Share this story Nobody climbs into a Eurofighter Typhoon on their first day in uniform. Between a cadet’s first solo and their first sortie in a frontline fighter sits a ladder of aircraft, each one faster, heavier and less forgiving than the last. This week...
Share this story Every so often, a white Boeing 747 with a hump on its back turns up at a regional airport, flies a few approaches and leaves. Local TV stations ask what it was. Most recently, News On 6 asked that question in Tulsa at the end of September. The answer...
Share this story Boeing looked close to certifying its biggest 737. Then a software problem got in the way. On Monday, 28 September, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the agency would hold off on certifying the 737 MAX 10 until it understands a newly disclosed...
Share this story At about 6:18 p.m. on Monday, 28 September, something went badly wrong on the flight deck of USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. A jet was coming aboard during recovery operations off the coast of Virginia. Moments later, both of its aviators had ejected....
Share this story GE Aerospace says it is preparing to assemble the first XA102, the adaptive cycle engine it is developing for the US Air Force’s next fighter. In an announcement on 15 September, the company said it is buying hardware from suppliers and testing...
Share this story It was May Day 1960, and the Soviet Union was celebrating. Somewhere above 70,000 feet over the Ural Mountains, a lone American pilot in a glider-winged jet was photographing its secrets. Francis Gary Powers had taken off from Peshawar in Pakistan on...
Share this story If you were flying a Cessna over the western suburbs of Chicago on Sunday afternoon without reading your NOTAMs, there is a decent chance an F-16 ended up on your wing. And for at least one pilot, the fighter did not stop at waggling its wings. It...
Share this story It started with a phone call at a quarter to one in the morning. Three vans, apparently heading towards RAF Fairford, the Gloucestershire airfield that has launched American bombers against Iran for most of this year. By dawn on Sunday 27 September,...
Share this story A four-engined turboprop lurches, drops and shudders through a wall of grey. Rain hammers the windscreen, the instruments blur, and the flight engineer in the middle seat works the power levers. Then, suddenly, the cockpit fills with light: blue sky...
Share this story On the evening of 17 March 1970, Eastern Air Lines Shuttle Flight 1320 left Newark for Boston with 68 passengers and five crew. The Shuttle worked like a bus: no reservations, no security check, and you paid your fare on board once the aircraft was in...
Share this story Most people think of tailhooks as something only carrier aircraft need. Then an Air Force F-16 with a hydraulic failure lands at a normal land base, drops a hook from under its tail, and snags a steel cable stretched across the runway. Seconds later,...
Share this story By February 1944 the Allies had a deadline. The invasion of France was coming in the summer, and it could not succeed with the Luftwaffe still able to contest the skies over the beaches. The German fighter force had to be broken first. The weather...
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