Mil Mi-24 Hind

27/09/2026

In December 1989, KLM Flight 867 flew a Boeing 747 straight into a volcanic ash cloud thrown up by Mount Redoubt over Alaska. All four engines flamed out at once. The jumbo fell silently for more than 14,000 feet before the crew somehow got the engines relit — with barely any room to spare before the mountains below.

Full story: https://migflug.com/afterburner/klm-flight-867-redoubt-volcanic-ash-747-four-engines-1989/

KLM 867 flew into Mount Redoubt ash in 1989 and lost all four engines over Alaska. How the crew restarted the 747 after a fall of more than 14,000 feet.

24/09/2026

Ever seen a fighter jet trailing a fine mist of fuel before landing and wondered what that was about? It's not an emergency - it's arithmetic. Aircraft are often too heavy to land safely right after takeoff, so the excess fuel has to go somewhere fast. Here's why.

https://migflug.com/jetflights/why-fighter-jets-dump-fuel-before-landing/

You have seen the photographs: a fighter jet trailing twin streams of white mist from its wingtips, the spray catching sunlight like a veil behind the…

22/09/2026

Long before anyone said air taxi, the US Army flew one. In 1958 the Doak VZ-4 lifted off on two ducted fans that tilted from vertical to horizontal - the exact trick every eVTOL start-up is selling today. One was built. It still exists. https://migflug.com/afterburner/doak-vz-4-tilting-ducted-fan-vtol-1958/

Cessna gear, Mustang seats, T-33 actuators. The Doak VZ-4 proved the tilting ducted fan in 1958 and then waited sixty years for the electronics.

22/09/2026

In a hangar in Amarillo, Texas, a delegation from Nigeria signed their names on a metal beam. That beam is the spine of the first AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter being built for the Nigerian Air Force. Twelve are coming, and the order says a great deal about where attack helicopters are still winning work. https://migflug.com/afterburner/bell-ah-1z-viper-nigeria-production-amarillo-2026/

22/09/2026

The flight deck of a destroyer es**rt is about the size of a tennis court, and in a North Atlantic winter it does not hold still. Thirty degrees of roll, eight of pitch, and a rise and fall best measured in storeys. Canada's answer was to stop asking the pilot to land, and start hauling the helicopter down by cable. Beartrap made destroyer-based helicopters possible, and the world copied it. https://migflug.com/afterburner/beartrap-hauldown-canadian-navy-sea-king-destroyer/

The Beartrap hauldown system let the Royal Canadian Navy land nine-ton Sea Kings on pitching destroyer decks. First used 3 December 1963.

22/09/2026

At Gatineau on Thursday morning a single turboprop pulled up over the airport in a ceremonial flypast, and a sixty-year era began its long goodbye. The aircraft was a Pilatus PC-21, built at Stans in central Switzerland. In Canadian service it is the CT-157 Siskin II, and the Snowbirds are trading their jets for it. Read the full story on migflug.com/afterburner

Military aviation news, fighter jet stories, legendary aces, and insider flight experiences. The Afterburner - MiGFlug's Magazine brings you the best of combat aviation.

22/09/2026

A charter skipper out of Pensacola went to look at something floating offshore on Saturday. Under it was a mahi-mahi. Next to it was an FLM-136 attack drone that Eglin Air Force Base had lost on a test. The fish went in the cooler. The drone went home on the deck. https://migflug.com/afterburner/eglin-flm-136-lucas-drone-found-florida-fishing-boat-2026/

A Pensacola charter boat hauled an FLM-136 drone out of the Gulf near Eglin AFB. The base confirmed only that a test article went down.

22/09/2026

Before helicopters, this is how you put an army behind enemy lines: you towed it there in plywood gliders and landed at night in a jungle clearing nobody had ever set foot on.

On 5 March 1944, a reconnaissance print reached Lalaghat with ninety minutes to spare and changed the plan. What followed at Landing Zone Broadway put thousands of Chindits and their mules deep inside Japanese-held Burma — and the first waves went in with no runway, no lights and no way back.

https://migflug.com/afterburner/operation-thursday-broadway-glider-landing-burma-1944/

Operation Thursday put 61 gliders into Japanese-held Burma on 5 March 1944. Only 35 reached Broadway, and most of those were wrecked on landing.

20/09/2026

Asked whether the US Air Force would like to build new C-17s, the general in charge of American airlift did not hesitate. "Heck yeah," he said. Then came the caveat, and it is the reason the line at Long Beach has been shut since 2015. Here is what restarting a heavy airlifter would actually take.

Air Mobility Command says a C-17 production restart is on the table in a formal Analysis of Alternatives. Boeing closed the Long Beach line in 2015.

20/09/2026

The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk first flew in 1974. Sikorsky has been building them for the US Army since 1978. Forty-eight years on, the line at Stratford, Connecticut is still open.

On Friday, Connecticut's congressional delegation announced it will keep running for at least another two years: 16 more UH-60Ms, with the work carrying through to 2028.

Not many production lines in aviation survive half a century. Fewer still are building the same basic airframe.

https://migflug.com/afterburner/sikorsky-uh-60m-black-hawk-contract-16-helicopters-2028/

A $234.5m Black Hawk contract keeps Sikorsky building 16 more UH-60Ms at Stratford to 2028, protecting a 230-supplier base across 43 states.