FAA Owner-Produced Parts: Making a Legal Part for Your Aircraft
Share this story In August 2026 the Federal Aviation Administration published an Unapproved Parts Notification about cup holders. Not a spar fitting, not a fuel pump — cup holders, headset hangers, windshield shades and yoke grips, 3D-printed in a garage and...
Shock Diamonds Explained: Why Jet and Rocket Exhausts Glow in Rings
Share this story Watch an SR-71 Blackbird leave the runway in full afterburner and the exhaust does something strange. The flame is not a smooth torch. It is a string of bright, evenly spaced beads, glowing knots strung out behind each nozzle like lights on a wire....
Operation Mikado: Britain’s Planned SAS Raid on Argentina’s Exocets
Share this story Picture it: two four-engine transports dropping out of the Patagonian night onto an Argentine runway, roughly 2,000 feet apart. Their ramps come down while the propellers are still turning, and dozens of SAS soldiers pour out to find and destroy a...
Instrument Landing System: How ILS Guides Airliners Through Fog
Share this story The fog is so thick that the crew of an airliner on final approach cannot see the ground, let alone the runway. Yet the jet is tracking a line through the murk with an accuracy measured in metres, descending along an invisible slope towards a...
Benjamin O. Davis Jr.: The Tuskegee Airman Who Became a General
Share this story On 27 October 1954, a 41-year-old colonel working at Far East Air Forces headquarters in Tokyo was promoted to brigadier general. With that single star, Benjamin O. Davis Jr. became the first African-American general in the United States Air Force, 72...
Ukrainian Air Force Wings: NATO-Style Overhaul Planned to 2035
Share this story Ukraine’s Air Force is planning to rebuild itself around Western-style aviation wings and multi-type air bases. Yurii Ihnat, head of the Communications Department at Air Force Command, laid out the plan in an interview on RBC-Ukraine’s...
Castelion Blackbeard Hypersonic Missile Heads for the F-16
Share this story Blackbeard has a new ride. On Monday, 26 October 2026, Castelion announced that it has received a contract modification under its existing work with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to begin integrating its Blackbeard hypersonic weapon on the...
Pilot Fatigue Survey: Three in Four European Pilots Report Microsleeps
Share this story More than three in four European airline pilots say they have nodded off at the controls at least once in the past month. That is the headline finding of a new report published on 26 October 2026 by the European Cockpit Association (ECA), the...
RAF A400M Atlas Emergency: Hours Over Wiltshire, Then Bournemouth
Share this story For more than three hours on Monday afternoon, a Royal Air Force A400M Atlas drew slow, ever-wider circles in the sky over Warminster. The four-engine transport had taken off from MOD Boscombe Down near Amesbury just before 2pm on 26 October 2026, and...
ASELSAN KGK-84 Wing Kit Passes First F-16 Qualification Firing
Share this story A Turkish F-16 has released a 2,000 lb bomb that flew itself to its target on a pair of pop-out wings. On 26 October 2026, ASELSAN announced that its KGK-84 winged guidance kit had completed its first qualification range firing from an F-16 at the...
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