Share this story The first thing the crowd at Zhukovsky hears is the noise; the second thing it notices is that something is badly wrong with the wings. A dark, whale-nosed fighter comes howling low across the airfield, and its wings — unmistakably, impossibly —...
Share this story Denmark has decided how it will watch the top of the world. On Jul. 7, 2026, the Danish Ministry of Defence confirmed a provisional decision to buy two Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft — long-range sub-hunters built to prowl the North...
Share this story On Jul. 6, 2026, a new shape crossed into Czech airspace: a twin-engined, high-tailed jet transport in a distinctive three-tone grey, escorted the last stretch home by a pair of Saab JAS 39 Gripens. The newcomer was the Czech Air Force’s first...
Share this story The holidaymakers on Zakynthos came for the beaches. On the afternoon of Jul. 9, 2026, they got something else entirely: a single-seat fighter jet sliding down the runway on its belly, trailing sparks, then wrapped in flame as fire crews rushed to...
Share this story The first time you hear it, you feel it before you understand it — a deep, rising howl that climbs the back of your neck and rattles your chest as a vast triangular shadow sweeps overhead. For generations of British airshow-goers, that sound meant one...
Share this story Sweden entered the Cold War with a problem no amount of money could simply solve. A neutral nation of modest size, sitting beside the Soviet Union, it knew that in any war its handful of big airbases would be cratered by missiles and bombs in the...
Share this story It may be the most beautiful aircraft the United States Navy ever sent to sea: long, impossibly sleek, twin-finned and built to sprint at twice the speed of sound off a carrier deck. The North American A-5 Vigilante looked like it had arrived from a...
Share this story In the 1950s the trend in military aircraft ran one way: bigger, heavier, more complex. Ed Heinemann ran the other way. When the U.S. Navy asked Douglas for a new jet attack aircraft and set a weight limit of 30,000 pounds, Heinemann came back with a...
Share this story In the first months of the Pacific War, the Mitsubishi Zero was a nightmare. It could out-climb, out-turn and out-accelerate the stubby Grumman Wildcats the U.S. Navy sent against it, and American pilots who tried to fight it on its own terms —...
Share this story A fighter steers by pushing on the air — elevators, rudder and ailerons all work by deflecting the airflow rushing over them. That works beautifully right up until the air stops cooperating: at very low speed, or at extreme angles of attack, the flow...
Share this story Look at the front of a Rafale, a Eurofighter Typhoon, a Gripen or a Chinese J-20 and you will see a small pair of wings mounted high on the nose, ahead of the main wing. They are called canards, and they divide the fighter world in two. Europe and...
Share this story To drop bombs on Tripoli for twelve minutes, the U.S. Air Force flew for thirteen hours. Not because the target was far in a straight line — it was a routine Mediterranean hop from bases in England — but because almost every ally in between refused to...
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