The F-15’s New Drone Carries Its Own Missiles
Air combat is, at its core, a question of who shoots first from farthest away. For decades the answer was simple: the fighter with the better radar and the longer-ranged missile. The U.S. military is now building a way to cheat that equation entirely — by...
Frozen Russian Cash Buys Ukraine 150,000 Drones
There is a particular kind of justice in the package Britain unveiled in Brussels this week. The UK is sending Ukraine 150,000 drones and a wall of air defences — and Russia, in effect, is paying for them. On June 18, 2026, UK Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis...
America’s Robot Wingmen Go Into Production
For two years, America’s robot fighter jets carried a single telling letter in their names: Y, the prefix the Pentagon slaps on prototypes. On June 17, 2026, the Air Force quietly deleted it — and with it, any doubt about where this program is headed. The...
Canada Weighs a Split F-35 and Gripen Fleet
For years, Canada’s next fighter was a settled question: 88 Lockheed Martin F-35As, full stop. In 2026, that certainty has dissolved. Ottawa is now seriously studying something far more unusual — buying a chunk of Swedish Saab Gripens instead of some of...
Warthogs Home From Iran, Covered in Kill Marks
On June 12, 2026, eleven A-10C Thunderbolt IIs touched down at RAF Lakenheath in England, pausing on the long flight home to Georgia after a war. They had left as plain grey jets. They came back as something else entirely. Each Warthog now wore a freshly painted nose:...
A $300,000 Hypersonic Missile for the Super Hornet
For two decades, “hypersonic” meant “expensive.” A single Mach-5 missile could cost tens of millions of dollars — exquisite, rare, and far too precious to fire in bulk. The U.S. Navy just placed an order that takes a wrecking ball to that...
Air Force One’s Last Ride After 35 Years
It touched down in the dark at Joint Base Andrews, taxied to a stop, and spooled down its four engines — possibly for the last time as the most recognizable airplane on Earth. On June 18, 2026, a Boeing 747 wearing the tail number 92-9000 brought President...
How IRST Lets Fighters See Without Radar
Imagine two fighter pilots closing on each other at a combined speed of Mach 3. One switches on his radar — and in doing so, announces his presence to every sensor within 200 kilometres. The other keeps his radar silent, yet sees his opponent clearly on a display,...
The Su-25 Frogfoot: Russia’s Indestructible Ground-Attack Jet
The morning fog still clings to the valley floor when the pair of jets appears — not streaking overhead like interceptors, but hugging the terrain at treetop level, engines screaming, wings loaded with rockets and bombs. A burst of cannon fire tears into the hillside....
The F-104 Starfighter: Mach 2 Missile With a Man in It
In December 1951, Clarence “Kelly” Johnson — the most brilliant aircraft designer America ever produced — sat in a cold briefing room at a forward air base in Korea. Around him, combat pilots fresh from tangling with MiG-15s over the Yalu River told him...
English
Recent Comments