Britain Hands Romania’s Skies to Spain

Britain Hands Romania’s Skies to Spain

Share this story For four months, the job of guarding NATO’s eastern edge over the Black Sea fell to a handful of British fighters sitting at cockpit readiness in Romania. Last week, they handed the watch to Spain and went home. On July 31, 2026, Royal Air Force...
The Air Force Just Bought a 300-Mile JDAM

The Air Force Just Bought a 300-Mile JDAM

Share this story For thirty years, a JDAM was a dumb bomb with a brain bolted on: cheap, accurate, and useful only if you flew almost directly over the target. The Air Force just bought a version that can hit something more than 300 miles away. On August 5, 2026, the...
A 777 Flew Scotland to Australia Nonstop

A 777 Flew Scotland to Australia Nonstop

Share this story Somewhere over the Indian Ocean last week, a Boeing 777 Freighter was doing something faintly absurd: flying a set of engine parts almost 10,000 nautical miles, nonstop, because a single airliner on the other side of the planet could not fly without...
Twenty-One Air Forces, One Australian Sky

Twenty-One Air Forces, One Australian Sky

Share this story Every two years, the empty skies over Australia’s Top End fill with the noise of the largest air-combat exercise in the Southern Hemisphere. This year, for the first time, some of those fighters wore Japanese and Indonesian markings. Exercise...
A Jet Got Too Close to Marine One

A Jet Got Too Close to Marine One

Share this story For about ninety seconds on Tuesday afternoon, the most protected passenger in the world and a planeload of holidaymakers bound for Florida were sharing a narrow slice of Washington sky that the rules say they never should have. On August 4, 2026,...
The Spy Who Gave Stalin the Bomb

The Spy Who Gave Stalin the Bomb

Share this story The finale of The Race for the Bomb, an Afterburner focus series. Nine parts brought the bomb from a London traffic light to Nagasaki. The last part answers the question Washington asked in September 1949: how did Stalin get it so fast? Somewhere...