Planes
Fighter jets, bombers, spy planes, helicopters, and the aircraft pushing the edge of flight.
29 articlesLatest in Planes
Aurora Spy Plane: The $2 Billion Aircraft That May Never Have Existed
The Aurora legend began with a black-budget line item, sonic booms, and triangular sightings. The evidence points to something murkier than one spy plane.
Why the U.S. Still Has Not Replaced the Cobra and Apache
Why the Cobra and Apache keep outlasting the U.S. attack helicopter programs built to replace them.
Boeing E-4: America's Advanced Airborne Command Post
How the E-4 Nightwatch became America's airborne command center, built to keep national command authority alive through nuclear war, disasters, and crises.
MQ-28 Ghost Bat: Australia's Combat Drone That Allies Want to Buy
Australia's MQ-28 Ghost Bat is a Boeing-built collaborative combat aircraft designed to team with crewed jets, fire missiles, and scale allied airpower.
Su-75 Checkmate: Russia's F-35 Rival That Still Has to Fly
Russia's Su-75 Checkmate was pitched as a cheap fifth-generation export fighter. Its real test is whether UAC can turn a mockup into a flying aircraft.
H-20: China's Stealth Bomber Is Still a Mystery
China's H-20 stealth bomber has been promised for years. The public record still shows a program wrapped in secrecy, delay, and unproven claims.
Project Pulse
The engineering briefing that explains why nothing gets built on time — or on budget.
More in Planes
F-22 Raptor: The Ultimate King of Air Supremacy
How the F-22 Raptor became the most lethal fighter jet ever built — from its origins in Cold War competition to its uncertain future.
MCAS: The Silent Killer on the 737 MAX
The inside story of the Boeing 737 MAX MCAS scandal: how corporate negligence, regulatory capture, and a fatally flawed software system led to two catastrophic crashes and 346 deaths.
The Mil V-12: The Largest Helicopter Ever Built
The Soviet Mil V-12 still holds the record as the largest helicopter ever built. Here's why this engineering marvel never made it past two prototypes
The Future of Air Combat: 6th Generation Fighter Jets of the 2030s
Explore how sixth generation fighter jets will revolutionize aerial warfare with AI, drone swarms, directed energy weapons, and the end of traditional dogfighting by the 2030s.
The Lockheed U-2: Spying Before Satellites
How Lockheed's U-2 spy plane flew to 70,000 feet to photograph Soviet secrets, survived being shot down, and outlasted every replacement for seven decades