La guerra aerea combattuta a 18.000 piedi

La guerra aerea combattuta a 18.000 piedi

Tutto ciò che un pilota da combattimento sa sul lancio di una bomba presuppone l'aria. Aria densa, ad altitudini ragionevoli, dove le ali generano una portanza prevedibile, i motori producono la spinta nominale e un'arma sganciata a velocità nota segue un arco noto verso il suolo. Nel maggio del 1999 l'India...
È atterrato nel bel mezzo di una battaglia

È atterrato nel bel mezzo di una battaglia

La valle di A Shau, 10 marzo 1966. Un campo delle forze speciali è sotto attacco da parte di duemila soldati regolari nordvietnamiti. Le colline su entrambi i lati si ergono per millecinquecento piedi e la base delle nuvole è a ottocento, il che significa che qualsiasi aereo in arrivo per i soccorsi deve volare al di sotto...
I droni stanno arrivando a Red Flag

I droni stanno arrivando a Red Flag

Every argument about autonomous combat aircraft eventually arrives at the same question, and it is not a technical one. It is whether the person in the cockpit will trust the thing flying off their wing. Frank Kendall, who ran the US Air Force as its Secretary from...
Cosa è successo a Muwaffaq Salti?

Cosa è successo a Muwaffaq Salti?

The air base is named after a man who died in an aeroplane. Lieutenant Muwaffaq Salti was a Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot, killed in combat with Israeli fighters on 13 November 1966 during the Battle of Samu. Jordan gave his name to the base at Azraq, out in the...
The RAF’s Newest Jet Is Bright Green

The RAF’s Newest Jet Is Bright Green

If you happened to be at Birmingham Airport on the afternoon of 15 July, you would have seen something that looked like a mistake: a Boeing 737 with a large rectangular fin bolted to its spine, painted an unlovely metallic green, climbing out over the West Midlands....
The Transport That Became a Jammer

The Transport That Became a Jammer

On 28 May 2017, a photographer at Miho Air Base in western Japan took a picture of a Kawasaki C-2 transport, tail number 68-1203. It was an unremarkable aeroplane doing an unremarkable thing: a high-winged, T-tailed freighter on a ramp, clean-lined and entirely...
Le donnole selvatiche appena disimballate

Le donnole selvatiche appena disimballate

Two weeks ago the story was aircraft going home. Raptors leaving the Gulf for England, squadrons rotating out, a ceasefire holding well enough that the US Air Force felt comfortable thinning out its presence in the region. That lasted about as long as it took to write...
Germany Joins a French Nuclear Exercise

Germany Joins a French Nuclear Exercise

On the morning of 16 July, two French Rafales and two Luftwaffe Eurofighter Typhoons met in European airspace and took fuel from a French A330 Phenix tanker. No weapons were carried. The manoeuvres were unremarkable. Any air force in NATO does this on a quiet Tuesday....