Airplanes

Why the 747 has a hump: Boeing raised the cockpit so the nose could open for cargo once supersonic jets took the passengers. Concorde retired first.

The Boeing 757 replacement took 20 years. Boeing ended it in 2004, the Airbus A321XLR now takes its routes, and 436 757s, mostly freighters, still fly.

How high do airplanes fly? Airliners cruise at 30,000 to 42,000 feet. Here is what sets that band, plus the real ceiling for every aircraft type.

How fast is Mach 1? At sea level it is 761 mph, but at airliner cruise altitude it is only 660 mph. Mach 1 tracks air temperature, not speed.

Russian fighter aircraft ranked for 2026, from the Su-35S and MiG-31 Foxhound to the Su-57 Felon, with verified specs, roles and combat records.

Airlines still flying the A380 in 2026 number just 10, out of the 14 that took delivery. Here is who kept the superjumbo and who walked away from it.

How do gliders fly without an engine? They are always descending. Glide ratio, thermals, ridge lift and mountain wave explain how they stay up.

How does a jet engine work? Suck, squeeze, bang, blow is only the start. Inside the compressor, the bypass fan, and blades hotter than their melting point.

A fuselage is an airplane’s body, and it is a tube for one reason: only a circle carries cabin pressure in pure tension. Here is the engineering.

The most dangerous commercial aircraft, ranked by hull loss rate per million departures using Boeing’s own data. The worst safety records still flying.