Afghanistan’s fledgling air force is scrambling to prepare to take control of the country’s airspace. But while expectations are high, the force is having trouble getting off the ground. Air power has proved crucial in rugged Afghanistan, where road networks are poor and often mined by militants. Afghan and international ground forces have relied heavily [...]
1912 – An American Wright biplane, flown by U.S. Army Air Corps Lt. Thomas De Witt Milling at College Park, Md., becomes the first aeroplane to be armed with a machine gun. 1917 – British ace Capt. Albert Ball (44 victories) of the Royal Flying Corps is killed in a crash following a dogfight with Lothar von Richthofen (younger brother [...]
The British military now has 500 drones and has been looking for ways to increase the amount of UK airspace in which to fly some of them, according to The Guardian, a British national daily newspaper. The expansion of the fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is in line with the Ministry of Defence’s ambition for a third of [...]
Neptune Aviation’s three new British Aerospace 146 fire-bomber jets were left sitting on the runway when the U.S. Forest Service announced contracts for seven “next-generation” firefighting aircraft on Monday. The contractor, based in Missoula, Mont., recently won contracts for six of its Lockheed P2-V Neptune propeller-powered bombers and one BAe 146 on short-term agreements with the [...]
A retired fighter bomber made its final journey by travelling more than 900 kilometers, by road, to arrive at Fighter World at Williamtown, New South Wales, Australia, on Saturday. The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark, a twin-engined jet built for U.S. and Australian military forces beginning in the late 1960s, was transported from the Royal Australian Air [...]
1917 – Birth of Rex Theodor Barber, American World War II fighter pilot, best known as a member of the top secret mission to intercept the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. 1919 – The first commercial flight, from Canada to the U.S., occurs as a Canadian Curtiss aircraft flies 150 pounds of raw furs from Toronto [...]
In January, a small group of U.S. Marines at a remote base near the Afghan village of Shurakay in northern Helmand province was running low on ammunition after fighting fiercely for days. The road in was too dangerous for a resupply convoy, and there were so many Taliban fighters that a helicopter crew trying to [...]
A historic jet plane crashed into a hangar and exploded in a fireball at an airshow southwest of Madrid, Spain, on Sunday, severely injuring its pilot who later died in the hospital, officials said. A spokesman for Spain’s Defense Ministry said the pilot, Ladislao Tejedor Romero, 35, an experienced jet pilot and assistant to Defense [...]
