F/A-XX Decision Slips: The Navy’s August Deadline Comes and Goes
Share this story In April, the Chief of Naval Operations said the Navy would name the winner of the F/A-XX competition in August. The Defense Secretary said August. The Acting Navy Secretary said August. There is now one week of August left, and no announcement. We...
CCA Increment 2: America’s Next Robot Fighter Needs a New Engine
Share this story The first generation of America’s robot fighters is already being built. The second generation is still an argument about engines. Speaking at the Air Force’s Life Cycle Industry Days conference in Dayton, Ohio, senior acquisition...
GBU-39 on the BRU-61: The Rack That Quadruples an F-16’s Targets
Share this story A fighter has a fixed number of places to hang things. Wings, fuselage, wingtips. Every pylon you fill with a bomb is a pylon you cannot fill with fuel, a targeting pod, or a missile to defend yourself with. That arithmetic has constrained air...
Next Generation Interceptor Passes Stage-2 Motor Vacuum Test
Share this story America’s defence against an intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at its homeland currently rests on 44 interceptors: 40 buried in silos at Fort Greely, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg in California. The design dates to the early 2000s. The...
AIM-424 Malice: The US Navy Reveals a 250-Mile Air-to-Air Missile
Share this story For years the U.S. Navy has had a problem it could not shoot its way out of. Its best long-range air-to-air missile, the AIM-174B Gunslinger, is a magnificent weapon that only the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet can carry, and only hanging off a wing where...
Taiwan’s First F-16V Block 70s Arrive as Beijing Plays Them Down
Share this story The first of Taiwan’s brand-new F-16V fighters are on their way home, and China’s state media wants everyone to know it is not impressed. Two single-seat F-16V Block 70s left the United States on 17 August 2026, routing through Fort Worth,...
Convair Sea Dart: The Only Supersonic Seaplane Rode on Skis
Share this story Picture the pitch meeting. It is 1948, the jet age is barely out of diapers, and someone at the U.S. Navy stands up and says: what if the fighter took off from the ocean? No carrier. No runway. Just a supersonic delta-wing jet, water-skiing into the...
China Flies Its Heavy Fighters to Africa
Share this story For the first time, China has flown one of its heavyweight fighters to Africa. A formation of Shenyang J-16 strike jets touched down at an Egyptian air base early on 21 August 2026, opening the second edition of the “Eagles of...
United Teases a Big Denver Long-Haul Reveal
Share this story United Airlines is about to open a box it has been rattling for weeks. On Tuesday, 25 August 2026, the carrier plans to roll out its first Airbus A321XLR at a hangar event in Newark and, alongside the jet, announce a batch of new international routes...
America Airlifts Aid to Earthquake-Struck Colombia
Share this story When a magnitude-7.4 earthquake tore through western Colombia on Aug. 10, 2026, the American response arrived on four jet engines. Within days, U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transports were touching down in Bogotá and Medellín,...
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