The Friendly Jet Trainer That Went to War
Share this story Most fast jets seat their crew one behind the other, the passenger staring at the back of the pilot’s helmet. The BAC Jet Provost and its armed cousin, the BAC Strikemaster, do it differently. In these aircraft you sit shoulder to shoulder with...
The Piston Plane That Outlived Its Replacement
Share this story In the summer of 1991, the Royal Air Force flew supersonic Tornados, was preparing for the Eurofighter, and had just watched stealth aircraft debut over Iraq. And the aircraft it relied on to spot incoming threats and guard the northern approaches to...
The Spy Plane With One Black Wing
Share this story Here is a strange way to predict a North Korean missile test. Open a flight-tracking website, and watch for a single, ageing American jet to take off from Nebraska, cross the Pacific, and start flying long racetrack patterns over the Yellow Sea. When...
Why Almost Every Airliner Is White
Share this story Stand at any airport window and count the aircraft. Almost all of them are white, with a tail and a bit of branding to tell them apart. Airlines spend fortunes on brand identity, and then paint their single most visible asset the same colour as...
Why Runways Change Their Numbers
Share this story In 2009, Fairbanks International Airport in Alaska closed a runway, sent out crews, and repainted the enormous white numbers at both ends. Runway 1L–19R became runway 2L–20R.Nothing had been built. Nothing had moved. The concrete was in...
The Hole in Your Aircraft Window
Share this story Next time you get a window seat, look at the bottom of the window. There is a hole in it. A real one, drilled straight through, about the size of a pinhead.Most people who notice it assume one of two things: that it is damage, or that it is there to...
Two Crashes, Forty-Eight Hours, One Question
Share this story The Turbulent weighs about as much as two adult passengers. It is built from wood and fabric, powered by a converted Volkswagen Beetle engine, and its own display team has cheerfully described it as little more than a flying motorbike. On Sunday...
The Pentagon Wants Lasers That Fly
Share this story Cheap drones have humbled expensive air defenses for years now. The Pentagon’s answer keeps coming back to the same idea: a weapon that fires light, costs pennies a shot, and never runs out of magazine. This week a senior Defense Department...
The Soviet Hind That Fights for the Marines
Share this story In the California desert this month, U.S. Marines rehearsed an attack under fire from an unlikely enemy: a Soviet gunship built to kill NATO troops. The Mi-24 Hind was not captured, and it was not a mock-up. It was the real thing, flying for the other...
US and Australia Wage War Over Alaska
Share this story There is a patch of sky over interior Alaska so large it could swallow a small country. This month, American and Australian fighter crews are fighting a war inside it. Red Flag-Alaska 26-3 began on 13 August and runs through 28 August 2026, a Pacific...
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