The Engine With No Propeller: How the Jet Age Was Born in Secret
At dawn on August 27, 1939 — four days before Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began — test pilot Erich Warsitz climbed into a small, unremarkable-looking aircraft at the Heinkel airfield in Rostock-Marienehe and opened a throttle connected to an engine...
Iraq’s Rafale Gambit: 14 French Fighters to Break the American Lock
Iraq is about to buy French. After years of relying almost exclusively on American fighter jets, Baghdad is in the final stages of negotiations with Paris for 14 Dassault Rafale F4 fighters — the latest and most capable variant of France’s omnirole combat...
France Pumps €36 Billion Into Defence Rearmament
France has just announced the largest peacetime increase in military spending in its modern history. An additional €36 billion — approximately $42 billion — will flow into the armed forces between 2026 and 2030, targeting the three domains where the war in the Middle...
First in NATO: Italy’s Raiders Earn AFSOC’s Seal
For the first time in the history of the Atlantic Alliance, a non-American military unit has earned the stamp of approval from the most demanding special operations air force on the planet. The Italian Air Force’s 17° Stormo Incursori — the Raiders Wing, based...
Navy Confirms: $240 Million Triton Drone Is Gone
It took the Navy six days to say it out loud. The MQ-4C Triton that vanished over the Persian Gulf on April 9 is not coming back. The U.S. Navy has officially confirmed the loss of the unmanned surveillance aircraft near the Strait of Hormuz, ending nearly a week of...
B-21 Raider Reveals Its Top Side for the First Time
The U.S. Air Force just showed the world something it has guarded for years: the top of the B-21 Raider. On April 14, the Air Force released two photographs of its next-generation stealth bomber conducting aerial refueling tests with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Edwards...
Günther Rall: He Broke His Back, Ignored the Doctors, and Scored 275 Kills
Quick FactsNationalityGerman 🇩🇪Aerial Victories275 (3rd all-time)Aircraft FlownBf 109GWarsWorld War II (Eastern Front)Born / Died10 Mar 1918 – 4 Oct 2009 (age 91)UnitJG 52 Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J16509, Günther Rall — via Wikimedia Commons There’s a detail in...
Pardo’s Push: The F-4 That Shoved Another F-4 Home
On the morning of March 10, 1967, Captain Bob Pardo looked out the left side of his F-4 Phantom cockpit at another F-4 Phantom that was about to stop flying. The second jet belonged to his wingman, Captain Earl Aman, and it was bleeding fuel from a hole the size of a...
Red Over White, You’re Alright: How PAPI Works
There is a sentence every student pilot in the world learns by heart, usually while sweating through their first night approach: red over white, you’re alright. Say it out loud a few times. It rhymes, which is useful, because you are about to stake a 30-ton...
F/A-XX: The Navy’s Secret Sixth-Gen Fighter Moves
Everybody talks about the F-47. Every defence reporter, every think-tank panel, every congressional hearing. Boeing’s clean-sheet sixth-generation fighter for the Air Force gets the headlines and the money and the Trump tweets. Meanwhile, across the river at...
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