The Mach 3 Interceptor With No Windscreen

The Mach 3 Interceptor With No Windscreen

The Republic XF-103 was meant to do something no fighter of the early 1950s could: cruise at Mach 3 — three times the speed of sound — at the edge of the stratosphere, run down a Soviet bomber, and kill it with missiles. To get there, its designers made a...
The Three-Engine Jet That America Forgot

The Three-Engine Jet That America Forgot

Count the engines. Most jets have two, or four. The Martin XB-51 had three — two slung under the nose in pods, and a third buried in the tail, breathing through an intake at the base of the fin. It is one of the strangest combat aircraft the United States ever...
1,300 F-35s, a Pipeline Built for 800

1,300 F-35s, a Pipeline Built for 800

The Marine general who runs the F-35 program walked into a Senate hearing this week and said the quiet part out loud: the most expensive weapons program in history has outgrown the system built to keep it flying.It landed weeks after a Government Accountability Office...