Mercury has virtually no atmosphere. It however has small traces of an atmosphere which consists minute quantities of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Sodium, Potassium and argon.

The sun appears 2 and a half times larger in Mercury's sky compared to the Earth's.

Mercury is the planet nearest to the sun. It has a diameter of 3,031 miles, about two-fifths the Earth's diameter.

New digital cockpit designs are referred to as 'glass cockpit'.

The first flying vehicle to exceed the speed of sound was the German V-2 Missile.

In 1908, Frenchman René Lorin invented the ramjet engine. This was realized only after many decades.

Sir Frank Whittle made the first patent for a turbojet as a powerplant.

The world's second oldest airline is Qantas, being established in 1920.

The world's oldest airline is KLM, being established in 1919.

In 1987, American Airlines eliminated one olive from each salad in served in first class which saved them $40,000.

A three man crew consists of the captain, co-pilot, and flight engineer. Some aircraft have been designed to replace the flight engineer position with computers due to cost cutting.

The Boeing 787 was revealed on July 8, 2007 (7/8/'07).

There are over 3 million people in the air on planes at any one time.

The worlds first flying car arrives in 2012. Called the Terrafugia, it costs $194,000

There are over 14,000 commercial flights in the air at any one time.

The average age of commercial aircraft is 19 years. (How safe is a 19 year old car?)

In 1940 to fly London – New York it cost 1 years wages. Today it costs the wage of working only Monday & Tuesday.

The average profit per seat on a 1 hour flight is $2.20.

The airline industry has currently made a net loss of $31 billion dollars since 1940.

Flight is not the safest form of travel. The bus is on all measures. The motorcycle is the most dangerous on all measures.

Only 5% of the worlds population have ever been on an airplane.

Discovery takes its name from four British ships of exploration named Discovery, primarily HMS Discovery, one of the ships commanded by Captain James Cook during his third and final major voyage from 1776 to 1779.

NASA has offered Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum for public display and preservation. Discovery will replace Enterprise in the Smithsonian's display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

By its last mission, Discovery had flown 149 million miles (238 million km) in 39 missions, completed 5,830 orbits, and spent 365 days in orbit in over 27 years.