F-22

The two premier fifth-generation fighter jets on the planet squared off over Norway on Wednesday in a mock dogfight that saw U.S. pilots manning the nimble F-22 Raptor and Norwegian pilots behind the stick of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. While the F-35 is widely touted as the most advanced aircraft on the planet, the […]

Although advanced fifth-generation platforms like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and F-22 Raptor tend to dominate the headlines, workhorse fourth-generation fighters like the F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-15 Eagle remain the backbone of America’s air dominance around the globe. Despite being in operation for better than forty years, the F-15’s incredible thrust to weight ratio […]

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may be the future of the force, but as Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Air Force work to find ways to reduce not only procurement costs but also the immense expense associated with day to day operations, the capabilities the aircraft can bring to bear in a combat zone are […]

Despite America’s focus on Russia’s ongoing efforts to exert influence over the American people, FBI Director Christopher Wray made a point not to lose sight of what many consider to be a far more significant threat to America’s long-term security: China. While Russia’s use of hybrid warfare and disinformation tactics against the American people can […]

When it comes to fighter jets, the modern world is currently amid a transition. The combat-proven fighters we’ve grown to know and love over the years are reaching the ends of their operational lifespans, and while update programs are underway for many of them, technological strides made in the years since these platforms first took […]

China’s Navy has undergone a period of rapid expansion in recent years. With more than twenty new vessels launched in the past 18 months, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) seems intent on first dominating the South China Sea and eventually, making the transition toward a globally capable blue water navy. Nowhere is that push […]

On Saturday, Russia announced their intentions to formally enter the world of fifth generation fighters with the first official order of their advanced Sukhoi Su-57, a platform intended to serve as a challenge for America’s fleets of fifth generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and F-22 Raptors. “The first contract for 12 aircraft has been agreed […]

In 2008, the Pentagon sent the first operational stealth combat jet, the F-117A Nighthawk, out to pasture — or at least, sort of. The F-117 flew as an entirely classified program for years before ever being acknowledged by the U.S. Air Force as an operational program in the 1980s, allowing a generation of young Americans […]

The fielding of hypersonic anti-ship missiles by America’s competitors have created a pressing need for the U.S. military to adjust its peer warfare strategy. America’s fleet of Nimitz and Ford class super carriers serve as the nation’s primary method of force projection the world over, but when held at bay a thousand miles from enemy […]

If you’re a bomber of fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, having to eject from your aircraft sounds like a worst case scenario, but as those who have done it behind enemy lines will attest, making it to the ground is just the start of your troubles. Currently, most pilots carry no weapons beyond […]

The United States has spent years touting the Lockheed Martin sourced F-35 as the most advanced combat aircraft ever devised — which resulted in some ruffled feathers when Lockheed pitched an F-35/F-22 hybrid fighter it claimed would be superior to the incredibly expensive (and perpetually troubled) F-35 program. The thing is, despite being chock-full of […]

Every so often, a new kind of weapon comes along that fundamentally shifts the way humans conduct warfare: bows extended the range of the battlefield, airplanes created air support, and the atomic bomb made “total war” too terrible to conduct with the regularity of conventional warfare. Increasingly, hypersonic missile platforms are beginning to look like […]