Before the A-10 Thunderbolt II became the legendary Warthog, Northrop had its own contender for the US Air Force’s close air support requirement: the YA-9. Designed to deliver devastating firepower, withstand ground fire, and support troops on the battlefield, this...
Boeing has been announced as the winner of the US Navy's 6-generation fighter, aka FA-XX. This now means that Boeing will produce the USAF F-47 and the Navy's FA-XX, effectively cornering the market for US sixth-gen fighter production. What does this mean for Lockheed...
In 1968, six F-111As were sent to Thailand for Combat Lancer. - the aircraft’s first combat deployment and a key test of its new low-level strike capabilities. The F-111s flew at night, in poor weather, and without visual contact with their targets, yet still showed...
The Cessna A-37 Dragonfly earned a reputation as one of the most effective close-support and counter-insurgency aircraft of the Vietnam war. From a small jet trainer, the “Super Tweet” was transformed into a heavily armed CAS aircraft capable of carrying thousands of...
In the early 1970s, McDonnell Douglas proposed a carrier-based version of the F-15 for the US Navy. Known as the F-15N, it promised extraordinary speed, a lighter airframe, and more advanced avionics. But adapting the Eagle for carrier operations meant solving one...
The A-7D Corsair II was never intended to become one of the U.S. Air Force's greatest strike aircraft. Originally acquired as a stopgap solution during the Vietnam War, it evolved into arguably the most accurate conventional attack aircraft of the conflict. Equipped...
The North American F-100 Super Sabre was America's first operational supersonic fighter, but its journey from cutting-edge air-superiority aircraft to one of the most important strike fighters of the Vietnam War was anything but straightforward. Plagued by dangerous...
From Cold War necessity to Top Gun legend, the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter became one of the most agile and influential lightweight fighters ever built. Originally designed as a low-cost export fighter to counter the spread of Soviet MiGs, the F-5 proved itself far...
In the late 1970s, Northrop proposed the F-18L — a land-based variant of the F/A-18, stripped of naval constraints and optimised for speed, agility, and cost. Lighter, simpler, and potentially more capable in several key areas, it was designed to compete directly with...