SWISS A340 HB-JMB Retired: First of the Last Four Goes to Twente
Share this story There was no press release and no farewell party. On Wednesday, 14 October, SWISS Airbus A340-300 HB-JMB took off from Zurich as flight LX5202, rocked its wings three times in salute, and flew for about an hour to Twente airport near Enschede in the...
ACF Fighter: France Goes It Alone on the Rafale’s Successor
Share this story France has made up its mind. The fighter that will one day replace the Rafale will be French, designed and built at home, with partners invited only on France’s terms. General Jérôme Bellanger, chief of staff of the French Air and...
Borisoglebsk Strike: Neptune Missiles Hit Six Russian Su-34s
Share this story Shortly before 22:00 local time on 14 October, the missile alert sounded over the Voronezh region. A few minutes later residents of Borisoglebsk heard explosions, and a large fire lit up the military airfield east of town. By morning, Ukraine’s...
How Hollywood Hid Lockheed’s Burbank Factory Under a Fake Suburb
Share this story In early 1942, a pilot flying over Burbank, California, would have seen rows of houses, trees, lawns and a few parked cars. Underneath, thousands of people were building warplanes. The suburb was made of canvas, netting, chicken wire and paint, and...
SR-71 Inlet Spike Explained: How the Blackbird Tamed Shock Waves at Mach 3
Share this story Look at an SR-71 head-on and the most striking thing is the pair of sharp cones in the front of its engine nacelles. They are not decoration. At Mach 3 those spikes, and the doors and ducts behind them, did a job no jet engine of the time could do on...
Concorde Go-Around at Heathrow: Why Even Concorde Had to Climb Away
Share this story Few things in aviation look as dramatic as a Concorde going around: the needle nose drooped, the delta wing pitched up, four Olympus engines spooling up, and the whole aircraft climbing away from the runway it was about to land on. A clip of exactly...
Ground Stop vs Ground Delay Program: What Happens When the FAA Hits Pause
Share this story On the evening of 13 October 2026, a damaged fibre-optic cable near Houston caused delays at George Bush Intercontinental. The FAA stopped flights bound for the airport from taking off between about 18:30 and 20:00 local time, and the problem rippled...
Landing Signal Officer: The Pilot Who Grades Every Carrier Landing
Share this story On every carrier landing, a small group of pilots stands on a platform at the back left edge of the flight deck, inches from the landing area. One holds a radio handset and a small switch box. If the approaching jet is drifting low, he tells the...
A-29 Super Tucano: The Propeller Fighter Europe Wants as a Drone Hunter
Share this story In an age of stealth fighters and hypersonic missiles, one of the most-discussed combat aircraft in Europe has a propeller. The Embraer A-29 Super Tucano, a Brazilian turboprop designed for counter-insurgency in the jungle, is now being studied as a...
Fuel Tankering Explained: Why Airlines Carry Fuel They Don’t Need
Share this story Most passengers assume an airliner fills up before every flight with just enough fuel for the trip plus reserves. Very often, that is not what happens. On a large share of short and medium-haul flights, airlines deliberately load extra fuel at the...
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