As the Apollo 11 vehicle was rolling to the launch pad in Florida OTD in 1969, across the country in the California desert NASA test pilot Bill Dana (right) was flying the wingless HL-10 lifting body (left).
NASA's lifting body program paved the way for the space shuttle by showing that a wingless craft could glide to a landing like an airplane.
In honor of the 40th Anniversary re-release of Top Gun tomorrow, here's the "wrap photo" of the eight Tomcat crew who flew all of the aviation scenes in that movie...(I'm bottom right). Ultimate #TomcatTuesday 😎 LFG!
13 May 1957. 3 USAF North American F-100C Super Sabres set a new world distance record for single-engine aircraft by covering the 6,710 miles from London to Los Angeles in 14 hours and 4 minutes. The flight was accomplished using inflight refuelling.
On May 26, 1945, a battle-damaged B-29 Superfortress (possibly 44-69825 from the 24th Bomb Squadron) ditched in the shallow water right off a beach camp on Iwo Jima after a night mission to Tokyo left two engines out.👀
Climbing into a spacewalking suit for a training session.
I'm wearing padded long underwear full of cooling tubes. To get into the Orlan, you open the back like a fridge, perch in the door, hook up all connections, and slither inside.
The life support equipment (air scrubbers, temp control) is in the backpack.
We call it a spacesuit, but it's really a 1-person spaceship.
100 years ago today, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth, Italian pilot Umberto Nobile, and 13 others flew over the North Pole in the airship Norge. It was the first verified transpolar flight in history. A new blog: s.si.edu/4tuu1bS