UAS VISION
an independent online news service for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems world
November 2015. Chinese pilots flying Russian Su-27 fighters took to the skies to face something strange in a joint military exercise – a bizarre, lightweight aircraft with an unconventional wing design that they had never encountered before in combat. Continue reading
Harold Brown watched his P-51 Mustang spiral toward the snow-covered field below, trailing smoke and debris. Only moments earlier, he’d been celebrating with his squadron mates as they decimated German WW2 supply trains: “I had that locomotive lit up like a Christmas tree.” Now, he hung suspended from his parachute, floating down into enemy territory. Continue reading
A up-close look at L3Harris’ Sky Warden variant of the famed AT-802 Air Tractor that is serving as the test aircraft for Air Force Special Operation Command’s OA-1K Skyraider II program. The War Zone met up with L3Harris at this year’s Special Operations Forces Week conference in Tampa, Florida. Continue reading
June 4, 1942. It’s the height of the Pacific War, and Admiral Chuichi Nagumo stands on Akagi’s bridge. Below him stretches the pride of Japan’s navy, four aircraft carriers that struck Pearl Harbor just months earlier, now slicing through open water toward Midway Atoll. The plan is simple: crush the island’s defenses, then lure out and destroy what’s left of America’s carriers. So far, everything is going according to plan. Continue reading
April 15, 1986. US Air Force Major Brian Shul streaks through the stratosphere fifteen miles over Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya in his Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Flying too high for enemy fighters to reach, too fast for missiles to catch, virtually invisible to radar, not a single one has been shot down in over two decades of operation. Continue reading
June 1990. The Soviets were about to do it again. Not since Sputnik had they so dramatically outpaced the West. They were about to deploy the most advanced vertical takeoff and landing combat aircraft the world had ever seen. The Yak-141, NATO reporting name Freestyle, didn’t just outperform the legendary British Harrier—it made it look ancient. Continue reading
In 1963, as Soviet Tu-95 bombers pushed NATO response times to mere minutes, Britain faced a critical defense gap. Budget constraints left the Royal Navy without a modern fighter capable of intercepting threats at supersonic speeds. Facing being outdone by the Soviets, a desperate Britain did the unthinkable: they turned to a foreign warplane for a solution. Continue reading
An aggressor squadron screams across the Baltic sky, closing in on the Swedish Saab 35 Draken at Mach 1.7. By all conventional wisdom, the brand new Swedish fighter should have been trapped—outgunned, outmaneuvered, and seconds away from being another Cold War casualty. But this is no ordinary aircraft. Continue reading