Share this story In the 1960s, American spy satellites scanning the Caspian Sea brought back pictures of something that should not have existed: a 92-metre, jet-powered hybrid of ship and aircraft, skimming the water at 500 km/h. The CIA called it the Caspian Sea...
Share this story A wing is the most consequential geometry in nature. Whether it is the rachis-and-vane of a feather, the chitin-and-membrane of an insect, or the aluminium-and-composite of an aircraft, the same equation has to balance the same forces: lift against...
Share this story The Bell AH-1 Cobra is the most consequential helicopter design in American military history. Before the Cobra, every armed helicopter in the world was a transport airframe with weapons bolted onto it — a Huey with door guns, a Mi-4 with rocket pods,...
Share this story Qatar Airways finished its 2025/26 financial year with a net profit of US$1.94 billion. It is the highest annual profit in the airline’s history. The carrier moved 41.8 million passengers, 1.43 million tons of cargo, and a 12% share of the...
Share this story When two aircraft collide in mid-air — as happened recently with an EA-18G Growler at Mountain Home Air Force Base — the debris field can stretch for miles. Pieces of aluminum, wiring, and avionics scatter across terrain in patterns that look random...
Share this story Aircraft mechanics see things that the travelling public never hears about. Behind the polished cabin walls and beneath the gleaming fuselage panels lies a hidden world where forgotten sandwiches fossilize in inaccessible corners, wildlife takes up...
Share this story Most people assume that becoming a pilot requires good eyesight and a steady hand. That much is true. What most people don’t realize is just how deep the medical rabbit hole goes — and how some of the conditions that can ground you are genuinely...
Share this story The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was supposed to be the future of strategic bombing — a six-engine colossus that could outrun anything in the sky at three times the speed of sound. Instead, it became one of aviation’s most expensive...
Share this story Twelve billion dollars. Gone. The top ten eVTOL companies have collectively burned through $12 billion in investor capital — four times what was lost during the very light jet craze of the 2000s, and more than Boeing earned even in its most profitable...
Share this story City to city, with no airports. Take off from a small concrete pad in central London, climb vertically, transition forward, cruise at 190 miles per hour, descend, land on a concrete pad in central Paris. No taxi, no train, no airport security. In June...
Share this story The photograph looks fake. A short-fuselage Soviet-era twin-engine airliner — a Tupolev Tu-134, the workhorse of Aeroflot domestic routes for thirty years — is hanging in midair beneath a single helicopter. The Tu-134 weighs about 28 tonnes empty. It...
Share this story The most ambitious naval aviation concept the United States ever fielded was not the nuclear-powered supercarrier. It was a 785-foot helium airship with an interior hangar bay full of biplane fighters that could be launched and recovered in flight....
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