Russian Il-96 Lands in Germany to Collect Expelled Diplomats
Share this story Russian-registered aircraft have been banned from European Union airspace since 2022. On the morning of 16 September, one landed in Germany anyway, with permission, and with the German foreign ministry explaining why. At 09:36 an Ilyushin Il-96-300 in...
CCA Drones Head to Emerald Flag in Their First Real Exercise
Share this story The U.S. Air Force has been flying its fighter drones for over a year. It has tested them, taxied them, launched them from austere strips and flown one alongside an F-35. What it has never done is put them into a proper war. In December, it will....
KC-135 Battle Damage: Patching a Smoking Tanker Under Fire
Share this story The crew were already aboard. The maintenance team was about to launch the jet. Then the base alarm went red and everybody ran for a bunker. When they came back out, the KC-135 Stratotanker was smoking, punched full of shrapnel holes, and sitting on...
Istanbul Airport Overtakes Heathrow as World’s Most Connected
Share this story For years the argument about the world’s best-connected airport was really an argument between Heathrow, Schiphol and Frankfurt, with Dubai lurking. On 16 September that stopped being true. OAG published Megahubs 2026 and Istanbul is first. Not...
Mountain Home F-15E Nose Art: Thanos and Darth Maul Come Home
Share this story Twelve F-15E Strike Eagles came down the approach at RAF Lakenheath on 16 September, six at a time, callsigns TREND 11 to 16 and then TREND 21 to 26. The tailcodes read MO. Mountain Home, Idaho. They were not stopping long. What made ground crews and...
AIM-260 JATM: Pentagon Signs Lockheed Production Deal
Share this story The AIM-260 was supposed to be in squadron service in 2022. It is September 2026, the missile is still in development, and the first photograph of one only surfaced four months ago. For a weapon the U.S. Air Force calls essential to winning the next...
Operation Arctic Vanguard: F-35s Fly From Pituffik, Greenland
Share this story The ramp at Pituffik is wet, grey and running with meltwater. Behind it a ridge of bare rock streaked with old snow. A marshaller in olive fleece walks backwards with both arms up, and an F-35A Lightning II rolls towards him with WI stencilled on the...
The Soviets Asked the Phantom Crews to Do Barrel Rolls
Share this story Somewhere over the North Atlantic, in late 1973 or early 1974, a US Air Force F-4C Phantom flew a barrel roll around a Soviet Tu-95 Bear. The Soviet crew had asked for it, by hand signal, through the glass. The photographs were taken by Robert M....
Atlas Cheetah: The Fighter South Africa Built Because Nobody Would Sell It One
Share this story On 4 November 1977 the United Nations Security Council voted 15 to nothing to impose a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa. It was the first time the Council had ever imposed binding sanctions on a member state. Nine years later South Africa rolled...
The Rhodesian Air Force: Fifteen Years of Flying Under Embargo
Share this story On 16 December 1966 the United Nations Security Council imposed the first mandatory arms embargo in its history. The target was Rhodesia, which had declared independence from Britain thirteen months earlier and which no country on earth recognised....
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