Operation Opera: Israel’s Secret Raid on Saddam’s Nuclear Reactor
At 3:55 in the afternoon on 7 June 1981, eight Israeli F-16 Fighting Falcons and six F-15 Eagles screamed across the Iraqi border at treetop level. They had been airborne for 90 minutes, flying a route designed to avoid the radar systems of three countries. Their...
The Grumman F6F Hellcat: 5,223 Kills in Three Years
On the afternoon of 19 June 1944, Commander David McCampbell sat in the cockpit of his Hellcat somewhere above the Philippine Sea, watching the sky fill with Japanese aircraft. What followed became known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” — and before it...
The Tu-95 Bear: The Propeller-Driven Bomber Still Buzzing NATO
Somewhere over the Norwegian Sea, at this precise moment, there is a reasonable chance that a Tupolev Tu-95 is airborne. It has been flying for twelve hours. It will fly for twelve more. Its four Kuznetsov NK-12 turboprop engines are turning eight contra-rotating...
The Panavia Tornado: How Three Rivals Built One Fighter
On the night of 17 January 1991, RAF Tornado GR1s crossed the Iraqi border at sixty metres above the desert floor, wings swept back to 67 degrees, delivering JP233 runway-denial munitions onto airfields that Saddam Hussein believed were untouchable. Six Tornados were...
Ramstein Flag 2026: NATO Launches Its Biggest Air Exercise Ever
From the fjords of northern Norway to the sun-baked runways of southern Spain, NATO is conducting the largest air exercise in Alliance history. Ramstein Flag 2026, which began on 8 June and runs through 19 June, has assembled more than 200 aircraft from 18 nations...
Skunk Works Just 3D-Printed a Combat Drone in Under a Year
Forget everything you think you know about how military drones get made. Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works division — the outfit that gave us the U-2, the SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117 Nighthawk — just showed off an unmanned aircraft that was designed,...
Saab Rolls Out the World’s First Gripen F Two-Seat Fighter
On the second of June, under the pale Swedish summer sky of Linköping, Saab pulled back the curtain on something the fighter aviation world has been watching for years: the Gripen F, the world’s first two-seat variant of the Gripen E-series. The ceremony, hosted...
F-15E Strike Eagles Get Dedicated EW Upgrade Line at Warner Robins
The United States Air Force has opened a dedicated depot installation line for the Eagle Passive/Active Warning Survivability System at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex in Georgia. Designated the EPAWSS Speedline, the facility decouples the electronic warfare...
GA-ASI Brings Gambit Combat Drones to Germany — And a Four-Way Fight Begins
At ILA Berlin, between the static displays and the obligatory handshakes, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Germany’s INTEC Group signed the kind of agreement that reshapes European defence procurement for a decade. A memorandum of understanding, dated...
Canada Opens M-346 Trainer Talks With Italy at G7
Canada just made its biggest pilot-training move in years. On the sidelines of the G7 summit in Évian, France, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni formally launched negotiations for Canada to purchase Leonardo’s M-346 Master...
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