FAA 51 Percent Rule: What “Amateur-Built” Actually Means
Share this story Somewhere over the Sonoran Desert there is a yellow and blue two-seater turning in the evening light, and the person who owns it also built it. Not assembled it from a crate over a weekend. Built it, over several years, in a garage, with a rivet gun....
Neptune Missile Explained: Ukraine’s Ship-Killer Turned Deep-Strike Weapon
Share this story In April 2022, Ukraine says, two missiles hit the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The cruiser Moskva caught fire, its ammunition exploded, and the ship sank. The weapon Ukraine credited was a missile almost nobody outside the region had...
Saab GlobalEye: Sweden’s First S 106 Radar Jet Unveiled
Share this story Ever since it gave its radar planes to Ukraine, Sweden has defended its airspace without an airborne early warning aircraft of its own. That gap is now closing. On 15 October 2026, Saab presented the first GlobalEye built for the Swedish Air Force, a...
Borisoglebsk Strike: Neptune Missiles Hit Six Russian Su-34s
Share this story Shortly before 22:00 local time on 14 October, the missile alert sounded over the Voronezh region. A few minutes later residents of Borisoglebsk heard explosions, and a large fire lit up the military airfield east of town. By morning, Ukraine’s...
NATO Nuclear Sharing Explained: Steadfast Noon and the Dual-Capable Jets
Share this story Every October, a few dozen NATO fighter jets fly a rehearsal for a mission their crews hope they never fly for real: delivering an American nuclear bomb on behalf of the whole alliance. The exercise is called Steadfast Noon. This year it began on 13...
EWR VJ 101: The First VTOL Fighter to Break the Sound Barrier
Share this story On 29 July 1964, a silver test aircraft from southern Germany went faster than sound. That alone was nothing new in 1964; the Bell X-1 had done it 17 years earlier. What made the EWR VJ 101 C special was that it could also take off straight up, hover,...
X-62 VISTA: AI Test Jet Draws 30 Proposals Where 3 Were Expected
Share this story The US Air Force asked for three ideas and got more than thirty. When the Air Force Test Pilot School invited researchers to propose flight tests for the X-62 VISTA in fiscal years 2027 and 2028, it hoped for three test concepts. It received more than...
IRIS-T SLM: German Air Force Fires It Live for the First Time on Crete
Share this story Two years after it received its first IRIS-T SLM fire unit, the German Air Force has finally fired the system for real. In mid-October 2026, soldiers of Air Defence Missile Group 61 from Todendorf launched a live IRIS-T SLM missile at the NATO Missile...
Checked Baggage: What the FAA and IATA Allow in the Hold
Share this story Everyone knows the cabin rules. Liquids in a bag, laptop out of the case, no knives. The hold feels like the forgiving place, the hole in the aeroplane where the awkward things go once the security theatre is over. It is the opposite. For an entire...
Why the Houthis Are So Hard to Defeat From the Air: Seven Reasons
Share this story In October 2026 Houthi missiles are again falling on Saudi Arabia. On 10 October a ballistic missile hit terminals 3 and 4 at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport, killing at least 13 people. Saudi investigators say drones went in first to...
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