SPICE 1000 on the F-35I Adir: Israel Arms Its Lightning
Israel’s F-35s have been flying the hardest missions of the last two years with somebody else’s bombs. That is about to change. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announced at the Air, Space & Cyber conference on 15 September 2026 that it is integrating the SPICE...
NATO’s Drone Wingmen: USAFE Prepares for Allied CCAs
Europe has spent three years arguing about whether it should build its own fighters or keep buying American ones. The answer taking shape is neither, and it is not really about fighters at all. At the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber...
F-47 and F/A-XX: The Industrial Base Problem Nobody Solved
When the Pentagon shelved the Navy’s sixth-generation fighter last year, the official reason was that American industry could not develop and build two of them at once. A lot of people did not believe it. The Air Force general who advises the Pentagon on buying major...
Air Force Eyes New-Build F-16s: Meet the Proposed F-16G
The United States has not bought an F-16 for itself in more than twenty years. That may be about to change, and the proposed designation tells you how far the idea has already travelled: F-16G. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported on 16 September 2026, citing...
USAF Weighs Restarting C-17 Production: “Heck Yeah, But…”
Asked at a press roundtable whether the US Air Force would like to build new C-17s, the general in charge of American airlift did not hedge for long. “Heck yeah,” said Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, head of Air Mobility Command. Then came the caveat, and the...
Houthis Claim a Saudi F-15 Shot Down Over Marib, Yemen
The first thing the world saw was a tailfin. Scorched, standing upright in a burnt patch of Marib scrub, with the green and white of the Saudi flag still legible through the soot. On 16 September 2026, Yemen’s Houthi movement — formally Ansar Allah — said it had shot...
The Top American Ace of Vietnam Never Flew the Aircraft
The highest-scoring American ace of the Vietnam War never flew the aeroplane. On 9 September 1972, Captain Charles B. DeBellevue shot down his fifth and sixth MiGs from the back seat of an F-4D Phantom. He was a weapon systems officer. The stick and throttles were...
Russia Beat GPS Jamming With a Two-Dollar Compass
Ukraine has spent this war building some of the densest electronic warfare cover on earth. Along much of the front line, GPS and GLONASS simply do not work. A drone that depends on satellite navigation arrives over the target having forgotten where it is....
How a Heat-Seeking Missile Works, and Why Flares Stopped Saving You
A radar-guided missile announces itself. It has to: something has to illuminate the target, and the moment that happens the target knows it is being shot at.An infrared missile says nothing at all. It emits no signal, because it is not looking for a reflection. It is...
Why Airliners Still Have Ashtrays Decades After the Smoking Ban
Smoking has been banned on commercial flights for decades. The signs are lit from pushback to gate. Tampering with a lavatory smoke detector will get you arrested.And yet every airliner rolling off the line at Toulouse or Renton this year has an ashtray fitted to the...
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