Fifth-generation aircraft are invisible to radar, have advanced flight and weapons control systems and can cruise at supersonic speeds, officials say.

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"They're totally blind, " says Karen Lee , a veteran 747 pilot and manager of the Advanced Flight Systems division at UPS (nyse: UPS - news - people ).

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Founded in 1996 by a team of MIT computer scientists, ITA's technically advanced solutions for organizing flight information were hailed as a catalyst for change in the online travel industry.

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Many planes are now equipped with advanced avionics that enable more direct and precise flight paths, but they aren't allowed to fly these faster, safer routes because the FAA can't track their navigation methods.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: Flying the Government Skies

Even as NASA's budget has decreased by approximately 15 percent in constant dollars since 1993, we have made provision for several important new initiatives to maintain the delicate balance between human space flight, earth and space science, and advanced aeronautics and space transportation technology.

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Switzerland is home to several renewable energy projects, including the most advanced solar-powered aircraft, the Solar Impulse, which made its first international flight less than two weeks ago.

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On the holiday weekend that closed out the summer of 1940, Lindbergh came nowhere near besting the record time for a coast-to-coast nonstop flight that he'd himself set a decade back with an aircraft more advanced than the old Spirit of St.

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In the future these systems will get more advanced: Records, now written on paper, will be stored on a server and uploaded when the flight docks at the gate.

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