History & Legends, Military Aviation
In the history of fighter aircraft, almost nobody remembers the runner-up. The jet that loses the competition gets a museum plaque, if it is lucky, and the winner gets the production line. The Northrop YF-17 Cobra is the great exception. It lost — and then went on to...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On the afternoon of 26 October 2001, Boeing chairman Phil Condit stood with his Joint Strike Fighter chief, Frank Statkus, in front of a television carrying a live feed from the Pentagon. The largest defence contract in history — one stealth fighter for four armed...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On a May morning in 1957, over the Pacific near Christmas Island, a Vickers Valiant called XD818 opened its bomb bay and released a device that fell away, dropped for long seconds, and then turned the sky white. Britain had just become a thermonuclear power — and it...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Walk up to the Dornier Do 335 and something looks wrong. There is a propeller on the nose, as expected — and then a second propeller on the tail, spinning behind the fin. The Germans called it the Pfeil, the Arrow. It was the fastest piston-engined fighter the Third...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In March 2026, a silver jet with a wickedly swept wing thundered down a runway near Houston and hauled itself into the Texas sky. It was a North American F-100 Super Sabre — one of only two left flying anywhere on earth — and its return is a good excuse to remember an...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In the late 1930s, Bell Aircraft set out to build a fighter so ambitious that it needed gunners riding inside the engines. The result, the Bell YFM-1 Airacuda, was sleek, futuristic, bristling with cannon — and one of the most gloriously misguided warplanes the United...
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