Aviation covers military and dual-use aircraft in detail: airframe design, propulsion, avionics, flight test campaigns and the maintenance burden that follows delivery. Reports track certification steps, sortie rates and known deficiencies. Intended for engineers, aircrew, procurement staff and readers who want an aircraft explained rather than photographed.
Airframes, engines, avionics and flight test campaigns followed from first flight through fleet maintenance, certification and the fixes nobody advertises.
Two aircraft in an open, instrumented test campaign since November 2023 — the program is flying earlier than its predecessors did, but the fielding date still rests on testing no one can compress.
Nils AndersenThe Pentagon's production go/no-go gate, explained through the Air Force's T-7A Red Hawk trainer, which cleared it in April 2026 a year behind its original plan.
Nils AndersenStealth is quantified in decibels per square meter inside anechoic chambers and on remote ranges, a discipline the F-117 program pulled from secrecy in 1988.
Nils AndersenRotary-wing airframes age by load histories, not just hours, and service life extension programs are how fleets born decades ago keep flying.
Nils AndersenA 1970s FAA rule forbids civil supersonic flight over the United States, but NASA's X-59 and Boom's XB-1 flights are building the data to change it.
Nils AndersenThe Air Force budget divides into what it buys and what it keeps flying, and sustainment costs dominate most weapon systems' lifetime bills.
Nils AndersenModular open systems approaches turn aircraft electronics into plug-and-play standards, cutting years off upgrades and ending vendor lock on flight-line software.
Nils AndersenThe T-7A is meant to replace a 1960s-era trainer and lift pilot output, but ejection seat fixes and a delayed production decision keep the bottleneck open.
Nils AndersenEncrypted interrogation-and-response transponders give radar operators a way to tell allied aircraft from targets, though the system is a filter, not a guarantee.
Nils AndersenDepot queues for military jet engines have stretched past standards, and GAO reporting ties the backlog directly to lower aircraft availability rates.
Nils Andersen