Airport officials say an antique Spitfire aircraft owned by engine company Rolls Royce collapsed shortly after landing at East Midlands Airport in central England. The airport said in a statement the World War II-era plane’s undercarriage failed as it touched down Monday afternoon. The pilot was unharmed and the damaged aircraft was towed away. The sleek-looking [...]

I never expected to step inside the cockpit of a B-2 Spirit, the Pentagon’s long-range stealth bomber. So you can imagine the shock of being at 27,000 feet and hearing an U.S. Air Force pilot tell me over the cockpit intercom, “Okay, you have the jet.” I place one suddenly damp left hand on the [...]

Many of aviation’s best-known names will be attending the 10th Annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards, presented by Bell Helicopter and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, later this month in California. The event, set for Jan. 18 at the Beverly Hilton, will be hosted by John Travolta and will celebrate a decade of recognition during aviation’s second hundred years. The program starts [...]

The night he was told that his brother had been shot down, Fred Panton ran off into a barn and hid. “I daredn’t go back in the house,” says Fred, who was 13 at the time. “I was sure it would hit my mother hard.” His big brother, Christopher, was only 19, but had already [...]

1785 – The English Channel is crossed for the first time by air as Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries fly their hydrogen balloon from Dover, England, to a forest near Calais, France. 1929 – The U.S. Army’s Fokker C-2 “Question Mark” sets an endurance record for a refueled aircraft, 150 hours, 45 minutes. 1942 – [...]

If you want an inside look at Boeing’s commercial airplane plants in Washington state, then you’ll want to consider attending Aviation Geek Fest 2013, a two-day tour sure to please any plane buff, on Feb. 16-17. For details on the event in SeattlePI.com, click here.

A search team led by a British aviation enthusiast arrived in Myanmar on Sunday to begin a dig they hope will unearth dozens of rare British Spitfire fighter planes said to have been buried in the Southeast Asian country at the end of World War II. The 21-member team led by farmer and businessman David [...]

Signs on Maho Beach warn of potential for “extreme bodily harm and/or death,” but the bikini-clad tourists don’t seem concerned. The danger, after all, isn’t related to shark attacks, sudden drop-offs or even reckless flirtation with melanoma — it has to do with jet-blasts at close range. The beach in St. Maarten, unlike any other [...]