Share this story At 10:43 on 7 December 1936, a radio operator somewhere over the South Atlantic tapped out a short line of Morse from the flying boat Croix-du-Sud: “Coupons moteur arrière droit” – cutting the rear starboard engine. Then the...
Share this story On 24 November 1955 a high-winged prototype registered PH-NIV took to the air for the first time. It had two Rolls-Royce Dart turboprops, a pressurised cabin and an airframe in which much of the metal was glued together rather than riveted. According...
Share this story On 20 August 1963 a small, sharp-nosed jet in British United Airways colours lifted off from Hurn, near Bournemouth. It had two Rolls-Royce engines bolted to the back of the fuselage, a tailplane perched on top of the fin, and a head start that its...
Share this story The alert call came at 12:25 a.m. on a black winter morning, with the temperature at 28 degrees below zero. Within 75 minutes, all 26 of the squadron’s interceptors stood ready on a snowbound flight line, and soon the pilots were strapped in,...
Share this story Melun-Villaroche, 28 September 1952. Kostia Rozanoff, Dassault’s chief test pilot, lifts a silver prototype off the runway and stays aloft for 25 minutes. In level flight the new jet touches Mach 0.92, comfortably beyond what its designers had...
Share this story On 9 May 1940, Hawker chief test pilot Philip Lucas looked over his shoulder and saw daylight. The fuselage of the brand-new fighter he was flying had split open just behind his seat. Instead of bailing out, he nursed the crippled prototype back to...
Share this story Somewhere behind the cockpit of every late-model US Air Force F-16 sits a box that does the thinking. It takes in radar tracks, weapons data and datalink traffic and turns them into what the pilot sees. On the Block 40/42 and 50/52 jets, that box...
Share this story Rain had the last word on Sunday. On Monday, 19 October 2026, the Indian Air Force’s Surya Kiran Aerobatic Team came back to Mysuru and flew the show the city had been waiting for. The team’s red-and-white BAE Hawk Mk132 jets arrived over...
Share this story Somewhere over Kansas, a white Cessna jet has been flying itself to the ground on purpose. Textron Aviation test pilots have been pressing the button that every owner hopes never to touch, and watching the airplane pick an airport, talk to air traffic...
Share this story Shortly before noon on Wednesday 13 June 1917, Londoners did something that now seems unthinkable. They stepped out of offices, shops and tea rooms and looked up. A formation of big biplanes was sliding across a clear summer sky towards the City, and...
Share this story For six years, a pale smudge in a satellite photo of a Pacific lagoon kept one of aviation’s oldest questions alive. Seen from orbit, the shape near Nikumaroro’s Taraia Peninsula looked long, bright and suspiciously metallic. Up close, it...
Share this story The people who will one day sign off on America’s next fighters spend most of their year in places like the Mojave Desert, where the runways are endless and the ground is bone dry. This autumn, some of them traded concrete for open water,...
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