Before GPS: The Gyroscopes That Guided Supersonic Jets
Before the Global Positioning System existed — before the first satellite was even launched into the constellation — fighter jets were already screaming across continents at supersonic speed and arriving remarkably close to their targets. They did it using a...
KF-21 Boramae Declared Combat-Ready — Korea Joins the Elite
On 7 May 2026, South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) issued a declaration that aviation analysts had been watching for three years: the KF-21 Boramae is fully combat suitable. Three years of exhaustive testing. Six prototype airframes....
The Focke-Wulf Fw 190: The Fighter That Panicked the RAF
In August 1941, RAF Fighter Command began receiving reports it did not know how to explain. Spitfire pilots returning from sweeps over occupied France described a radial-engined fighter that could outrun, outclimb, and outroll everything they flew. At first, British...
The Tu-95LAL: The Soviet Bomber Powered by a Nuclear Reactor
In 1961 the Soviet Union flew an aircraft with a working nuclear reactor on board. The aircraft was a modified Tupolev Tu-95 Bear, redesignated Tu-95LAL — Letayushchaya Atomnaya Laboratoriya, or “Flying Atomic Laboratory.” The reactor sat in the rear of...
Why the B-1 Lancer Refuses to Retire
The B-1B Lancer does not get the headlines that the B-2 Spirit or the new B-21 Raider command. It was born in controversy, nearly cancelled, resurrected under Reagan, and spent decades as the workhorse nobody talked about. Yet today, the “Bone” — as its...
The Pentagon Is Quantum-Proofing the F-35
The F-35 Lightning II is, by some margin, the most networked combat aircraft ever built. A single jet exchanges several gigabytes of data per sortie with other F-35s, with E-3 and E-7 controllers, with ground stations, and — through the Multifunction Advanced Data...
The P-38 Lightning: Fork-Tailed Devil
The Germans called it “der Gabelschwanz-Teufel” — the Fork-Tailed Devil. The Japanese knew it as “two planes, one pilot.” American pilots simply called it the Lightning. The Lockheed P-38 was the most distinctive fighter of World War II, and...
“Blue Shark”: China Names Its Carrier Stealth Fighter
China’s carrier-borne stealth fighter has a name. On April 23, Shenyang Aircraft Corporation confirmed that the J-35 naval variant will carry the official designation “Blue Shark” — formalising what had been rumoured since the Zhuhai Airshow in late...
B-1B Carries Hypersonic Missile for the First Time
A two-second Instagram clip from Edwards Air Force Base has confirmed what the Pentagon kept quiet for months: the B-1B Lancer is now carrying the AGM-183A ARRW hypersonic missile externally. It is the first time the weapon — cancelled in 2023, quietly resurrected in...
F/A-XX: Who Builds the Navy’s Sixth-Gen Fighter?
In August 2026, the United States Navy will choose which company builds its next fighter jet. The F/A-XX — a sixth-generation carrier-based aircraft designed to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet — is down to two competitors: Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Lockheed...
English
Recent Comments