Here’s a little something that was tucked in at the bottom of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter flight test update that Lockheed Martin sent out last Friday. An F-35A — test jet AF-1 — out of Edwards Air Force Base in California hit the JSF’s max speed of Mach 1.6 for the first time on […]
From the monthly archives:
November 2011
This is interesting. The picture above shows what’s likely an Italian air force Boeing KC-767A tanker that’s apparently flying out of Malta International Airport during Operation Unified Protector, NATO’s effort to oust Col. Moammar Gadhafi from power in Libya. Malta served as a hub for NATO ops during the Libyan air campaign and David Cenciotti’s […]
Sister site Kit Up! just published this great vignette about operating an all-time classic of military technology — the legendary SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. Former Blackbird driver Maj. Brian Shul describes pushing his SR-71 past Mach 3.5 over Libya to outrun Gadhafi’s surface-to-air missiles in April 1986. Shul’s fascinating account gives a pilot’s perspective on flying the […]
Anyone want to buy a rare British fighter jet? This old Supermarine Swift fighter is going for a little over $400,000 on eBay. The plane has been sitting exposed to the elements outside of a clothing store in the English countryside since the 1960s, accumulating who knows what kind of weather damage. The 200 Swifts […]
So, Lockheed Martin just released the latest numbers for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter flight testing. Here’s the quick and dirty from Lockheed: October was the busiest month for flying in the history of the F-35 flight test program, with F-35 aircraft executing 122 flights. The F-35B aircraft known as BF-2 accomplished 22 flights, the most […]
