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Forty-eight years ago this month, Gemini 7 set a new record for long-duration manned spaceflight. The official lift-off-to-splashdown flight duration was 330 hours, 35 minutes and 1 second. Project Gemini was the critical bridge between America’s fledgling manned spaceflight effort – Project Mercury – and the bold push to land… Read More
Forty-five years ago this month, three American astronauts became the first men to orbit the Earth’s Moon during the flight of Apollo 8. The flight also marked the first manned flight of the mighty Saturn V launch vehicle as well as history’s first super-orbital entry of a manned spacecraft. Following… Read More
One-hundred and ten years ago today, the Wright Flyer became the first aircraft in history to achieve powered flight. The site of this historic event was Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Americans Wilbur and Orville Wright began their legendary aeronautical careers in 1899. In just four short years, the brothers would go from complete… Read More
Sixty years ago this week, USAF Major Charles E. Yeager set an unofficial world speed record of 1,650 mph (Mach 2.44) in the Bell X-1A flight research aircraft. In the process, Yeager nearly lost his life. The USAF/Bell X-1A was a second generation X-aircraft intended to explore flight beyond Mach 2. It… Read More
Fifty years ago this week, USAF Major Robert W. Smith zoomed the rocket-powered Lockheed NF-104A to an unofficial record altitude of 120,800 feet. This mark still stands as the highest altitude ever achieved from a runway take-off by a United States aircraft. A zoom maneuver is one in which aircraft kinetic energy (speed) is traded for… Read More
Eighty-four years ago this week, a four-man crew became the first Antarctic explorers to fly over the Earth’s South Pole. The aircraft used to make the historic flight was a Ford Trimotor. While substantial exploration of the Artic and Antarctic by land and sea had occurred far earlier, exploration of these… Read More
Fifty-two years ago this month, a United States Navy YF4H-1 Phantom II set a world absolute speed record of 1,606.342 mph. Piloting the aircraft for this record flight was United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Robert B. Robinson. The McDonnell Douglas YF4H-1 Phantom II was first flown in May 1958. The aircraft measured 58 feet… Read More
Forty-seven years ago this month, NASA’s pioneering spaceflight program, Project Gemini, was brought to a successful conclusion with the 4-day flight of Gemini XII. Remarkably, the mission was the tenth Gemini flight in 20 months. Boosted to Earth orbit by a two-stage Titan II launch vehicle, Gemini XII Command Pilot James A. Lovell, Jr. and Pilot… Read More
Sixty-seven years ago this week, the USN/Lockheed XR6O-1 Constitution prototype transport/commercial airliner took to the air for the first time. Lockheed test pilots Joe Towle and Tony LeVier were at the controls of the ponderous, propeller-driven aircraft. The Lockheed XR6O-1 Constitution was a joint development of the Lockheed Company, the… Read More
Fifty-nine years ago this month, the USAF/Douglas X-3 Stiletto research aircraft encountered a then little known dynamic instability during a flight test that nearly ended in disaster. NACA test pilot Joseph A. Walker was at the controls of the needle-nosed experimental aircraft. The X-3 was designed to fly at speeds up… Read More
