These Weird Warplanes Didn’t Need Runways

Originally published on July 29, 2013.

Warplanes’ biggest vulnerability is their runways. Modern airfields are no match for modern weapons; bunker-busting munitions can crater the thickest concrete.

For a Brief Inglorious Moment, the U.S. Navy Had a Nuclear-Powered Wetsuit

Originally published on Nov. 26, 2014.

You get pretty cold pretty fast when you’re wet. Water absorbs more heat than air — and absorbs it 20 times faster. Without some kind of…

Watch the U.S. Army’s Mock Battle Inside a Nuclear Reactor

Originally published on Nov. 16, 2014.

“GAS! GAS! GAS!”

The shouts echo up a dimly lit stairwell. Soldiers hastily wrap their faces in gas masks — the only thing protecting…

Her Majesty’s Nuclear Seaplane

Originally published on Oct. 22, 2013.

She was a dazzling aircraft, a great winged hope of postwar Britain, the largest all-metal flying boat ever built. Her design incorporated brand-new technologies: a pressurized cabin, all-hydraulic controls and…

How America’s Airline Went to War

Originally published on Jan. 4, 2015.

Now only a distant memory, Pan American Airways once flew so high that even the moon seemed within its grasp. Its advanced technology, skilled workforce and global reach were the envy of its competitors.