F-35

A U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier aircraft attached to Marine Attack Squadron 211, embarked aboard the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2), lands on the ship?s flight deck during a mock amphibious assault exercise in support of Talisman Sabre 2009 while under way in the Coral Sea July 16, 2009. Talisman Sabre is […]

Early last week, we reported on what appeared to be a copy of China’s most advanced fighter, the Chengdu J-20, parked on an airstrip in Savannah, Georgia of all places. The aircraft certainly bore a striking resemblance in the sole photo that surfaced on the internet by way of The Aviationist, prompting a wave of […]

The Congressional Budget Office released a new report recently that indicated that America’s forthcoming air-superiority fighter, currently known only as the Penetrating Counter Air (PCA) program, could cost as much as $300 million per air frame. As a result, headlines painting the program as yet another example of rampant and unchecked government spending have flooded […]

A U.S. Air Force F-15C Eagle aircraft from the 44th Fighter Squadron out of Kadena Air Base, Japan, releases a flare over Okinawa, Japan, July 22, 2009, during a total solar eclipse. (DoD photo by Airman 1st Class Chad Warren, U.S. Air Force/Released)

The debate over whether or not the  F-35 is worth the $1.5+ trillion price tag will likely continue for decades to come, but with the fifth-generation platform entering into combat service with both U.S. and Isreali forces earlier this year,  it seemed a good time to revisit another longstanding debate: how the F-35 stacks up […]

With a rapidly developing military drone industry growing in prominence the world over, and heavyweight defense contractors like Northrop Grumman devoting a large portion of their overall R&D programs to unmanned aerial vehicles, it’s easy to see that the future of military aviation will be largely unmanned. The benefits of such a transition are extensive, […]

A U.S. Navy C-2A Greyhound, assigned to the ‘Rawhides’ of Fleet Logistic Support Squadron (VRC) 40, lands aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) in the Mediterranean Sea Nov. 25, 2018. Currently operating in the U.S. Sixth Fleet area of operations, Harry S. Truman will continue to foster cooperation with regional […]

The Congressional Budget Office released a new report recently that indicated that America’s forthcoming air-superiority fighter, currently known only as the Penetrating Counter Air (PCA) program, could cost as much as $300 million per air frame. As a result, headlines painting the program as yet another example of rampant and unchecked government spending have flooded […]

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and Patrouille de France fly together over Death Valley, Calif., April 17, 2017. The Thunderbirds and Patrouille de France are two of the oldest aerial demonstration teams in the world.   U.S. Air Force Photo/Tech. Sgt. Christopher Boitz

An F-22 Raptor is refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker over the Nevada Test and Training Range during the U.S. Air Force Weapons School’s Deliberate Strike Night, June 16, 2016. The exercise is part of the final seven-day advanced integration portion of the school’s curriculum, testing stealth and conventional airframes’ abilities to conduct attacks during the […]

A C-130J Super Hercules from the 37th Airlift Squadron fires flares as it performs anti-aircraft fire tests during exercise Carpathian May 9, 2016, in Romania. The 37th AS, from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, began participating in off-station training deployments with Romania as early as 1996, allowing the Air Force to work with NATO allies to […]

In national security and defense analysis circles, we tend to give China and Russia’s fifth-generation fighter programs a fair amount of real estate when it comes to headlines and think-pieces. So much so, that many could be forgiven for assuming that these two nations, both considered “near peers” to the United States in terms of […]