Turkey Says It’s Building an F-35-Class Jet Engine
Turkey has just told the world it’s building a fighter jet engine in the same thrust class as the one inside the F-35 — and the claim is equal parts genuinely impressive and quietly confusing. The short version: Turkey’s indigenous-engine ambitions for its...
After the Iran War, Israel Orders More Stealth
The order came not from a battlefield but from a committee room. On a Sunday in early May 2026, a panel of senior Israeli ministers signed off on a plan that had been gathering urgency for the better part of a year: buy two more squadrons of American fighters, and buy...
India and Brazil Plot a Jet-for-Jet Swap
Two of the world’s biggest emerging powers are quietly negotiating one of the most unusual arms deals of the decade — and almost no Western capital is in the room. India and Brazil are working toward a barter: India would hand Brazil its homegrown Tejas Mk1A fighters...
They Tried to Kill the Warthog. Iran Saved It.
The U.S. Air Force has been trying to kill the A-10 Warthog for the better part of two decades. Budget after budget, the brass penciled in its funeral. And every time, something refused to let it go quietly. This time it was Iran. After weeks of Warthogs hammering...
267 Eagles: The Air Force’s Big Bet
For a decade the U.S. Air Force kept trying to bury the F-15. The plan was to buy a token batch of new Eagles, then let the production line die quietly while everything went to stealth. The Eagle was the past. The F-35 and the secret sixth-generation jet were the...
The Coke-Bottle Trick That Broke the Sound Barrier
In the early 1950s, the newest, fastest jets in the world kept running into an invisible wall. They would accelerate beautifully — and then, just short of the speed of sound, a surge of drag would swallow their engines’ power and stop them dead. Brand-new fighters...
The Soviet SR-71 That Never Flew
Before the SR-71 Blackbird ever ripped across the sky, a Soviet aircraft designer was already trying to build something to beat it. His name was Pavel Tsybin, and his creation — the RSR — was meant to streak over the United States at three times the speed of sound,...
India Built 30 New Fighters It Cannot Fly
On the flight line at Hindustan Aeronautics in Nashik and Bengaluru sit some of the most modern fighter jets India has ever built: brand-new Tejas Mk1A light fighters in Indian Air Force grey, radars fitted, flight-test boxes ticked. There is just one problem. Not a...
Britain’s Tailless Fighter That Squatted Like a Bird
It had no tail. It squatted on its undercarriage like a startled bird. It was named after a flying reptile, and in the buttoned-up world of 1930s British aviation it looked like a practical joke. The Westland-Hill Pterodactyl was none of those things. It was a deadly...
Australia’s Forgotten 47-Kill Ace
Ask anyone to name a First World War fighter ace and you’ll hear the same handful of names: the Red Baron, perhaps Billy Bishop, maybe Albert Ball. You will almost never hear the name of the deadliest pilot the Southern Hemisphere ever produced — a Melbourne boy who...
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