The Aviationist Blog

The West Thought the MiG-25 Was a Deadly, Agile Superfighter. What They Learned Was Surprising. 1430 Hrs. Local, September 6, 1976. Sea of Japan near Hakodate Airport, Hokkaido Prefecture. Jet fuel burned faster than he calculated as he pressed lower under the overcast, down to the gray black waves only 150-feet above the Sea of […]

Both Aircraft Landed Safely, but “Class A” Damage Sustained by F-35C in Accident. A U.S. Navy F-35C Lightning II was damaged during a midair refueling exercise with an F/A-18F Super Hornet over the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday according to a statement released by the Naval Air Forces Atlantic spokesman Commander Dave Hecht to United States Naval […]

Unique One-Time Mass Formation Over Lake Erie Captured by Photographer Glenn Watson. In what is certainly one of the most spectacular aerial photo shoots in aviation history, photographer and pilot Glenn Watson captured amazing photos of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and the Canadian Forces Snowbirds jet demonstration teams flying […]

Tu-142, Su-30SM, Il-78 and Il-20 are taking part in the large-scale drills in the Mediterranean Sea. An interesting video released by Zvezda shows most of the aircraft taking part in the drills in the Mediterranean sea the Russian Ministry of Defense announced last week in a move Moscow said was justified by a failure to […]

Radom Air Show 2018 report. Last week, on Aug. 25. and 26., the Polish Air Force celebrated its 100th Anniversary, during a special Centenary edition of the Radom Air Show. Even though the occasion was quite spectacular, the event left somewhat a bittersweet taste with the audience. The Polish Air Force, the celebrant who had […]

Joint Strike Fighter is Still a Lightning Rod of Criticism, But Progress Continues. Photos and Video by Lance Riegle unless otherwise stated. Story by Tom Demerly and David Cenciotti. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program reached several developmental milestones in August 2018 despite ongoing criticism of the program’s costs and reported technical concerns. As the […]

It’s short but worth watching. The video below is a U.S. Navy commercial dating back to the 1981. In the early eighties the F-14 Tomcat was the Navy’s premier fighter: inducted into active service beginning in 1974, the legendary aircraft had already replaced the F-4 Phantom II in most Carrier Air Wings aboard US aircraft […]

The Blue Angels will Receive the F/A-18E/F in 2021. But testing of the Super Hornet is already underway. As already reported, the Blue Angels will take delivery of the Super Hornets to replace their “Legacy” F/A-18C/Ds in late 2021 in time to work-up for the following airshow season. However, the Boeing F/A-18E single seat and […]

Many interesting warbirds have taken part in the Polish airshow. Last year the Polish Aeropact company organized the first edition of a beach air show, known under the name Aerobaltic in Gdynia. The show took place at the main city beach in Gdynia, Poland, and was generally received as a major success, with daytime and […]

The British Typhoons have made an interesting close encounter yesterday: a quite rare Be-12 Chaika. On Aug. 25, two Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon jets in QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) at the Romanian Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base were scrambled to carry out VID (Visual Identification) on two Russian aircraft flying over the Black Sea in […]

The U.S. Air Force says it’s a “standard” B-2, but a pretty detailed analysis and some subtle details seem to suggest it might be something else. The photographs you can find in this post were taken by three of our readers (Sammamishman, Zaphod58 and Fred) who have recently returned from a trip to monitor activities […]

You don’t happen to see combat helicopters and jets operating in the magnificent setting of the Dolomites too often. Cinque Torri (5 Towers) is the name of a mountain complex part of the Dolomites, in northern Italy. Named after the mountain range is also an yearly, large, joint multinational exercise that this year took place […]

A “ground mishap” has just occurred to an F-35A Lightning II at Eglin Air Force Base. Nose gear collapse Just in from 33rd FW: “An F-35A Lightning II, assigned to the 58th Fighter Squadron, experienced a ground mishap at approximately 12:50 p.m. today on the flightline here. The F-35A experienced an in-flight emergency and returned […]

Veteran Helicopter Pilot Killed in Crash Was in Ninth Combat Deployment. Late Tuesday, August 21, 2018, U.S. military officials identified the Army helicopter pilot who died on Monday as a result of wounds received in a crash in Iraq on Sunday, August 19, 2018 during an undisclosed operation. Official news releases report three additional wounded […]

Three Royal Netherlands Air Force helicopters have been involved in an unusual deployment to the Sardinian airbase. In the last years we have documented the deployment of RNlAF helicopters to airbases across Italy. It all started with a MoU (Memorandum Of Understanding) signed in 2003 that foresaw the periodical deployment of Dutch helicopters (AH-64D, CH-47 […]

Iran claims it’s a new aircraft, but it’s just a +40 years old two-seat F-5…. Iranian media says that a new Iranian fighter jet was exhibited during the National Defense Industry show. Images released by various outlets show President Hassan Rouhani sitting in the cockpit of the new “Kowsar” plane, a “fourth-generation fighter”, with “advanced […]

The Iraqi F-16IQ Block 52 aircraft were refueled from a Stratotanker over Iraq for the first time. On Aug. 15, 2018, Iraqi Air Force F-16C and D, were refueled mid-air by a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 28th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron over Iraq: according to the U.S. Air Forces Central Command Public Affairs, this […]

Here are some interesting details about the Advanced Aerial Training exercise that took place at Albacete Air Base, Spain, last week. On Aug. 16, 2018, two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors from the 95th Fighter Squadron, 325th Fighter Wing, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, conducted the Raptor’s first forward deployment to Albacete, Spain. The 5th […]

Accident is Third T-38 Crash in Ten Months for Talon II, Continues Series of U.S. Accidents. A U.S. Air Force Northrop T-38C Talon II crashed on Friday, August 17, 2018 near Vance AFB 90 miles northwest of Oklahoma City in Enid, Oklahoma. One Instructor Pilot (the only crewmember) ejected from the aircraft and is reported […]

The internal 25mm cannon fires up to 50 rounds per second. On Aug. 13, pilots from the 388th Fighter Wing’s 4th Fighter Squadron fired the F-35A’s 25 mm internal cannon in a strafing run on two sets of ground targets on the Utah Test and Training range. It was the first use of the F-35A’s GAU-22/A […]