Dozens of Warthogs Gear Up for Iran

Dozens of Warthogs Gear Up for Iran

Share this story Flight trackers lit up over the weekend as a formation of A-10C Thunderbolt IIs — callsign TABOR 71 — crossed the Atlantic toward RAF Lakenheath in England. Behind them, three KC-135 Stratotankers from RAF Mildenhall held station, feeding fuel to the...
Soviet Night Witches: They Flew Without Parachutes

Soviet Night Witches: They Flew Without Parachutes

Share this story The engine dies. The plywood biplane goes silent, gliding through the black Ukrainian sky at 1,200 metres. Below, German searchlights sweep the darkness. Flak crews wait, listening. They hear nothing — just a faint whisper of wind through wire struts....
A Cessna on Red Square: The Matthias Rust Flight

A Cessna on Red Square: The Matthias Rust Flight

Share this story On May 28, 1987, an 18-year-old West German with 50 hours of flying experience took off from Helsinki in a rented Cessna 172. He told air traffic control he was heading for Stockholm. He turned east instead — straight into the most heavily defended...
Hellfire Launchers Hidden in Shipping Containers

Hellfire Launchers Hidden in Shipping Containers

Share this story It looks like a shipping container. The kind you see stacked on cargo ships, loaded onto flatbed trucks, sitting in industrial lots from Rotterdam to Riyadh. Ten feet long, standard Tricon ISO spec, unremarkable in every visible way. Inside it is a...
Stealth Fighters Land on China’s Doorstep

Stealth Fighters Land on China’s Doorstep

Share this story At 12:50 PM on March 29, four F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters touched down at Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan. They taxied to the ramp, engines winding down, canopies opening in the cold northern air. It looked routine. It...
$80M Jets vs $30K Drones: The Losing Math

$80M Jets vs $30K Drones: The Losing Math

Share this story The first 100 hours of Operation Epic Fury cost approximately $3.7 billion — roughly $891 million per day. A staggering share of that went to a single, maddening problem: shooting down cheap Iranian drones with some of the most expensive aircraft on...
A $500 Drone Just Killed a Black Hawk

A $500 Drone Just Killed a Black Hawk

Share this story The drone that killed a $21 million helicopter cost less than a decent pair of headphones. On March 23, an Iran-backed militia launched a first-person-view drone at Victory Base Complex near Baghdad International Airport. The target was an HH-60M...
Brazil Rolls Out Its Own Fighter Jet

Brazil Rolls Out Its Own Fighter Jet

Share this story On March 25, a Gripen E fighter jet — designation F-39E, serial FAB 4109 — rolled out of Embraer’s facility in Gavião Peixoto, São Paulo state. It looks identical to every other Gripen E. But this one was built in Brazil, not Sweden. And that changes...
Two Waves Over Minab: What Bellingcat Found

Two Waves Over Minab: What Bellingcat Found

Share this story Related: Mines in the Street: America’s Secret Weapon Against Iran’s Missiles New video evidence analyzed by Bellingcat reveals that the February 28 strike on an IRGC compound in Minab — which also destroyed the adjacent Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’...
A Strafing Run, a MANPADS, and a Near Miss

A Strafing Run, a MANPADS, and a Near Miss

Share this story On March 25, a U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet screamed low over the Iranian port city of Chabahar, its M61A2 Vulcan cannon spitting 20mm rounds at targets near the Imam Ali IRGC Naval Base. Seconds later, a shoulder-fired missile streaked upward and...