These air fortresses are built to hold tons of cargo, hundreds of soldiers, or even several other military vehicles. Transportation is a role that is given to various types of vehicles on land, sea, and air. Especially in the military, transport vehicles are critical for the logistics of an army, as military equipment and manpower need…

A little piece of aluminum solved the WW2 fighter’s vicious behavior problem. The initial carrier-landing qualifications for the Chance Vought F4U Corsair were a disaster. In fall 1942, Lieutenant Commander Sam Porter tested the feasibility of operating the Navy’s bent-wing fighter from the deck of the escort carrier USS Sangamon steaming in the Chesapeake Bay. After four…

Often referred to as the Spirit of Great Britain, the Royal Air Force’s Avro Vulcan is a jet-powered, tailless, high-altitude bomber that flew from the mid-1950s through the 1980s. It was a Cold War warrior designed for World War III on Russia. A large, sleek-looking bomber, the Avro Vulcan flew in many variants over the…

The F-22 Raptor made its maiden flight in 1997, eight years before it entered service. The fifth-generation fighter featured twin Pratt & Whitney engines that could be repaired using six tools from any hardware store, an internal weapons bay to reduce drag, and the perceptibility of a bumblebee when tracked on radar. Twenty-five years later, US Air Force…

There are many legends, myths, and tales about the iconic and still-mysterious B-2 stealth bomber. The following one is actually true. On April 8, 1999, Major Tom Bussiere looked out at the ink-black night sky from his mission commander’s seat of the B-2 stealth bomber. While contemplating his future (at what altitude remains classified), Bussiere…

data-background-color=”dark–“> F-22 Raptor vs. the Mythical YF-23: Why the F-23 Never Happened Anthony Jarvis Senior Contributor News Ultimately, the Air Force selected Lockheed’s YF-22 design, which was also an exceptional aircraft, for its ATF requirement. The YF-22 would eventually evolve into today’s F-22A Raptor, which became operational in late 2005 and remains the single best…

Collectively, these ten indicators support the assessment of the late Senator John McCain that the F-35 is destined to be “the greatest combat aircraft in history.” October 26 of this year marks the 23th anniversary of the day in 2001 when the development contract for the F-35 fighter was awarded to an industry team led by…

How the world’s first stealth combat aircraft went on to change forever the way the U.S. fought wars. As night fell over Baghdad on January 16, 1991, a small army of maintainers and pilots gathered around what had been one of America’s best kept secrets. A single combat mission in Panama two years prior had…

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The forthcoming Rafale F4 is slated to replace France’s fourth-generation Mirage 2000. In January 2019, French Defense Minister Florence Parly announced France would commit $2.3 billion to develop an F4 generation of the Dassault Rafale twin-engine multirole fighter.  This would include production in 2022–2024 of the last twenty-eight of the original order of 180 Rafales,…