Ukraine Strikes Russia’s Shahed Sites in Crimea

Long before a Russian Shahed reaches a Ukrainian city, it has to be stored, fuelled, launched and guided. On the night of August 6–7, Ukraine went after that entire chain at once, striking a drone launch site, an early-warning radar and the relay stations that...
Etihad Flies the Silk Road to Tashkent

Etihad Flies the Silk Road to Tashkent

On August 9, an Etihad Airways Airbus A320 lifted out of Abu Dhabi bound for Tashkent, reopening a link to the old Silk Road — and, with it, an entire country’s worth of onward connections. The new daily nonstop is only half the story. Paired with a...

The Hunt for the Red Arrows’ Next Jet

The Hunt for the Red Arrows’ Next Jet

For half a century the Red Arrows have signed the British sky in red, white and blue, drawn by nine BAE Hawks flying wingtip to wingtip. This summer the signature was incomplete: worn-out Hawk T1s forced the team to fly seven jets for most of its 2026 displays rather...

A Robot Built the Part That Saved This C-17

A Robot Built the Part That Saved This C-17

A hailstorm, two runaway business jets, and a nose panel that nobody would build. That is the short version of how a U.S. Air Force C-17 ended up grounded for the better part of a year and a half. The long version ends with a robot, a research lab in Ohio, and the...

Lilium’s Air Taxis Land in a Museum

Lilium’s Air Taxis Land in a Museum

The dream was an electric jet that would whisk you between cities in near silence, lifting off vertically from a rooftop and cruising on stubby wings packed with tiny fans. Lilium, the Munich start-up that raised well over a billion dollars chasing that dream,...

Iran Puts a Downed Strike Eagle on Display

Iran Puts a Downed Strike Eagle on Display

Iran has turned a hole in the ground into a trophy case. This week the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threw open an underground “exhibition” of American and Israeli aircraft it says its air defences knocked out of the sky. The centrepiece is a mangled...