The Helicopter That Lifted Another Helicopter
Share this story In April 2026 the US Navy released a short note with an unusually literal headline: a CH-53K had lifted a CH-53K. One King Stallion picked up another King Stallion and flew away with it. Not a stripped hulk, not a mock-up. A helicopter carrying a...
The Attack Helicopter With an Ejection Seat
Share this story Every helicopter pilot knows the problem with ejecting from a helicopter. Above your head, turning at several hundred revolutions per minute, are the blades. Fire yourself upwards and you go through them. Which is why, in more than a century of rotary...
The Moscow Mystery Jet Carried the CIA Director
Share this story Updated 25 August 2026The mystery is solved. The aircraft carried CIA Director John Ratcliffe on an unannounced trip to Moscow, according to reporting by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News and Axios, all citing...
Shot Down Twice, Then Vice President
Share this story On the night of 21 September 1993, a decorated Soviet combat pilot climbed onto the podium of the Russian parliament and, at twenty-five minutes past midnight, swore himself in as President of Russia. Five years earlier, the same man had been hanging...
Nuclear Close Calls: Korea, Berlin, Cuba and Able Archer 83
Share this story The Cold War never became a war. That is the headline fact, and it is easy to mistake it for evidence that the danger was overstated. It was not. On at least four occasions between 1945 and 1989, the machinery that was supposed to prevent a third...
Brocklesby Mid-Air Collision: The Pilot Who Landed Two Planes at Once
Share this story Leading Aircraftman Leonard Fuller was 22 years old, three months into flight training, and had just been landed on by another aeroplane. Not hit. Landed on. The Avro Anson underneath him had driven its gun turret into his port wing root and stuck...
India Moves to Join FCAS: Sixth-Generation Fighter Bid Confirmed
Share this story When we wrote about India circling France’s orphaned fighter programme two weeks ago, the talks were informal and deniable. They are not deniable any more. India’s Defence Ministry has told parliament it has, in its own words,...
Cobra 600 First Flight: Germany’s IRIS-T Missile Drone Takes Off
Share this story A ground-based IRIS-T battery can reach about eight miles in its short-range form, or roughly 25 miles in the medium-range version. Useful numbers, until the thing you need to shoot down is 200 miles away and heading for a city. So Diehl Defence and a...
Argentina Retires Super Etendards Grounded by UK Ejection Seat Ban
Share this story Argentina bought five fighter jets from France, paid for them, and took delivery in May 2019. Seven years later, not one of them has flown a single operational sortie. On 20 August the Argentine Navy stopped pretending they ever would. The aircraft...
Hungarian Gripen Crash at Szolnok: Pilot Steered Clear, Then Ejected
Share this story The jet was already lost. The 51-year-old major flying it had seconds to decide where it would come down, and below him lay the outskirts of Szolnok, a Hungarian city of roughly 70,000 people. He did not pull the handle. Instead he stayed with the...
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