Italy Turns Away U.S. Bombers Mid-Flight
Related: Spain Bans American Warplanes from Its Skies Somewhere over the Atlantic, a group of U.S. bombers received a message no American military pilot expects to hear from a NATO ally: permission to land denied. Italy had blocked them from touching down at Sigonella...
Rheinmetall Signs Up for Ghost Bat
Related: Germany’s Loyal Wingman Race Heats Up Four days ago, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius stood on a tarmac in Australia and said the words Boeing had been waiting years to hear: the MQ-28 Ghost Bat was “under consideration” for the...
Korea vs. Italy: Southeast Asia’s Trainer War
Two T-50i Golden Eagles arrived at Iswahjudi Air Base in East Java in early March, flown in pieces inside a Boeing 747 freighter and reassembled on the ground. Fuselage, wings, vertical tail, engine — each component traveled separately across more than 700 kilometers...
Two-Kilo Missile Downs a Kamikaze Drone
Somewhere in northern Germany on March 30, a small drone the size of a dinner table locked onto a kamikaze UAV streaking toward its target. Without any human input, it classified the threat, selected a weapon, and fired. The missile — weighing less than two kilograms...
Surgical Green at Mach 2: The MiG-21 Cockpit Mystery
Step inside a MiG-21 cockpit and the first thing that hits you isn’t the claustrophobic canopy or the wall of analog dials. It’s the color. Every surface — the instrument panel frame, the side consoles, the canopy rails — is painted in a striking shade of...
Why They Call It the Viper
Most aircraft are designed to fly straight and level by default. Take your hands off the controls and they glide on, stable, content, reassuring. The F-16 Fighting Falcon is not like most aircraft. Take your hands off the controls in an F-16 and it will try to kill...
Operation Bolo: The Trap That Broke North Vietnam’s Air Force
January 2, 1967. Colonel Robin Olds — World War II ace, Vietnam War wing commander, and possibly the most dangerous man ever to strap into a fighter jet — had a problem. North Vietnam’s MiG-21s were shooting down American aircraft with near impunity. The rules...
The Enemy Pilot Who Escorted Us Home
Franz Stigler had one kill to go. One more aircraft, and he would earn the Knight’s Cross — the highest military honour the Luftwaffe could bestow. He had fought across North Africa and was now flying Bf 109s over Germany, defending the Reich from the waves of...
The Tail That Won MiG Alley
In the summer of 1951, American F-86A pilots over North Korea were dying. Not because the MiG-15 was faster. Not because the North Korean and Chinese pilots were better. They were dying because at around Mach 0.86 — the speed at which the Sabre’s tail control...
1,842 Knots: The SR-71’s Famous Speed Check
Thirteen miles above Southern California, moving at roughly a mile every two seconds, Major Brian Shul and his backseat reconnaissance officer Walt were monitoring Los Angeles Center radio traffic when the entertainment started. A Cessna pilot had asked for a ground...
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