What was the best fighter of World War II? The evolution of fighters in this period was a Darwinian bloodbath that would have had Richard Dawkins slavering with excitement. Whatever we put in this ...

When compiling this list of terrible French aircraft we ran up against an unexpected problem: France hasn’t made many terrible aeroplanes. In creating features on the worst British, American and ...

The primary sensor of the modern fighter remains the radar. Up until the 1980s operating a radar effectively required a great degree of skill; today’s digital radars are simple to use, long-ranged and ...

The Soviet Union lasted a mere sixty-nine years (the Spitfire has been flying longer), but in that time produced some of the largest, fastest, toughest and most agile aircraft. Even now, 25 years ...

Abraham Lincoln noted that America will never be destroyed from the outside. Likewise the most serious threats to the US aircraft industry have always come from within, as demonstrated by the ...

Soviet interceptor pilots faced the daunting task of defending the world’s largest nation against the combined forces of the world’s most technologically advanced nations. The awesome responsibility ...

Boredom is in the eye, or perhaps gall bladder, of the beholder. When I was growing up in Norfolk (my origin proving my credentials for this task) I thought that the pairs of A-10s that flew over ...

The Soviet Union had its fair share of brilliant aeronautical engineers and aircraft designers. The likes of Ilyushin, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Tupolev, and the rest became household names, even in the West.

Bing Chandler is a former Lynx Observer (think Weapon Systems Officer) who has since spent far too much time arguing about helicopters while working at Joint Helicopter Command, and the Army Air Corps ...

Piston-engined fighters ruled the roost for thirty years. A brutal survival of the fittest ensured a rapid evolution of these characterful machines; the final fighters were over six times faster and ...

Aerospace Engineer Joe Wilding examines why the Mustang was so good. “I want to start with an embarrassing confession. With a lifelong obsession with aircraft and a few decades of experience ...

Next year will be the centenary of the formation of the RAF, leading to all kinds of celebrations of the service’s history, no doubt. The Battle of Britain, the dam busters raid, Black Buck…what you ...