A Florida-based fleet of F-104 Starfighters is preparing to carry a rocket under its wing. In December, Starfighters Space plans the first captive-carry flight of its Starlaunch 1 development vehicle between Kennedy Space Center and Cecil Spaceport.
Fat Albert: The Blue Angels’ C-130J Workhorse
Share this story Six blue-and-gold jets get the screams. But before any of them roll down the runway, somebody has to haul the spare parts, the tool chests and about 40 people to the show. For more than half a century, that somebody has been a big, blue,...
Ben T. Epps: Georgia’s First Aviator and His Homemade Monoplanes
Share this story The first attempt failed. On the second, a homemade monoplane built from sawmill scrap and cotton rolled down a slope in Athens, Georgia, lifted 40 to 50 feet into the air, flew about 100 yards and crashed, losing both wings. The local editor T. W....
How Fighter Jets Shoot Down Drones: Guns, Sidewinders and Cost
Share this story At 17:43 on Saturday, 17 October 2026, two F-16s of the Romanian Air Force roared off the runway at the 86th Air Base at Borcea. Radar had picked up a group of targets about 120 kilometres east of Snake Island, heading south-west. Twenty-two minutes...
John Moody and the Icarus II: How Ultralight Flying Began
Share this story On 15 March 1975, a hang glider pilot stood on the frozen surface of a Wisconsin lake with a biplane glider on his shoulders and a small two-stroke engine buzzing behind him. There was no hill and no sea breeze to lift him. He opened the throttle,...
Carrier Strike Group Explained: What Sails With an Aircraft Carrier
Share this story On Sunday afternoon, 18 October 2026, families waved from Portsmouth's Round Tower as HMS Prince of Wales slipped out to sea for the second phase of Operation Firecrest. She sails to take charge of the UK Carrier Strike Group in the North Atlantic and...
When the Landing Gear Won’t Retract: What Pilots Do Next
Share this story Positive rate of climb. Gear up. The pilot moves the lever, the hydraulics whine, and a few seconds later the wheels should be tucked away behind closed doors. Then a warning appears instead, or a gear leg simply stays where it is, hanging in the...
Airspeed AS.39 Fleet Shadower: Britain’s Four-Engined Night Stalker
Share this story Picture a moonless night in the North Sea. Somewhere below, an enemy battle squadron is steaming hard, blacked out. Above it, at little more than 40 knots, a strange four-engined monoplane drifts along at 1,500 feet, its crew peering into the dark and...
Fume Events Explained: What That Cabin Smell Really Means
Share this story The boarding music is still playing when it drifts down the aisle: a stale, cheesy, slightly chemical smell. Crews have a name for it. They call it “dirty socks”, sometimes “wet dog”. Most passengers wrinkle their noses and...
EAA Aviation Museum Adds Six Aircraft, From Seattle II to a PBY
Share this story A flying boat that sank U-boats off Iceland. A homebuilt biplane that took one Washington State couple more than a decade. A powered hang glider that lifted off a frozen Wisconsin lake in 1975 and started a movement. They now share a roof in Oshkosh....
Blue Angels and Thunderbirds Fill NAS Jacksonville
Share this story Some fans set alarms for 3:30 a.m. Others crawled through three hours of traffic and then parked on the roadside, hoping the tow trucks had the weekend off. By just after 1 p.m. on Saturday, Naval Air Station Jacksonville announced it was full. The...
Germany Drops Direct MQ-28 Ghost Bat Purchase
Share this story Seven months ago it was the front-runner. In March, Rheinmetall and Boeing signed up to bring the MQ-28 Ghost Bat to Germany; in June, it was shown at ILA Berlin with a bigger wing and new German partners. This week Berlin quietly took it off the...
Belgium Raises F-16 Pledge: Ten Jets for Ukraine
Share this story Two weeks ago the number was three. On Thursday evening in Brussels, over a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the EU summit, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever more than tripled it. Belgium, he said, will hand Ukraine ten F-16 fighters before...
Boeing 737 MAX 10: FAA Poised to Certify the Biggest MAX
Share this story Boeing rolled its longest 737 out of the Renton factory in November 2019. Nearly seven years later, the jet still lacks the one thing it needs to carry a paying passenger: an FAA type certificate. That wait may now be measured in days. On Friday, 16...
Mi-28NM Hit Again: Ukraine Claims a Second Havoc in a Week
Share this story The camera is mounted on a small fixed-wing drone, and it is chasing a helicopter. A camouflaged Russian Mi-28NM fills more of the frame with every second as the drone closes from behind and slightly above, lined up on the engine bay. Then the video...
RAF Drone Near-Misses: Mystery Objects Buzz a Voyager and Typhoon
Share this story Sixteen thousand feet above the North Sea, 32 nautical miles north-north-east of Cromer, an RAF Voyager tanker was passing fuel to a Typhoon on 18 February 2026. Then something black and circular flashed towards the windscreen and passed 100 to 150...
HMS Prince of Wales Sails for the High North With F-35Bs
Share this story Families lined the Round Tower in Old Portsmouth on Sunday afternoon, 18 October 2026, as HMS Prince of Wales slipped out of harbour. The 65,000-tonne carrier, Britain's biggest warship, was due to leave at 17:00, weather permitting, and the...