The FAA has just ordered 459 Boeing 737s to have their cabin monitors replaced. What an airworthiness directive actually is, who it binds, and why the four types everybody learns are not in Part 39 at all.
Musashi Sinking 1944: How Carrier Planes Killed a Super-Battleship
On 24 October 1944, US carrier aircraft hit the Japanese battleship Musashi with an estimated 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs in the Sibuyan Sea.
Trent 900 Blade-Off Test: How Rolls-Royce Proved the A380 Engine Could Contain a Fan Blade
To certify the A380’s Trent 900, Rolls-Royce fired an explosive charge at the root of a fan blade with the engine at full speed and watched the case hold. Here is what a blade-off test is, what the rules demand, and why the famous QF32 failure was a different problem.
Vandy 1: The Story of VX-4’s Black Bunny Tomcat
For decades the most recognisable jet on a US Navy flight line was a gloss black test aircraft with a white Playboy bunny on its tail. Here is the real story of VX-4’s Vandy 1, from the F-4 Phantom to the last Tomcat ever built.
RAF Chinooks and A400Ms to Fight UK Wildfires From the Air
The UK will fit RAF Chinook helicopters and A400M Atlas airlifters with firefighting equipment to tackle wildfires on remote moorland and hillsides.
Neil Armstrong’s Four Close Calls: Korea, Gemini 8, the Flying Bedstead and the Moon
Before he stepped onto the Moon, Neil Armstrong had ejected over Korea, saved a spacecraft spinning once a second, and ejected again from a lunar training vehicle seconds before it crashed. Here are his four closest calls, checked against NASA and the record.
Cargolux 747-8F LX-VCF: Landing Gear Collapses While Parked
The left wing gear of Cargolux 747-8F LX-VCF collapsed at its stand in Luxembourg. The airline has ordered checks on its whole 747-8F fleet.
Tom Skerritt (1933-2026): Top Gun’s Viper Was an Air Force Veteran
Tom Skerritt, Top Gun’s Commander Mike “Viper” Metcalf, has died at 93. Before Hollywood he served four years in the US Air Force.
FQ-42 Vengeance: Boeing’s Spirit Defense Joins Drone Production
General Atomics has picked Boeing-owned Spirit Defense in Wichita as fuselage design-build partner for the FQ-42 Vengeance CCA drone.
Exercise Rummy: RAF Typhoons Join a French Nuclear Strike Drill
For the first time, RAF Typhoons escorted French nuclear-armed Rafales in a simulated strike, under Exercise RUMMY.
Dassault Mirage III: The Delta That Made France a Fighter Power
Share this story On 24 October 1958, a slim silver delta with tricolour roundels pushed past Mach 2 in level flight, reaching Mach 2.2. No Western European aircraft had done it before. Nine years later, the same design would win one of the most decisive air campaigns...
Why Airlines Dim the Cabin Lights for Takeoff and Landing
Share this story You have just finished your drink, the seat backs are coming up and suddenly the cabin goes dark. No, the airline is not trying to set a romantic mood or save electricity. When crews dim the cabin lights for takeoff and landing, they are preparing...
Mitsubishi A6M Zero: The Fighter That Shocked the Allies
Share this story In the summer of 1940, Chinese pilots over Chongqing met a new Japanese fighter that seemed to break the rules. It flew farther than a fighter should, turned tighter than anything they had, and carried cannon.Warnings from China, including from the...
Sikorsky VS-300: The Wobbly Machine That Gave Us the Helicopter
Share this story On 14 September 1939, two weeks after war broke out in Europe, a 50-year-old engineer in a business suit and a felt hat climbed into an open frame of steel tubes in Stratford, Connecticut. Ropes tied the machine to the ground. When Igor Sikorsky...
Battle of Longewala 1971: Hawker Hunters Against a Tank Column
Share this story Just after midnight on 5 December 1971, a company of about 120 Indian soldiers at a lonely border post in the Thar Desert heard engines in the dark. Coming towards them was a Pakistani armoured column: dozens of tanks, infantry in trucks, an entire...
Why Jet Lag Is Worse Flying East, and What Actually Helps
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...
How Does a Radar-Guided Missile Work? From Sparrow to AMRAAM
Share this story A heat-seeking missile chases something it can feel: the hot exhaust of an engine. A radar-guided missile chases something it cannot see at all until a radar wave bounces off it. That difference is why radar missiles can kill from beyond visual range,...