The Raid That Flew at Fifty Feet
Before dawn on 1 August 1943, the desert around Benghazi coughed itself awake. One hundred and seventy-eight B-24 Liberators, engines scoured half to death by Libyan sand, staggered off the runways with 3,100 US gallons (11,700 litres) of fuel and full bomb bays. More...
Desert One: The Night Everything Went Wrong
At 22:47 on 24 April 1980, a blacked-out MC-130 thumped down on a salt flat 200 miles (320 km) southeast of Tehran, and the most secret mission in America promptly met the public. Headlights. A Mercedes bus, forty-plus Iranian civilians aboard, rolling straight...
T-7A Full-Rate Production Slips to 2029
Last week we walked you through the sustainment data fight simmering between Boeing and the Air Force over the T-7A Red Hawk. Seven days later, the Government Accountability Office showed up with receipts. GAO’s Weapon Systems Annual Assessment, released July 2...
Trump Dangles the F-35 in Ankara
Six years ago the United States took Turkey’s F-35s away. The jets Ankara had already paid for went into storage in the Arizona desert, Turkish pilots were sent home from Luke Air Force Base, and roughly 100 stealth fighters on order evaporated. On Tuesday,...
CENTCOM Hits 80 Targets in Overnight Iran Blitz
Eighty targets. One night. That is CENTCOM’s answer to Iran shooting at oil tankers again. Overnight into Wednesday, US forces worked their way down a target list across southern Iran: air defense systems, command-and-control networks, coastal radar sites,...
The C-5M Super Galaxy: America’s Giant That’s Still Flying
When the An-225 Mriya was destroyed in 2022, the world lost its single largest aircraft. But the West still keeps a giant of its own in the air — one that has been hauling tanks, helicopters and satellites around the planet since before the Moon landings, and is...
Pakistan Bets on China’s Stealth Fighter
Pakistan is on course to fly something no air force outside China has ever operated: a Chinese stealth fighter. The Pakistan Air Force has moved to acquire the Shenyang J-35 — reportedly up to 40 jets — in what would be the first export sale of a Chinese...
The Navy’s New Doomsday Plane Is Late
There is one aircraft the United States hopes it never has to use for its real job: the plane that would relay the order to launch nuclear missiles from America’s submerged submarines. Its replacement is now running late — and the government watchdog that warned about...
What Buzzed a Private Jet Over New York?
Ten minutes after lifting off from New York on Independence Day, climbing through 15,800 feet, the crew of a NetJets business jet saw something big and silver flash past their windscreen — close enough to report it. Then it was gone. They keyed the radio and told air...
American Puts Chicago Back on the Tokyo Map
Seven years after American Airlines walked away from the route, Chicago and Tokyo are about to be joined by a nonstop again — and this time American is flying it with its own metal. Starting 27 March 2027, American will run a daily Boeing 787-9 between Chicago O’Hare...
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