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Former SR-71 Engineer Talks NASA’s Blackbird Revival Program
Insights into the current status of NASA's SR-71 #844, what it will take to fly it again, and what the agency may be looking to do with it.
Latest News
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Northrop Grumman’s Talon Blue Collaborative Combat Aircraft Has Flown
Northrop Grumman has placed its hopes in Talon Blue to capture a piece of the USAF’s future Collaborative Combat Aircraft portfolio.
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Bunker Talk: Let’s Talk About All The Things We Did And Didn’t Cover This Week
Who needs scary movies when you have life in 2026?!
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All The Weapons A Single Navy Fighter Squadron Launched During Operation Epic Fury
Strike Fighter Squadron 41’s F/A-18Fs let loose hundreds of air-to-surface and air-to-air weapons during the war with Iran.
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Germany Is Finally Giving Its F125 Frigates Some More Teeth With IRIS-T SLM Surface-To-Air Missiles
The 7,200-ton F125 frigates were built with notoriously light armament, which is now being partly addressed.
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Hunt For MQ-9 Reaper Successor Surprisingly Includes Exotic Aircraft Manufacturer Otto Aerospace
Otto’s extremely efficient airframe design philosophy, tested by the Celera 500L, could make for an attractive Reaper follow-on, but it is facing stiff competition.
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Taiwan’s First F-16 Block 70s Have Finally Arrived
The delivery of Taiwan’s first two new Vipers kicks off a long-awaited expansion of its fighter fleet in the face of ballooning threats from mainland China.
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New Details About Secretive RQ-170 Sentinel Drone Squadron Shared With New Award
The 30th Reconnaissance Squadron is one of two units known to operate RQ-170s, and it is very rare to hear any details about its activities.
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Pentagon Cuts New AIM-260 Air-To-Air Missile Production Deal, Testing Accelerating
The AIM-260 was originally slated to enter service years ago and it is seen as critical to counter China’s PL-15 air-to-air missile.
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How The Air Force Patched Up A Shrapnel-Damaged KC-135
In addition, pushing advanced repair work closer to the front lines was critical in keeping as many airframes supporting the mission as possible.
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Blackbeard Hypersonic Missile Seen Flying On F/A-18 Super Hornet For The First Time
The Navy is pushing to get Blackbeard, a lower-cost and fast-to-produce standoff weapon, into operational service by 2028 at the latest.
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New-Build F-16s For The USAF Is An Idea That Won’t Go Away, For Good Reason
Lockheed’s F-16G pitch could be part of the answer to the Air Force’s problem of trying to grow its increasingly geriatric fighter fleet.
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Lockheed Flexes To Modular AGM-158 JASSM Missile Concept
FLEX aims to give the JASSM missile family modular weapons architecture spanning longer-range, anti-ship, and new launch configurations.
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AIM-260 JATM Missile Spotted On Australian Super Hornet
The secretive AIM-260 air-to-air missile will give Australian fighters a much-needed boost in reach, especially against Chinese threats.
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Lessons Learned From Getting An SR-71 In The Air Again May Be As Valuable As Its Flight Test Data
Just the process of reviving the Blackbird and its exotic supply chain could be an endeavor that pays off larger than whatever it does once it is back flying.
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F-15EX May Finally Get Missile Warning System The USAF Originally Skimped On Buying
The F-15EX is designed to host a system to optically spot incoming missiles and its omission from USAF jets has become increasingly glaring.
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Where Are The Aircraft Carriers?: September 30, 2026
The five-ship Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group and three-ship Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group deploy back-to-back from the West Coast.
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Navy Orders 30 Drone Ships To Finally Advance Its ‘Medium’ Uncrewed Vessel Ambitions
The Navy has taken an important step toward fielding larger USV fleets, an area where it has persistently struggled in the past.
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Navy Identifies EA-18G Growler As Type Involved In Mishap Aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Last Night
The failure of an arresting wire is one of the worst nightmares for naval aircrew and sailors working on the flight deck.
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More Latest News
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Vision For New Autonomous Warfare Command Laid Out By Pentagon
The new command, slated to stand up late next year, will focus on advancing operational autonomous and robotic capabilities across the services.
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Ukraine’s F-16 Fleet Is In A Readiness Crisis
As the war rages on, more than half of the aging fighters are reportedly grounded, while Western air-to-air missile stocks are also running low.
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What Boeing’s New Rendering Of Its Winning F/A-XX Fighter Tells Us
With new F/A-XX art and Boeing having now won both the USAF and Navy’s next-gen fighter contracts, we can compare concepts.
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Boeing Wins F/A-XX Next Generation Navy Stealth Fighter Contract (Updated)
F/A-XX has been a very highly anticipated contract award, especially after the Pentagon previously tried to freeze the program.
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Full F-47 Production Line “Not Too Far Away”: USAF General
Boeing has been proceeding with a multi-billion-dollar expansion of its facilities in St. Louis as the F-47 program continues to ramp up.
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Heavily Damaged Submarine USS Connecticut Now Won’t Return To Service Until 2027
The Navy hoped Connecticut would be back by 2025, then this year, and it is now planning for its final retirement with repairs still underway.
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Claims Swirl Around U.S. Marines Injured Aboard Mystery Vessel Attacked In The Strait Of Hormuz
At the center of suspicions is a former Royal Mail ship with its own fascinating backstory, but what it was doing at the time is unclear.
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Shipbuilder Behind Failed Constellation Class Wants Back Into The U.S. Navy Frigate Business
Fincantieri wants to leverage its U.S. infrastructure for another new frigate as the Navy is once again looking for foreign ‘production ready’ designs.
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British Police Arrest Men Driving Toward U.S. Bomber Base In The U.K. With Suspected Explosives
RAF Fairford is a key hub for U.S. bomber and other operations, and was a major launch point for strikes on Iran earlier this year.
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Bunker Talk: Let’s Talk About All The Things We Did And Didn’t Cover This Week
I wonder if the leaves are changing color out there?
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Latvia To Order Anduril’s Barracuda Cruise Missile For Long-Range Strike Capability
The missile deal would drastically expand Riga’s precision-fire reach as NATO’s eastern flank races to build up its conventional long-range strike capabilities.
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Marines Rushing To Equip Amphibious Combat Vehicles With New Anti-Drone Jammers
The USMC says an urgent need for Anduril Pulsar-L systems ties in with larger plans to boost the ACV’s defenses against drones.
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An SR-71 Blackbird Has Vanished (Updated)
The head of NASA just cryptically teased a new X-plane with an image that looked a lot like the iconic Blackbird. Now a very particular SR-71 is missing.
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China Appears To Be Building A Mothership For Large Uncrewed Submarines
Recent satellite imagery shows a host of highly specialized features on the ship that’s under construction, as well as a large cradle sitting beside it.
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France Sending Forces To Help Defend Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Oil Facilities
The French deployment marks the latest attempt by a European nation to help stabilize the supply of oil via military assistance.
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F-35 Canopy And Weapons-Bay Door Loss To China: Separating Fact From Fiction
What we know and don’t know, and the potential security impacts, regarding the real possibility China has major F-35 components in its possession.
TWZ — previously known as The War Zone — has become an essential resource for the defense industry, the national security community, and the interested public at large since it was launched in 2016.
From its early beginnings to the present day, TWZ’s purpose remains the same.
The site stands at the nexus of military technology, strategy, and foreign policy. As a full-spectrum defense news and analysis website, TWZ covers the air, sea, land, space, and cyber domains of warfare, with an infusion of geopolitical context and technological analysis to offer readers deeper, yet easy-to-consume, insights than what they will find anywhere else….
