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...
Istanbul Airport Overtakes Heathrow as World’s Most Connected
Share this story For years the argument about the world’s best-connected airport was really an argument between Heathrow, Schiphol and Frankfurt, with Dubai lurking. On 16 September that stopped being true. OAG published Megahubs 2026 and Istanbul is first. Not...
Atlas Cheetah: The Fighter South Africa Built Because Nobody Would Sell It One
Share this story On 4 November 1977 the United Nations Security Council voted 15 to nothing to impose a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa. It was the first time the Council had ever imposed binding sanctions on a member state. Nine years later South Africa rolled...
The Rhodesian Air Force: Fifteen Years of Flying Under Embargo
Share this story On 16 December 1966 the United Nations Security Council imposed the first mandatory arms embargo in its history. The target was Rhodesia, which had declared independence from Britain thirteen months earlier and which no country on earth recognised....
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...
Three Killed as a Cirrus SR22T Hits a Slope Above Leukerbad
Share this story Three people were killed on Tuesday afternoon when a Cirrus SR22T struck a mountainside above Leukerbad, in the Swiss canton of Valais. The Kantonspolizei Wallis said the aircraft had taken off from Lugano and made an intermediate landing at Sion...
Russia Beat GPS Jamming With a Two-Dollar Compass
Share this story Ukraine has spent this war building some of the densest electronic warfare cover on earth. Along much of the front line, GPS and GLONASS simply do not work. A drone that depends on satellite navigation arrives over the target having forgotten where it...
How a Heat-Seeking Missile Works, and Why Flares Stopped Saving You
Share this story A radar-guided missile announces itself. It has to: something has to illuminate the target, and the moment that happens the target knows it is being shot at.An infrared missile says nothing at all. It emits no signal, because it is not looking for a...
Why Airliners Still Have Ashtrays Decades After the Smoking Ban
Share this story Smoking has been banned on commercial flights for decades. The signs are lit from pushback to gate. Tampering with a lavatory smoke detector will get you arrested.And yet every airliner rolling off the line at Toulouse or Renton this year has an...
Why American Aircraft Start With N: Registration Prefixes Explained
Share this story Every civil aircraft in the world carries a registration painted on its tail or fuselage, and the first character or two tells you where it is registered. American aircraft start with N. British with G. German with D. Swiss with HB.The obvious...
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