Poland Freezes Its MiGs for Ukraine
In the spring of 2023, Poland became the first NATO country to send fighter jets to Ukraine — fourteen MiG-29s, handed over while other capitals were still debating. Three years later, the last fourteen Fulcrums in Polish service were supposed to follow them...
Iron Dome Just Got a Laser Sidekick
For fifteen years, Iron Dome has answered incoming rockets with a $50,000 interceptor. Now it has a second option on the trigger: light. Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced on 30 June that a comprehensive Iron Dome test series has, for the first time, folded...
An Eagle and a Ghost Fly Together
One photo, two aircraft, and a very large hint about the future of air combat. On 1 July, Pacific Air Forces posted imagery of a US Air Force F-15EX Eagle II flying over the Philippine Sea in close formation with something no American fighter had been photographed...
Seahawk Down in the Arabian Sea
At 3:30 in the morning Eastern time on 1 July, an MH-60S Sea Hawk from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush went into the water of the Arabian Sea. Three of the four crew members were pulled out and are in stable condition aboard the carrier. As of publication,...
The Pentagon Gets a Drone Czar
The Pentagon just did something it almost never does: it took power away from the Army, Navy and Air Force all at once. In a memo dated 29 June and made public this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth created a single office with authority over virtually every drone...
The B-2 Just Became a Ship-Killer
Somewhere over the Philippine Sea on 27 June, a B-2 Spirit opened its weapons bay and released something the world had never officially seen it carry: an AGM-158C LRASM, the US military’s stealthiest anti-ship missile. The target, more than 200 nautical miles...
NATO’s Next Radar Jet Is Swedish
For 44 years, the deep rumble of Boeing E-3A Sentries out of Geilenkirchen has been the sound of NATO watching its own skies. Now, according to a Reuters report published on 2 July, the alliance is preparing to hand that job to a jet from a country that only joined...
Britain’s V-Bombers: Three Aircraft, One Nuclear Mission
For three decades during the Cold War, Britain’s nuclear deterrent rested on the wings of three extraordinary aircraft: the Vickers Valiant, the Avro Vulcan, and the Handley Page Victor. Known collectively as the V-bombers, they were designed to carry atomic and...
The Handley Page Victor: Nuclear Bomber Turned Tanker
The Handley Page Victor was the last and most advanced of Britain’s three V-bombers — and the one with the longest career. Designed to carry nuclear weapons to Moscow at high altitude, it outlived its original mission by decades, reinventing itself as the Royal...
The Il-2 Sturmovik: The Most-Produced Military Aircraft in History
With 36,183 examples built, the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik is the most-produced military aircraft in history — and arguably the most important ground-attack platform of the Second World War. Soviet infantry called it “the flying tank.” German soldiers called...
Recent Comments