The Record-Breaking Jet France Kept Secret
In the mid-1950s, a needle-thin French aircraft with jet engines perched on its wingtips and a rocket motor in its belly clawed its way toward the edge of space, touching nearly twice the speed of sound and setting records for how fast a jet could climb. And then...
The Jet That Couldn’t Take Off
Imagine a fighter aircraft that cannot take off. It has no way to move under its own power on the runway, no way to build up speed, no way to leave the ground at all. To fly it, you must bolt it to the roof of an airliner, haul it up to altitude, and drop it — and...
The Cold War Jet Only India Still Flies
Half a century ago, the SEPECAT Jaguar screamed across the plains of northern Germany at treetop height, a nuclear bomb slung beneath its belly and the Warsaw Pact in its sights. France retired it in 2005. Britain let it go in 2007. Oman parked its last examples in...
A $7.6 Billion Bidding War for easyJet
Europe’s most recognisable low-cost airline has become the object of a transatlantic tug-of-war. On 10 July 2026, the board of easyJet told the market it was no longer minded to recommend a takeover proposal from the American investment firm Castlelake — because...
Denmark’s New Sub-Hunters Carry a Greenland Message
Denmark has decided how it will watch the top of the world. On Jul. 7, 2026, the Danish Ministry of Defence confirmed a provisional decision to buy two Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft — long-range sub-hunters built to prowl the North Atlantic and the...
Prague Gets Its Airlifter, With a Gripen Escort
On Jul. 6, 2026, a new shape crossed into Czech airspace: a twin-engined, high-tailed jet transport in a distinctive three-tone grey, escorted the last stretch home by a pair of Saab JAS 39 Gripens. The newcomer was the Czech Air Force’s first Embraer C-390...
Flames on Zante: A Greek F-16 Belly-Lands
The holidaymakers on Zakynthos came for the beaches. On the afternoon of Jul. 9, 2026, they got something else entirely: a single-seat fighter jet sliding down the runway on its belly, trailing sparks, then wrapped in flame as fire crews rushed to smother it. The...
The Saab Viggen: The Fighter Built to Fly From the Roads
Sweden entered the Cold War with a problem no amount of money could simply solve. A neutral nation of modest size, sitting beside the Soviet Union, it knew that in any war its handful of big airbases would be cratered by missiles and bombs in the opening hours. The...
Can Europe Hold the Sky if America Steps Back?
For three-quarters of a century, European security rested on a single quiet assumption: if the sky over the continent ever caught fire, American airpower would arrive to put it out. At this month’s NATO summit, the alliance’s top commander made clear that the...
Roland Garros Never Played the French Open
Fréjus, on the Côte d’Azur, 23 September 1913, 5:47 in the morning. The sea is still grey, the air smells of salt and the burnt castor oil that every rotary engine of the era coughs over its pilot. A small, dark-eyed man settles into a Morane-Saulnier G — a...
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