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...
JF-17 Thunder: The Pakistan-China Fighter That Keeps Finding Buyers
Share this story Not every successful fighter needs to be the best in the world. Some just need to be good enough, affordable and available. The JF-17 Thunder, built jointly by Pakistan and China, has turned that formula into an export success, and this year it became...
Hubert Zemke: The Commander Who Built the 56th Fighter Group Wolf Pack
Share this story Some aces are remembered for their kills. Hubert Zemke is remembered for his pilots. As commander of the US Eighth Air Force’s 56th Fighter Group, he turned a unit of eager young P-47 Thunderbolt pilots into Zemke’s Wolf Pack, one of the...
Air Battle of Mansoura 1973: Egypt’s 53-Minute MiG-21 Fight
Share this story At a quarter past three on the afternoon of 14 October 1973, Egyptian radar operators in the Nile Delta watched a formation of Israeli jets sweep in from the Mediterranean near Port Said. Over the next 53 minutes, the sky above the Delta filled with...
RAF Fairford Plot: UK PM Burnham Sees ‘Strong Indications’ of Iran Role
Share this story Britain has named a suspect state. Four days after police arrested five men near RAF Fairford, the Gloucestershire base that hosts American bombers, Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the BBC on 30 September that there are strong indications Iran played...
J-10CE in Azerbaijani Colours: China Pitches Its Fighter at ADEX 2026
Share this story Walk past the outdoor displays at ADEX 2026 in Baku and you will find a Chinese fighter wearing Azerbaijani colours. China’s state aerospace group AVIC has parked a full-scale mock-up of the Chengdu J-10CE at the Azerbaijan International Defence...
Rafale for Ukraine: France Starts Training Ukrainian Pilots
Share this story France has moved from promising Rafales to preparing the people who will fly them. Speaking to franceinfo on 29 September, France’s Minister for Europe Benjamin Haddad confirmed that Paris is in talks with Kyiv about sending Rafale fighters to...
UAE’s Shadow Airlift: 100+ Missions on Sanctioned Russian Il-76s
Share this story The aircraft are old, white and almost anonymous: four-engined Ilyushin Il-76 freighters with Russian registrations and no airline name on the side. According to a Defense News investigation published on 30 September, they have also flown more than...
F-15EX Missile Warning: USAF Seeks System It Skipped Buying
Share this story The US Air Force’s newest Eagle has a blind spot, and the service has just admitted it in writing. On 29 September the F-15 programme office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base published a sources-sought notice asking industry for a missile...
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