The F-111 Aardvark grew from the 1960s TFX drive to field a fast, long-range strike jet. -General Dynamics’ swing-wing design, twin TF30 turbofans and the first production terrain-following radar let ...

The winner-take-all nature of aerial combat means the slightest edge can be the difference between victory and death. Power, maneuverability, agility, armor, and armament were all key components of a ...

You might have noticed that the wings of unpowered gliders look very different from fighter jets. That's because they're optimized for completely different modes of flight. Long, straight wings are ...

Over the past 80 years, the air forces of the world have ripped through the skies in five generations of jet fighters. The ...

The British were learning to contend with many things in the 1970s, apart from the obvious empire-falling-apart business. One of these things was learning to play nice with its European neighbors when ...

When Boeing Co. beat out Lockheed Aircraft Corp. for the prize of building the U.S. supersonic jet transport, it was on the basis of a venturesome swing-wing concept that many aeronautical designers ...

More than a century of aviation has given us humans certain preconceptions when it comes to the machines that fly in our sky. Just take the shape of an aircraft into consideration. The simple mention ...

The Blended Wing Body (BWB) concept represents a transformative shift in aircraft design, merging the wing and fuselage into a single, continuous lifting surface. This integration offers substantial ...

Here’s What You Need to Know: The X-5 was likely the world’s first airplane that incorporated variable-sweep wing technology. The X-5 was likely the world’s first airplane that incorporated ...