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November 2012

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Features

Wounded service members are taken off a C-17

The Flying Emergency Room

One reason more soldiers are making it home alive.

Additive manufacturing could be used for creating concrete structures on the moon.

Printed in Space

If your star tracker breaks on the way to the moon, just hit Command P.

Cuban militamen

Cuba During the Missile Crisis

Fifty years later, Cubans remember preparing to fight the Americans.

a worker prepares wood strips for a Mosquito hull

Restoration: Carpenter’s Special

De Havilland D.H.98 Mosquito

Bell 47

Ode to the Bubble

The Bell 47, famous as the star of “Whirlybirds,” was the DC-3 of helicopters. Could it make a comeback?

HATSouth telescopes

Pint-Size Sky Watchers

While monster telescopes get the attention, the little guys quietly — and cheaply — rack up cosmic finds.

eastwood

And the Oscar Goes to... the Airplane!

Some of the airplanes that loom largest in our collective memory have flown only in the movies

Fatty-Pearson-Peter-Briscoe-6-flash-631.jpg

Who Was Fatty Pearson?

A World War II British foot soldier’s best friend in the air, and the man who rescued Ernest Hemingway.

Departments

Viewport

Viewport

Seeing is believing.

J.R. Dailey
In the Museum

The Smithsonian Roadshow

Can’t make it to the Museum? There might be an artifact on loan right in your neighborhood.

Above & Beyond

When the Missiles Left Cuba

A Navy aircrew got it on film.

Paul F. Stiller
Oldies and Oddities

Home Sweet Duralumin

A Buckminster Fuller design was grounded in aerospace technology.

Nick D’Alto
Moments and Milestones

Flying in Comfort

75 years ago, the Army Air Corps’ XC-35 launched the pressurized cabin.