Share this story In the last week of January 1991, American AWACS crews over the Gulf watched something nobody had predicted. Iraqi jets were taking off, staying low and running hard, not towards the coalition and not towards friendly Jordan, but east, towards Iran....
Share this story On the evening of 9 July 1918, a small yellow biplane appeared out of the south over Edmonton, Alberta, following the railway line up from Calgary. In the cockpit sat a 27-year-old American woman. In a mailbag beside her were 259 letters, the first...
Share this story On Sunday 21 October 1928, a small Waco biplane dropped down over New York’s East River and flew under the Queensboro Bridge. Then under the Williamsburg Bridge. Then the Manhattan Bridge. Then the Brooklyn Bridge. Newsreel cameras caught her at...
Share this story Navy fighters are painted to disappear. VX-4’s were the exception. The Air Test and Evaluation Squadron at Point Mugu, California, flew its commander’s jet in gloss black with a white Playboy bunny on the fin, under the squadron call sign...
Share this story To a generation of fighter pilots and the millions who wanted to be one, he will always be Viper: the calm, moustached commanding officer of the Navy Fighter Weapons School in Top Gun, the man who told Maverick the truth about his father. Tom...
Share this story Fly from New York to London overnight and you land at breakfast time feeling as if someone has stolen a night of your life. Fly back and you arrive tired, but somehow it is easier to shake off. That is not your imagination, and it is not just the...
Share this story The most successful pilot ever to fly the F-14 Tomcat never went to TOPGUN, never landed on a carrier and never fought for the U.S. Navy. He flew for Iran, against Iraq, in a war most Western readers barely remember.Jalil Zandi is credited with 11...
Share this story On the day Michael Wynne reported for active duty in August 1966, the news came through that his older brother had been shot down over Vietnam. Forty-two years later, the younger Wynne would leave the Air Force for the last time, as its civilian head,...
Share this story Iran built Eagle 44 so that its warplanes could ride out an air war inside a mountain. In 2026, the mountain got its test. Now satellite images suggest the diggers never really stopped.Imagery taken by Planet Labs on 29 September 2026 and published by...
Share this story Airports are built for the most ordinary moments in a life: a worker flying home on leave, a family waiting at arrivals, a farewell at the security line. On the evening of 21 October 2026, an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam turned...
Share this story For four weeks the RAF’s contribution to Saudi Arabia’s war in the air was a single grey tanker, quietly passing fuel to Saudi fighters on their patrols. On 20 October 2026, Britain sent the fighters themselves. The UK Ministry of Defence...
Share this story When Jeannie Leavitt finished US Air Force pilot training at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, in early 1993, she had the grades to choose almost any aircraft. She asked for the F-15E Strike Eagle. The answer was no: women were not allowed to fly combat...
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