Alongside China’s J-20 and the American F-35, which are today the only fifth generation fighters in the world both in production and fielded at squadron level strength, the F-22 and Russian Su-57 are two smaller and in many ways less successful next generation programs that have often been
The Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider strategic bomber has seen plans for a first flight in 2022 terminated, with the reasons for the delay remaining unexplained. Supply chain issues, labor shortages and performance problems have all been speculated by various sources. An Air Force spokeswoman speaking
On May 24 China and Russia concluded a joint 13 hour bomber patrol in the Pacific, which coincided with a visit by United States President Joe Biden to the region widely seen to be aimed at rallying potential partners for a collective hard line against Beijing. Such strategic patrols have been
Following the announcement that the Russian Navy aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov was set to be imminently transferred to a newly expanded dry dock at the Sevmorput Naval Shipyard, multiple images emerged in the third week of May showing that this had materialised. The carrier had previously seen
Since the second week of March reports of Russia’s Su-57 next generation fighter operating in support of the country’s war effort in Ukraine were followed by sightings of the stealth fighter over the city of Zhytomyr, fuelling widespread speculation as to what its mission may have been. With only a single understrength squadron in the Russian Air Force operating the Su-57,
PL-XX – ChinaEntering service around 2015 alongside the short ranged PL-10 and long ranged PL-15, the PL-XX is the most mysterious of China’s new generation of air to air missiles and by far the largest. Where the PL-15 is the primary armament for Chinese fighters to engage similarly sized
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force University of Engineering in Xian has made progress towards developing a new hypersonic weapon capable of engaging small mobile targets precisely enough to hit a moving car, according to team leader Yang Xiaogong. He stressed that “important
The Indian Air Force has tested a new enhanced variant of the BrahMos cruise missile, which was launched from a Su-30MKI fighter in the Bay of Bengal and had an extended 450km range. The new missile improves on the 290km range for prior air launched variants, with development occurring as more
On May 17 it was reported that S-300 surface to air missile batteries fielded by the Syrian Arab Army had been confirmed as operational, and may have been used to fire on Israeli Air Force fighter jets to repel an attack on a Syrian research centre. Reports of the missiles having been fired
The F-22A and F-35A were designed to be fielded in parallel as complementary fifth generation fighters, replacing the respective F-15 and F-16 of the fourth generation with the former being a heavyweight twin engine design fielded in smaller numbers, and the latter a light single engine jet that
