FLYING

National Geographic has published a beautiful gallery of aerial photos of the Sahara, shot by George Steinmetz. Steinmetz shoots his pictures while soaring above the Earth on a gasoline-powered paraglider he built himself.

[ Read Full Story ]

The National Transportation and Safety Board has completed their investigation into what caused adventurer Steve Fossett's single-engine craft to crash on a leisure flight in 2007. Though his plane carried no data recorder, the NTSB has ruled that strong mountain downdrafts were the cause.

[ Read Full Story ]

Movie courtesy of David Lentink

With the help of a two-foot-wide robotic fly, a vat of oil, and some tricks with smoke and lasers, an aerospace engineer has learned that Mother Nature figured out long ago the most efficient way to fly. Well, at least if you're really small.

[ Read Full Story ]

Racial profiling is a moral minefield, pitting safety against equity—one human right against another. But forgotten in the furor is a more important moral (and scientific question) about profiling: Does it actually work?

[ Read Full Story ]

Today marked the public debut of the Martin Jetpack, a ducted-fan-equipped personal flying vehicle that could keep pilots aloft for 30 minutes or more. Inventor Glenn Martin has been working on the jetpack—which isn't technically a "jet" pack, given the fans—for 27 years, but he has kept it secret until now. Even his son, Harrison, the 16-year-old test pilot, wasn't allowed to tell his friends that he'd been cruising around the yard back home in Christchurch, New Zealand in a revolutionary flying vehicle.

[ Read Full Story ]

This is not a Blimp. It's a sort of flying Queen Mary 2 that could change the way you think about air travel. It's the Aeroscraft, and when it's completed, it will ferry pampered passengers across continents and oceans as they stroll leisurely about the one-acre cabin or relax in their well-appointed staterooms.

Unlike its dirigible ancestors, the Aeroscraft is not lighter than air. Its 14 million cubic feet of helium hoist only two thirds of the craft's weight.

[ Read Full Story ]