Military Aviation

The U.S. Navy has announced a $29.7 million contract with United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (U.K. MOD) for a C-130J Super Hercules to serve as the Blue Angels Naval Flight Demonstration Squadron’s next “Fat Albert” logistics cargo plane. According to the U.S. Navy, acquiring a used aircraft to fill the role was approximately $50 million […]

A massive explosion rocked an Indian air force base on Friday and it was Indian ordnance that triggered the blast. An IAF Jaguar fighter took off from Ambala AFS (Haryana) and a few hundred feet off the runway it went through a flock of birds. One of the two engines flamed out and that’s when […]

Lt. Col. Robert Friend, an active ambassador for the Tuskegee Airmen, died Friday at his home in Long Beach, California. Friend, who was 99, was one of the last surviving members of the storied Red Tails, a segregated African American fighter group that fought in the Second World War. Friend, who was speaking to school […]

It would appear pilot incapacitation was behind the fatal crash of a Cessna Citation in the Atlantic 300 miles east of Fort Lauderdale on May 24. The aircraft inexplicably changed course while on a delivery flight from Alton, Illinois, to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. The preliminary report from the NTSB says that as the Citation […]

President Trump announced via Twitter on Tuesday that he will be nominating Barbara Barrett as the 25th Secretary of the United States Air Force. Barrett has served as Chairman of the Board of The Aerospace Corporation—a federally funded research and development center that is “committed exclusively to the space enterprise”—FAA deputy administrator, vice chairman of […]

It’s long been known that testosterone and jet fuel are a potent combination and in the right circumstances that’s a good thing. But an investigation by the Navy into the infamous “sky penis” incident over central Washington in 2017 didn’t really reveal anything fresh on that hypothesis and likely added more ammunition for O-Club humor […]

An F-16 crashed into a warehouse adjacent to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, at approximately 3:40 p.m. local time on Thursday afternoon. The building was evacuated after the crash and several minor injuries to people on the ground have been reported. The pilot was able to eject from the aircraft and is […]

The Air Force is planning to churn out better new pilots faster using virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) in a simulator-intensive program that also prepares them for a new readiness posture. An extensive analysis in military.com says commanders want to get away from the traditional classroom, trainer and operational training progression in favor […]

Boeing is preparing its St. Louis F-15 factory for an order of 80 of the almost-50-year-old-design jets from the U.S. Air Force. The order is tucked into the Defense Department’s most recent appropriations request and Boeing says it wants to be ready if the Air Force needs the big twin fighters sooner rather than later. […]

SpaceX suffered a setback in its manned program when one of its Crew Dragon capsules experienced “an anomaly” on a test stand at Cape Canaveral on Saturday. The nature of the incident was not immediately released but a cloud of orange smoke was reported rising over the SpaceX facilities at the Cape. There were no […]