Based out of Edwards AFB, the Dryden Flight Test Center has been the home of some of the world’s top aircraft since the 1940’s. Along with the history of the planes hosted there, NASA has a great collection of pictures capturing the personalities of the test pilots who flew them.
More reading: Wikipedia, Great Images in NASA
A couple of weeks ago, Boeing invited journalists aboard one of the test flights for the new 787 and the Seattle PI has some pictures and a short video from the event. I can’t wait until the airlines start using these.
Photo by Joshua Trujillo for the Seattle PI.
From the Seattle Times:
For McChord Air Force Base pilots who ferry cargo and people all over the world, one of the most challenging missions is flying a hulking C-17 to Antarctica to serve the National Science Foundation station there.
Weather is the wild card.
In less than an hour, skies can turn from blue to milky white as 80 mile-per-hour winds, unforeseen by forecasters, gust across the southernmost continent.
“If you take your eye off Antarctica, it can kill you in a heart beat,” said Lt. Col. Jim McGann, deputy commander of the 62nd Airlift Wing at McChord, which is located south of Tacoma. “The pilots we choose to fly down there are the absolute best, and this really pushes them to their limits as far as their skills and decision-making.”
Continue reading more.
From the LA Times:
It was the kind of plane that seemed to fit the swinging go-go days with martini-swigging travelers lingering around a bar.
First-class passengers dressed in their Sunday best made their way up a spiral staircase to get to the “flying penthouse,” harking memories of private rail cars.
It seemed the epitome of plushness when it made its first commercial flight 40 years ago today. A Times reporter described the cabin as a “luxurious auditorium some genie had wafted aloft.”
Boeing Co.’s 747 was not only the biggest plane that anyone had ever seen before — it was nearly three times larger than the largest jet flying at the time — it transformed travel in a way that few have.
Continue reading more.
Pictures like these just seem like staged press photos nowadays, but during the golden age of commercial flying people really did get dressed up.
And here’s another photo of the 747 being rolled out a hangar in Everett, WA.
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