America’s Fighter Factory Problem: Why the World’s Largest Air Force Can’t Build Jets Fast Enough
Yesterday, we reported on a remarkable letter from the nation’s Adjutants General to Congress, demanding the Air Force buy at least 72 — and ideally 100 — new fighters per year to prevent the force from shrinking below the threshold needed to fight a major war....
From a Bar in Russia to the Drone Wars: The L-39 Story — and How It Built MiGFlug
There is no jet trainer on earth with a longer shadow than the Aero L-39 Albatros. More than 3,000 built. Flown by over 30 air forces on five continents. The backbone of Warsaw Pact pilot training for two decades, and still — in 2026 — the aircraft that introduces...
C-17s Over Caracas: When Earthquakes Call, the Air Force Answers
When twin earthquakes ripped through northern Venezuela on 24 June — a magnitude 7.2 foreshock followed 39 seconds later by a catastrophic magnitude 7.5 mainshock — the country’s fragile infrastructure collapsed in minutes. Buildings pancaked across Caracas....
Edwards Resumes Flying After Deadliest B-52 Crash in 44 Years
Edwards Air Force Base is flying again. The question everyone at the desert test centre is still asking is why it had to stop. On 15 June, B-52H tail number 60-0061 — call sign Torch 11 — crashed moments after takeoff from Edwards, killing all eight people aboard. It...
Iran Strikes Back: IRGC Hits US Bases Across the Gulf
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck American military installations across the Persian Gulf on Sunday, launching ballistic missiles and armed drones at bases in Kuwait and Bahrain in what Tehran called a direct response to US strikes on Iranian targets near...
Russia and China Fly Largest Joint Bomber Patrol Yet
Fifteen warplanes. Two nuclear powers. One very pointed message. On 27 June, Russia and China flew their largest joint strategic bomber patrol to date — a six-hour formation sweep through the Sea of Japan, East China Sea, and into the western Pacific. The 11th such...
The Air Force Wants a 1,000-Mile Missile — and It Changes Everything
The United States Air Force has quietly dropped one of the most ambitious weapons requirements in recent memory: a new air-to-air missile capable of killing targets at a minimum distance of 1,000 nautical miles — roughly 1,150 statute miles. That is approximately ten...
Serbia Buys Chinese HQ-9: Beijing’s Missiles in NATO’s Backyard
Two hundred miles from the nearest NATO border, Serbia is building an air defence network that Beijing designed and no Western alliance approved. On 28 June, President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed what defence analysts had suspected for months: Belgrade is moving...
Ghost Bat Goes to War: MQ-28 Debuts at Valiant Shield
The future of air combat just landed on a tiny Pacific island. Boeing’s MQ-28A Ghost Bat — the autonomous combat drone that could change everything about how wars are fought in the air — touched down at a remote airfield on Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands...
Tomcats 4, Gaddafi 0: The Gulf of Sidra Shootdowns
Muammar Gaddafi drew a line across the Mediterranean and dared the United States Navy to cross it. The Navy crossed it twice. Both times, F-14 Tomcats answered. The two Gulf of Sidra incidents — 1981 and 1989 — are the only American air-to-air kills of the 1980s. They...
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