Avro Manchester: The Failed Bomber That Became the Lancaster
Share this story The most famous British bomber of the Second World War began life as one of its worst. Before the Avro Lancaster hauled bouncing bombs to the Ruhr dams and Tallboys onto the Tirpitz, there was the Avro Manchester — a twin-engine heavy so plagued...
Kawanishi H8K Emily: The Best Flying Boat of WWII
Share this story Three months after Pearl Harbor, two enormous Japanese flying boats lifted off from a lagoon in the Marshall Islands and set course for Hawaii. Their plan was almost absurd: fly nearly 2,000 miles across empty ocean, meet a submarine at a deserted...
Palm Sunday Massacre: The 15 Minutes That Broke a Lifeline
Share this story Late in the afternoon of April 18, 1943 — Palm Sunday — a wall of German transport planes crawled north-east across the Mediterranean at wavetop height, so low their propellers kicked spray off the swells. There were about ninety of them,...
COSCO Spy Ships? China’s Cargo Fleet Accused of Signals Intelligence
Share this story The most valuable spy near a naval exercise may not be a submarine or a satellite. It may be the container ship steaming quietly past on the horizon, stacked with boxes and bristling with antennas that look exactly like every other merchant vessel...
Riyadh Air Launches Its Riyadh-Bangkok Dreamliner Route
Share this story Two years ago Riyadh Air was a logo and a promise. This week it flew its first passengers to Bangkok — the newest thread in a network that Saudi Arabia intends to stretch across the planet.On September 2, the kingdom’s from-scratch flag...
Chinese Y-20 Tanker Refuels an Egyptian Rafale in a First
Share this story A French-built fighter took on fuel from a Chinese tanker over Egypt this week — and in doing so quietly rewrote a small piece of the aerial map. It is, as far as anyone can tell, the first time a Chinese Y-20 tanker has been publicly documented...
Navy CCA RFI: The Service Wants Its X-47B Combat Drone Back
Share this story Ten years ago the U.S. Navy had a stealthy, carrier-capable combat drone flying off the deck of a supercarrier — and then it walked away from it. This week the service quietly admitted it wants that aircraft back.On August 31, Naval Air Systems...
Netflix’s Air Force One Decoy Documentary Premieres Friday
Share this story Some stories are too strange to stay in the news cycle. On Friday, the strangest aviation story of the summer becomes a Netflix documentary. The streamer has fast-tracked a film about the afternoon in July when the President of the United States...
US Strikes Iran’s Air Defences as Missiles Fall on Jordan Air Base
Share this story The Strait of Hormuz war widened over the weekend, and for once the most consequential fighting was not over Iran at all. It was over Jordan, where American Patriot batteries spent part of Monday morning shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles aimed...
Leipzig Drone Attack: Putin Demands Proof as Germany’s Evidence Emerges
Share this story Germany spent Tuesday accusing Russia of trying to blow up a Ukrainian freighter on German soil. Russia spent the hours that followed escalating its denial, first through its embassy in Berlin, then through Vladimir Putin himself. The sequence...
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