F-4 Phantom Without a Gun: Why It Went to Vietnam Missile-Only
Share this story In early October 2026, Ukrainian outlets including Militarnyi relayed a claim that a Ukrainian Air Force Mirage 2000-5F had shot down a Russian cruise missile with its 30mm DEFA cannon rather than a missile. The claim first appeared on the X account...
Hardened Aircraft Shelters: Why Air Forces Put Fighters in Concrete
Share this story A fighter jet is never more vulnerable than when it is parked. In the air it can manoeuvre, climb, jam and fire back. On the ground, with its pilot asleep and its tanks being filled, it is a very expensive target that cannot move. For most of the jet...
Carrier Barricade Explained: The Nylon Net That Catches Jets
Share this story Every carrier landing is designed around a hook and a wire. The pilot flies the jet onto the deck, the tailhook snags one of the arresting cables, and the aircraft stops in a couple of seconds. But what happens when the hook will not come down, or the...
Crash Axe Explained: Why Every Airliner Carries One in the Cockpit
Share this story Airport security will confiscate a pocket knife, a pair of long scissors or a corkscrew with a blade. Yet behind the locked cockpit door of almost every airliner you board, there is an axe. It is not a secret and it is not a loophole. Aviation...
Two-Person Cockpit Rule Explained: Germanwings, EASA and What Changed
Share this story For about two years after March 2015, if you flew with almost any European airline and one of the pilots stepped out to use the lavatory, a flight attendant stepped in. They did not touch the controls. They simply stood or sat in the cockpit until the...
Operation Enduring Freedom at 25: The First Night of Air Strikes on Afghanistan
Share this story Twenty-five years ago this Wednesday, on the night of 7 October 2001, the first bombs of the war in Afghanistan began to fall. Some of them had been carried by B-2 Spirit stealth bombers that had flown all the way from Missouri, aircraft that would...
Eugene Hasenfus: The C-123 Shootdown That Exposed Iran-Contra
Share this story The old cargo plane was down to about 2,500 feet over the Nicaraguan jungle on 5 October 1986, lining up to drop its load, when a teenage Sandinista soldier raised a Soviet-made SA-7 missile launcher to his shoulder and fired. The missile hit the...
ValuJet 592 to Power Banks: What You Cannot Take on a Plane
Share this story The shipping ticket said “Oxy Cannisters — ‘Empty’.” The spelling was wrong and so was the word in quotation marks. There were five cardboard boxes, each weighing 45 to 50 pounds, and they were loaded into the forward...
El Al Flight 1862: The 747 That Lost Two Engines Over Amsterdam
Share this story Thirty-four years ago tonight, a little after half past six, a Boeing 747 freighter fell out of the sky over Amsterdam and into a block of flats. El Al Flight 1862 had taken off from Schiphol just over thirteen minutes earlier. Both engines on its...
Two US F-15E Strike Eagles Divert to Shannon After Fuel Emergency
Share this story Twelve Strike Eagles set off across the Atlantic on Saturday, 3 October 2026, heading home to North Carolina after a deployment to the Middle East. Two of them ended the day in County Clare. One of the US Air Force F-15Es developed a fuel problem over...
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