Today the IAF phased out the MiG-21 Bison after a 62-year-long career, spanning two thirds of the air force’s total lifespan. The MiG-21 is often thought of as synonymous with the Indian Air Force, ...

When pilot Viktor Belenko defected 40 years ago, he did so in a mysterious Soviet plane – the MiG-25. BBC Future investigates the far-reaching effects of one of the Cold War’s most intriguing events.

It was Valentine's Day 1955 in the erstwhile Soviet Union. On that winter morning - the high was just under -5 degrees Celsius - there was something in the air at Zhukovsky Airfield, an airbase some ...

For a quarter of a century, much of the news about the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been about the abysmal flight safety record of its premier fighter – the redoubtable MiG-21. On September 26, after ...

The Cold War set the stage for aerial combat between iconic jet-powered fighter aircraft. By the early 1950s, the world's superpowers' first generation of jet fighters were ready for battle. They just ...

OTD in 1976, Viktor Belenko, “stole” a MiG-25 and landed in Japan. The then Lieutenant Belenko was a pilot with the 513th Fighter Regiment, 11th Air Army, based in Chuguyevka, Primorsky Krai, in the ...

Aviation shaped the 20th century. Through both World Wars and the Cold War, superpowers like the United States and the former USSR, Russia, pulled out all the stops and spent countless resources to ...