Delta has a reputation for operating an old fleet. But that is changing. The carrier has retired more than 400 narrowbody and regional aircraft since 2009 and refreshed another 300 domestic aircraft; further modifications are slated.
Throughout the past 10 decades, Aviation Week has published some of the most iconic aerospace images on its covers. Our editors reviewed the entire 100-year archive of the magazine with its more than 4,500 covers to find what they considered the most historic, prescient and dramatic images. Then we offered that selection to you, our readers, to vote on the best of the best. We received more than 15,000 responses. Here, we reveal what you deem to be the top five Aviation Week covers in defense, space, commercial aviation and business aviation.
Aviation and aerospace advanced rapidly in the first decades after the Wright brothers’ 1903 flight. Wind tunnels brought understanding of lift and drag, wood-and-wire biplanes gave way to the stressed-skin monoplanes, wing warping to hydraulic-boosted flight controls.
World War II and the years immediately before and after were ones of soaring sophistication in aviation. Aircraft gained retractable gear, pressurized cabins, high-lift systems, ice protection, and eventually airborne radar, inertial navigation and digital computers. Pilots gained ejection seats and G suits. Propulsion technology advanced from turbocharged pistons to afterburning turbojets and bypass turbofans. They were decades of transition, the airship fading away and swept wing becoming dominant. They also heralded the future, from unmanned aircraft to solar-powered spacecraft.
What technologies lie ahead for aerospace? Reusable spacecraft and additive manufacturing for sure, but what about flying cars, jetpacks or another attempt at nuclear-powered aircraft? Only the future will tell.
From its unveiling of the B-52 bomber and Boeing 707 jet to the classified RQ-180 unmanned aircraft and China’s anti-satellite weapon, Aviation Week has produced some legendary scoops over the past 100 years. Here are some of our favorites.
The speed at which yields have dropped in recent months is a cause for concern in the boardrooms of Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and International Airlines Group.
The key to putting humans on Mars, developing supersonic and hypersonic commercial transports and introducing space tourism? Produce smarter humans. Learn how.
The wars of the future might start by accident, such as by a pilot hot-dogging and bumping into another plane, the loss and outrage from the accident escalating into outright battle.
The U.S. Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia—home to 16 separate commands—has been a strategically important outpost, but its lease is due to expire at year-end and some advocate against renewing.
The head of Darpa’s Tactical Technology Office says the world is on the verge of leaps in supersonic travel, vertical takeoff and landing systems, flight proficiency and safety, space launch and awareness of space.
International orders, Congress to aid Boeing’s legacy fighters; U.S. to sell Kiowas to Tunisia; Harris wins electronic warfare contract; and India buys Longbow fire-control radars.
