Rafale Loyal Wingman: France Plans First Crewed-Uncrewed Flight in 2028
Share this story France has put a date on its first robot wingman. In 2028 the French Air and Space Force plans to fly a Rafale together with an uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft, a so-called loyal wingman, in a first crewed-uncrewed test flight. The plan was...
Ukrainian MiG-29 Shot Down: Ghost of Kyiv Pilot Marat Mambetov Killed
Share this story The statement came on 1 October, short and plain, the way these statements always are. A MiG-29 had been hit by a Russian missile during a combat mission. The pilot had ejected. He had not survived. His name was Captain Marat Redvanovych Mambetov, a...
Vortex Generators: The Little Fins That Fix Big Wing Problems
Share this story Take a window seat over the wing of a Boeing 737 Next Generation and look just outboard of the engine. A short row of small blades stands on the upper skin, each angled across the airflow like a miniature keel. Passengers photograph them, post the...
Gold Canopy: The Conductive Film That Hides a Fighter Cockpit
Share this story Seen from a tanker’s boom, the pilot of an F-22 Raptor appears to sit beneath a sheet of gold leaf. The colour is not paint, and it is not a sun visor. It is an electrically conductive film on the canopy, thin enough to see through, and its job...
Vapor Cone Explained: Why the White Cloud Is Not the Sound Barrier
Share this story On 7 July 1999, Ensign John Gay was on the highest deck of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation when an F/A-18C Hornet tore past wrapped in a white bell of cloud. The nose and canopy were clear. The rest of the jet seemed to be bursting out of a...
G-LOC and Auto-GCAS: Why Pilots Pass Out and Jets Now Pull Up
Share this story On 5 May 2016, somewhere over the southwestern United States, a student pilot in an Arizona Air National Guard F-16 rolled into a basic fighter manoeuvre, pulled more than 8 G and lost consciousness. There was no tunnel vision, no greying, no warning....
Mary Ellis: The ATA Pilot Who Flew 400 Spitfires Without a Radio
Share this story The Wellington rolled to a stop at an airfield in East Anglia, and the ground crew went looking for its pilot. They would not believe it was the young woman who had climbed down from the cockpit. “They actually went inside the aeroplane and...
Leo Thorsness: The Wild Weasel Who Took On Most of North Vietnam
Share this story The fuel gauge read empty when the runway at Udorn, just across the Mekong in Thailand, came up in front of the nose. Maj. Leo Thorsness had pulled his F-105F back to idle with 70 miles to go, by his own account, and glided in. In the back seat, his...
Bud Day, Misty 01: The F-100 Pilot Who Escaped North Vietnam
Share this story The float was a few bamboo logs, and the man clinging to it had a right arm broken in three places, bare feet cut to ribbons and branches heaped over him for cover. He was crossing the Ben Hai, the river that divided North from South Vietnam. A sentry...
Erling Haaland Sues Norwegian Air Over a Ponytail on a Plane
Share this story For more than two decades, Norwegian Air Shuttle has flown other people’s faces around Europe. Greta Garbo has gazed out from the fin of a Boeing 737-800. Sonja Henie, Thor Heyerdahl and Edvard Munch have taken their turns up there too. This...
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