France Turns a Cargo Plane Into a War Brain

France Turns a Cargo Plane Into a War Brain

Share this story It begins, as these things often do, not with a missile but with a laptop. Somewhere in the cavernous cargo hold of a French A400M Atlas — a hold built to swallow a helicopter or a 37-tonne armoured vehicle — an operator will soon sit at a console,...
A Robot Boat Just Rescued Two Downed Pilots

A Robot Boat Just Rescued Two Downed Pilots

Share this story Somewhere off the coast of Oman, in the dark, two U.S. Army aviators are treading water. Their AH-64 Apache is gone — minutes ago it was flying a patrol near the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, and now it is at the bottom of the Gulf. They are alive,...
Air Canada Bets Big on a Smaller Jet

Air Canada Bets Big on a Smaller Jet

Share this story On the first morning of June, an Air Canada jet pushed back at Montreal and pointed its nose at Nantes, a tidy French city on the Loire that no Canadian airline had ever served nonstop. Two days later, a widebody lifted off from Toronto bound for...
Airbus Pulls the Pilot from the H145

Airbus Pulls the Pilot from the H145

Share this story Walk the static line at ILA Berlin and you expect the usual choreography around a helicopter: a pilot strapping in, a crew chief signalling, the slow whine of an Arriel engine spooling up. This June, Airbus parked something stranger under the...