Before 1943 an anti-aircraft shell had to hit, or be timed to the split second. Then a team at Johns Hopkins squeezed a radio transmitter into the nose of a 5-inch shell. The story of the VT fuze, from USS Helena to the V-1 and the Bulge.
SR-71 at Mach 4: What It Would Take to Make the Blackbird Faster
The SR-71 was never short of thrust. It was short of cool air. What actually capped the Blackbird at Mach 3.3, and what a Mach 4 version would need.
Anti-Ship Missile Guidance: How a Sea-Skimmer Finds Its Ship
A ship is the biggest, brightest object for miles, and still hard to hit. How anti-ship missile guidance works, from the launch solution and mid-course navigation to active radar and imaging infrared seekers, sea-skimming, pop-up attacks and the decoys built to fool them.
Honeywell and Aeronamic Open an F-35 PTMS Test Cell in the Netherlands
At Woensdrecht in the southern Netherlands, Honeywell Aerospace and Aeronamic have started a test cell for the F-35’s Power and Thermal Management System turbomachine. It is small, unglamorous and exactly what Europe’s F-35 fleets need.
Battle of the Coral Sea: The Carrier Duel Fought Over the Horizon
In May 1942 American and Japanese carriers fought for four days without their ships ever sighting each other. The Battle of the Coral Sea cost the US Navy the Lexington, saved Port Moresby and quietly decided who would be missing at Midway.
MQ-9 Reapers in Latin America: SOUTHCOM’s Drone Surge Explained
Ecuador calls them the new hunters of drug trafficking. MQ-9 Reapers are moving from Africa to Latin America, with Colombia and Ecuador first in line. Here is what is confirmed, what is only reported, and what the drones can actually do.
MH17: How a Buk Missile Destroyed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
On 17 July 2014 a Buk missile destroyed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. What the investigators proved, and what changed for airliners flying over war zones.
Sikorsky Black Hawk 2070: Pilotless U-Hawk Due to Fly This Year
Sikorsky’s “Black Hawk 2070” plan bundles a cockpit-less U-Hawk cargo drone due to fly this year, MATRIX autonomy, GE T901 engines, a bigger fuel cell, a modular nose and launched-effect drones.
Operation Homecoming 1973: The Hanoi Taxi Flies the POWs Home
On 12 February 1973 a white C-141A Starlifter landed at Gia Lam Airport in Hanoi to collect the first American prisoners of war. Operation Homecoming brought 591 of them home, and the aircraft that flew the first group, the Hanoi Taxi, is now in the National Museum of the US Air Force.
JIATF 401 Directed Energy Pilot: Three Lasers and a Microwave
The Pentagon’s counter-drone task force has picked AeroVironment, Boeing, Kord and Epirus for a year-long directed energy pilot at five US bases, and a shoot-off at Dugway in December could end in on-the-spot purchase orders.
Holding Patterns Explained: Why Airliners Circle Before Landing
Every airliner that circles over Surrey or Hertfordshire before landing at Heathrow is flying the same precisely defined racetrack. How holding patterns work, why the turns go right, and how pilots get in and out.
B-52 LRASM Integration: Navy Moves to Make the BUFF a Ship-Killer
A NAVAIR notice posted on 7 October 2026 says the Navy will hand Lockheed Martin a sole-source order to integrate the AGM-158C LRASM anti-ship missile on the B-52. Here is what the notice says, what it leaves out, and why a 1950s bomber suddenly matters at sea.
Lufthansa Flight 181: The Landshut Hijacking and the Jet’s Return
Five days in October 1977, a murdered captain, a co-pilot who flew on, and the night GSG 9 stormed the Landshut in Mogadishu. Then the Boeing 737 itself vanished into obscurity for forty years.
F-35 for Portugal: Rubio Makes His Pitch to Replace the F-16
Standing next to Portugal’s foreign minister in Lisbon on 8 October, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the sales pitch in plain words: buy the F-35. Lisbon says it is listening, and listening to the Europeans too.
Airbus Beluga and BelugaXL: Why Airbus Flies Its Wings in a Whale
Airbus builds its wings in Wales, its fuselages in Germany and its tails in Spain. For fifty years the answer to getting them together has been a whale-shaped aircraft of its own making.
KC-10 Extender Tankers Could Fly Again for a North African Partner
A US Air Force notice posted on 7 October seeks companies to regenerate up to four retired KC-10 Extender tankers from Davis-Monthan and deliver them to an unnamed partner nation in North Africa.
Syrian General Staff Raid: Israel’s Phantoms Over Damascus, 1973
Fifty-three years ago today, seven Israeli F-4E Phantoms crossed Lebanon under cloud and bombed the Syrian General Staff headquarters in the middle of Damascus. One crew did not come back, a Soviet cultural centre was hit, and Washington braced for the fallout.