The British Jet Fighter That Took Off From the Sea
In 1947, a small British company called Saunders-Roe — known mostly for building flying boats and small civil amphibians — flew an aircraft that should not have existed. The SR.A/1 was a shoulder-winged, twin-jet, fighter-grade combat aircraft. Top speed around 820...
Airbus Quietly Courts Saab as Europe’s 6th-Gen Fighter Breaks Apart
Europe’s flagship sixth-generation fighter project is falling apart in slow motion — and now Airbus is quietly reaching out to Sweden’s Saab. The conversations, first reported this week, would have been unthinkable five years ago. They are not unthinkable...
Ukraine Inks €2.5 Billion Gripen E Deal With Sweden
Uppsala, 28 May 2026. Volodymyr Zelensky walked onto the apron at Uppsala air base under a grey Swedish sky, shook hands with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, and announced what is — by any measure — the largest Western fighter package Ukraine has ever secured. The...
The Cri-Cri: France’s Lawnmower-Powered Aerobatic Twin
The pilot puts on a Bell helmet, climbs into a cockpit narrower than a kitchen drawer, and starts two engines with scarcely more combined power than a ride-on lawnmower. The whole aircraft, fully fuelled and with him in it, weighs 170 kilograms. The wingspan is just...
Gulf Cash Is Pouring Into Turkish Air Defense After the Iran War
The Gulf monarchies watched the 40-day air war over Iran like a long, expensive product demo. The Patriot batteries that defended Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had a good war by any measure. They also went through interceptor inventory faster than anyone expected,...
Canada Picks the GlobalEye — Boeing’s Second NATO Loss in Two Weeks
For the second time in a matter of weeks, Boeing has been beaten by a Swede with a radar plank on its back. NATO reportedly settled on the Saab GlobalEye over the E-7 Wedgetail for its alliance-wide airborne early-warning replacement in late April. On 27 May, Prime...
Poland Scrambles Every Fighter Jet as Russia’s Largest Barrage Nears NATO Airspace
Midnight. The radar screens at Poland’s Operational Command light up like a switchboard. Across the border in Ukraine, the sky fills with roughly 600 Russian drones and 90 missiles — cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, every category of aerial threat Moscow can...
Three Hours Blind: Russia Jams RAF Jet Carrying UK Defence Secretary
The GPS display goes blank. Smartphones lose their signal. Laptops cannot reach the internet. For three hours, the Royal Air Force Dassault Falcon 900LX carrying British Defence Secretary John Healey flies through electronic darkness over the Baltic Sea — and the...
The Flying Greenhouse: France’s 1928 Bomber That Fought WWII
If you ever wanted to know what 1928 thought a bomber should look like, the Amiot 143 is your answer. Boxy. Slab-sided. With a glasshouse gondola hanging from its belly like an afterthought welded on by a committee that had recently discovered the concept of windows....
KLM’s 10 Longest Routes — Including an 18h 35m Monster to Manila
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is flying its most ambitious ultra-long-haul schedule in years: ten routes from Amsterdam Schiphol with block times of around 14 hours or more in the June 2026 to March 2027 season. The longest of them — Manila back to Amsterdam via...
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