Russia’s 20-ton ‘Hunter’ is supposed to be their first stealth UCAV

Last July, a single grainy image of Russia’s long-anticipated Okhotnik (Hunter) unmanned combat aerial vehicle hit the web, prompting a flurry of headlines speculating about the 20-ton drone’s potential as a low-observability platform that could offer the Russian military greater deep-penetration capabilities with their legacy bombers. To give an arguably overly simplistic explanation of why […]

Watchdog report: Navy risking troops’ lives by pushing the F-35C into combat

Last month, the United States Navy declared that the carrier-based variant of Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter, known as the F-35C, was ready to commence combat operations. Now, a new report from the non-profit, bipartisan Project on Government Oversight (POGO) says that decision contradicts the Navy’s own data regarding the platform. According to POGO, “The […]

Op-Ed: Russia’s new ‘fake news’ bills demonstrate censorship, oppression

The idea behind wanting to ban fake news seems simple enough: you find the “news” content that isn’t representing the truth objectively and legitimately, then prevent those sites from disseminating their material. However, in practice, laws are written and enforced by a nation’s government—making a legal ban on “fake news” into something else: a powerful […]

The Dark Knights: F-117 spotted sporting the name of a squadron that shouldn’t exist

A few weeks ago, images began to surface online of an F-117 Nighthawk flying over Nevada and California. Despite being formally retired for more than a decade, a number of these aircraft are consistently maintained in flyable condition, prompting sporadic sightings over the years that never fail to get the aviation community buzzing. This most […]

A meteor unleashed a 173 kiloton explosion in Earth’s atmosphere and nobody noticed

Back in the 1990s, movies like “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” helped show the world what it could be like if humanity met its end in a massive asteroid impact like our Jurassic (okay, technically Cretaceous) predecessors. In these movies, mankind utilized the best (science fiction) technology available to prepare for and attempt to prevent the […]

Civilian passenger unexpectedly ejects from French Rafale B fighter during takeoff

A 64-year-old man unexpectedly ejected from the rear seat of a Rafale B fighter during takeoff at Saint Dizier-Robinson Air Force Base in France. The unnamed man was reportedly a civilian that was invited to fly aboard the fighter during a routine training flight. While details remain sparse, the man suffered back injuries that some […]

China says US media is lying about why Pacific nations want the F-35

China’s aggressive claims of sovereignty over the vast majority of the South China Sea have put the nation at odds with many of its Pacific neighbors, many of whom have conflicting claims over portions of the waterway. International law permits the navigation of waterways outside of about 12 nautical miles from a nation’s shore and […]

Watchdog report: Navy risking troops’ lives by pushing the F-35C into combat

Last month, the United States Navy declared that the carrier-based variant of Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter, known as the F-35C, was ready to commence combat operations. Now, a new report from the non-profit, bipartisan Project on Government Oversight (POGO) says that decision contradicts the Navy’s own data regarding the platform. According to POGO, “The […]

Pentagon plans to deploy ‘particle beam’ weapon in space by 2023

Missile defense has been a priority in the United States for decades, in no small part because the threat posed by long-range, nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles remains as one of the few direct threats to the American mainland that could arise with little to no warning. In today’s world, it would be all but impossible to […]

Why one planning decision could be responsible for so many of the F-35’s woes

It can be tough to find stories about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that don’t go out of their way to paint the platform as either an incredibly overpriced boondoggle or the best thing to happen to military air power since the invention of nose-mounted radar. From an editorial standpoint, these “absolute good” and “absolute […]

What exactly is going on with Boeing’s troubled Max line of aircraft?

On March 10, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, took off from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and almost immediately suffered flight control issues. Within five minutes of takeoff, the aircraft went down, claiming the lives of all 157 people on board. Tragic as this incident was, it didn’t take long before […]