Russia and its former Soviet Union have never been afraid to supersize military hardware. Naturally, the balance between intimidatingly powerful and largely impractical can be difficult to master. The ...

The famed Wright brothers made history in December 1903 with their inaugural flight at Kitty Hawk. Just over six decades later, our understanding of flight advanced so far that Yuri Gagarin became the ...

Sometime in the mid-1980s, a former chief pilot of the Lakewood (Calif.) Sheriff’s Station helicopter patrol program informed me of the perversity of helicopters. A plane with wings, he said, ...

First attempts (1907-1922) -- Early searching (1922-1934) -- Take-off (1935-1945) -- Post World War II -- Jet-tip helicopters -- Status of the helicopter industry in 1956 -- Utilization of helicopters ...

Today it is just a dream, but 50 years ago it was a reality courtesy of SFO Helicopter Airlines. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Oakland-based company operated a fleet of passenger helicopters ...