How Many Aircraft Are There in the World?

How Many Aircraft Are There in the World?

Ask most people to picture “the world’s aircraft” and they imagine airliners — rows of jets at a busy airport. Yet airliners are a tiny slice of the real total. Add up everything with wings and an engine, from a two-seat trainer at a grass strip to a...
The Friendly Jet Trainer That Went to War

The Friendly Jet Trainer That Went to War

Most fast jets seat their crew one behind the other, the passenger staring at the back of the pilot’s helmet. The BAC Jet Provost and its armed cousin, the BAC Strikemaster, do it differently. In these aircraft you sit shoulder to shoulder with the pilot, close...
The Spy Plane With One Black Wing

The Spy Plane With One Black Wing

Here is a strange way to predict a North Korean missile test. Open a flight-tracking website, and watch for a single, ageing American jet to take off from Nebraska, cross the Pacific, and start flying long racetrack patterns over the Yellow Sea. When that aircraft...
1,000 More Horses for the Black Hawk

1,000 More Horses for the Black Hawk

It is not often that an aircraft gets fifty percent more power without getting any bigger. That is exactly what the U.S. Army is trying to bolt into thousands of its helicopters — and on 12 August 2026 the effort passed one of its hardest gates. GE Aerospace’s...