Sneak Peak At Early 2021 Photo Contest Entrants

The cockpit of a Russian-made Mil Mi-24 Hind gunship on display at the Kbely Aviation Museum in Prague.

A historic Curtiss C-46 Commando transport aircraft named “Hot Stuff” lands on a gravel strip at Port Alsworth, Alaska, while delivering fuel.

As a result of the pandemic, some businesses are booming, such as the Asia Pacific Aircraft Storage facility at Alice Springs Airport in the Northern Territory of Australia. At the time of this photograph, 132 aircraft were in preservation.

A FedEx Express Airbus A300-600F flies its final approach to Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport in Wisconsin.

A U.S. Customs & Border Patrol MC-12 drops in unannounced to handle a bit of after-hours business at Key Field in Meridian, Mississippi.

An Agusta A109 helicopter of the Belgian Air Force performs an “angel of death” maneuver, deploying flares during a demonstration at sunset.

U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Miami operates two platforms that complement each other: the HC-144 and the HH65. The Miami skyline provides the background in this image.

A Pilatus PC-6 Turbo Porter taxis on the snow-covered apron of Engadin Airport in Switzerland on Dec. 26, 2020. Engadin is known as Europe’s highest airport at 5,600 ft.

Aaron Fitzgerald flies the Red Bull Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm Bo-105 inverted during the 2021 Wings Over Camarillo Air Show in Camarillo, California.

A Lockheed P-38 Lightning performs at the Wings Over Camarillo Air Show in California.

As the nearly 24-story United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy ignites for launch, it burns the excess hydrogen around it, leading to the distinctive fireball for which this rocket is famous. This Delta IV Heavy launched a classified mission for the National Reconnaissance Office into orbit from Vandenberg AFB, California.

The International Space Station transiting the Moon during an extravehicular activity—as evidenced by the unique position of the solar panels. Usually parallel in a trademark configuration, the panels were perpendicular for this transit. The station passed right over the Copernicus lunar crater.

At twilight, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying four private citizens launches into space on the Inspiration4 mission. While the view from the pad is bathed in a background of emerging stars, the exhaust from the booster is lit up by the Sun, which had set just 1 hr. before. The result is an orbital sunset, illuminating the rocket exhaust and creating what some call the ”space jellyfish” effect pictured.