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A Romanian F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian-linked drone over the Black Sea on Sunday morning, marking the third such intercept in just three days, and Romania’s president says the country has had enough. President Nicusor Dan confirmed that Romanian Air Force pilots downed the drone at 10:13 a.m. local time roughly 12 kilometers […]View the full article

Uzbekistan’s president just got a firsthand look at armored personnel carriers, a self-propelled howitzer, and an upgraded Soviet-era tank rolling out of a factory that barely existed five years ago, and the visit signals a country quietly building its own domestic arms industry from scratch. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev toured the Nurafshon Makhsus Tekhnika enterprise in […]View the full article

An unmanned boat has launched a drone into the air over open ocean, all without a single person on board either vehicle, and the demonstration could change how the Royal Navy watches its own waters. British maritime robotics company ACUA Ocean and American sensor and drone manufacturer Teledyne FLIR Defense confirmed they completed two days […]View the full article

A French rocket engine just fired 21 times in a row, and the company behind it says the hardware survived well enough to fly again. That combination, repeated ignition and confirmed reusability, is exactly what a small aerospace startup needs to prove before anyone lets its hypersonic drone near real flight testing, and this week […]View the full article

The UK Ministry of Defence announced this week that it has chosen the Tekever AR5, a surveillance drone built by the UK-based company Tekever, to replace the British Army’s aging Watchkeeper fleet under a deal worth up to $533 million over the next ten years. The program, called Project CORVUS, will see the Army field […]View the full article

Some sources: “War in Ukraine. Volume 2: Russian Invasion, February 2022. Tom Cooper, Adrien Fontanellaz, Edward Crowther and Milos Sipos. Helion Books 2023. Hostomel: 3,502 Meters That Broke the “Kyiv in Three Days...— Ukrinform.https://warontherocks.com/the-battle-of-hostomel-airport-a-key-moment-in-russias-defeat-in-kyiv/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antonov_Airport https://theaviationgeekclub.com/russias-implausible-claim-that-200-helicopters-took-part-in-antonov-airport-assault-the-disastrous-russian-seize-of-hostomel-airport/ https://mwi.westpoint.edu/urban-warfare-project-case-study-12-battle-of-kyiv/

Assault on Hostomel-Antonov Airport. February 24, 2022. Historical Scenario. Assault on Hostomel-Antonov Airport. February 24, 2022. Historical Scenario. A Harpoon Commander's Edition scenario for EC2003 Battle for the Mediterranean Battleset and the HCDB2-170909 (or later) 1980-2025 era Platform Database. This scenario is designed with Advanced Scenario Editor Build 2017.013 and to be run with HCE 2015.008+ or later. This scenario is designed to be played from the Blue/Ukrainian side or from the Red/Russian side. You should play a few times first the Blue side to avoid spoilers, and only later play the Red side. Image: The only one An-225 Mriya (Dream) destroyed in the Hostomel-Antonov airport aside many other destroyed aircrafts, photo took fifty days after the Russian invasion, and released for enhancing the idea of resistance. The largest and most powerful transport aircraft on the planet had set 240 world records, but for the Ukrainians Dream will never die. Photo by KCSA, Oleksii Samsonov, and this file comes from the website of the Kyiv City Council and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. and took from Wikipedia Commons. From the eventful year of 2014 (Mainly from the Russian invasion of Crimea) the world was beginning clearly the so-called Second Cold War, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin (ex-KGB lieutenant colonel) was showing clearly his plan to recover the Russian Empire including previous Soviet territories for reinstitute the greatness of "his" Russia, and to guarantee his passage on the History as saviour of the Rodina. After the massive Russian build-up of forces from late 2021 in Russia and Belarus near the Ukrainian border, NATO forces were forced to an increased and constant deployment near Ukraine and the Eastern Mediterranean, to deterrent Putin's ambition. The probably original plan was to avoid an intervention by NATO ground forces but preventing the Russian main forces to enter Ukrainian territory, and to get this target to establish an air and sea exclusion zone around and over Ukraine. But at last, on February 24, 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine against most forecast, sinking the world in a new state of international relations, as consequence of a long and failed campaign of unexpected outcomes. One of the first military actions was a Russian heliborne assault (From the theoretically “neutral” Belarus! Also Russian armoured columns came from Belarus) on the Hostomel-Antonov international cargo airport and testing facility, some 20 nautical miles from the Ukrainian capital city, Kyiv. The original Russian idea was the late arrival of airborne troops on Hostomel-Antonov via Il-76 Candid, but the runway was very damaged after the initial battle. The surprise of improvised defence by very small Ukrainian forces turn the Russians away from the airport grounds in the evening of the same February 24 and very possibly preventing the occupation of Kyiv by Russia. But the next day a second wave heliborne and armoured force took the airport for the invader Russians. But the airport was abandoned on April 2 by the Russian forces when them “strategically” retired from the Kyiv Oblast. The forces available to both sides are very small in this scenario, to reflect the chaos and surprise of the Russian invaders in face of the opposition of the Ukranian forces, and the improvised defence by the Ukranian side. Another legend born those days was the MIG-29 “Ghost of Kyiv”, some of it is also reflected in the scenario. A very simple and easy scenario, at least apparently, and perhaps surprisingly balanced. Could you do better than Russian or Ukrainian historical forces on this scenario? Enrique Mas, July 26, 2026. File Information Submitter broncepulido Submitted 07/26/2026 Category MEDC View File

A North Carolina Air National Guard unit, part of the U.S. military’s part-time reserve force, wants to give its people the ability to quietly fly themselves into places a helicopter would get shot down trying to reach, and the shopping list it just published reads less like a defense contract and more like gear for […]View the full article

The U.S. Department of the Air Force published a market research notice this week seeking companies capable of designing, developing, prototyping, manufacturing and fielding what it calls a Semi-Autonomous Collaborative Platform, government shorthand for an uncrewed jet aircraft smart enough to fly and fight alongside a piloted fighter without a human controlling every move. The […]View the full article

U.S. Marine Corps attack and utility helicopters are heading into a major upgrade built specifically to carry the next generation of weapons, and the electrical rewiring needed to make that possible just landed a $33.6 million contract. Naval Air Systems Command handed Bell Textron, the Fort Worth, Texas manufacturer that builds both helicopters, the deal […]View the full article

The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency awarded Rockwell Collins ESA Vision Systems, a Fort Worth, Texas company, an estimated $333 million contract to supply spare parts and repair services for the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, a fighter pilot’s helmet that doubles as a targeting computer. The system, known in defense circles by its acronym JHMCS, […]View the full article

The U.S. Space Development Agency, the Pentagon office building America’s next generation of missile-tracking satellites, awarded General Dynamics Mission Systems a contract with a ceiling of $400 million to develop the ground segment for Tranche Three of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, the government’s name for a sprawling network of satellites meant to give American […]View the full article

Three countries have taken a real step toward keeping their new stealth fighters flying without shipping them back to Texas every time something breaks, and the Pentagon just handed Lockheed Martin $23 million to make it happen. The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command awarded Lockheed Martin Corporation, the Fort Worth, Texas defense giant that builds […]View the full article

An electric motor smaller than a coffee mug might decide whether America’s drone army flies during the next crisis, and the U.S. Army has placed a nearly $80 million bet on building that motor at home instead of buying it from a country Pentagon planners increasingly view as an adversary. The Department of War announced […]View the full article

A single explosion at one South Korean missile factory has exposed just how fragile the supply chain behind the country’s booming arms export business really is, since many of the components that go into a guided missile can only be built by one qualified company in the entire nation. The Korea Times reported that the […]View the full article

Romania shot down a second drone in its own airspace within 24 hours on Saturday morning, a milestone that would have been unthinkable for a NATO member just weeks ago and now marks the second time in two days that Romanian pilots have opened fire inside their own country’s skies. President Nicușor Dan announced the […]View the full article

North Korea has resumed sending Russia one of its deadliest ballistic missiles, a weapon that started this war as a punchline for its terrible aim and has since become one of the most accurate short-range missiles in Moscow’s arsenal. That’s according to Polkovnik GSH, an open-source intelligence account with close ties to Ukraine’s armed forces, […]View the full article

A Formula 1 engineering firm has unveiled a nearly supersonic combat drone designed to fly wing to wing with fighter jets, and it costs less than a fraction of what those crewed aircraft run. MGI Engineering announced the launch of the T-022 Vortex, describing it as the first UK-built Autonomous Collaborative Platform of its kind, […]View the full article

Lockheed Martin’s second quarter looked almost nothing like the same three months a year earlier, when the world’s largest defense contractor posted a jarring $1.6 billion in program losses. The company reported second-quarter 2026 net earnings of $1.8 billion, or $7.94 per share, a swing of more than $1.5 billion compared to the $342 million […]View the full article

Only two bidders remain in the running for Canada’s nearly $5 billion program to supply new armored and unarmored land utility vehicles to the military, and one of them is Brampton-based Roshel, CityNews reported, citing reporting from Cristina Howorun. Roshel has built its reputation almost entirely outside Canada despite being headquartered just outside Toronto. Founded […]View the full article

It was only 2019 that I first posted this…but given the news about the UK defense cuts…now is a good time too. How do you protest draconian defense cuts? Well, this is one way. Alan loved the RAF and felt its 50th anniversary should be celebrated with a flypast over London. There had been an official dinner and a few parades — but no flypast. This, he felt, was a terrible slight. ‘One thing that was in the Air Force’s blood was that you celebrated in the air, not on the ground,’ Alan, now 82, says at his home in Surrey. He was serving at the time in No. 1 Squadron. This is the RAF’s oldest unit and as such he believed it had a responsibility to take the lead in ensuring the half-centenary was celebrated properly. Alan decided to take matters into his own hands by staging a flypast of his own. On April 4, Alan and three other Hunter pilots from his squadron had flown from their base at West Raynham in Norfolk to RAF Tangmere in Sussex, the former home of No. 1 Squadron, where they were helping to celebrate the base being given the freedom of the city of Chichester. He decided that the following day, on their way back, he would make a detour over the capital. ‘It was worth flying over London, even if I was going to get court-martialled,’ Alan says. At the very least, a trial would give him a chance to have his say on the problems facing the Air Force. Read the whole thing from 2018 ... and watch the video. On a personal note - I love the Hunter. I see them fly on a not infrequent basis, as some are owned by a civilian “Red Air” company that visits my airspace now and then. This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Share Leave a comment View the full article

A Croatian drone manufacturer has laid out an ambitious bet that Europe’s appetite for weapons it doesn’t have to import from China or the United States is only getting bigger. Orqa announced Wednesday it is scaling its annual manufacturing capacity from roughly 290,000 products today to 500,000 by the end of 2026, a jump the […]View the full article

The first publicly documented combat test of Russia’s upgraded anti-drone tank defense system ended in failure, with footage showing a Russian T-72B3A tank taking a direct hit from a Ukrainian FPV drone despite carrying the modified Arena-M active protection system specifically built to stop exactly that threat, Militarnyi reported. The video shows the FPV drone […]View the full article

HDT Robotics, doing business as BLADE, announced Wednesday it has been selected as one of five industry partners for the U.S. Army’s Project Sustainment initiative, a program run through the National Advanced Mobility Consortium that focuses on automating how supplies reach troops in combat zones where the enemy is actively trying to disrupt that resupply […]View the full article