The £4.6 Billion Cheque That Starts a Sixth-Gen Fighter
For months, Europe’s most ambitious fighter programme had a hole in the middle of it: the money. On July 3, 2026, that hole was filled. The United Kingdom, Italy and Japan signed a £4.6 billion ($6.1 billion) contract to push their sixth-generation combat aircraft...
NATO’s Next Radar Jet Is Swedish
For 44 years, the deep rumble of Boeing E-3A Sentries out of Geilenkirchen has been the sound of NATO watching its own skies. Now, according to a Reuters report published on 2 July, the alliance is preparing to hand that job to a jet from a country that only joined...
China Grounds All General Aviation After Light Plane Hits Beijing Skyscraper
China has grounded all general aviation nationwide — private light aircraft, business jets, flight schools, parachute clubs, and glider operations — after a small single-engine plane crashed into the CITIC Tower in central Beijing on 26 June 2026. The ban, which has...
GCAP Locked In: UK Pledges £8.6 Billion for Sixth-Gen Fighter
The world’s most ambitious sixth-generation fighter programme just survived its biggest political test. The United Kingdom has committed £8.6 billion over the next four years to the Global Combat Air Programme, as part of its new £298 billion Defence Investment...
The Embraer-Northrop KC-390 Partnership: A Brazilian Tanker for American Skies
A Brazilian Air Force KC-390 Millennium (FAB 2858) on display at NATO Days 2023 in the Czech Republic. The aircraft has rapidly gained traction with European air forces. (Wikimedia Commons) In February 2026, Embraer and Northrop Grumman signed a memorandum of...
Dassault Falcon 10X: The Widest Cabin in Business Aviation Takes Flight
On 10 March 2026, more than 400 customers, partners, and aviation executives gathered in a new production hall at Bordeaux-Mérignac as Dassault Aviation pulled the curtain on the Falcon 10X — the largest, longest-ranged, and most technologically advanced business jet...
The TSR-2: The Best British Aircraft That Never Served
On the afternoon of 6 April 1965, test pilot Roland “Bee” Beamont was having lunch at a pub near Boscombe Down when the BBC news bulletin came through the radio. Chancellor of the Exchequer James Callaghan, midway through his Budget Speech in the House of...
Ukrainian Mirages Will Lead Bastille Day Over Paris
When the Patrouille de France’s nine blue-and-white Alphajets sweep over the Champs-Élysées on July 14, they won’t be alone. Flanking them will be two Mirage 2000Bs crewed by Franco-Ukrainian teams — the opening act of the largest Bastille Day aerial...
It’s Official: Ukraine Is Getting 16 Gripen Es
It is now firm. Saab has signed a contract for 16 Gripen E fighters destined for Ukraine — turning the spring’s letter of intent into a binding deal and committing one of the West’s most capable light fighters to the Ukrainian Air Force.The contract,...
Code 7500: Bulgaria’s MiG-29 Scrambles
At 1:54pm on June 30, a Bulgarian MiG-29 lit its afterburners and clawed off the runway at Graf Ignatievo. Three minutes later it had formed up on the wing of a civilian Airbus A320 that had just transmitted the four digits every air-defence controller dreads:...
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