114 Rafale Deal: India Expects a Decision by Year-End
Share this story India’s biggest fighter deal in a generation has a deadline. Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said on 1 October that the bids for 114 more Dassault Rafale jets for the Indian Air Force are being evaluated, and that New Delhi expects to reach...
Su-35 Shoots Down Russian Mi-8 Over Voronezh, Channels Claim
Share this story Russia lost a helicopter and its crew over its own territory on the evening of 1 October. If the reports coming out of the Voronezh region are right, the missile or the shells that brought it down came from a Russian fighter. According to Telegram...
flydubai Captain Smit Machchhar: “I Was Fighting for My Life”
Share this story He was on the cockpit floor, bleeding from wounds to his head and hands, when he felt it. The Boeing 737 was going down. Captain Smit Machchhar, the Indian pilot in command of flydubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on 30 September, has now told...
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...
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