History & Legends, Military Aviation
On May 1, 1960, CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers took off from Peshawar, Pakistan in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane. His mission: fly across the entire Soviet Union at 70,000 feet, photographing military installations, and land in Bodø, Norway. He never made it. A Soviet S-75...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On April 26, 1986, Reactor Number Four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded. What followed was the worst nuclear disaster in history — and one of the most extraordinary helicopter operations ever attempted. Soviet pilots flew directly over the burning,...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In November 1983, NATO ran a routine command post exercise called Able Archer 83. It simulated a nuclear escalation scenario — from conventional conflict in Europe to a full-scale nuclear exchange. The exercise was realistic. Too realistic. Soviet intelligence...
Aviation World, History & Legends
Amelia Earhart disappeared on July 2, 1937, somewhere over the central Pacific Ocean. In the 89 years since, her fate has generated more conspiracy theories, more expeditions, more books, and more bad television than any other event in aviation history. Here is what...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
The Cold War produced some of the most audacious escapes in aviation history — and the getaway vehicle of choice was almost always a military jet. Pilots drugged their squadrons, bluffed their way past armed guards, and flew through hostile airspace at treetop height...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In February 1999, over the dusty plains of the Horn of Africa, two Soviet-designed fighters that had been built to fight NATO met each other instead. Ethiopian Su-27 Flankers engaged Eritrean MiG-29 Fulcrums in the first Sukhoi-versus-Mikoyan air combat in history — a...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
In 1965, Rhodesia declared independence from Britain and inherited an air force with a dozen Hawker Hunters, a handful of English Electric Canberras, some ageing Vampires, and a few French Alouette helicopters. No allies. No spare parts. International sanctions on...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
It was a clear winter morning over the Costa del Sol, the kind where the Mediterranean glitters like hammered tin. At 10:30 on 17 January 1966, the villagers of Palomares — tomato farmers, mostly, in a corner of Almería so dry the fields had to be coaxed...
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