aviation

A Belgian Air Force F-16 reportedly crashed in western France on Thursday. Both crew members were able to eject, with the pilot‘s parachute ultimately snagging a high voltage power line and leaving him dangling over a residential area near Pluvigner in Brittany, France. The F-16 clipped the roof of a nearby house before ultimately crashing […]

America’s B-1B Lancer, sometimes called “The Bone,” is our nation’s only supersonic heavy payload bomber. With a top speed of around Mach 1.25, the bomber can keep pace with many fighters, and thanks to its swing-wing design, the massive aircraft can maneuver a bit like a fighter as well — at least, as much like […]

For nearly twenty years now, the United States has been embroiled in combat operations spanning multiple nations and against multiple opponents. These terror groups often hide in plain sight, infiltrating the local population and making it extremely difficult to identify and engage targets. As a result, counter-terror operations tend to have little in common with […]

There are a few places around the world where military pilots go when they want to train for low-level passes over difficult terrain, and few among them are as legendary as the UK’s Mach Loop. The Mach Loop, also called LFA-7 in North West Wales, has become a common spot for aviation enthusiasts to capture […]

Last week, China released a video that showed seven of their fifth-generation J-20 stealth fighters flying in formation, suggesting to the world that China’s most advanced warplane may have finally moved into mass production. The stealth platform, which is believed to be based on stolen plans for America’s F-22 Raptor, has run into a number […]

According to reports, an A-10 Thunderbolt II accidentally fired a rocket near the city of Tucson, Arizona during a training flight on Thursday morning. Air Force officials announced on Friday that an investigation into the incident is already underway. The venerable A-10 Thunderbolt II recently received a new lease on life in the form of […]

The United States Air Force is concerned that too many of the airplanes the U.S. relies on for defense are too old to be effective in modern battlefields and that the branch has been forced to devote too much of its funding to sustaining these dated platforms. The United States does boast the largest air […]

Only weeks after Russia announced that it would be giving its dying fifth generation fighter a new lease on life (in the form of plans to actually produce 76 of the aircraft), Russian President Vladimir Putin has been spotted peddling the fighter to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This sales pitch has been seen by […]

The U-2 is among America’s most legendary military aircraft, along with the likes of groundbreaking planes like the SR-71 Blackbird and F-117 Nighthawk. First flown all the way back in 1955, this high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft has a service record that stretches across six decades, and although talk of the U-2’s retirement has been around for […]

America’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) is world renowned for its ability to get special operators into and out of the fight with stealth and precision. The pilots that earn a place in the 160th, or Nightstalkers as they’re commonly called, operate some of the most capabile military aircraft on the planet under only […]

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 […]

According to the U.S. Special Operation Command’s (USSOCOM) acquisition executive, James Smith, the unit’s Little Bird helicopters might be experiencing their final years as America’s light special operations helicopters. Smith made the statement during the NDIA Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict Symposium, which took place last February. He indicated that the most likely replacement for the venerable […]