Free Republic

The Russian air force grounded its entire fleet of Sukhoi-27 fighter jets on Thursday after a fatal crash near Moscow which aviation sources told Russian agencies looked like the result of some kind of technical failure. Viktor Bondarev, the head of the air force, ordered the country's fleet of the twin-engined fighter jet grounded until the reasons for the crash had been determined, Russian agencies reported. Russia is believed to have over 300 of the fighter jets in service. The United States complained in April that one of them had made aggressive manoeuvres near a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the...

Original Title:American Supersonic Airliners: Race for a Dream Boeing-2707 SST: a Supersonic Marvel, Largely Forgotten Today Capable of transporting 296 passengers across the ocean at 2900 km/h, developed 40 years ago, in 1968... The Sixties (or for that matter, the Fifties) were truly amazing years when it comes to development of fascinating - and often futuristic - technology. The automotive industry, for example, entertained public imagination with powerful full-size cars, a true embodiment of the "American dream" and sheer optimism of the times. In space exploration, we reached all the way to the Moon; in air travel, the dream of...

They may not be as sexy as their sleek brethren in the fighter corps, but the fast and heavy-duty bombers of the last 60 years have earned their own admirers. Bombers such as the B-29, B-58, B-52 and XB-70 have carved their own niche in aviation history. Four pilots of these aircraft shared their experiences recently at the Society of Experimental Test Pilots annual symposium. Without their "mother ship" carrier aircraft - the B-29 and B-52 bombers - such groundbreaking aircraft as the X-1, X-15 and lifting bodies would never have gotten airborne. Stan Butchart was a single-engine pilot when...