Mining Iran’s Missile Cities from the Air
Share this story A nighttime photograph released by the Israeli Air Force on March 29 shows a pair of F-16I Sufas taxiing for another strike mission against Iran. The jets are loaded heavy. But the weapons hanging under their wings aren’t the precision-guided...
Nine Seconds on the Gun: A-10 Strafing Runs Break the Rules
Share this story A standard A-10 gun run lasts two to three seconds. Finger on the trigger, a controlled burst of 30mm depleted uranium rounds, then pull off target. That’s what pilots train for. That’s what the manual says. So when video surfaced from...
Dozens of Warthogs Gear Up for Iran
Share this story Flight trackers lit up over the weekend as a formation of A-10C Thunderbolt IIs — callsign TABOR 71 — crossed the Atlantic toward RAF Lakenheath in England. Behind them, three KC-135 Stratotankers from RAF Mildenhall held station, feeding fuel to the...
Surgical Green at Mach 2: The MiG-21 Cockpit Mystery
Share this story Climb into a MiG-21 and the first thing you notice is not the cramped canopy or the wall of round dials. It is the colour. The instrument panel, the side consoles and the cockpit walls are painted a vivid turquoise, somewhere between a swimming pool...
Stealth Fighters Land on China’s Doorstep
Share this story At 12:50 PM on March 29, four F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters touched down at Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan. They taxied to the ramp, engines winding down, canopies opening in the cold northern air. It looked routine. It...
$80M Jets vs $30K Drones: The Losing Math
Share this story The first 100 hours of Operation Epic Fury cost approximately $3.7 billion — roughly $891 million per day. A staggering share of that went to a single, maddening problem: shooting down cheap Iranian drones with some of the most expensive aircraft on...
Brazil Rolls Out Its Own Fighter Jet
Share this story On March 25, a Gripen E fighter jet — designation F-39E, serial FAB 4109 — rolled out of Embraer’s facility in Gavião Peixoto, São Paulo state. It looks identical to every other Gripen E. But this one was built in Brazil, not Sweden. And that changes...
A Strafing Run, a MANPADS, and a Near Miss
Share this story On March 25, a U.S. Navy F/A-18E/F Super Hornet screamed low over the Iranian port city of Chabahar, its M61A2 Vulcan cannon spitting 20mm rounds at targets near the Imam Ali IRGC Naval Base. Seconds later, a shoulder-fired missile streaked upward and...
Rude Rams Named Best Fighter Squadron in USAF
Share this story Eleven months deployed out of twelve. Thousands of combat hours. The first-ever air-to-air kills for the F-35A. The 34th Fighter Squadron just earned the Raytheon Trophy — and no unit in the Air Force had a more gruelling year to show for it. The...
Secret Testbeds Spotted Over Gulf of Mexico
Share this story For three consecutive days last week, two of America’s most secretive flying laboratories circled over the Gulf of Mexico in tight formation — and the aviation intelligence community is buzzing about what they were testing. Northrop...
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