Despite some arguments to the contrary, it seems the Navy may have been well-advised to retire the F-14 and clear the way more fully to where things are now with F-22s and F-35s controlling drones and 6th-generation aircraft already in the air. Maverick and Goose made the F-14 Tomcat famous as a cultural emblem of…

Meet the Dassault Rafale – The “Omin-Role” Fighter – The Dassault Rafale – which means literally “gust of wind” or “burst of fire” in a more military sense – was conceived for use by the French Air Force and Navy as an “omnirole” fighter, meaning that it would replace seven types of combat aircraft then in operation. The aircraft…

The U.S. military’s refocus on a peer or near-peer engagement has thrust the F-22 back into the spotlight again. Here’s What You Need to Know: If all goes well, the F-22 will remain on the cutting edge of air superiority into the 2060s. While much attention has been focused recently on the F-35 and F-15X, not…

When the final chapter in the Harrier story is written, the Marines will bid farewell to an underappreciated aircraft that became much better over time and came through when it mattered most. Here’s What You Need to Remember: Unlike during Desert Storm, where Harriers expended only unguided ordnance, most of the expenditures during Iraqi Freedom were of the guided…

Just 29,000 pounds of ordnance screaming at twice the speed of sound. On Valentine’s Day 1991, U.S. Air Force Captain Richard “TB” Bennett was at the stick of an F-15 Strike Eagle, a ground attack variant of McDonnell Douglas’s F-15 warplane. Throughout Operation Desert Storm, F-15Cs and F-15Ds would rack up 32 kills against Iraqi planes, but Strike…

This dogfighting dynamo was designed to win a war that never happened. Several decades—and one star-making turn in Top Gun—later, it’s now an endangered species. August 1981 opened with a massive show of American force in the Mediterranean Sea, just north of Libya. Two of America’s supercarriers, the USS Forrestal and the class namesake, USS Nimitz, had entered into what Libyan leader…

This lightweight, multi-role fighter can be found in air forces throughout the world—and for good reason. When U.S. Air Force Captain Gary “Nordo” North took off as leader of a flight of four F-16s on a December morning in 1992, the Fighting Falcon was already a globally respected—and feared—fighter. By then, more than 2,500 F-16s…

The answers are obvious. The F-16 Fighting Falcon bears an unusual distinctions: it is one of the only top jet fighters in the world to also be cost efficient. Fast and extremely agile, the light fighter does have some shortcomings in range and payload compared to larger twin-engine fighters like the F-15 Eagle, but that…

Because of its versatility, the F-14 served as an air superiority fighter, fleet defense interceptor, and even tactical reconnaissance platform. Here’s What You Need To Remember: Though it made its first deployment in 1974, the F-14 Tomcat continues to be used to this day, including by Iran. During its three decades in service with the United States…

Its flying wing structure, along with composite materials and rare coatings help make the B-2 Spirit a top covert military bomber. The B-2 Spirit bomber, also known simply as the Stealth Bomber, is a heavy strategic aircraft that was manufactured by Northrop Grumman. The flying wing military design of the B-2 was initially developed as part of…