By Paul Brinkmann
October 1, 2024
By Paul Marks
June 1, 2024
By Cat Hofacker
May 1, 2024
By Keith Button
May 1, 2024
U.S. researchers want to figure out how to make rotorcraft drones that can be folded up and launched from the standard-issue grenade launchers carried by many U.S. and allied troops. Keith Button has the story.
By Jonathan Coopersmith
March 1, 2023
Sherman Mullin, former president of Lockheed Skunk Works
January 3, 2023
Thoughts about the design, and why civilian designers are intrigued by blended-wing-bodies too.
By Keith Button
April 1, 2022
Military drones are alluring tools for spying and striking targets, but getting them flying where they need to be is a challenge. What if conventionally piloted cargo planes could fly to the outskirts of a battlefield, release a swarm of such drones, and then recover them for refueling and reloading? Keith Button tells us how DARPA and Dynetics brought this vision to the edge of reality.
By Keith Button
March 1, 2022
When designers need specific magnetic properties in an aircraft component, they turn to proven alloys containing rare earth elements, a group of metals with limited suppliers. Keith Button spoke to scientists who are applying computational models toward developing alternative alloys that would meet requirements without rare earth elements.
By Ben Iannotta
November 1, 2019
By Jan Tegler and Cat Hofacker
October 31, 2019
In a handful of incidents that go back to 2004, U.S. Navy fighter pilots and weapons officers have reported detecting strange objects maneuvering quickly with unheard of agility around their aircraft. The Navy professes to be as mystified as anyone. Jan Tegler and Cat Hofacker went searching for possible explanations. Here is what they found.
By Jan Tegler
September 2, 2019
For the U.S. and countries that buy its warplanes, the upgrade to fifth-generation fighters won’t be like flipping a switch. In fact, Boeing and Lockheed Martin each have proposals to soup up the designs of their decades-old fourth-generation fighters, the F-15 and F-16. Jan Tegler looks at the arguments for and against the F-15EX and F-21.
By Cat Hofacker
May 1, 2019
Fred Kennedy
By Ben Iannotta
August 31, 2018
Jeff A. Babione
By Ben Iannotta
July 1, 2018
By Jan Tegler
July 1, 2018
Rotorcraft advocates in the U.S. military have been laying the research groundwork to replace many of today’s helicopters with versions that would employ a revolutionary propulsion concept to-be-decided. Jan Tegler looks at the battle to elevate the Future Vertical Lift initiative into an acquisition program and speed up its schedule.
By Ben Iannotta
April 30, 2018
By Keith Button
April 30, 2018
BRIG. GEN. THOMAS TODD III
By Jan Tegler
April 30, 2018
Is the U.S. Navy's proposed refueling drone the best strategy for empowering pilots to penetrate enemy airspace?
By Tom Risen
March 30, 2018
By Keith Button
February 28, 2018
The U.S. Air Force Research Lab will spend much of 2018 taking a fresh look at its approach to science and technology
By Jan Tegler
February 1, 2018
U.S. Air Force is preparing to outsource much of its demand for "aggressor" aircraft to private companies
By Tom Risen
September 28, 2017
By Keith Button
May 31, 2017
Examining the aerospace industry’s next-generation software
May 31, 2017
DARPA’s plans for a demonstrator UAS for the Navy
By Debra Werner
May 2, 2017
By Joe Stumpe
April 17, 2017
The U.S. Air Force is having a hard time letting go of the A-10
By Debra Werner
March 6, 2017
Designing a jet-fast plane that can stop on a dime in midair, hover and speed off
By Keith Button
February 7, 2017
Researchers hope to solve a deadly problem for U.S. troops
By Keith Button
August 31, 2016
Was it wise or foolish for U.S. Navy to choose a refueling drone as a warplane?
