisition. “[IceCube] has opened up this otherwise invisible realm of ultra-high-energy particle physics.” IceCube made history in 2017 when a sensor detected a very high energy neutrino, triggering an alert to observatories around the…

The bald eagle population has rebounded in recent years. Unfortunately, eagle-aircraft collisions are also on the rise, increasing 2,200 percent since 1990. A better understanding of bald eagle behavior could help airfield managers develop countermeasures. To that end, a team of researchers used GPS telemetry units to track the flight paths of 32 young eagles in the Chesapeake Bay area. Bald eagles tend to congregate near airports because “they like to loaf around,” says Tricia Miller at West Virginia University, one of the study’s authors. Surrounded by tall wetland plants, forests, and housing developments, Miller says the birds prefer airfields, “which are open, park-like landscapes that give them a nice grassy place to sit and in some cases view the water.” And, water, it turns out, is a key factor…

IT WAS LOUD, SLOW, and resembled a flying chicken leg. Its nicknames included the unflattering “Sky Pig,” even as its crews tried to encourage the somewhat unwieldy “Chariot of Electronic Armageddon.” But Northrop Grumman’s EA-6B Prowler was an attack aircrew’s best friend, jamming enemy communications, gathering intelligence, and attacking enemy radar sites with its AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles. It wasn’t the prettiest aircraft in the Navy and Marine Corps arsenal, but it was wily: In its 48 years of service, not a single Prowler was lost in combat. On March 14, 2019, the Marine Corps’ last Prowler made its final flight. Four members of Marine Squadron VMAQ-2 flew the aircraft from their station at Cherry Point, North Carolina, to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. In a nod to…

Astronomers have devised ingenious methods for finding objects that were, as late as 2010, thought to be rare: Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. So far, more than 4,000 exoplanets of all sizes have been discovered, leading scientists to estimate that, in the Milky Way alone, there are 100 million habitable planets. And yet, despite the recent discoveries, one of the greatest goals of the scientific community remains elusive: an image of a habitable, Earth-like planet orbiting in another solar system. Capturing an image is the only way to confidently identify a small rocky planet among the thousands discovered and to study its atmosphere, assess its orbit, and determine whether it might be capable of supporting life. The conundrum for astronomers is that—unlike stars, superheated gases, and other bright objects—Earth-like planets…

FEW PEOPLE HAD SEEN ONE in the fall of 1943 or would have known what it was if they had. The things weren’t even called helicopters until 1948. But long before it got its name, the helicopter became part of an unconventional strategy to defeat the Japanese in Burma. Its first call to military service came when U.S. Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel John Alison went to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio to find out what a helicopter could do. By the time of his 1943 Dayton visit, Alison was already an ace. Flying Curtiss P-40s and leading the 75th Fighter Squadron—part of a task force commanded by General Claire Chennault after his fabled American Volunteer Group had disbanded—Alison came to the attention of Army Air Forces Chief Henry “Hap”…

For some pilots, embracing risk and pushing the limits of aerodynamics are hallmarks of their livelihood. And, in doing so, they create scenes that thrill fans worldwide. David Martin, inspired by footage of legendary aerobatic pilot Bevo Howard, first performed an inverted, no-hands flight of his Bücker Jungmeister (below) at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Oshkosh airshow in 2010. “Basically, you’re flying with your knees,” he says. “My ‘real sophisticated’ modification was I took a rag and wrapped it around the stick and put some duct tape on it, making it big enough for me to hold.” Since 2006, Michael Goulian, one of North America’s most decorated aerobatic pilots, has been a competitor at the Red Bull Air Race World Championship, where he flies his Zivko Edge 540 (above). Pilots reach…

Taiwan landed military aircraft on a nearly two-mile stretch of the Sun Yat Sen Freeway in May to demonstrate the island nation’s capability to defend itself in the event that enemy attacks severely damaged or destroyed its airfields. The country’s freeway bureau prepared for the drill by removing 1,375 median barriers, 111 street lights, and 77 road signs. Among the aircraft that participated in the military exercise were three fighter jets—a U.S.-made F-16A/B, a French Mirage 2000-5, and Taiwan’s own Indigenous Defense Fighter—as well as an E-2K airborne early warning aircraft.…

Last June, in preparation to renovate the gallery “America by Air,” the Museum removed from display one of its most historic artifacts and placed it in storage. The Boeing 247, which flew 50 percent faster than its competitors when it entered service with United Air Lines in 1933, revolutionized commercial travel. The aircraft above, the first 247-D production model, was flown by record-setting pilot Roscoe Turner and copilot Clyde Pangborn in the 1934 Englandto-Australia International Air Derby. When the gallery reopens, the 247 will return.…

David Martin has always loved to fly. From the time he got his pilot’s license, at 17, he knew that flying for him was more than a casual pastime. He loved it so much that, even as a teenager, he started thinking about what it would be like to fly every day—for a whole year. In 2014, he decided to find out. He flew every day that year, and the next year, and the next. “I didn’t plan to fly as many days as I did,” Martin says. “I kind of relate it to a runner who starts out and just keeps running. It seems like all of a sudden, it was two years. After that, I honestly, seriously was going to stop at 1,000 days. I thought, That’s a…

THERE ARE DAYS here when you walk outside and just know. Step on a stick and it snaps. Grass crunches underfoot. It’s hot, and the relative humidity is down in the single digits. If there’s a fire that day, Cal Fire battalion chief Justin McGough says, “You just know it’s going to burn very, very well.” But today is not that day, as I step one winter morning onto Cal Fire’s Hemet-Ryan Air Attack Base in Hemet, California. To the east, Mount San Jacinto is topped with fresh snow, and ample rainfall has relieved most of the state’s drought. Here at Hemet-Ryan, which remains open year-round, firefighting aircraft out on the ramp mark time quietly in the sun. Cal Fire—the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection—is a state agency…

AT EXACTLY 3:17 BANGKOK TIME, on the morning of July 21, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the surface of the moon. It was Monday in Thailand, half a day later than it was for American viewers. Roughly a million people in the southeast Asian nation watched as Armstrong climbed down the ladder onto the lunar surface, the government having arranged for television coverage that drew visitors from neighboring countries that didn’t carry the broadcast live. Seventeen-year-old Luxana “Luxie” Nil-Ubol and 16-year-old Euthana “Euth” Mukdasanit were among the viewers. Oddly, they can’t recall where they were exactly, but most likely it was in class at their high school, the Secondary Demonstration School of Prasarnmit College of Education in Bangkok. Luxie’s family didn’t have a…

The U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, known as “Topgun,” was founded on March 3, 1969. To mark its 50th anniversary, the author has assembled a coffee-table book (illustrated with more than 200 images) that shows how the image of the swaggering fighter pilot spilled into popular culture—from World War I to the present. The book contrasts the tales of real-life fighter pilots with the fictional ones depicted in comic books and films. And with the military’s increasing use of drones, the book is a reminder that the era of the fighter pilot is finite.…

Airbus celebrated its 50th anniversary with a formation flight of its demonstrators, joined by the Patrouille de France. When European aerospace companies consolidated 49 years ago to build the A300 mid-size airliner, few could have predicted that the corporation would today make up half the duopoly (with Boeing) that dominates commercial aviation. And Airbus staged its massive air formation to proclaim to all—especially to the citizens of France, where the demonstration flight took place—that its future looks bright. The company’s newest and smallest jet, the A220 leads the pack; the program was, until 2017, the Bombardier C-Series. It’s followed by an A319neo, the smaller of the ubiquitous A320 models. A long-hauler and Airbus’s most recent clean-sheet design, the A350-1000, is next (top); it is joined by an A330neo, a re-engined…

Geologists have been compiling an extensive guide of where to look for possible fossils of ancient life on Mars—for instance, mudstones rich in silica and iron-bearing clays that formed in ancient lakes. The most recent addition to this list comes from Bruce Fouke, a geology professor at the University of Illinois, who advises looking for rocks that look like layers of pasta. The unusual formation is the creation of a bacteria, Sulfurihydrogenibium yellowstonense, which emerged prior to the oxygenation of Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago, and still thrives in hot springs. Fouke believes this hardy species might have also evolved on ancient Mars. “The distinctive fettuccini microbial mats” and the crystalline rock formations associated with them,“would provide definitive proof of extraterrestrial life if found,” he says.…

“WE FIRST FLEW IN DREAMS, but the dream of flight has become real,” the narrator says. The image on the giant screen is mesmerizing: Above massive volcanic islands reaching up from the ocean floats a tiny triangular form. This is the first shot of the hang gliding scene from To Fly!, the iconic IMAX film made for the opening of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in 1976. It has been playing for more than 40 years, and for many, it’s their first encounter with hang gliding. In the scene, pilot Bob Wills hangs below the wing, shifting his body to exert control over the impossibly simple craft. He soars between mountain peaks, then climbs, stalls, dives, and swoops high above the water. When the film was made, hang…

Like other youngsters of the 1960s, I hung posters of the Mercury space capsule on my bedroom wall and Revell models of it overhead. In the fourth grade, I listened with my classmates to the radio broadcast over the school PA of Alan Shepard’s pioneering spaceflight. At 15, I bagged groceries to earn money for my first camera, a twin-lens reflex. In no time I was shooting photos for the school newspaper and yearbook. The editor of our weekly local paper, the Maumee Valley News, invited me to submit photos for publication. I began shooting car wrecks, fires, and human-interest stuff. As I neared my high school graduation in 1969, it became clear that the United States was going to attempt a moon landing that July. So I concocted a…

WHAT COULD BE MORE AMBITIOUS than a lunar landing? How about a tour of the outer solar system? Realizing that a once-every-176-years alignment of the planets would occur in the late 1970s, NASA planners conceived a “grand tour” of the four planets farthest from the sun (minus Pluto), settling on a two-spacecraft scheme after determining it would be more cost effective than building one spacecraft to observe all the worlds. Voyager 2 launched from the Kennedy Space Center on August 20, 1977; Voyager 1, 16 days later. Both spacecraft carried TV cameras, ultraviolet and infrared spectrometers, and photopolarimeters to determine the physical properties of the atmospheres of their target planets. Voyager 1 observed Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn’s moon Titan before becoming the first human-made object to reach interstellar space. Voyager…