Airplanes

It has been a little over 130 years since the Wright Brothers first flew, and a little over 50 years since Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Both the Wild Blue Yonder and the Final Frontier have long excited the imagination, but why aren’t they one and the same? Why can’t planes fly into […]

It’s all too easy to take the pace of air travel today for granted. Trips that took days or weeks to complete in the era of steamships and steam engines can be completed in mere hours in the age of commercial jetliners. Yet planes aren’t seem to be getting any faster. Why don’t planes fly […]

We think of airplanes today as being able to take us anywhere. We expect planes to be able to take everywhere from Boston to Berlin to Baghdad to Beijing and beyond, but there are limits to this. Extremely hot weather can leave flights grounded.  So why can’t planes fly in extreme heat? Reduced air density, […]

Flying in icy conditions can be dangerous under the best circumstances. If possible, storms and cold conditions are best avoided. However, that simply isn’t realistic for pilots in cold weather climates. As such, pilots need to make sure that their planes are as ice-free as possible, which means de-icing them.  Why Are Planes Deiced? For […]

Believe it or not, but planes get hit by lightning at a rate that is more frequent than you might expect.  With between 8,000 and 20,000 planes in the air at any given moment, what are the odds of your plane being hit by lightning?  More importantly, does it pose a threat to the safety […]

From Sopwith Camels to Spitfires to today’s supersonic jets, from dogfights over Flanders to the Battle of Britain and beyond, the Royal Air Force (RAF) has time and again come flying to the rescue in Britain’s time of need.  One of the oldest and most storied air forces in the world, the history of the […]

The 20th century saw the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and with it the rise, fall, and rebirth of Russian aviation. Soviet/Russian jets have long been a fixture military aviation, and look set to remain so. Let’s have a look at some of the best Russian fighter jets produced by the former Soviet […]

Military power projects national prestige. The past few decades have seen China become a global superpower, and so it should come as no surprise that the Chinese military is, by manpower, the largest in the world. China’s military spending is about a third of that of the USA. Today we list some of the best Chinese […]

For more than 110 years, the French Air Force has been a military mainstay in Europe. From WWI Biplanes and WWII Fighters to the first jet fighters and today’s models, France has long been at the center of aviation innovation. These are 12 of the best French fighter jets of the current age. If there […]

Since Wilbur and Orville Wright first took off at Kitty Hawk, America has always been a leader in flight. That legacy continues today, as America remains one of the biggest producers and users of top-of-the-line fighter jets. These are the 15 best American fighter jets currently in use by the U.S. Military. With contractors like […]