The bombs slammed into the moving train right where the arclight of John S. Walmsley Jr.’s B-26 Marauder had pinpointed. For a split second, Walmsley felt a rush of triumph as his aircraft climbed away from the blasts, dodging flak and hoping the enemy train was finished. Destroying this train was a massive victory for […]

Unleashing a storm from the decks of aircraft carriers, the MiG-29K Fulcrum roars into the sky, a symbol of naval air power that’s not confined to Russian waters. With arresting hooks and reinforced landing gear, this fighter jet defies the challenges of sea-based operations, mastering the art of catapult launches and deck landings. Soaring over […]

On February 3, 1968, two of the Vietnam People’s Air Force top pilots, Pham Thanh Ngan and Nguyen Van Coc, took off on MIG-21s on their fourth interception mission of the day: a radar-detected pair of enemy aircraft, most likely light bombers. However, as the duo approached the Laotian border, MiG-21 pilot Ngan thought he […]

The Soviet BI glides midair, its wood-and-metal frame gleaming under the overcast sky. In the cockpit, pilot Grigory Bakhchivandzhi grips the controls. He’s already taken this experimental warbird once before on its maiden flight. Now, it’s time to push it to its limits. The rocket engine projects the BI forward with a force that slams […]

Aboard the deck of carrier cruiser Minsk, the atmosphere was anything but quiet. It was December 1982, and two Yak-38 Forger jets, the Soviet Union’s first—and only—vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, were finally prepping for a mission six years into their operational service. Ahead of them loomed the ship’s distinctive ski-jump ramp, designed to give […]

In the 2011 movie Captain America: The First Avenger, the eponymous hero battles the evil Nazi Red Scull onboard a sleek, menacing all-wing aircraft in the waning days of World War II. The future of freedom hangs in the balance as the sophisticated jet plane zooms toward New York City with a payload of super […]

With its ungainly high wings, fixed landing gear, and massive wheel spats jutting from its sides, the old-fashioned Westland Lysander certainly cut a strange silhouette in the perilous skies of World War 2. Looking more like a biplane that had lost its bottom wings, this peculiar dragonfly failed at virtually every combat role it was […]

In 2022, the world’s biggest airplane, the Antonov A225 Mriya, was completely destroyed by Russian forces during their attack on Ukraine. The damage was so bad that many thought this would be the last time we’d hear about this giant plane from the Cold War. However, the Ukrainian government decided not to let it become […]