This photo of a Boeing 747 modified to a tanker configuration conducting a dry refueling hookup test with an Air Force/Lockheed SR-71 appeared on the October 2, 1972 cover of Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Aviation Week's Senior Pentagon Editor witnessed aviation history aboard USS Wasp for the first-ever F-35B Operational Test (OT-1) trials off the coast of North Carolina. Watch her videos.

Two non-NATO powers confront Russia across the narrow, mine-strewn choke points of the Baltic.

Fearing rogue states and a menacing Russia, NATO is pushing for European ballistic missile defense.

NATO and aligned nations find new-technology weapons add capability faster and at lower cost than new platforms.

Sikorsky’s S-97 Raider high-speed helicopter made an hour-long first flight on May 22 at the company’s development flight center in West Palm Beach, Florida. The rigid coaxial-rotor Raider hovered and maneuvered at low speed, with its pusher propulsor disconnected (but turning due to friction). The flight begins a year-long, roughly 100-flight-hour test program to expand to Raider’s flight envelope to meet Sikorsky’s key targets of 220-kt. cruise speed carrying weapons, hover at 6,000 ft. on a 95F day, and 3g maneuverability at speed.

China appears to be taking steps toward developing stovl aircraft, but lack of a propulsion system likely makes this a long-term proposition.

Airbus’s A400M airlifter program has faced some recent setbacks, not least of which is the May 9 crash of a production aircraft on its first flight.