Eve Clears Hover, Eyes Transition: Embraer’s eVTOL Enters the Hard Part
Eve Air Mobility has cleared its most critical test milestone yet. The Embraer-backed eVTOL developer announced that its full-scale engineering prototype has completed the entire hover and low-speed flight test phase, delivering the high-fidelity aerodynamic and...
10% to 95%: China’s AI Drone Wingmen Just Rewrote the J-20’s Kill Rate
The numbers are almost too clean to be believable. In Chinese military exercises pitting a lone J-20 stealth fighter against simulated adversaries, the win rate sat at a dismal 10 per cent. Add AI-controlled drone wingmen to the same scenario, and the win rate climbed...
Hivemind Goes Lethal: Shield AI’s Swarm Brain Wired Into Pentagon’s Attack Drones
The Pentagon’s vision of autonomous drone swarms just got real software. Shield AI — the San Diego company that built Hivemind, the only AI pilot to fly full-sized aircraft without GPS, communications, or a human operator — has been selected to integrate its...
TSgt James Howell: The Live Human Ejection Test From a Supersonic F-106 in 1961
On 6 June 1961, somewhere over the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Technical Sergeant James A. Howell of the U.S. Air Force was strapped into the back seat of a specially-instrumented Convair F-106B Delta Dart. The aircraft climbed to 23,336 feet and...
The F-100 That Took Off Without a Runway: How Zero-Length Launch Almost Saved the Cold War
Imagine the worst-case scenario from the Pentagon perspective in 1957: the Soviet Union launches a surprise nuclear strike against NATO. The first warheads land on every U.S. and allied air base in Western Europe within the first ten minutes. Every runway is cratered....
The Boeing YC-14: The Cargo Plane That Should Have Replaced the C-130
In 1976, Boeing rolled a strange-looking jet out of its Renton plant. Two turbofans mounted high above the wings — not under them, where every cargo aircraft in history had put its engines. Stubby, square fuselage. T-tail. A wing that looked too small for the...
49,221 Feet in 2 Minutes 36 Seconds: The Marine Who Broke Five Records in One Day
It is one of those records that does not seem possible when you read it on paper. On 22 and 23 May 1958, a U.S. Marine Corps test pilot named Edward N. LeFaivre took off five times from Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California, climbed each time as fast as his Douglas...
How Ejection Seats Save Lives at Air Shows
On May 17, 2026, two U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets collided midair during the Gunfighter Skies Air Show at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The collision happened in front of thousands of spectators. Both aircraft were destroyed. All four crew...
DARPA’s Hybrid-Electric Spy Drone Takes Flight: The XRQ-73 SHEPARD
On April 14, 2026, at Edwards Air Force Base in California, a small flying wing lifted off the runway for the first time. It carried no pilot, no weapons, and no fanfare beyond a brief DARPA press release. The aircraft was the XRQ-73 SHEPARD — Series Hybrid...
GE Wins Engine Contract for Autonomous Combat Jets
GE Aerospace has been awarded a contract for the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) of the GE426 turbofan engine, purpose-built for the U.S. Air Force’s medium-thrust Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP). The contract, announced May 19, marks a decisive step in...
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