Share this story Over the pine forests of the Gironde, a shape far too large to be a water bomber banks low, opens its rear cargo ramp, and lets a red cascade of retardant fall across the treetops. This is no yellow Canadair. It is an Airbus A400M Atlas, the biggest...
Share this story Some warplanes make their name in dogfights, twisting through the sky with guns blazing. The McDonnell F-101 Voodoo made most of its name doing the opposite: flying low, flying flat out, and flying completely unarmed straight over the people trying to...
Share this story Some aircraft impress by their cleverness. The Tupolev Tu-160 impresses first by its sheer dimensions. At 54.1 metres (177 ft 6 in) it is longer than a Boeing B-52, and when its wings are spread it measures 55.7 metres (182 ft 9 in) from tip to tip....
Share this story Every so often aviation history throws up an aircraft whose greatest achievement was simply existing. The Bell P-59 Airacomet is the patron saint of that club. It was America’s first jet aircraft, a genuine milestone, and yet it was so...
Share this story Most military aircraft can be summed up in a single job. Fighters fight. Bombers bomb. Attack helicopters attack. And then there is the Mil Mi-24, a machine that looked at the neat little boxes military planners like to draw and cheerfully refused to...
Share this story Ask anyone who was there and they will tell you the same thing: you heard it before you saw it. A low, chopping pulse rolling in over the treeline, whop-whop-whop, growing until it filled the whole sky. For a generation of soldiers, that sound meant...
Share this story Few aircraft announce themselves before they are seen. The Tupolev Tu-95, known to NATO as the “Bear,” is one of them. It is a large, four-engine turboprop strategic bomber, and yet it cruises at speeds normally reserved for jets. That...
Share this story Some aeroplanes are admired. A rare few are loved. The Hawker Hunter belongs firmly to the second category, and it has done so since the day it first slipped into the air in 1951. Ask a British pilot of a certain vintage to name the most beautiful jet...
Share this story Say “four-engine British heavy bomber” to almost anyone and you will get the same answer: the Lancaster. The Avro Lancaster is the one that flew the Dambusters raid, the one still cruising over air shows on a summer afternoon, the one...
Share this story Some aircraft whisper. The Avro Shackleton announced itself from three valleys away. Long before you could see it, you felt it: a deep, chest-rattling drone that rolled across the North Atlantic like distant artillery, the unmistakable sound of four...
Share this story Picture a field in occupied France. It is a little after midnight, and there is a full moon riding above the poplars. Three people stand in the wet grass, holding bicycle lamps, hearts going like drums. They are listening. And then they hear it: a...
Share this story On the morning of 15 July 1942, eight American warplanes went hunting for a break in the weather over the North Atlantic and found the roof of the world instead. They had left Greenland at first light, bound for Iceland and then the war in Europe, but...
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