Diez aviones, un cielo
Share this story When ten jets pour off the top of a loop trailing green, white and red smoke, an entire country looks up. The Frecce Tricolori — the Tricolour Arrows — are Italy’s national aerobatic team and, by sheer number of aircraft, the biggest...
Why a Jet Engine Coughs
Share this story It usually announces itself with a bang — a sharp, cannon-like crack from the engine, sometimes a tongue of flame out the intake or exhaust, and a stomach-dropping sag in thrust. To a passenger it sounds like the engine has exploded. Usually, it...
The First Three Seconds of a Dogfight
Share this story Two fighters close head-on at a combined speed near 1,000 knots. For a heartbeat they flash past each other, close enough for the pilots to see helmets in the other cockpit. Then the real fight begins. That instant has a name: the merge. What a pilot...
Saab 210 Lilldraken: The Half-Size Delta That Proved the Draken
Share this story In 1949 the Swedish Air Force asked for something that did not exist anywhere in the world: an interceptor capable of Mach 1.4 to 1.5, able to operate from dispersed road bases, to meet a Soviet bomber threat crossing the Baltic.Saab’s answer...
Flat Spin: The F-14 Mode That Ends in Ejection
Share this story The most famous three minutes in aviation cinema are a flat spin. An F-14 departs, settles into a flat rotation, and the crew ejects into the canopy.The remarkable thing about that scene is not the drama. It is that the US Navy’s own flight...
ShinMaywa US-2: The Flying Boat That Lands in 3-Metre Waves
Share this story On 21 June 2013, a yacht called Eolus struck a sperm whale roughly 1,200 kilometres south-east of Miyagi prefecture and began to sink. Two men took to a life raft: a Japanese newscaster and a blind sailor attempting to cross the Pacific.A US-2...
Energy-Maneuverability: How John Boyd Rewrote the Dogfight
Share this story At Nellis Air Force Base in the late 1950s, an instructor kept a standing bet with anyone who wanted it. Take up a position on his tail, the classic winning position in air combat. He would be reversed and behind you inside forty seconds, or he would...
Ground Effect: The Cushion of Air That Isn’t Really There
Share this story Every pilot has felt it. The aeroplane is descending toward the runway, the flare begins, and somewhere in the last few feet the whole machine seems to change its mind about landing. It floats. It sits there, refusing to settle, eating runway.The...
Terrain-Following Radar: Flying at 200 Feet in the Dark
Share this story The U-2 shootdown over Sverdlovsk in 1960 settled an argument. Altitude was no longer sanctuary. If you wanted to reach a defended target, you would have to go under the radar rather than over it, at night, in weather, at a few hundred feet.Which...
Turbulencia de estela: El tornado invisible detrás de cada avión.
Share this story On 7 January 2017, a Bombardier Challenger 604 was cruising at 34,000 feet over the Arabian Sea, roughly 500 nautical miles from the nearest land. An Emirates A380 passed 1,000 feet overhead in the opposite direction, entirely legally.Forty-seven...
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