America’s First Fighter Drones Roll Off the Line
A month ago, the U.S. Air Force cleared its first two “fighter drones” for production. This week, the factories actually started building them — and one of them dropped a letter from its name.On 27 July 2026, the first Ohio-built Fury rolled off...
Ukraine Loses Another F-16 in Combat
On 29 July 2026, the Ukrainian Air Force reported the loss of an F-16 during a combat mission to intercept Russian air targets. The pilot ejected and survived.According to the Air Force, controllers lost contact with the aircraft while it was engaged over one section...
A US Drone Triggered a Korean Border Scare
At about 2:30 in the afternoon on 30 July 2026, sensors along South Korea’s border with the North picked up something they couldn’t identify: an unmanned aircraft, near a frontline outpost, not squawking anything friendly. In the most heavily militarised...
South Korea Finishes Building Its Own Fighter
On 29 July 2026, at Korea Aerospace Industries’ plant in Sacheon, South Korea did something only a handful of nations have ever managed: it declared its own supersonic fighter finished. The KF-21 Boramae — “young hawk” — is officially through...
France’s Biggest Airlifter Turns Water Bomber
Over the pine forests of the Gironde, a shape far too large to be a water bomber banks low, opens its rear cargo ramp, and lets a red cascade of retardant fall across the treetops. This is no yellow Canadair. It is an Airbus A400M Atlas, the biggest tactical airlifter...
The Hellcat: The Ace Maker That Broke the Zero
For the first year of the Pacific war, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero had a kind of spell over Allied pilots. It turned tighter, climbed better and reached farther than anything the US Navy could put up against it, and the men flying the stubby F4F Wildcat learned to survive...
Japan Scrambles Over the East China Sea
On 29 July 2026, Japan launched fighter jets over the East China Sea after picking up a suspected airspace violation. Then the Ministry of Defense did what it usually does with these events: said almost nothing.No aircraft type was named. No confirmation of whether...
The Greyhound Takes Its Final Bow
For sixty years, the sight of a C-2A Greyhound turning onto final told a carrier crew everything they needed to know: the mail was here, the spare part was here, the Sailor going home was here. On 28 July 2026, that homely twin-turboprop made the sound one last time...
Hit by a Missile, Landed on Engines Alone
An airliner is steered by its hydraulics. They move the ailerons, the elevators, the rudder — every control surface the pilots touch. Take away all of it and, in theory, the aircraft becomes an unsteerable projectile. On 22 November 2003, a DHL cargo crew...
The Twin-Engine Cat That Just Missed Its War
Grumman set out to build the finest carrier fighter of the Second World War: a twin-engine brute that could outrun and outgun anything in the sky and haul a bomber’s worth of ordnance off a flight deck. It succeeded. The Tigercat was blisteringly fast, savagely...
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