X-59 Hits Mach 1.4 at Quiet Boom Altitude
NASA’s X-59 Quesst aircraft has reached the speed and altitude it was built to fly. On June 12, 2026, test pilot Jim “Clue” Less pushed the needle-nosed experimental jet to Mach 1.4 at 55,000 feet over Edwards Air Force Base — the exact conditions...
Navy’s F/A-XX Rescued by $900M Funding Surge
The U.S. Navy’s next carrier-based fighter just dodged a bullet. After the Pentagon attempted to gut the F/A-XX program in favor of the Air Force’s F-47, Congress has intervened with force — inserting $897.3 million into the FY2026 defense spending bill, a...
Boeing Eyes C-17 Globemaster Production Restart
A decade after Boeing shuttered the C-17 Globemaster III production line in Long Beach, California, the unthinkable is back on the table. Boeing says it is “encouraged” by restart discussions with multiple operators, and the House Armed Services Committee...
The B-36 That Flew With a Live Nuclear Reactor
Between 1955 and 1957, a B-36 bomber the size of a building flew over Texas and New Mexico with a live nuclear reactor humming in its belly. It was escorted everywhere by a planeload of armed Marines, ready to parachute down and seal off the area if it ever crashed....
The Spruce Goose: Hughes’s Giant That Flew Once
On November 2, 1947, the largest flying boat ever built lifted off the water of Long Beach Harbor, flew for about a mile at seventy feet, and never flew again. In that single minute, Howard Hughes won an argument that had nearly destroyed him. The Hughes H-4 Hercules...
The Navy Fighter With a Propeller AND a Jet
In 1946, the U.S. Navy flew a fighter that couldn’t decide whether it belonged to the propeller age or the jet age — so it used both at once. The Ryan XF2R Dark Shark had a turboprop in the nose spinning a four-bladed propeller, and a turbojet buried in...
The Highest a Jet Has Ever Flown
The highest a jet has ever flown under its own power is not an American record, and it is nearly half a century old. On August 31, 1977, Soviet test pilot Alexandr Fedotov zoom-climbed a MiG-25 to 37,650 metres — 123,523 feet — and no air-breathing...
China’s J-50 Stealth Fighter Caught Flying Again
China appears to be flight-testing not one but two sixth-generation fighters at once — and the lesser-known of the pair just resurfaced in fresh 2026 imagery. New footage and images circulating from facilities linked to Shenyang Aircraft Corporation show what...
Casablanca to LA: Royal Air Maroc Flies Into the World Cup
Royal Air Maroc is about to put Casablanca on the nonstop map to Los Angeles — and the timing is no accident. Morocco’s flag carrier is launching a Casablanca–Los Angeles route, flown three times a week on the Boeing 787, just as the 2026 World Cup...
Air Taxis Clear the Last Big Hurdle
After a decade of promises, the electric air taxi is finally about to carry paying passengers in the United States — and it could happen this summer. The two front-runners have cleared the hardest gates yet. Joby Aviation has reached stage four of the...
Recent Comments