In the summer of 1940, roughly 3,000 RAF fighter pilots stood between Nazi Germany and the conquest of Britain. Against them, the Luftwaffe fielded over 2,600 aircraft and some of the most experienced combat aviators in the world. For four months — from July to...
Quick FactsNationalityJapanese 🇯🇵Aerial Victories80+ confirmed (202 total claimed)Aircraft FlownA5M Claude, A6M Zero, N1K2-J GeorgeWarsSecond Sino-Japanese War, World War IIBorn / Died4 Sep 1916 – 25 May 1955 (age 38)UnitZuikaku Fighter Group, 252 Kōkūtai 253Air group...
On October 24, 2003, British Airways flight BA002 touched down at London Heathrow for the last time. As it taxied in, the crew made an announcement: this was Concorde's final commercial flight. The passengers — who had each paid around £8,000 for a seat — stood and...
Quick FactsNationalityGerman 🇩🇪Aerial Victories158 (151 in North Africa alone)Aircraft FlownBf 109E/FWarsWorld War II (North Africa)Born / Died13 Dec 1919 – 30 Sep 1942 (age 22)UnitJG 27 Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2006-0122, Hans-Joachim Marseille — via Wikimedia Commons...
The standard defensive manoeuvre for an SR-71 Blackbird when it detected a surface-to-air missile launch was simple: accelerate. At Mach 3.3 and 85,000 feet, acceleration was sufficient. No SR-71 was ever shot down. In over 3,500 operational missions, spanning 24...
Quick FactsNationalityAustrian/German 🇦🇹Aerial Victories258 (including 3 in Me 262 jet)Aircraft FlownFw 190A, Bf 109, Me 262 (first jet ace)WarsWorld War IIBorn / Died7 Dec 1920 – 8 Nov 1944 (age 23)UnitJG 54, Kommando Nowotny Walter Nowotny (portrait) — via Wikimedia...
On the evening of October 12, 1947, test pilot Chuck Yeager went horse riding in the Mojave Desert and fell off, breaking two ribs. Two days later, in severe pain and with his ribs tightly taped, he crawled into the cockpit of a Bell X-1 rocket plane, used a sawed-off...
Quick FactsNationalityGerman 🇩🇪Aerial Victories267 (4th all-time)Aircraft FlownFw 190A, Bf 109GWarsWorld War II (Eastern Front)Born / Died21 Feb 1917 – 14 Feb 1945 (age 27)UnitJG 54 "Grünherz" WW2 Norway. German uniforms Luftwaffe Polarflieger pilot Fire extiguisher...
Every year, it is the same question. Boeing or Airbus — who is winning? And every year, the answer is more complicated than either company would like to admit. But three and a half months into 2026, there is enough data on the board to draw a picture. It is a picture...
At dawn on August 27, 1939 — four days before Germany invaded Poland and the Second World War began — test pilot Erich Warsitz climbed into a small, unremarkable-looking aircraft at the Heinkel airfield in Rostock-Marienehe and opened a throttle connected to an engine...
Iraq is about to buy French. After years of relying almost exclusively on American fighter jets, Baghdad is in the final stages of negotiations with Paris for 14 Dassault Rafale F4 fighters — the latest and most capable variant of France's omnirole combat aircraft....
France has just announced the largest peacetime increase in military spending in its modern history. An additional €36 billion — approximately $42 billion — will flow into the armed forces between 2026 and 2030, targeting the three domains where the war in the Middle...
For the first time in the history of the Atlantic Alliance, a non-American military unit has earned the stamp of approval from the most demanding special operations air force on the planet. The Italian Air Force's 17° Stormo Incursori — the Raiders Wing, based at...
It took the Navy six days to say it out loud. The MQ-4C Triton that vanished over the Persian Gulf on April 9 is not coming back. The U.S. Navy has officially confirmed the loss of the unmanned surveillance aircraft near the Strait of Hormuz, ending nearly a week of...
The U.S. Air Force just showed the world something it has guarded for years: the top of the B-21 Raider. On April 14, the Air Force released two photographs of its next-generation stealth bomber conducting aerial refueling tests with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Edwards...
Quick FactsNationalityGerman 🇩🇪Aerial Victories275 (3rd all-time)Aircraft FlownBf 109GWarsWorld War II (Eastern Front)Born / Died10 Mar 1918 – 4 Oct 2009 (age 91)UnitJG 52 Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J16509, Günther Rall — via Wikimedia Commons There's a detail in Günther...
On the morning of March 10, 1967, Captain Bob Pardo looked out the left side of his F-4 Phantom cockpit at another F-4 Phantom that was about to stop flying. The second jet belonged to his wingman, Captain Earl Aman, and it was bleeding fuel from a hole the size of a...
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