Gold Canopy: The Conductive Film That Hides a Fighter Cockpit
Share this story Seen from a tanker’s boom, the pilot of an F-22 Raptor appears to sit beneath a sheet of gold leaf. The colour is not paint, and it is not a sun visor. It is an electrically conductive film on the canopy, thin enough to see through, and its job...
G-LOC and Auto-GCAS: Why Pilots Pass Out and Jets Now Pull Up
Share this story On 5 May 2016, somewhere over the southwestern United States, a student pilot in an Arizona Air National Guard F-16 rolled into a basic fighter manoeuvre, pulled more than 8 G and lost consciousness. There was no tunnel vision, no greying, no warning....
FP-7 Ballistic Missile: Ukraine Claims First Combat Use
Share this story Asked what Ukraine’s first FP-7 ballistic missile strike had hit, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s communications adviser gave the Kyiv Independent a three-word answer: “We’re not telling.” That is most of what is known...
Embraer and Mahindra Earmark Nagpur for a C-390 Assembly Line
Share this story In February 2023 a Brazilian Air Force KC-390 stood on the static line at Yelahanka in Bengaluru, the type’s first appearance at Aero India. Embraer had nothing on the table. “There is no proposal, but the IAF chief, along with his...
AIM-260 Super Hornet Photo: RAAF Jet Carries Inert JATM at Gray Flag
Share this story Nothing in the US Navy’s caption mentions an AIM-260 on the Super Hornet in the frame. It describes a Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18F of No. 1 Squadron taking flight from Naval Base Ventura County Point Mugu, California, on 11 September 2026,...
How the B-2 Navigates by the Stars: Astro-Inertial Navigation Explained
Share this story Somewhere on the upper surface of every B-2 Spirit is a small round window that has nothing to do with the crew. Behind it sits a telescope that looks for stars. While the bomber flies, that system measures the angles to known stars and uses them to...
Missile Approach Warning Systems: How Aircraft See Heat-Seekers Coming
Share this story A radar-guided missile announces itself. The radar that guides it lights up the target aircraft, and a radar warning receiver hears it. A heat-seeking missile gives no such courtesy. It homes passively on the heat of an engine, and the first sign of...
M61 Vulcan: The Six-Barrel Gun That Arms America’s Fighters
Share this story Squeeze the trigger in an F-16 and, a fraction of a second later, six barrels just behind the cockpit are spinning, and 20mm shells are leaving the aircraft at a rate of around 100 per second. The weapon is the M61 Vulcan, and for more than 65 years...
SBX-1, Cobra Dane and PAVE PAWS: The Biggest Radars Ever Built
Share this story The largest radar ever built does not sit on a mountain. It floats. Six diesel generators, two hulls, a crew of somewhere between 48 and 86 depending on which part of the US government you ask, and on top of it a white sphere 36.5 metres (120 ft)...
F-16 Gets New Friend-or-Foe System: BAE AN/APX-127 Certified
Share this story Before a fighter pilot fires, one question has to be answered with certainty: is that contact a friend or a foe? On the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the box that answers it is about to change. BAE Systems announced on 29 September 2026 that its...
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