Toulon Naval Base: Unauthorised Drones Trigger Investigation
Share this story For twelve days in October, the French military rehearsed exactly one scenario in the roadstead of Toulon: how to protect France’s largest naval base. Somewhere in the middle of that rehearsal, someone else’s drones came to watch. On...
Wings Over Ganges: IAF Flies 100 Aircraft Over Varanasi
Share this story The steps of Namo Ghat were packed before the first engine noise rolled down the river. On Thursday 22 October 2026, thousands of spectators lined the Ganga from Namo Ghat to Assi Ghat as the Indian Air Force opened “Wings Over Ganges”...
Rafale F5: France and the UAE Sign Intergovernmental Agreement
Share this story Abu Dhabi, Tuesday 20 October 2026. Between a tour of Edge Group factories and a round of energy deals, France and the United Arab Emirates signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation on the Rafale F5 standard — the next great leap of...
Fred Smith: The Marine Who Gambled FedEx Back Into the Air
Share this story On the night of 17 April 1973, fourteen small Dassault Falcon 20 jets took off from Memphis carrying 186 packages to 25 American cities. It was the first night of Federal Express. The man behind it, Frederick W. Smith, had learned to lead not in...
Hélène Boucher: The Fastest Woman in the World in 1934
Share this story On the morning of 30 November 1934, a small blue-and-red Caudron racer came in to land at Guyancourt, just outside Versailles. It lost speed, dropped onto the treetops of the woods beyond the field and broke apart. The pilot, reached first by fellow...
Jean Mermoz: The Aéropostale Archangel Who Vanished at Sea
Share this story At 10:43 on 7 December 1936, a radio operator somewhere over the South Atlantic tapped out a short line of Morse from the flying boat Croix-du-Sud: “Coupons moteur arrière droit” – cutting the rear starboard engine. Then the...
Fokker F27 Friendship: Europe’s Best-Selling Turboprop Airliner
Share this story On 24 November 1955 a high-winged prototype registered PH-NIV took to the air for the first time. It had two Rolls-Royce Dart turboprops, a pressurised cabin and an airframe in which much of the metal was glued together rather than riveted. According...
Dassault Mystère IV: France’s First Transonic Fighter Goes to War
Share this story Melun-Villaroche, 28 September 1952. Kostia Rozanoff, Dassault’s chief test pilot, lifts a silver prototype off the runway and stays aloft for 25 minutes. In level flight the new jet touches Mach 0.92, comfortably beyond what its designers had...
Austrian Airlines OS82: Bomb Threat, MiG-29 Escort, Landing in Sofia
Share this story The Austrian Airlines A320 was two hours out of Tel Aviv on Sunday evening, with 51 passengers in the cabin and Vienna still more than an hour away, when the crew received the message every airline crew dreads: a bomb threat against their flight. They...
Belgium Raises F-16 Pledge: Ten Jets for Ukraine
Share this story Two weeks ago the number was three. On Thursday evening in Brussels, over a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the EU summit, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever more than tripled it. Belgium, he said, will hand Ukraine ten F-16 fighters before...
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