Share this story A reel doing the rounds on Instagram poses a question that comes up in every aviation comment section sooner or later: why do Russian jets burn blue, not orange like American ones? The claim we are checking. An American jet burning blue: an F/A-18F...
Share this story It was small, slow and oddly shaped, with two rotors that swung through each other like the blades of an eggbeater. Yet the Kaman HH-43 Huskie, better known by its radio callsign “Pedro”, flew more rescue missions in Vietnam than all other...
Share this story Nicole Malachowski was five years old when she watched military jets at an air show and decided that was what she would do with her life. It was a perfectly reasonable ambition, except for one detail nobody mentioned to her at the time. The United...
Share this story For decades, the Royal Thai Air Force’s F-16s flew exercises, air shows and the occasional scramble. On 24 July 2025 they went to war. As a border dispute with Cambodia exploded into open fighting, Thai F-16s dropped guided bombs on Cambodian...
Share this story “Flying under the radar” is one of the few pieces of aviation slang that means exactly what it says. It is not a metaphor about avoiding attention. It is a statement about geometry, and the geometry is unforgiving in both directions. Ask...
Share this story On the night of 10 March 1968, nineteen American airmen were living on top of a mountain in a country where, officially, there were no American troops at all. Phou Pha Thi rises more than a mile above northeastern Laos, with sheer cliffs on one side....
Share this story On 30 October 1963 the crew of USS Forrestal watched a four-engined transport with a 132-foot wingspan come down their deck. It had no tailhook. It had no catapult attachment. The ship’s island cleared its wingtip by about fifteen feet. It...
Share this story Latvia wants to hit targets far beyond its borders, and it has picked the weapon. On 25 September, President Edgars Rinkēvičs visited Anduril Industries in California, met founder Palmer Luckey, and said he was looking forward to completing the...
Share this story The F-16 has seen heavy action against Iranian air defences in Operation Epic Fury. Its existing self-protection gear has coped, but the US Air Force knows that China’s air defences are a different league. So this week it put another $87.4...
Share this story In the first nine months of 2026, Ukrainian military units ordered more than 590,000 drones through a single online marketplace. The number alone is remarkable. What they chose to buy is more telling: the most ordered category is no longer the FPV...
Share this story Early on Saturday 26 September, two Houthi ballistic missiles were fired at Khamis Mushait, a city high in the mountains of south-western Saudi Arabia. Both were shot down, according to the Saudi-led coalition. At the same time, two Houthi drones were...
Share this story For years, India bought its fighters from Russia and France, and US stealth jets only turned up in Indian skies at air shows. That changes today. Exercise Tarang Shakti 2026 starts at Jodhpur Air Force Station in Rajasthan, and for the first time US...
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