Ukraine Drone Evacuation: Wounded Soldier Flown Off the Front Line
Share this story Somewhere along Ukraine’s front line, a wounded infantryman sat alone in a position he could not leave. The ground around him was mined. Russian drones watched the approaches. The robot vehicles that now carry so many of Ukraine’s...
APKWS Kits: Pentagon Locks In Up to 25,000 a Year
Share this story For years the cheapest way to swat a drone out of the sky has been hiding in plain sight: a 2.75-inch rocket family that dates back to the early Cold War, with a laser seeker bolted into its middle. Now the Pentagon wants that seeker by the truckload....
Patriot Interceptor Shortage: How Many Missiles the Iran War Used
Share this story The Patriot is America’s main defence against ballistic missiles, and the war with Iran has used up more of them than any conflict before it. According to estimates by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), US forces fired...
North Atlantic Tracks: How Airliners Actually Cross the Ocean
Share this story Somewhere over the middle of the North Atlantic, a few hundred airliners are flying through airspace where nobody can see them. There is no radar out there. For most of the crossing there is no VHF radio either. The nearest controller is in Prestwick...
Airline Fuel Reserves: What the FAA and EASA Actually Demand
Share this story A Boeing 747-8 holds 238,610 litres of fuel. Boeing prints the figure in its own airport planning document, to the litre, alongside the 63,034 US gallons and 191,565 kilogrammes that are the same quantity in other clothes. It is the number search...
SyberJet SJ36 Mockup Unveiled: A Mach 0.88 Light Jet Promise
Share this story In Las Vegas today, on the eve of NBAA-BACE, SyberJet Aircraft is pulling the covers off a full-scale mockup of the SJ36 at Henderson Executive Airport. It is a nine-seat light jet that, on paper, would fly faster and farther than anything else in its...
Sonobuoys and MAD: How Patrol Aircraft Hunt Submarines
Share this story A submarine’s whole purpose is to disappear. It hides beneath hundreds of metres of dark, noisy water, moving slowly and quietly. Finding one from an aircraft flying overhead sounds almost impossible. Yet maritime patrol crews have been doing it...
Four-Engine Airliners: Why the 747, A380 and A340 Are Vanishing
Share this story On Monday morning, Lufthansa flew its last Airbus A340-600 passenger service into Frankfurt. The Boeing 747 has been out of production since 2022. The last Airbus A380 was delivered in 2021. In barely five years, the four-engined long-haul airliner...
Bomb Threat on a Plane: What Pilots and Crews Actually Do
Share this story On Sunday night, an Austrian Airlines A320 flying from Tel Aviv to Vienna received a bomb threat, diverted to Sofia under a Bulgarian MiG-29 escort, and landed safely. Nothing was found. That is how almost all of these end. But the crew could not know...
Lavochkin La-5: The Soviet Fighter Saved by a Radial Engine
Share this story In the spring of 1942, Semyon Lavochkin was in trouble. His LaGG-3 fighter had a poor reputation at the front, it had cost him Stalin’s favour, and the factories building it were being switched over to Yakovlev fighters. His design bureau was...
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