History & Legends, Military Aviation
When Captain Jack Donovan was briefed on the mission — fly in the back seat of an F-100, home in on a North Vietnamese SAM site, and destroy it before it destroys you — his response entered aviation legend: “You want me to fly in the back of a tiny little jet...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On 7 June 1981, eight Israeli F-16A Netz fighters and six F-15A escort Eagles crossed Jordanian and Saudi airspace at treetop altitude — as low as 30 metres — flew more than 1,000 kilometres without being detected, and destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
Iraqi pilots had a phrase for it. When the radar warning receiver lit up with the unmistakable signature of an AWG-9 radar, someone on the radio would scream: “F Arba Ashara! Yalla! Yalla!” — F-14! RUN! RUN! For eight years during the Iran-Iraq War,...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On 18 May 1991 a Soyuz TM-12 capsule lifted off from Baikonur carrying flight engineer Sergei Krikalev to Mir for a six-month mission. He was 32. He was a Soviet citizen. When Krikalev returned to Earth on 25 March 1992 — more than ten months after launch, twice his...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
When the US Navy bet its future on the all-missile F-4 Phantom, one aircraft refused to play along. The Vought F-8 Crusader kept its four 20mm cannons when every other fighter in the fleet was stripping theirs out. In Vietnam, it proved the gunfighters right —...
History & Legends, Military Aviation
On 9 June 1982, the Israeli Air Force destroyed 17 of 19 Syrian SAM batteries in the Bekaa Valley in a single afternoon. It lost zero aircraft doing it. In the three days of air combat that followed, Israeli F-15s and F-16s shot down 82 Syrian MiGs — again without a...
English
Recent Comments