In early April, it was announced that the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II had surpassed 500,000 flight hours across global operations, demonstrating the program’s progress and continued maturity. The fifth-generation multirole fighter is now currently active at twenty-five bases and nine ships around the world. Its interoperability has also made it an asset to the United States, allies and…

Since entering service in 1979, this “warbird” has been battle-tested, engaging in more than 400,000 combat sorties and has a combined 19 million flight hours. Here’s What You Need To Remember: While Lockheed delivered the last F-16 from Fort Worth to the Iraqi Air Force in November 2017, ending 40 years of F-16 production, this old…

The A-10 is a legend. But it was built upon the wings of even greater legends. It’s a good thing that the Air Force generals who want to retire the beloved A-10 Warthog were not around 70 years ago. If they were, Josef Stalin might have had them shot. The Soviet dictator loved the A-10…

The Eagle may not be as technologically advanced as its fifth-generation stablemates, the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but what it lacks in stealth the F-15 makes up for in classic Cold War-style: with incredible engineering and good old fashioned brute force. Despite entering service nearly a half-century ago, the McDonnell Douglas F-15…

The Spirit procurement was first reduced to 75, than cut to 20 by the Bush administration in 1992. And that made the costs skyrocket. Here is the whole story. Since its inception in 1947, the U.S. Air Force has been deeply invested in operating long-range strategic bomber for nuclear deterrence. However, by the 1960s it…

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…

NATO pilots that practiced against the German Air Force Fulcrums found that in short-range dogfights at low speeds the MiG-29 was more agile than anything they threw at it. Here’s What You Need to Remember: By the 1990s, Western pilots had ample opportunity to fly MiG-29s as the German Air Force incorporated the MiG-29s of East…

Eighty years ago, the Supermarine Spitfire saved Britain and changed the course of history. After two long months of grueling air combat between invading Luftwaffe fighters and bombers and the notably smaller British Royal Air Force, England’s pilots were exhausted. Some British pilots, many of whom had only nine full hours of flight training before…

Key point: Russian Cold-War aircraft are still flown around the world. In May 2001 former cold-warriors met at Swidwin air base in Poland. Guy Razer, then a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, got a chance to ride in a Polish air force Su-22UM3K Fitter, then the Polish air arm’s main fighter-bomber. Just a few…

At a confirmation hearing earlier this month, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown spoke of plans to retire 119 F-15E Strike Eagles by the late 2020s. The move would shrink the Strike Eagle fleet by more than half and is apparently part of a larger push by the Air Force to divest itself of legacy…