Hush House: How Air Forces Run a Jet Engine at Full Afterburner Indoors
Share this story Every fighter engine that comes out of the repair shop has to prove itself before it goes back into a jet. That means running it at full power, afterburner included, for as long as the technicians need to check it. Do that in the open, next to a base...
Convair XB-46: The Jet Bomber the B-47 Made Obsolete in Months
Share this story It looked like the future: a long, polished needle of a fuselage, four jet engines tucked into two slim nacelles, and a tandem bubble canopy perched on top. On 2 April 1947, the Convair XB-46 took off from San Diego and flew for 90 minutes to Muroc...
Ye-166: The Soviet Speed Record Jet That Never Existed
Share this story On 7 July 1962, Georgy Mosolov flew a sleek Soviet delta-winged jet down a measured course twice, once in each direction, and averaged 2,681 kilometres per hour. That made it the fastest aircraft in the world. The paperwork sent to the Fédération...
Lockheed CL-400 Suntan: Kelly Johnson’s Hydrogen-Fuelled Spy Plane
Share this story In January 1956, Kelly Johnson walked into the Pentagon with an offer the Air Force could not refuse. The man who had just built the U-2 proposed a successor that would cruise at Mach 2.5 and nearly 100,000 feet, and he promised the first of two...
KF-16 Counterfeit Parts: Korea Charges Five Over 12.8 Billion Won Fraud
Share this story The part cost about 1.2 million won to make, roughly 900 US dollars. By the time it reached a South Korean KF-16, it was being billed as a genuine American component at around 100 million won. According to South Korean prosecutors, that markup ran for...
Kawasaki Next-Generation Trainer: An AI Instructor to Replace the T-4
Share this story Japan’s next jet trainer may come with an instructor who is not in the cockpit at all. In an investor presentation dated 6 October 2026, Kawasaki Heavy Industries showed a concept for a next-generation trainer aircraft, built around an AI...
Gripen E Engine: Saab and GKN Deepen Work as Sweden Builds Know-How
Share this story The Gripen E is a Swedish fighter with an American heart. Its engine is a General Electric F414, the same family that powers the Super Hornet. On 8 October 2026, Saab and GKN Aerospace signed an agreement that gives Sweden a bigger hand in looking...
Cold Lake F-35 Base: Canada Puts $4 Billion Into Its Fighter Hub
Share this story Canada has ordered only 16 F-35s so far, and it still has not decided whether it will buy the rest. It is, however, building the house for them. On 7 October 2026, Defence Minister David McGuinty announced nearly $4 billion for fighter capabilities at...
F-35 Parts in China: A Missed UPS Email Sent Them via Hong Kong
Share this story Somewhere in a freight system, an email arrived that said, in effect: do not send this box through Hong Kong. Nobody at the other end read it. The box contained a cockpit canopy and a weapons-bay door from an F-35 Lightning II, and it went through...
Brazil-Built Gripen E Flies: Embraer’s First F-39 Takes Off
Share this story At 10:21 on Tuesday morning, according to Air Data News, a single-engine fighter with the number 4109 on its tail rolled down the runway at Gavião Peixoto, in the interior of São Paulo state, and climbed away. On the face of it, it was a routine first...
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