Free Republic

Those sightings occurred Aug. 30. The case took another twist Wednesday when a China Airlines pilot approaching LAX reported seeing a jet pack flying at an altitude of 6,000 feet. That’s more than a mile up “To fly up to 6,000 feet from the ground, to fly around long enough to be seen by China Airlines and then to descend again, you’d be out of fuel,” he said. Instead, he suggests a more likely scenario, an electric drone — perhaps with a mannequin attached. the strongest evidence that the LAX sightings is a person with a jet pack — as...

On November 23, 1944, a Royal Air Force antiaircraft unit stationed outside Cortonburg, Belgium observed a B-17 Flying Fortress flying towards them. The massive U.S. Army Air Forces bomber approached at high speed with its landing gears down. With no landing scheduled, the base personnel presumed it was an emergency landing situation and reacted accordingly. The Flying Fortress proceeded to execute that emergency landing by plowing into a nearby field. Having just barely avoided crashing into the unit’s guns, the aircraft’s landing was so fast and uncontrolled that the propellers snapped off and both wings slapped into the earth during...

Abraham Wald was a Hungarian mathematician, but his work with statistics in 1943 would prevent the Navy armoring exactly the wrong places on planes, saving the lives of countless flight crews who likely would have been shot down if their most vulnerable parts were left exposed. .... As Jordan Ellenberg wrote in How Not To Be Wrong, there was a running joke in the SRG that Wald's secretaries had to rip notepaper out of his hands as soon as he finished writing on it because he didn't have the clearance to read his own work. .... So the only planes...

A man flying in a jet pack has been spotted for the second time in two months hovering thousands of feet above the ground near Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said Wednesday. A man flying in a jet pack has been spotted for the second time in two months hovering thousands of feet above the ground near Los Angeles International Airport, authorities said Wednesday. In September, the flight crew of an American Airlines flight saw a man in a jet pack hovering about 3,000 feet above the ground near the airport, according to CNN

Unmanned combat air vehicles have notched up kills against armored fighting vehicles all over the world. Does it mean the end of the tank In the first days of the new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Azeri military claimed a number of destroyed tanks and other armored fighting vehicles. Those strikes seem to have been made — and filmed — by a Turkish-designed armed drone, the Bayraktar TB2. With armed drones bearing anti-tank ordnance increasingly cheap, accessible and capable, does it spell the end of the tank’s century of battlefield dominance? Two decades ago, the U.S. rushed the first...

The U.K. has developed a new fighting drone designed to help soldiers breach urban defenses. The i9 uncrewed aerial vehicle can navigate indoors, locate and identify targets, and then open fire with not one but two shotgun barrels. Like all weaponized drones, a human operator must make the decision to shoot or not shoot. The drone, revealed by the Times of London, was developed for the British armed forces. The drone is meant to act as a breaching weapon, flying into a small room or house occupied by enemy troops and neutralizing them from within. Breaching operations are among the...

Boeing is thinking of moving the entire B737 Max aircraft production line out of their Everett Production Facility. Democrat, loser, Governor, Inslee is begging Boeing to remain in Washington State!!! Boeing is considering facility sites in Texas, Florida, South Carolina where the political and economic conditions are much more favorable to corporations such as Boeing Commercial Aircraft. The Boeing B787 aircraft was moved out of Seattle to the state of South Carolina where "All" B787 aircraft are built!!! Democrat, Governor, Inslee is killing the manufacturing business in the failing, riot infested, State of Washington!!!

Live broadcast of takeoffs of the large variety of aircraft used in WWII. "Approximately 100 World War II aircraft will take to the sky in historically sequenced warbird formations. These formations will fly over the Washington Mall in two minute intervals. The formations will represent the War’s major battles, from Battle of Britain through the final air assault on Japan, and concluding with a missing man formation." https://ww2flyover.org/flyover-formations/

The U.S. is looking at ways to make the Lockheed Martin (LMT) F-35 less stealthy for a sale to the United Arab Emirates, according to Reuters, as Washington tries to overcome resistance from Israel. Officials are working out how to sell the jets to the UAE while maintaining Israel's air superiority in the region. Israel typically gets a five-year head-start over other U.S. allies in the Mideast when buying new weapons. The first Israeli F-35 was delivered in December 2016. Sources told Reuters that officials are looking at ways to make the F-35s more visible to Israeli radar systems. The...

The North American B-25 crashed Saturday evening a few miles southeast of the Stockton Metropolitan Airport. Three people were on board. One person walked away and two others were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries. The aircraft was extensively damaged. (San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

U.S. Africa Command says that at least two MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets, possibly piloted by shadowy Russian mercenaries, have crashed in Libya. Jared Szuba, the Pentagon correspondent for AI-Monitor, Tweeted out that one of the jets was apparently lost on June 28, while the other went down on September 7, 2020. This information had come in a statement from Rear Admiral Heidi Berg, U.S. Africa Command's (AFRICOM) director of intelligence. Another tweet indicates that Berg believes that "Russian fighter aircraft," presumably MiG-29s too, but potentially also Su-24 Fencer strike aircraft, have conducted airstrikes in Libya. AI-Monitor's Szuba follows that up...

The Air Force on Tuesday revealed that it has secretly built and flown a prototype of its next-generation fighter jet, according to the service's top acquisition official. The jet, built as part of the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, was first disclosed to Defense News on Monday. Air Force acquisition head Will Roper told the outlet that the service could now move the jet into production "pretty fast."

A former US Navy pilot is opening up about his infamous alleged UFO sighting off the coast of California in 2004. Commander David Fravor said he witnessed a Tic Tac-shaped object in the sky in November 10, 2004 performing extraordinary aerial maneuvers that he said no modern human technology was capable of. 'This is not like we saw it and it was gone or I saw lights in the sky and it's gone – we watched this thing on a crystal clear day with four trained observers,' Fravor said in a sit-down interview with Russian-American YouTuber and MIT researcher Lex...

As of noon Tuesday, California National Guard and U.S. Navy helicopters had rescued 362 people and 16 dogs that had become trapped as roads were blocked by the fast moving Creek Fire northeast of Fresno, California. Civilians extracted from the Edison Lake and China Peak areas were flown to the Fresno airport in Blackhawks, Chinooks, and a Navy Seahawk. Examples of their missions Tuesday at Lake Edison: A Stockton-based Cal Guard Ch-47 chinook evacuated 46 people and four dogs. A U.S. Navy SH-60 Seahawk helicopter rescued 17 people and one dog. Two Cal Guard UH-60 Black Hawks and one CH-47...

I like to stay abreast of prices. Looking at the Aircraft Sales Online website, I saw an asking price for a 2003 Cessna 172S of over $175,000 and only 16 172s for sale, usually there are dozens. On trade-a-plane, I see newer 172s going for over $400,000! Does anyone know why the vast and sudden increase in price and drop in the number of used GA aircraft for sale?

The fuel efficient airplane is hoped to be a solution for the future of airplanes. Passengers could one travel in the wings of Flying V planes, which is designed with the cabin, cargo holds and fuel tanks placed along two Vs. Experts tested a 22.5kg and a 3-metre scale model of the futuristic plane, developed by researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The successful flight will be a major boost for the hotel anticipated aircraft as it move into the next development stages. Dutch airline KLM agreed to fund development of the V-shaped aircraft, which could be...

On January, 26,1950, Robert Espe, a master seargant in the U.S. Air Force, waved goodbye to his wife Joyce and two-year-old son Victor on a remote air field outside Anchorage, Alaska. It was a snowy day, a month out from the winter solstice. The sun rose not long before 10 a.m. and by 5 p.m. everything was black again. Joyce Espe was seven months pregnant at the time. A native of Hapur, India, she was struggling with the Alaskan winter. Along with her son and 42 others, all U.S. servicemen, she was flying from the military base in Anchorage, south...

LOS ANGELES - An American Airlines pilot reports seeing a mystery person in a jetpack flying high above Los Angeles, right in the path of incoming jets at LAX Sunday evening. When it comes to accuracy and detail and reliability, you’d probably rank airline pilots right up there. So, when an American Airlines pilot reported via radio to the control tower seeing a "guy in a jetpack" as he was approaching LAX at about 3,000 feet and ten miles out for a landing, you had to give it serious credibility, as unlikely as that may be. You can listen to...

Boeing is seeking to increase black US employees throughout the company by 20 percent and mandate benchmarks for hiring people of color, Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told employees in a memo on Friday reviewed by Reuters. US corporations have become more responsive to complaints related to racial equality following a summer of sweeping anti-racism protests over the slaying of black people by police. The changes at Boeing, a stalwart defense contractor with its corporate headquarters in Chicago and largest factories in Washington state and South Carolina, appeared to mark the first concrete steps by the planemaker to address the issue....

The whispers started three years ago. A mysterious bullet-shaped plane was spotted at the Southern California Logistics Airport near Victorville in April 2017. Its unusual design prompted immediate speculation, with military website The War Zone being the first to report that the aircraft was the work of California-based Otto Aviation -- and that development was very much under wraps. Someone looking for an ID of an unusual looking aircraft spotted at the Southern California Logistics Airport. https://t.co/83J7RqOpvy pic.twitter.com/eAPrXNwIEf — John Wiseman (@lemonodor) April 16, 2017 Now, in the late summer of the strangest year in aviation history, the Celera 500L...