Military Aviation

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 […]

I’ve actually never bought a brand-new vehicle and my long-suffering wife will attest to the occasional discomfort and inconvenience that has resulted. Nevertheless, we’ve mostly been able to get where we wanted to go, do what we needed to do and do it safely and mostly reliably without ever having a car payment. Among the […]

The world’s largest airplane took its first flight early Saturday. The Stratolaunch, a six-engine, twin-fuselage behemoth with a 385-foot wingspan, took off from Mojave after years in development. The aircraft was conceived by Paul Allen and Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan as an aerial launch platform for low Earth orbit satellites that will reduce launch […]

One of Scaled Composites’ (formerly) most secretive projects was on full display at a Kentucky FBO over the weekend, on its way to NAS Paxutent River from Mojave. The stealthy model 401, one of two that are flying, stopped for fuel at Bowling Green in the middle of a clear day and the pilot wasn’t […]