The Aviationist Blog

After its display at RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo), the B-52 Stratofortress bomber hit 18 runway lights with the outrigger wheel. As usual, one of the highlights of RIAT 2023’s flying display this year was [...]

The post Watch A B-52 Destroy Runway Lights While Taxiing Askew During ‘Crabwalk’ At RAF Fairford appeared first on The Aviationist.

China protested after a U.S. Navy P-8, tracking online, flew over Taiwan Strait. On Jul. 13, 2023, at around 03.00AM UTC (11.00AM LT), a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon, flew through the Taiwan Strait, west of [...]

The post U.S. Navy P-8A Aircraft Operates Over Taiwan Strait Sparking Chinese Protest appeared first on The Aviationist.

Phantastic phootage from Phantom Conference 2023. After the successful first edition in 2022, on July 10 and 11, Andravida Air Base, in the Northwest Peloponnese, Greece, hosted once again the annual European Phantom Conference (PhanCon [...]

The post Andravida Air Base Hosts PhanCon 2023 appeared first on The Aviationist.

The most recent iteration of Jolly Vihar saw three Pave Hawks from Aviano Air Base, Italy, deploy to Pápa Air Base, Hungary. From June 26 to July 7, 2023, three HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters belonging [...]

The post Watch This: U.S. HH-60G Pave Hawks Carry Out Live-Fire Exercise in Hungary appeared first on The Aviationist.

The mysterious silhouette of a next generation aircraft featured in an Instagram story earlier this month is associated with a new logo also teased online recently. As we have reported in details, on Jul. 1, [...]

The post Exclusive: Lockheed Martin’s Next Generation Aircraft Program Has A New Logo appeared first on The Aviationist.

A day after the previous incident, a new one is being reported and it involves US MQ-9s and French Rafales. For the second time in two days, the US Central Command is reporting new incidents [...]

The post New Unsafe Interaction Between Russian And Coalition Aircraft In Syria appeared first on The Aviationist.

A video recorded by the drones’ sensors shows the Flankers lighting up the afterburners and releasing flares in front of the Reapers. After the collision with an MQ-9A Reaper over the Black Sea earlier this [...]

The post Russian Su-35s Harass U.S. MQ-9 Drones Over Syria During ‘Unsafe And Unprofessional’ Intercept appeared first on The Aviationist.

We have attended the 54th International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget. After four years the aircraft industry reunited again at Le Bourget, for the 54th Paris Air Show. A total of 380,000 visitors gathered [...]

The post Here Are All The Most Interesting Military News From Paris Air Show 2023 appeared first on The Aviationist.

Photos posted online show the bomb’s Mk-80 series body and part of its glide kit, as well as a Storm Shadow missile carried by a Su-24 using a modified pylon from the Tornado GR4. New [...]

The post US-Supplied JDAM-ER Glide Bombs Appear On Ukrainian Jets For The First Time appeared first on The Aviationist.

Here’s our in depth report about one of the most interesting events in Europe this year: Leszno Antidotum Air Show. On the Jun. 16 – 17, 2023 weekend, Leszno Airfield in Poland (EPLS) became a [...]

The post Leszno Antidotum Air Show – How Big Can You Grow? appeared first on The Aviationist.

The aircraft might be the Lockheed Martin’s design for the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) or some other secretive program. On Jul. 1, 2023, Lockheed Martin’s official account posted an interesting Instagram story to celebrate [...]

The post Lockheed Martin Teases Mysterious Next Gen Aircraft On Social Media appeared first on The Aviationist.

One by one, all the formations that took part in the massive flying parade which featured all the assets currently in service, including an MQ-9A Predator B RPA (at the type’s first in-flight appearance at [...]

The post Dissecting The Italian Air Force’s 100th Anniversary Air Parade appeared first on The Aviationist.

The new embedded GPS/INS (EGI-M) system will allow operation in GPS-contested and GPS-denied environments. Northrop Grumman has successfully tested in flight the new Embedded Global Positioning System (GPS) / Inertial Navigation System (INS) Modernization, also [...]

The post Northrop Grumman Tests New EGI-M For F-22 Raptor And E-2D Advanced Hawkeye appeared first on The Aviationist.

This first USAF flight, which validated key aspects of the next-generation trainer, marks the start of the engineering and manufacturing development phase. A U.S. Air Force test pilot finally flew at the commands of a [...]

The post T-7A Red Hawk Completes First Flight With U.S. Air Force Pilot appeared first on The Aviationist.

The team aboard VSS Unity will work on 13 science payloads during a 90-minute suborbital flight. A joint team of the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council will launch on the first commercial [...]

The post Virgin Galactic’s First Commercial Spaceflight Ready To Launch With Italian Research Crew appeared first on The Aviationist.

The OT-marked jet was captured taking off from Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, last month. A topic that is often being talked about for the U.S. Air Force is the modernization of the tactical nuclear [...]

The post Rare Photo Shows An F-16 With Two (Inert) B61 Nuclear Bombs appeared first on The Aviationist.

Let’s recap what we know about the skirmish that went down between Prigozhin and the Russian leadership. The last couple of days were pretty chaotic for Russia, after Wagner’s leader Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on [...]

The post Many Questions Still Unanswered After Wagner’s Attempted ‘March On Moscow’ appeared first on The Aviationist.

On a dreary gray day in late June, Joint Base McGuire-Dix Lakehurst (JB MDL) sadly said goodbye to a true U.S. Air Force legend and workhorse. Tail number 84-0188, one of sixty KC-10s that has [...]

The post Joint Base McGuire Bids Farewell To Its Final KC-10 Extender appeared first on The Aviationist.

Twenty-five nations took part in the two-week long “Air Defender 2023” exercise. Allied air forces began the largest deployment exercise in NATO’s history on Monday, Jun. 12, 2023. Around 10,000 personnel and over 220 aircraft [...]

The post NATO Wraps Up Air Defender 2023, Its Largest Ever Air Exercise appeared first on The Aviationist.

Arctic Challenge 23 exercise provided the opportunity for the first real use of the AIM-120 Air-to-Air Missile by the Italian Air Force F-35s. Earlier this month, two F-35As of the Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force) [...]

The post Italian F-35s Test Fired The AIM-120 Missile For The First Time Over Norway During Arctic Challenge appeared first on The Aviationist.