The Three-Engine Jet That America Forgot
Share this story Count the engines. Most jets have two, or four. The Martin XB-51 had three — two slung under the nose in pods, and a third buried in the tail, breathing through an intake at the base of the fin. It is one of the strangest combat aircraft the...
Eight Jets That Erased a Nuclear Reactor
Share this story Late in the afternoon of 7 June 1981, eight Israeli F-16s are skimming the desert at rooftop height, fuel gauges a constant worry. Flying the last and most exposed aircraft in the formation is the youngest of them, a 27-year-old named Ilan Ramon, who...
The Night 21 Biplanes Rewrote Naval Warfare
Share this story It is approaching eleven o’clock on the night of 11 November 1940, and Lieutenant Commander Kenneth “Hooch” Williamson is pushing his Fairey Swordfish down through the flak over Taranto harbour. Magnesium flares hang in the sky,...
The Last Dogfight of the Second World War
Share this story It is a little after dawn on 15 August 1945, and a flight of Grumman F6F Hellcats is droning north over the haze of Tokyo Bay. In the cockpits are young U.S. Navy pilots of Air Group 88, launched from the carrier USS Yorktown to strike airfields near...
Alaska and Hawaiian Hit 150 Starlink Jets
Share this story The Wi-Fi on your next Alaska or Hawaiian flight may now be faster than the connection in your living room. Alaska Air Group says roughly 150 of its aircraft are flying with SpaceX’s Starlink internet — and for a lot of passengers, it is...
Lufthansa’s €600 Million Robot Cargo Hub Opens
Share this story At Frankfurt Airport, the busiest cargo gateway in Europe, Lufthansa Cargo has switched on the first piece of a €600 million bet on automation. The centrepiece is a warehouse 42 metres tall that, for the most part, runs itself.The new fully...
The Greyhound Flies Its Last Carrier Landing
Share this story For sixty years, one of the most welcome sounds on an American aircraft carrier was not a fighter. It was the drone of two big turboprops on approach. The C-2 Greyhound brought the mail, the spare parts, the fresh food, and the sailors heading home on...
The Navy’s Robot Wingman Is Coming to the Carrier
Share this story The future carrier air wing will not be all pilots. The U.S. Navy is pressing ahead on a carrier-based “loyal wingman” — an uncrewed combat aircraft built to fly alongside crewed fighters, carry sensors and weapons, and go first into...
1,300 F-35s, a Pipeline Built for 800
Share this story The Marine general who runs the F-35 program walked into a Senate hearing this week and said the quiet part out loud: the most expensive weapons program in history has outgrown the system built to keep it flying.It landed weeks after a Government...
Two Drones, Two New York Airports, One Week
Share this story United Flight 1513, a Boeing 737-700 inbound from Key West with 106 people on board, is on final approach to Newark Liberty on a Friday afternoon when the crew sees a small circular object — perhaps three feet across — flash past about a...
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