An air force buys a fighter once and pays for it for forty years. The purchase price is the smallest part of that, which is why fleet decisions turn on sustainment cost, spares depth and depot throughput more than on any performance figure in the brochure.
This section follows military fixed-wing aviation. Fighters, bombers, transports, trainers, purpose-built early warning and reconnaissance types. Procurement competitions and their outcomes. Upgrade programs, structural life extensions, and retirements that get delayed because the replacement is late.
Delivery counts and mission-capable rates are reported when a service or an auditor publishes them, and left out when nobody has.
China’s state aircraft group says its large jet-powered Jiutian uncrewed aircraft completed its first flight Thursday at Pucheng in Shaanxi province. AVIC described the drone as having “a large payload, high operational ceiling, wide speed range, and short takeoff and landing capabilities.”
Online flight tracking data showed two U.S. Navy F A 18 Super Hornets fly into the center of the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday. They held tight orbits over the water for about 40 minutes. The callsigns shown on the public feed
A Russian Air Force Antonov An-22 heavy transport crashed in the Ivanovo region on December 9, 2025. Russian investigators said everyone on board died. The loss likely removes the last flying An-22 from Russian service. The type already flew rarely and recent
A Turkish Air Force C-130E Hercules that departed Ganja International Airport in Azerbaijan on 11 November broke apart in midair over eastern Georgia, killing all 20 people on board. Video shot from the ground shows the center section descending in a spin
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force is openly featuring the GJ-11 unmanned combat air vehicle in its own anniversary film. A microfilm released in mid-November for the PLAAF’s 76th founding year shows the stealth flying-wing drone, callsign Xuanlong 08, flying in formation
New footage released on 9 November ahead of Dubai Airshow 2025 shows a Su-57 Felon flying with its internal weapons bays open and fully loaded. The aircraft is the T-50-9 prototype, bort number “509,” and the images give a clear view of
HMS Prince of Wales has completed her Mediterranean work-up with 24 British F-35B Lightning II jets embarked, the largest number of the type yet fielded on a single ship and the biggest fifth-generation carrier air wing assembled by the United Kingdom. The
Germany’s PEGASUS program has moved from drawings and component testing to a visible fleet in flight-test, and the first aircraft now shows the full external layout of its signals intelligence fit. The Luftwaffe’s new platform is based on the Bombardier Global 6000
The Air Force submitted a 10-year fighter force structure plan to Congress that pins the “low-risk” requirement at 1,558 manned, combat-coded fighters. The document places today’s combat-coded inventory at about 1,271 jets for fiscal 2026. It also lays out the threshold for
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has added a dedicated strike version to its Gambit series of autonomous combat drones, unveiling Gambit 6 at the International Fighter Conference in Rome on 4 November 2025. The new variant brings a strongly air-to-surface focused configuration to
