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We forget what an antique the North American F-100 Super Sabre was. Its enormity, clean airframe and severely swept wings and tail, its heat-blued afterburner bigger than a bourbon barrel--all [...]

The 1930s saw the introduction and development of two quite different categories of civil aircraft. One was the big-engine, four-place, rumble-guts cabin planes--Beech Staggerwings, Wacos, Stinsons, Howards, Spartans. Some were [...]

Everybody loves the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter--its outrageous looks, legendary performance, stunning speed and time-to-climb records. Plus the tiny wings sharp as steak knives. (Okay, that one is a myth.) This [...]

When Jon Blanchette tired of restoring cars, he turned to airplanes. A retired General Motors mechanical engineer, he had already restored a number of automobiles--'whatever came along,' he says--including the [...]

The article reports that a Lockheed Constellation aircraft, known as Bataan, with a storied history including service under General Douglas MacArthur, has been restored by Texan collector Rod Lewis and Fighter Rebuilders in California, and it has now embarked on a new career in airshows.

By the mid-1920s, aviation was no longer solely the province of the professional. The man (and woman) on the street desperately wanted to get in on it. Barnstormers, airmail pilots, [...]

Addison Pemberton is best known for his restoration of the world's only flying Boeing Model 40 mailplane, an eight-year, 18,000-hour epic that produced an important museum-quality survivor. Now Pemberton's shop [...]

A trip around Denmark in a Porsche Cayenne is described. Some of the worth sights in the way were the bridge from Zealand to Fyn, second longest suspension span in the world, and Denmark's second most popular tourist attraction trailing only Copenhagen, the plastic amusement park built snap together with Lego blocks.

It's an ultrafast killing machine with bleeding-edge aerodynamics. Not a pet. I built and for nine years flew an airplane called a Falco, which is Italian for hawk. But it [...]

Competitive karting is CART for the rest of us. And the kids can kick your butt. So I spend my life playing with fast cars, and the first time I'm [...]

You can buy a MiG if you have the jack, but a Czech trainer is the jet to love. thirty-six years ago, the talented Czech aeronautical engineer Jan Vlcek designed [...]

A four-day automobile drive on the island of Puerto Rico is described. The drive, which covers 510 miles along the perimeter and across the interior of the island, provides an excellent view of the natural beauty and cultural sights that are part of Puerto Rico. The drive was made in a Volvo Cross-Country station wagon, and its performance is described.

A 420-mile drive from Marion, VA, to Maryville, TN, is described. The drive took two days and took the passengers through the Appalachian Mountains. The performance of a Cadillac CTS on the drive is described.

Hi-fi cognoscenti who want the warmest sound insist on hand-wired vacuum-tube amplifiers. Photographers who look for the most precise workmanship reach for the microchip-less, relentlessly mechanical Leica M6. And sporting […]

A three-day drive from Atlanta, GA, to Barnsley Gardens, GA, taken in a 2002 Ford Thunderbird is described. There are many historical sites along the road taken, as well as small towns that offer unique experiences. The 2002 Ford Thunderbird is an excellent car in which to travel.

A driving tour Spain's Catalonia region is described. Destinations include Montserrat and Girona.

THE FLIGHT 981 DISASTER Tragedy, Treachery, and the Pursuit of Truth SOUTHERN STORM The Tragedy of Flight 242 both by Samme Chittum, Smithsonian Books, 2017, $24.95 each. Do a YouTube [...]

On December 15, 1944, superstar bandleader Glenn Miller was lost when the Noorduyn UC-64A Norseman in which he was a passenger went down in the English Channel. Perhaps only octogenarians [...]

THE WOMEN WHO FLEW FOR HITLER A True Story of Soaring Ambition and Searing Rivalry by Clare Mulley, St. Martin's Press, 2017, $27.99. 'The' women? Well, two of them: Hanna [...]

The list of pioneers who supposedly flew before the Wright brothers did--or at least tried to fly first--is filled with names both familiar and exotic, but few are less well [...]

A RARE PRIZE The Commemorative Air Force flies one of only two Bell P-63Fs ever built. The Bell P-63 Kingcobra is one of the sleekest, cleanest war-birds in the world, [...]

The warbird world is replete with professional restorations of basket cases and re-creations of dataplate specials, of wing spars remanufactured, complex fittings artfully crafted, rare airplanes rising phoenix-like from behind [...]

LAMINATED LIGHTPLANE The first certified composite powered airplane makes its maiden post-restoration flight. Inset: The Windecker Eagle II mounts an upgraded Continental engine. Designed by a husband-and-wife team of Texas [...]

LAOTIAN L-BIRD Steve Dunn's restored T-41B Mescalero is painted in Royal Laotian Air Force livery. Inset: A view of the 210-hp Continental engine. Most big-dollar warbirds make cramped, noisy, expensive [...]

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a technological marvel when it arrived in the Pacific theater in August 1942: turbocharged twin Allison engines, tricycle landing gear, Fowler flaps, butt-jointed and flush-riveted [...]

The wood-and-fabric MudryCAP-lOwas a small French company's attempt to sell Americans a competent but relatively expensive acrobatic machine that could also be used as a two-seat cross-country tourer. It didn't [...]

The article focuses on armed to the teeth with machine guns and North American B-25 Mitchell bomber played a key role in World War II. It mentions B-25 was the most heavily armed aircraft in the U.S. Army Air Forces' inventory and his engineers, including Edgar Schmued of P-51 fame, concentrated on designing with the manufacturing process in mind. It also mentions North American Aviation (NAA) had planned to use Pratt R-1830s and DC-3 engines.

The dangers of road travel in foreign countries have been published by the Assn. for Safe International Road Travel. Caution must be made in negotiating narrow curves in mountainous regions. The best option is to do the driving by oneself with a rental car.

'Aircraft gun turrets are one of the most under-told stories of World War II,' says Atlantan Fred Bieser, a retired theatrical sound-and-light engineer who is among the very few serious [...]

Few important aircraft prototypes make it to fully restored museum status. They often become test mules and are eventually junked, or they are fettled to become prototypes for further varieties [...]

The Lockheed Vega was the single-engine superplane of the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Learjet of its day. Had there indeed been a jet set back then, its members […]

Byline: Stephan Wilkinson When I told a friend that I'd driven a new Japanese supercar, he asked a logical question: 'What's a supercar?' Right now it means a production car [...]

Bringing major horsepower to Pony Express country, Stephan Wilkinson rides shotgun in the Nissan GT-R from the Great Basin to Big Sur We're climbing out of mythic Death Valley, California, [...]

Byline: Stephan Wilkinson Hotel Nevada and Gambling Hall, Ely, Nevada Pat Nixon (born in Ely), Frank Sinatra, and Ingrid Bergman stayed at the Hotel Nevada, a garish old pile that [...]

In the rugged Pyrenees and the deep gorges of the Rhone, Stephan Wilkinson glimpses Europe's evolution from prehistoric caves to postmodern pilgrims To most travelers, the south of France means [...]

Byline: --Stephan Wilkinson Carcassonne There's no better or more convenient refuge from the tour-bus crowds than the Hotel de la Cite, located right next to the restored cathedral. While it's [...]

Byline: --Stephan Wilkinson The Maserati is an exceptional alternative to the top-drawer luxury super-sedans from Germany, England, and (in substantially less expensive form) Japan. It has character and characteristics simply [...]