Share this story 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...
Share this story 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...
Share this story On 16 August 1960, a tiny open gondola hung beneath an enormous helium balloon, 102,800 feet above the New Mexico desert. That is more than 31 kilometres up — high enough that the sky overhead is black, the horizon curves, and there is almost no air...
Share this story 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....
Share this story 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...
Teilen Sie diese Geschichte: Wenn ein Verkehrsflugzeug mehr als eine routinemäßige Wartung benötigt – also eine der umfassenden, wochenlangen Demontagen, bei denen es bis auf die Grundstruktur zerlegt, alles inspiziert und wieder zusammengebaut wird –, rollt es nicht einfach zum Gate. Es verschwindet in einem MRO-Betrieb: einer Wartungseinrichtung ….
Teilen Sie diese Geschichte: Solange sich die meisten Einwohner Sydneys erinnern können, stößt der Flugverkehr der Stadt jede Nacht an seine Grenzen. Der Flughafen Kingsford Smith – Sydneys einziges großes Drehkreuz – ist aufgrund einer strengen gesetzlichen Sperrstunde zwischen 23:00 und 6:00 Uhr für die meisten Flugzeuge geschlossen. Nach Einbruch der Dunkelheit...
Teilen Sie diese Geschichte: Östlich von Ho-Chi-Minh-Stadt erhebt sich die rote Erde, und aus dem Baustaub scheint eine riesige Lotusblume zu erblühen. Es handelt sich nicht um eine Skulptur. Es ist das Dach des internationalen Flughafens Long Thanh – Vietnams Investition von rund 1,4 Billionen US-Dollar, um zu einem der führenden Flughäfen der Welt zu werden….
Share this story There are bad aircraft, and then there is the Christmas Bullet — a machine so misconceived that it holds a record no other aeroplane will ever want: it killed a test pilot on its first flight, and then killed a second test pilot on the first flight of...
Share this story 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...
Share this story 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....
Share this story 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...
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