Three hours of closed airspace, caused by objects that cost almost nothing. A senior NATO official had warned of an uptick that same morning.
Airbus Broughton: The A380 Wing Hall Becomes an A321 Factory
The hall built for the biggest wings ever attempted is being rebuilt for the narrowbody that made them unnecessary. £150 million, six jigs, first wing already up.
Yosemite Helicopter Crash: Two Killed on the Dome Fire
A Super Puma on water-bucket drops went down southeast of Ostrander Lake on Sunday. Both crew were killed. Why this is the hardest flying nobody watches.
MALD Wreckage in Iran: America’s Decoys Are Still Flying
A Raytheon CAGE code on a burnt tail fin is the first physical proof that US decoys are being flown into Iranian airspace. The wreckage is not the story.
Iranian Airlines Grounded Worldwide From Wednesday, US Says
Washington is not banning Iranian aircraft. It is telling every fuel supplier, handler and ticket agent on earth that servicing one costs them the dollar.
VH-92A Marine One Opens the White House’s New Granite Helipad
Sixty years of landing on grass ended on Monday. The VH-92A was too powerful for the South Lawn, so Sikorsky bought the White House a granite pad.
FQ-42 Vengeance Flies Formation With an F-35A and an F-15E
General Atomics released the first photo of its FQ-42 Vengeance holding formation with crewed US fighters. It is not being commanded by them. Not yet.
NATS Prestwick Outage: Scotland’s Airspace Throttled Again
Thirteen days after Swanwick took down 2,000 flights, a connectivity fault at Prestwick throttled Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England.
McDonnell F2H-3 Banshee: Canada’s Only Carrier Jet Fighter
Canada ordered 60 new Banshees, the Cabinet reneged, and the Royal Canadian Navy got 39 used ones instead. The story of the only jet fighter Canada ever flew from a carrier deck.
HMCS Bonaventure: Canada Refitted Its Carrier, Then Scrapped It
In April 1966 the Royal Canadian Navy sent its only aircraft carrier into a shipyard at Lauzon, Quebec, for a mid-life refit. The point of a mid-life refit is the clue: you spend the money because the ship has another life to run. She came out sixteen to eighteen...
Moscow Drone Attack: 400 Flights Hit, 30 Jets Diverted
Not one airliner was touched. Ukraine still took all four Moscow airports off line, delayed 400 flights and sent 30 aircraft to Kazan, Samara and St Petersburg.
OBOGS Explained: Why Fighter Pilots No Longer Breathe Pure Oxygen
Modern fighters make their own oxygen, and military standards forbid them from delivering it pure below 15,000 feet. The reason took a grounded F-22 fleet, a paused Navy trainer fleet and a decade of investigation to establish.
Newark Ground Stop: One Cut Cable, Eight Hours, Five Airports
A primary circuit failed at Philadelphia TRACON. The backup fibre had already been cut by a digger in New Jersey. Newark did not take an arrival for eight hours.
Polar Routes: Why Airliners Cross the Arctic but Not Antarctica
A Boeing 757 sits on the Antarctic ice at Union Glacier. So why is the Arctic threaded with airline routes while the south stays empty? The answer is a compass that stops working, fuel that can freeze, and a runway nobody is entitled to use.
Houthi Strikes Called Off: Bombs Were Already on the Jets
Target lists approved, bombs going onto the aircraft, the first wave close to launching. Then Trump called the whole thing off.
Beartrap: The Canadian Invention That Put Sea Kings on Destroyers
The flight deck of a destroyer escort is roughly the size of a tennis court. In a North Atlantic winter it does not hold still. It rolls through thirty degrees, pitches through eight, and rises and falls a distance best measured in storeys. Now put a...
Operation Tundra Merlin: An Arctic Kill Chain Off Dutch Harbor
A hundred nautical miles north of Dutch Harbor is not anywhere. It is grey water, weather that arrives sideways, and the shortest line between the Aleutians and the Russian Far East. This week it has an American and Canadian task force in it, and Alaska-based fighters...