Share this story The Republic XF-103 was meant to do something no fighter of the early 1950s could: cruise at Mach 3 — three times the speed of sound — at the edge of the stratosphere, run down a Soviet bomber, and kill it with missiles. To get there, its...
Nel settembre del 1944, con i bombardieri alleati che riducevano in macerie le città tedesche e la Luftwaffe che perdeva piloti esperti a un ritmo insostenibile, il Ministero dell'Aeronautica del Reich emanò una delle specifiche più disperate della storia dell'aviazione: progettare un caccia a reazione che...
Il 15 aprile 1988, un aereo di linea Tupolev Tu-154 modificato decollò dall'aeroporto Zhukovsky di Mosca con uno dei suoi tre motori alimentato a idrogeno liquido. Salì in quota, compì un circuito di volo e atterrò senza incidenti. L'aereo fu designato Tu-155 e...
Share this story On 27 June 2025, Ukrainian Special Operations Forces struck Marinovka airbase in Russia’s Volgograd region. When the smoke cleared, four Sukhoi Su-34 Fullback fighter-bombers were destroyed on the ground. Four aircraft, gone in a single strike —...
Share this story The West gave Ukraine its best single-engine fighter. Then Ukraine’s pilots threw away the instruction manual. Since the first F-16 Fighting Falcons arrived in Ukrainian skies in August 2024, the pilots who fly them have compiled a combat record...
L'aeronautica militare degli Stati Uniti ha silenziosamente abbandonato uno dei requisiti per armamenti più ambiziosi degli ultimi tempi: un nuovo missile aria-aria in grado di distruggere bersagli a una distanza minima di 1.000 miglia nautiche, ovvero circa 1.150 miglia terrestri. Si tratta di circa dieci...
Share this story Before the F-16, every fighter jet on earth had a direct mechanical link between the pilot’s stick and the control surfaces. Steel cables, push rods, bellcranks — a system fundamentally unchanged since the Sopwith Camel. In 1974, General...
Share this story It is a grey morning at Bremen, late in the summer of 1971. On the concrete apron stands a stubby, hunched little jet, its camouflage still factory-fresh, the marking VAK 191 B painted along the nose. Three engines spool up at once and the noise is...
Share this story It is the morning of 18 September 1972, on a Dornier test field beside Lake Constance. There is no cockpit to climb into, no pilot to brief. The machine on the apron looks less like an aircraft than a fat steel cigar laid on its side: a smooth...
Share this story At the Irkutsk Aviation Plant on 25 June 2026, a two-seat jet that has spent two decades teaching student pilots how to fly lifted off on a roughly 50-minute sortie, climbed no higher than 2,000 metres (about 6,600 ft) and held its speed below 600...
Share this story It is 21 October 1929, and 169 people are about to do something no group of human beings has ever done: leave the ground together, in a single aircraft. On the surface of Lake Constance sits the reason — a flying boat so vast that the men...
Share this story For all its sophistication, the F-35 has carried an awkward secret: it could not sink a ship without compromising the one thing it is famous for. Any missile big enough to threaten a modern warship had to hang under the wings — and the moment it...
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