Fightersweep

In the back of my freezer resides a bottle of a chilled bourbon liqueur called ‘Jeremiah Weed,’ a potent elixir revered in Fighter Pilot Culture, known as much for its razor blade taste as for the stories and traditions it embodies.

The Weapons and Tactics Instructor course (WTI) at MCAS Yuma covers mission planning, tactics and weapons employment, and it is badass!

In this video, we illustrate what it’s like to conduct a low-level, visual flight rules (VFR) sortie along a Military Training Route, or MTR.

By Nate S. Jaros I am often asked what it is like to be a fighter pilot. Sure, we boast about how fast we fly, how to shoot missiles, drop bombs, and generally scorch around the sky in our hot jets. But honestly, there is a lot more to it than that, including an air […]

The SR-71 Blackbird has had an almost immeasurable effect on the world we live in today. Its record as the fastest aircraft ever to take to the skies speaks to the incredible engineering and problem solving employed by Lockheed Martin in the 1960s, and the reconnaissance missions it carried out over the Soviet Union and […]

The SHB. It’s a Navy thing. More, it’s a CV thing, ‘CV’ being the code for carrier, the kind of carrier that has cross-deck pendants and planes with hooks. The Sh!t Hot Break: if you know what it is, you’re smiling already. When you hit the fleet and get to the Boat during the day, […]

Fighter pilots spend countless hours in their training memorizing checklists, learning aircraft systems, and repeating emergency procedures in nightmarish simulator rides. Since flying high-performance jets is inherently dangerous, they must be safety conscious, experts in risk-mitigation, and exercise sound judgment in situations where fractions of a second can be the difference between death and survival. There are […]

The 30 mm General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger rotary canon first entered into service in 1977. The 619 pound monster Gatling gun measured just shy of 2 feet wide and 20 feet long when completed, but more than compensated for its gargantuan size by boasting a terrifying fire rate of 3,900 rounds per minute, fired from […]

Which is better: the F/A-18 or the F-16? In this series, I’m going to give my perspective from an operator’s point of view and take a look at the basic differences in piloting America’s lightweight strike fighters.

Simply stated, of all the surface-to-air threats being faced by coalition airpower over Syria, the Russian S-400 SAM, known as the “Triumf” at home and better known to NATO as the SA-21 “Growler,” is the most capable and lethal long-range air defense missile system on the planet. In response to the downing of a Russian […]

Paco Chierici is an accomplished military aviator, commercial pilot, and writer that has previously served as the Editor here at Fighter Sweep. Now, his action packed debut novel, “Lions of the Sky” is about to go on sale. In the world of fighter pilots, the most alpha of the alpha, competition is everything and the […]

A new documentary/war movie about Operation Gothic Serpent, also known as the Black Hawk Down incident, offers a fresh perspective on the battle that cost 19 Americans their lives. Retired Air Force Colonel Randall Larsen worked with retired Brigadier General Bill David, who fought in the battle, to produce “Black Hawk Down: The Untold Story.” […]