Six Metres From the Nose: Russian Su-35 Buzzes RAF Spy Plane Over Black Sea
The Su-35 came so close that the autopilot gave up. Six metres from the nose of a Royal Air Force Rivet Joint cruising over the Black Sea in international airspace, the British jet’s emergency alerts started screaming and the autopilot cut itself out. The crew of 51...
How Ejection Seats Save Lives at Air Shows
On May 17, 2026, two U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets collided midair during the Gunfighter Skies Air Show at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The collision happened in front of thousands of spectators. Both aircraft were destroyed. All four crew...
Why eVTOLs Need a Whole New Kind of Airport
The air taxi revolution has a problem, and it’s not the aircraft. Joby Aviation has flown from JFK to Manhattan in seven minutes. Archer Aviation has been named the official eVTOL provider for Belgrade’s Expo 2027. FAA type certification is in the final...
What Happens When the Air Force Grounds a Fleet
On May 20, 2026, the United States Air Force ordered an operational pause for its entire fleet of T-38 Talon jet trainers. Every T-38 across every command—Air Education and Training Command, Air Combat Command, Air Force Materiel Command, and Air Force Global...
$720 Million in Drones Lost Over Iran
In roughly six weeks of Operation Epic Fury, the United States Air Force lost 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones over Iran. At approximately $30 million per airframe, that is $720 million in hardware swatted out of the sky by an adversary the Reaper was never designed to fight. It...
Growler Demo Gone Wrong: Two EA-18Gs Collide Mid-Air at Mountain Home Airshow
It was 12:10 in the afternoon on a perfect Idaho Saturday. The sun was high over Mountain Home Air Force Base, the crowd at the Gunfighter Skies Air Show was in a good mood, and two EA-18G Growlers from the Navy’s VAQ-129 “Vikings” demo team were in...
The Funniest Pilot Logbook Entries Ever Written
Every aircraft has a logbook. And every logbook tells a story—usually about hydraulic leaks, faulty warning lights, and the slow entropy of flying machines held together by rivets, regulations, and sheer maintenance crew willpower. But hidden among the technical...
The B-52 Will Outlive Us All: Rolls-Royce F130 Engine Swap Clears Critical Design Review
There is an aircraft that first flew when Eisenhower was president, that dropped conventional bombs over Vietnam and precision-guided munitions over Afghanistan, that practiced nuclear deterrence through the Cuban Missile Crisis and Desert Storm and every anxious...
DARPA’s Hybrid-Electric Spy Drone Takes Flight: The XRQ-73 SHEPARD
On April 14, 2026, at Edwards Air Force Base in California, a small flying wing lifted off the runway for the first time. It carried no pilot, no weapons, and no fanfare beyond a brief DARPA press release. The aircraft was the XRQ-73 SHEPARD — Series Hybrid...
Argentina’s Last Skyhawk: 60 Years of the A-4 End at Villa Reynolds
On May 14, 2026, at Villa Reynolds Air Base in San Luis province, the Argentine Air Force said goodbye to the last of its A-4AR Fightinghawks. It was not just a retirement ceremony. It was the closing of a chapter that stretches back sixty years — six decades of a...
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