The Cessna That Found an F-16 on Its Wing

The Cessna That Found an F-16 on Its Wing

It is the kind of thing a weekend pilot never expects to see filling the windscreen: the grey nose of an F-16 Fighting Falcon sliding into formation a few wingspans away, wings heavy with missiles. On Sunday, at least one general-aviation pilot over New Jersey got...
352,715 Passengers in a Single Sunday

352,715 Passengers in a Single Sunday

Airlines love a big number. Turkish Airlines just posted one that is hard to argue with: on Sunday, 2 August 2026, the group flew 352,715 passengers in a single day — the busiest day in its 93-year history. That figure is not one airline but two working in...
An F-35, a MiG-17, and a Faked Pearl Harbor

An F-35, a MiG-17, and a Faked Pearl Harbor

For two days this weekend, the flattest stretch of Nebraska turns into the loudest. Offutt Air Force Base throws open its gates on 8 and 9 August for the 2026 Defenders of Freedom Air & Space Show, and the headline act is the one everyone came to see: a...
Etihad Flies the Silk Road to Tashkent

Etihad Flies the Silk Road to Tashkent

On August 9, an Etihad Airways Airbus A320 lifted out of Abu Dhabi bound for Tashkent, reopening a link to the old Silk Road — and, with it, an entire country’s worth of onward connections. The new daily nonstop is only half the story. Paired with a...
The Hunt for the Red Arrows’ Next Jet

The Hunt for the Red Arrows’ Next Jet

For half a century the Red Arrows have signed the British sky in red, white and blue, drawn by nine BAE Hawks flying wingtip to wingtip. This summer the signature was incomplete: worn-out Hawk T1s forced the team to fly seven jets for most of its 2026 displays rather...
Southwest Turns Burbank Into a Hawaii Gateway

Southwest Turns Burbank Into a Hawaii Gateway

Hollywood Burbank Airport is the little airport that Angelenos love precisely because it is not LAX. Two terminals, a walk across the tarmac to the stairs, quick hops to Las Vegas and the Bay Area. It is not the sort of place you associate with a five-and-a-half-hour...
A Robot Built the Part That Saved This C-17

A Robot Built the Part That Saved This C-17

A hailstorm, two runaway business jets, and a nose panel that nobody would build. That is the short version of how a U.S. Air Force C-17 ended up grounded for the better part of a year and a half. The long version ends with a robot, a research lab in Ohio, and the...
Lilium’s Air Taxis Land in a Museum

Lilium’s Air Taxis Land in a Museum

The dream was an electric jet that would whisk you between cities in near silence, lifting off vertically from a rooftop and cruising on stubby wings packed with tiny fans. Lilium, the Munich start-up that raised well over a billion dollars chasing that dream,...
Iran Puts a Downed Strike Eagle on Display

Iran Puts a Downed Strike Eagle on Display

Iran has turned a hole in the ground into a trophy case. This week the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threw open an underground “exhibition” of American and Israeli aircraft it says its air defences knocked out of the sky. The centrepiece is a mangled...
Airbus Keeps Its Lead Over Boeing

Airbus Keeps Its Lead Over Boeing

July was, by Airbus’s recent standards, a quiet month. The European planemaker handed over 67 aircraft to 39 customers — a step down from 89 in June and 81 in May. And yet, halfway-plus through 2026, Airbus is still comfortably in front.The running total...