What Happens When the Air Force Grounds a Fleet
Share this story On May 19, 2026, the United States Air Force ordered an operational pause for its entire fleet of T-38 Talon jet trainers. Every T-38 across every command—Air Education and Training Command, Air Combat Command, Air Force Materiel Command, and...
The Funniest Pilot Logbook Entries Ever Written
Share this story Every aircraft has a logbook. And every logbook tells a story—usually about hydraulic leaks, faulty warning lights, and the slow entropy of flying machines held together by rivets, regulations, and sheer maintenance crew willpower. But hidden...
The B-52 Will Outlive Us All: Rolls-Royce F130 Engine Swap Clears Critical Design Review
Share this story There is an aircraft that first flew when Harry Truman was president, that dropped conventional bombs over Vietnam and precision-guided munitions over Afghanistan, that practiced nuclear deterrence through the Cuban Missile Crisis and Desert Storm and...
Joby Flies JFK to Manhattan in 7 Minutes
Share this story In late April 2026, a white, six-rotor aircraft lifted off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, tilted its propellers forward, and landed at the East 34th Street Heliport in Midtown Manhattan seven minutes later. No jet fuel. No noise...
MQ-9 Reaper Fleet Drops to 135 After Iran Losses: The Drone That Changed Warfare Meets Its Match
Share this story There is a number that keeps the people who manage America’s drone fleet awake at night, and that number is 189. That is the minimum number of MQ-9 Reapers the Air Force says it needs to sustain its worldwide intelligence, surveillance,...
B-1B Gets 50% More Firepower With External Pylons
Share this story The B-1B Lancer is getting the biggest weapons upgrade in its operational history. The U.S. Air Force’s Load Adaptable Modular (LAM) pylon program will restore six dormant external hardpoints on the bomber, boosting its total precision weapons...
Tex Johnston: He Secretly Barrel-Rolled the Boeing 707 Prototype Over 200,000 People
Share this story Bill Allen, Boeing’s president, was watching the hydroplane races on Lake Washington from a company yacht on 7 August 1955. The new Boeing 367-80 — the prototype of what would become the 707 — was scheduled to fly overhead in a demonstration for...
Kyushu J7W Shinden: Japan’s Backwards Fighter Flew Five Days Too Late
Share this story On August 3, 1945, a Japanese test pilot named Masayoshi Tsuruno climbed into the strangest fighter prototype Japan had ever built and pushed the throttle forward. The aircraft trundled along the runway at Kyūshū Aircraft Company’s Mushiroda...
The Avrocar: When the Pentagon Built a Flying Saucer
Share this story If you ever stand in front of the gigantic Cold War hangar at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, you will see, parked between an XB-70 Valkyrie and a YF-12, something that looks like it landed there yesterday — a domed...
The Bell XF-109: 8 Engines, Mach 2, VTOL — and Never Flew
Share this story In 1960, in a hangar at the Bell Aircraft plant at Niagara Falls, New York, Bell unveiled the wildest single-seat fighter ever proposed by an American manufacturer. It had a needle-nosed fuselage, two wing-tip nacelles that could swivel through 100...
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