Afterburner - The Aviation Magazine

15 May 2025

AVIATION HISTORY

16 May 1919 – the first successful transatlantic flight begins

On 16th May 1919, three Curtiss NC-4 flying boats of the US Navy left Newfoundland and headed the Azores, in attempt for the first transatlantic flight of the powered, heavier-than-air aircraft. In April of 1913, the Daily Mail newspaper officially [...]
MILITARY AVIATION

Operation Boxtop 2025 – RAF C-17 crews in the Arctic Circle

At the turn of April and May 2025, twelve members of No. 99 Squadron Royal Air Force (RAF) spent a week in the Arctic Circle delivering supplies to the world’s northernmost located base. The C-17 Globemaster III aircrew and ground [...]
PHOTO OF THE WEEK

Embraer ERJ 135ER

Embraer ERJ 135ER (c/n 145376, G-RJXL of BMI Regional), taxiing at Franz Josef Strauss Airport, Munich, October 2018. Development of the Embraer ERJ (Embraer Regional Jet) aircraft family began in the late 1980s, with the ERJ 145 – an airliner [...]
MILITARY AVIATION

Medevac operations in French Guiana

In early April of 2025, Forces armées en Guyane – FAG (the Armed Forces in French Guiana) performed three medevac operations within forty-eight hours. All missions were successfully completed by Cayenne-based Escadron de Transport 68 (the 68th Transport Squadron) ´Antilles-Guyane´, [...]
AVIATION HISTORY

9 May 1888 – Francesco Baracca is born

On 9th May 1888, Count Francesco Baracca, the best Italian air ace of the Great War, was born. Francesco Luigi Giuseppe Baracca was born in Lugo (commonly referred to as Lugo di Romagna or Lugo di Ravenna), Italy, into a [...]

20th anniversary of Gripen service with the Czech Air Force

FEATURED

21 April 2025

Twenty years ago, on 18th April 2005, the first Swedish-made supersonic jet fighters arrived to 21. základna taktického letectva (the 21st Tactical Air Force Base) in Čáslav, therefore opening the Gripen era in the Czech [...]

Pioneer years of the Finnish aviation – tragic flight across the Alps

AVIATION HISTORY

13 January 2025

On 7th September 1920, on their way from Italy to Finland, two crews of the Finnish Air Force made an attempt to fly across the Alps in Savoia S.9 flying boats. Regrettably, they never reached [...]

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