A Nigerian delegation signed the frame of the first of twelve AH-1Z Vipers at Amarillo. Behind the ceremony sits a decade of argument about whether Washington would sell them at all.
F135 Engine Core Upgrade Clears Its Design Review
The F-35’s problem was never thrust. It was electricity and the heat that comes with it. Pratt & Whitney has now cleared the design review that lets the fix head toward production.
SPICE 1000 on the F-35I Adir: Israel Arms Its Lightning
Rafael and Lockheed Martin are integrating the 1,000lb SPICE stand-off weapon on the F-35. It glides past 120km and guides by looking at the ground rather than trusting GPS.
NATO’s Drone Wingmen: USAFE Prepares for Allied CCAs
Germany is heavily involved, the Dutch and Scandinavians are interested, and everyone is building their own anyway. USAFE’s job now is making sure the robots can talk to each other.
F-47 and F/A-XX: The Industrial Base Problem Nobody Solved
Gen. Dale White says the F-47 will fly on time, but he has concerns about whether American industry can build what the Pentagon is ordering. And they are not confined to the two next-gen fighters.
Air Force Eyes New-Build F-16s: Meet the Proposed F-16G
The USAF has not bought an F-16 for itself in over 20 years. With 826 Vipers averaging 34 years old and the F-35 and F-15EX lines maxed out, Lockheed is pitching a G-model built at Greenville.
USAF Weighs Restarting C-17 Production: “Heck Yeah, But…”
Air Mobility Command boss Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley says a C-17 production restart is on the table inside a formal Analysis of Alternatives. The line closed in 2015. Nobody is sure the tooling still exists.
Houthis Claim a Saudi F-15 Shot Down Over Marib, Yemen
Ansar Allah says a locally built surface-to-air missile brought down a Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 over Marib. The wreckage is real. The cause is not confirmed, and Riyadh is silent.
The Top American Ace of Vietnam Never Flew the Aircraft
The highest-scoring American ace of the Vietnam War never flew the aeroplane. On 9 September 1972, Captain Charles B. DeBellevue shot down his fifth and sixth MiGs from the back seat of an F-4D Phantom. He was a weapon systems officer. The stick and throttles were...
Russia Beat GPS Jamming With a Two-Dollar Compass
Ukraine has spent this war building some of the densest electronic warfare cover on earth. Along much of the front line, GPS and GLONASS simply do not work. A drone that depends on satellite navigation arrives over the target having forgotten where it is....
How a Heat-Seeking Missile Works, and Why Flares Stopped Saving You
A radar-guided missile announces itself. It has to: something has to illuminate the target, and the moment that happens the target knows it is being shot at.An infrared missile says nothing at all. It emits no signal, because it is not looking for a reflection. It is...
Why Airliners Still Have Ashtrays Decades After the Smoking Ban
Smoking has been banned on commercial flights for decades. The signs are lit from pushback to gate. Tampering with a lavatory smoke detector will get you arrested.And yet every airliner rolling off the line at Toulouse or Renton this year has an ashtray fitted to the...
Why American Aircraft Start With N: Registration Prefixes Explained
Every civil aircraft in the world carries a registration painted on its tail or fuselage, and the first character or two tells you where it is registered. American aircraft start with N. British with G. German with D. Swiss with HB.The obvious assumption is that...
The Hardest Day: 18 August 1940 Cost More Than Battle of Britain Day
The Battle of Britain has a famous date, and it is 15 September. That is Battle of Britain Day, the climax, the one in the calendar.It is not the day that cost the most. That was Sunday 18 August 1940, when the Luftwaffe made an all-out attempt to destroy RAF Fighter...
The Doolittle Raid: Sixteen B-25s That Were Never Coming Back
At 07:38 on the morning of 18 April 1942, a 70-ton Japanese patrol boat called the Nittō Maru spotted an American task force about 650 nautical miles east of Japan and got a radio message off before the cruiser Nashville sank her.That message ruined the plan. The...
Turkish Airlines Held Up 150 Boeing 737 MAX Over the Engines
Turkish Airlines does not have an aircraft problem. It has an engine problem, and it has spent the better part of a year using one to solve the other.A 150-aircraft Boeing 737 MAX order — announced with considerable ceremony after President Erdogan met President...
Korean Air Confirms 103 Boeing Jets in a $44.8 Billion Deal
Korean Air signed the paperwork in Seoul this week, and the number on it is the largest in the airline’s history: roughly 60 trillion won, about $44.8 billion, for 103 Boeing aircraft and the engines to keep them running.This is the moment an announcement...