Bier-Order 61: Two Luftwaffe Jets Lost Over East Germany
Share this story The Berlin Wall was a month old. The West German federal election was three days away. And two Luftwaffe fighter-bombers were somewhere over Leipzig, in cloud, being hunted by Soviet MiGs, with no idea where they were. Sixty-five years ago this week,...
Russian Il-96 Lands in Germany to Collect Expelled Diplomats
Share this story Russian-registered aircraft have been banned from European Union airspace since 2022. On the morning of 16 September, one landed in Germany anyway, with permission, and with the German foreign ministry explaining why. At 09:36 an Ilyushin Il-96-300 in...
The Soviets Asked the Phantom Crews to Do Barrel Rolls
Share this story Somewhere over the North Atlantic, in late 1973 or early 1974, a US Air Force F-4C Phantom flew a barrel roll around a Soviet Tu-95 Bear. The Soviet crew had asked for it, by hand signal, through the glass. The photographs were taken by Robert M....
Air France 4590: The Ninety Seconds That Ended Concorde
Share this story Air France 4590 lifted off from runway 26 Right at Charles de Gaulle at 16:43 on Tuesday 25 July 2000, already on fire, and hit a hotel at Gonesse about seventy seconds later. Everyone aboard died — 100 passengers and nine crew — along...
Skybolt and Blue Streak: How the RAF Lost Britain’s Bomb
Share this story Britain spent the 1950s building three superb bombers and then discovered it had nothing worth putting in them. The Vulcan, the Victor and the Valiant were designed to fly over the Soviet Union and drop free-fall bombs. By the time they were in...
NATO’s Drone Wingmen: USAFE Prepares for Allied CCAs
Share this story Europe has spent three years arguing about whether it should build its own fighters or keep buying American ones. The answer taking shape is neither, and it is not really about fighters at all. At the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space...
NATO Is Scrapping Air Policing: Inside Standing Defense Plan 12000
Share this story A Russian drone crossed into Lithuanian airspace overnight on 15 September, and NATO fighters shot it down. That part has happened before — by the alliance air commander’s own count, at least six times now.What is new is that the officer...
Swiss F-35: Parliament Approves 394 Million Francs More
Share this story In September 2020 Swiss voters approved a new fighter fleet by 8,515 votes out of more than three million cast. It was the narrowest margin in modern Swiss defence politics, and the case for it rested heavily on one reassuring word: the price was...
Aeroflot VP-BOE: 1,650 Days Parked at Geneva, CHF 1.6 Million
Share this story The aeroplane was ready to go. Fully fuelled, passengers in their seats, catering loaded, doors about to close. It was a Sunday afternoon in Geneva and the Aeroflot A321 had landed from Moscow only a couple of hours earlier. Then the European Union...
A Russian Frigate Fired Flares at a Danish Helicopter
Share this story A Royal Danish Air Force Fennec helicopter was photographing a Russian frigate over the Baltic on Monday evening when the frigate fired two flares at it. One passed close to the aircraft. Nobody was hurt and the helicopter was undamaged. It was flying...
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