news

Arsenal have signed Spain international Ona Batlle on a free transfer following her exit from Barcelona.

It is understood that Batlle has joined on a four-year deal, with an option to extend for a further year.

The 27-year-old, widely regarded as one of the best full-backs in the world, left Barcelona after helping them win the Champions League in May.

During her three-year spell in Spain, Batlle made 114 appearances as Barcelona won three successive league titles and two European cups.

Batlle also started their Champions League final defeat by Arsenal in 2025.

“Arsenal is one of the biggest clubs in the world and I can’t wait to feel the joy of playing in front of our supporters at Emirates Stadium alongside so many great players,” said Batlle.

“I want to win trophies and I feel this is the right place to achieve that.”

Batlle graduated from Barcelona’s academy before making her senior debut for Madrid CFF in 2017.

She gained regular first-team football at fellow Spanish top-flight side Levante before joining Manchester United in 2020.

The defender went on to make 77 appearances for United before returning to Barcelona as an established Spain international.

Batlle has played 76 times for Spain and was part of the squad that won the World Cup in 2023 and finished runners-up to England at Euro 2025.

She was named in the Fifa Best XI in 2024 and 2025 and it is believed she signed a pre-contract agreement to join Arsenal earlier this year.

“I’m delighted that we’ve been able to bring Ona to the club,” said Arsenal manager Renee Slegers.

“She’s a hugely experienced full-back with strong attacking intent and great physical attributes. She’s a winner and we want to go for more wins together.”

Arsenal’s director of women’s football Clare Wheatley said: “Ona’s track record at both club and international level speaks for itself.

“She’s a proven winner with a hunger to add more trophies. We’re delighted to bring one of the best defenders in the world to Arsenal.”

Batlle will wear the number 22 shirt at Arsenal.

England men’s players have been advised to avoid drinking alcohol on the day before and the day after matches, under new behaviour guidelines.

A midnight curfew was introduced following an Ashes tour blighted by off-field problems, but ambiguities around the curfew were a factor in the nightclub controversy involving Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson.

In the aftermath of that incident, England players were issued new guidance, as reported by the Telegraph, external.

The updated policy confirms the midnight curfew is in place on every day of a series at home or on tour.

It also recommends that no alcohol be consumed on the day immediately before, during or the day immediately after a match. If, for example, a Test runs the full five days, the recommendation extends to the following day.

The head coach and director of cricket, in this instance Brendon McCullum and Rob Key respectively, have the discretion to relax the recommendations when they see fit.

That way, the hierarchy can allow players the freedom to celebrate a win or keep with traditions such as an end-of-series drink with the opposition at the conclusion of an Ashes series.

Players were allowed to drink immediately after the third Test against New Zealand at Trent Bridge, to mark Stokes’ international retirement.

The recommendations apply only to players, rather than staff.

If players do choose to drink in the period before, during or after matches, it should not be in public.

They have also been strongly discouraged from drinking in private, in order to aid preparation, recovery and professionalism.

It has not been confirmed if the guidelines apply only to the England senior men’s teams, or all England teams – including the senior women and pathway programmes.

Regarding the curfew, there are periods when players would naturally leave the England camp, either because there is a long gap between matches or they have been released to their counties. It is unclear if the curfew would still apply.

McGregor has won just one fight in 10 years, but repeatedly claimed he would “destroy” Holloway, who is also a former UFC featherweight champion.

Holloway, 34, regarded as one of the best UFC fighters of all time, engaged occasionally with McGregor but spent the majority of the interactions smiling to himself and shaking his head in amusement.

“He’s got two belts, I can’t wait to take those two pretty belts off his hands,” said Holloway.

“He’s doing all the right things, he’s found God, got his family right here, I can’t wait guys.”

In 2021, McGregor was the highest paid athlete in the world, earning just under £128m over 12 months, but he says he is returning to action “for the love of the game”.

“Honey I’m home. I put a bed in the gym, I lived in the gym literally,” said McGregor.

“No travel, no traffic, with a lot of young, hungry lions around me angling to be in my position.

“So it’s been a tremendous experience, a tremendous camp, here we go. Glory to God.”

Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said Apollo was focusing on EasyJet’s potential.

“While the carrier has been buffeted recently by higher fuel costs and geopolitical turbulence, it has built a resilient European network, a strong balance sheet and, crucially, a fast-growing holidays business. That’s likely to be one of Apollo’s biggest attractions.”

“Package holidays generate higher margins and more predictable revenues than airline tickets alone,” she added.

“For passengers, it’s very much business as usual for now, with flights, bookings and loyalty schemes unaffected while any deal works its way through the regulatory process.”

The latest statement from EasyJet does not mean a deal has been confirmed. Apollo has been set a deadline of 17:00 on 7 August to either make a firm bid for EasyJet or walk away. Castlelake’s deadline to make a firm offer is 3 August.

Apollo’s move came after Castlelake had made a series of offers for EasyJet, which had initially been rebuffed by the carrier after it accused the US firm of trying to buy it “on the cheap”.

However, on Sunday, EasyJet said it had reached an agreement in principle with Castlelake, a US investment firm, over a potential takeover offer worth around £5.2bn.

One significant regulatory hurdle to any EasyJet takeover is that European Union regulations stipulate the carrier must be majority-owned by EU citizens.

Castlelake had proposed going into partnership with two EU nationals, businessmen Peter Bellew and Mark Breen. They would own an EU-based company that would have majority control of the airline.

Apollo said it will take “all necessary steps” to meet any EU conditions surrounding the deal.

EasyJet said the offer from Apollo represented an 81% increase from its share price of £3.94 on 28 May, the last day of trading before the takeover interest from Castlelake was made public.

Until EasyJet reached agreement with Castlelake, it had accused the US firm of being “highly opportunistic” with its bids, arguing that its share price had been “temporarily depressed” partly due to the impact of Iran war on the travel sector.

The prospects for a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran have reached the most perilous point since the two warring parties agreed to a ceasefire in April. A day after ordering the most intense wave of airstrikes on Iran since that agreement went into effect, President Donald Trump on Wednesday proclaimed that he could resume striking Iran as early as tonight and restore the naval blockade after saying he believed the ceasefire was over.

His comments came after Iran attacked tanker ships in the Strait of Hormuz. There were also unconfirmed reports that Iran fired missiles and drones at U.S. warships.

You can read about yesterday’s exchange of fire in our story here.

Meanwhile, Iranian official media declared that the Memorandum of Understanding extending the ceasefire for 60 days to continue negotiations, worked out in Pakistan, is no longer in effect.

“The Islamabad Agreement is Dead,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-connected Tasnim media outlet stated on Telegram. 

This latest and most serious flare-up of tensions came after Iran struck three ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, as we reported. The attacks came during a pause in negotiations for the week-long funeral procession for the former Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli attacks.

In response to those attacks, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it hit 85 targets across southern Iran, including “air defense systems, command and control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and more than 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in and near the strait to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international commerce flowing through the international trade corridor.”

Wednesday morning, Trump amped up the rhetoric during several bilateral meetings at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey.

“We hit them very hard last night — very, very hard — and we’ll probably hit them hard again tonight,” Trump proffered. “They’re cuckoo. There’s something wrong with these people. For 47 years, they’ve been the bully of the Middle East… It’s very simple: they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump also shed additional light on yesterday’s attacks by CENTCOM.

“We attacked Kharg Island last night, knocked out a piece,” Trump stated. “I said, ‘Don’t touch the oil, because maybe we’ll take over Kharg Island.’ We may take over Kharg Island. It’s not a thing they can do about it, but I said, ‘Don’t hit the pipes, just hit everything else,’ and they hit it. They may hit it again tonight.”

You can read about what it would take to attack Kharg Island in our story here.

Trump also hinted that the naval blockade on Iran, lifted when the MoU was signed on June 17, might be resumed.

“And we may put down the blockade,” the American leader suggested. “We may put it back… and it will only be a blockade for Iran.” 

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon was prepared to resume attacks at an even higher level.

“Anything used to harass shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Anything they thought they had rebuilt or capability they were using was a target last night—and tonight, if we need to, on your order, Mr. President, we will hit even more, and even deeper,” he said.

All this came after Trump professed that the ceasefire had ended.

“To me, I think it’s over,” Trump exclaimed. “I don’t want to deal with them, but they’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum, they’re sick people, they’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it.”

Iran, for its part, said that it struck 85 targets in Kuwait and Bahrain after the U.S. attacks.

Kuwaiti officials said they downed all the missiles and drones fired at them.

A U.S. official told us that damage to American facilities in the region was minimal.

“Regarding last night: No U.S. injuries. All missiles and drones fired by Iran were intercepted or failed to hit anything or cause major damage,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. “Bottom line, Iran’s response was defeated.”

As for the future of negotiations, as we noted earlier in this story, Iran is also painting a grim picture.

“Trump, the self-proclaimed terrorist, officially announced the end of the Islamabad Agreement; an agreement that, although earnestly pursued by Iranian negotiators who emphasized the continuation of the struggle and acknowledged that dishonesty is inherent in the United States, was from the beginning clearly understood to be an agreement that would not be honored by the Americans, especially if Iran insisted on its rights,” Tasnim stated. “Trump and the terrorist U.S. government failed to implement the most important clause of the agreement, Clause 1, from the very beginning. Despite the efforts of officials, this agreement was essentially dead from the start, due to the Americans’ broken promises, and only last night was its death officially announced.”

Aside from taking swipes at Iran, Trump also lashed out at Spain for failing to allow the U.S. to have access to its airspace during Operation Epic Fury. The U.S. has several key military installations there, including Naval Station Rota and Moron Air Base. Both facilities had been used as staging grounds ahead of the attack on Iran.

“Spain is a terrible partner in NATO,” Trump complained at a news conference in Ankara with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. “They don’t participate. They don’t pay. I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits.”

Meanwhile, Rutte noted that Spain was an outlier when it came to supporting the U.S. war.

“I would say these are isolated cases; 5000 planes taking off from European airports in support of Epic Fury, it was Europe as one, big platform of power projection for the United States helping with Epic Fury,” Rutte explained.

As we have frequently seen since Operation Epic Fury was launched, tough talk from Trump or the Iranians does not always translate into action and things can and have quickly changed. Still, given what is at stake, we will continue to monitor this situation and provide updates when warranted.

UPDATE: 2:05 PM EDT –

Despite all these harsh statements from both sides, one former CENTCOM commander tells us that a resumption of full-scale hostilities is not inevitable.

“I think the immediate way forward will be controlled escalation focused on a military campaign to degrade the regime’s ability to disrupt activities in the Gulf,” Joseph Votel, who led the command from March 2016 to March 2019, told us. “The targets struck last evening seem to support this and I suspect this is where we are heading.”

“I would expect, as the President said, that we will reimpose the blockade against ships transiting to and from Iranian ports,” added Votel, now a Distinguished Military Fellow at the Middle East Institute. “I think this is what we will see for the next few days until there is greater clarification on where all this is leading.”

The future, however, remains uncertain.

“I don’t know if there is an immediate off-ramp – the next day or two will tell us that,” Votel surmised. “If we strike tonight – that may lead to Iranian counter-strikes against U.S. partners hosting American forces. I think Iran will continue to try to impose costs on us by disrupting the Strait and targeting of Gulf nations that support us.”

As for the Strait of Hormuz (SoH), Votel said: “I think we will see (at least in the short term) control of the SoH to be similar to what we saw before the signing of the June 17th MOU – the U.S. largely in control but with Iran continuing to periodically disrupt and impact shipping and commerce.”

Meanwhile, a high-ranking Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) official we spoke with said a resumption of full-blown hostilities or Israel carrying out a new wave of attacks is not a foregone conclusion.

“My assessment is that the current ceasefire is fragile, but I do not believe we are on the verge of a return to full-scale war,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. “Despite President Trump’s recent remarks, I think his preferred course of action will be to restore and tighten economic sanctions while preserving the option of limited, targeted military strikes against specific Iranian assets if necessary. I do not believe the United States has a strategic interest in becoming involved in another prolonged military campaign unless Iran fundamentally changes the situation through a major escalation.”

The official added that the IDF is ready to resume attacks on Iran if called upon, but that whether it will be remains unknown.

“The IDF itself is not the limiting factor. Israel remains highly prepared, and the military retains credible operational options across the region,” said the official. “Readiness, however, should not be confused with intent. Military capability exists regardless of whether the political leadership decides to employ it.”

“Ultimately, I believe the decisive variable is Washington rather than Jerusalem,” he added. “Any major Israeli operation against Iran would almost certainly require at least tacit American political support and close strategic coordination with the United States. For that reason, I have greater confidence in assessing Netanyahu’s preferences than in predicting President Trump’s decisions.”

Trump “has demonstrated that he is capable of taking decisive military action when he believes it serves American interests, but he has also shown that he is pragmatic and willing to halt escalation when he concludes that continued conflict no longer advances those interests,” the IDF official postulated.

“In short, my expectation is that the near-term strategy will be one of deterrence rather than renewed war: tighter economic pressure on Iran, continued intelligence and covert activities, and the option of limited military strikes if required,” the official continued. “A return to a broad regional conflict remains possible, but in my view it would most likely require a significant Iranian escalation rather than being initiated by either Washington or Jerusalem.”

UPDATE: 5:30 PM EDT –

The U.S. has resumed striking Iran as Trump said he would, according to CENTCOM.

“At the direction of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” the command stated on X. “The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway.”

At the direction of the Commander in Chief, U.S. Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent…

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 8, 2026

Videos purporting to show those attacks are emerging online.

Video footage shows the moment that U.S. strikes targeted Chabahar City in Southern Iran earlier tonight, with the strikes reportedly impacting an air and naval base operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). pic.twitter.com/AwXdsgGnXC

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 8, 2026

As the ongoing U.S. strikes against Iran have already exceeded the scale of last night’s strikes, a U.S. official has told Reuters that the strikes will indeed be greater in scale and number than previous waves of U.S. strikes. The U.S. targeting of an IRGC barracks in Bushehr is… pic.twitter.com/4oTqMUYCLw

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 8, 2026

UPDATE: 5:51 PM EDT –

“This is in retribution for yesterday’s bombing of ships by Iran,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “If it happens again, it will get much worse!”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The U.S. Embassy in Jordan on Thursday warned Americans about “missiles, drones, or rockets…in Jordanian airspace.” The warning came as the U.S. and Iran reportedly exchanged fire amid resumed hostilities that have entered a third day. This latest round of fighting was touched off Tuesday when Iran attacked three ships in the Strait of Hormuz. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump and Iranian officials declared that the shaky ceasefire agreed to on April 8 was over.

“Seek overhead cover and shelter in place immediately,” the U.S. Embassy in Jordan cautioned this morning. “Remain indoors and pay attention to local announcements and alerts. The U.S. Embassy in Jordan will continue to review the situation and provide additional information as needed.”

The Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army (JAF) General Command said the country’s air defense systems “intercepted and shot down eight missiles launched from Iran toward Jordanian territory on Thursday. The interception operations resulted in the fall of missile debris, but no casualties or property damage were reported.”

“JAF is closely monitoring regional developments and remains at the highest level of operational readiness to safeguard the Kingdom’s airspace and defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the command added. “JAF will not allow any party to violate Jordanian airspace under any circumstances.”

Three wins to go. How can your team reach the final and win World Cup 2026? Click here to find out.

Who: Spain vs Belgium
What: FIFA World Cup 2026 – quarterfinal
Where: Los Angeles Stadium in California, United States
When: Friday at noon (19:00 GMT)
How to follow: We will have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 15:30 GMT before our live text commentary stream.

After crushing the “American dream” by taking down cohosts USA in a politically influenced encounter, Belgium are gearing up for their next big challenge.

They face the daunting task of tackling Spain, whose robust defence and careful, possession-based football have made them one of the bookmakers’ favourites at the tournament.

Since an unconvincing performance in the first match, Spain have improved with each contest and punched their ticket to the quarterfinals in style.

They are the first team in history to keep six consecutive World Cup clean sheets – a record achieved by taking out Portugal on Monday and ending Cristiano Ronaldo’s last bid for a world title.

Belgium’s knockout campaign in North America has been nothing short of a roller-coaster, and come Friday, it could take another turn if they upset the reigning European champions to reach the semifinals.

Al Jazeera tells you everything about Spain vs Belgium:

How did Spain and Belgium reach the quarterfinals?

Spain topped Group H with seven points, beating Saudi Arabia and Uruguay and drawing with Cape Verde. They began their knockout campaign with a 3-0 thrashing of Austria in the round of 32 before beating Portugal 1-0 with a late goal in an Iberian football derby in the round of 16.

Belgium topped Group G with five points, winning against New Zealand, and drawing with Iran and Egypt. They defeated Senegal 3-2 in extra time in the round of 32 before thrashing the USA 4-1 in the last 16 contest that was eclipsed by the bitter row over Folarin Balogun’s red card ban.

Courtois is confident Belgium can take down Spain

There may be only five spots between Spain’s and Belgium’s FIFA rankings with La Roja third and Belgium eighth, but the gap in their quality is quite stark.

Spain, the 2010 world champions, are unbeaten in 35 matches, a run that has turned coach Luis de la Fuente’s side from promising European champions into a team that exert confident control over their opponents.

Historically, Belgium have been far behind their Spanish counterparts, especially at major tournaments, having been knocked out in the group stage at the 2022 World Cup and in the last 16 at Euro 2024.

Yet goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois believes Belgium can pull off an upset after finally beginning to show some form at the tournament with a come-from-behind extra-time win and a statement performance in their last two games.

“Everyone on our team realises it’s possible. I think we have a strong squad with qualities that ⁠Spain will have to take into account,” Courtois told reporters on Wednesday.

“There ⁠are always surprises, and I think we can be one of them. Eliminating the European champions would obviously be a huge upset. The confidence is there.

“People were a bit disappointed in us, but we’ve set that right. We’re getting better and better,” he added about Belgium, whose best finish was third place at the 2018 World Cup.

The World Cup is likely the last hurrah for the remainder of Belgium’s so-called golden generation, including creative midfielder Kevin De Bruyne and striker Romelu Lukaku.

Lukaku is Belgium’s top scorer at the tournament with three goals while Leandro Trossard has made an all-round impact with two goals and two assists. Charles De Ketelaere and Youri Tielemans also have two goals each.

‘Yamal brings so much to the team’: Olmo

Slowly finding his feet in his debut World Cup, the prodigiously gifted Lamine Yamal has not enjoyed the hero’s status he’s often used to.

With one goal in five games, the 18-year-old winger – who came into the World Cup on the back of a hamstring injury – is playing catch-up with Mikel Oyarzabal, Spain’s leading tournament scorer with four goals.

Midfielder Dani Olmo said his Barcelona teammate Yamal is growing into the tournament.

“He brings so much to the team with his dribbling and presence. When he receives the ball, two or three opposing players close in on him, which opens up space,” he said.

“Lamine scores and assists. He’s always done that in his short career, and even when he doesn’t, he’ll keep helping us with the work he’s doing.”

Spain vs Belgium prediction

The Opta supercomputer gives Spain a 59.3 percent likelihood of winning in regulation time while Belgium’s chances of winning are 18.3 percent.

The model estimated a 22.4 percent probability of the game going to extra time.

Kickoff time, TV schedule

• Spain: LA1, Teledeporte, RTVE Play, DAZN Mundial (9pm, Central European Summer Time)
• Belgium: VRT Max, Tipik, Auvio, Sportz, VRT (9pm, Central European Summer Time)
• United Kingdom: STV, STV Player, ITVX, ITV1 (8pm, British Summer Time)
• US: FOX, FOX One, Telemundo App, Telemundo Network, Peacock (noon, Pacific Daylight Time; 3pm, Eastern Daylight Time)

To check the TV listings for your country, head to FIFA’s TV listing schedule here.

Who will the winner face in the semifinals?

The winner of the Spain vs Belgium match will face France in the semifinals on Tuesday in Dallas, Texas. France defeated Morocco 2-0 on Thursday to reach the last-four.

Head-to-head

Spain and Belgium have met twice at the World Cup with honours even at one victory apiece.

Their first meeting dates back to 1986 when Belgium beat Spain 5-4 on penalties in the quarterfinals. Then they met in the group stage in 1990 with Spain winning 2-1.

Friday’s match will be Belgium’s third quarterfinal in four World Cups and fourth overall.

For Spain, the quarterfinals have not often been a happy hunting ground. They have only cleared this stage twice, making it to the final group stage in 1950 and beating Paraguay on their way to lifting the trophy in South Africa in 2010.

Team news

Belgium’s midfielder Amadou Onana will miss the remainder of the World Cup after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee during the last match.

No injuries have been reported in the Spain camp.

Spain’s predicted lineup

(4-2-3-1): Simon (goalkeeper); Porro, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella; Rodri, Pedri; Yamal, Olmo, Baena; Oyarzabal

Belgium’s predicted lineup

(4-3-3): Courtois (goalkeeper); Castagne, Mechele, Ngoy, De Cuyper; Tielemans, Raskin, Vanaken; Lukebakio, De Ketelaere, Trossard

Much discussion and debate continue to surround a video said to have been taken near Area 51 that went viral after it was released last month. The footage shows an exotic aircraft that still looks likely to be a progenitor of Boeing’s F-47 sixth-generation fighter for the U.S. Air Force. Its apparent design, with a long shovel-like nose, large canards, and rear-set swept wings, is much different from the tailless, modified delta-winged heavy fighter that many were expecting to come out of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. This, in turn, raises interesting questions about why certain design decisions may have been made and the broader implications of the resulting tradeoffs.

The Project Fear YouTube channel posted the footage of the aircraft in question online back on June 5. Readers can find our initial assessment of the aircraft and its features here.

The full video from Project Fear can be viewed below. The clip of the mysterious aircraft passing by starts at around 49:34 in the runtime, if it does not automatically start playing at that point.

​We Filmed a Top Secret Craft Flying at Area 51

TWZ talked at length with Darold Cummings to more deeply analyze features of the design that appear to be visible in the video and, by extension, what might be inferred about the F-47. Cummings is an aerospace engineer with decades of experience who played a key role in developing Northrop’s YF-23 Black Widow, which lost out to what became Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor.

A screen capture that Project Fear had posted as a teaser before the release of the full video had also prompted new interest in another advanced fighter concept that Cummings had crafted in the 1980s. TWZ previously explored this design, nicknamed the “Christmas Tree” because of its planform, in detail. Cummings has worked on a host of other projects over the years for other companies across the aerospace industry and is now president of his own firm, ForzAero. He has also previously shared his own notional concepts for what the F-47, as well as a navalized derivative, might look like.

We reached out to other experts and long-time observers to get their views on Project Fear’s footage and the F-47, as well. Olivier Vargas, a 3D artist who goes by the handle @ollysaerospace on X and Instagram, was also kind enough to share his artwork based on what could be seen in the Project Fear video, one of which is seen at the top of this story and others throughout it. These are just extrapolated artist impressions and should not be taken as literal.

There are also years’ worth of official artwork from Boeing and other U.S. companies, as well as the Air Force itself, depicting concepts for advanced fighters. These have largely revolved around tailless, modified delta-winged designs, a sampling of which is shown in the collage below.

A useful starting framework

Cummings offered a valuable general rubric for considering advanced combat aircraft designs in his interview with TWZ.

When it comes to designing any fighter, “you just have a team of people who bring in all their needs. It’s like I say, the weapons, the landing gear, the wing, structure, and all the doors, all that stuff comes together,” he explained. “And all those people have to say, ‘what is the best I can do to get the [radar] cross-sectional area down?’ How can I move the landing gear to get the cross-sectional area down? How can I make the weapons bay smaller to get the cross-sectional area down? And all that relates to fineness ratio, and all that relates to the Sears-Haack plot.”

Fineness ratio refers to the ratio of the length of a ‘body,’ such as an aircraft, to its maximum width. The ratio increases the longer and narrower the body is. The Concorde supersonic airliner, with its long, slender fuselage and relatively short wingspan, is a common example of a plane with a very high fineness ratio.

A Sears-Haack plot, or Sears-Haack body, is a shape offering the lowest theoretical drag while traveling at supersonic speed based on a set length and volume. In high-speed aircraft development, the goal then is to devise a planform that is as close to that plot as possible.

“We spent probably a whole year on the Sears-Haack plot on the YF-23,” Cummings recalled. “I remember the structures guy wanted to have me fired because I had to have such [a] thin structure there to get the area down. He wanted to have me tar-and-feathered [sic].”

As noted, the tailless design seen in Project Fear’s video appears to have rear-set swept wings, as well as rhombus-shaped canard foreplanes. From the teaser image that Project Fear released, it had initially appeared that the nose might also have something of a “double arrowhead” shape akin to Cummings’ Christmas Tree concept. However, the full video looks to show a more shovel-like forward fuselage more typically found on low-observable (stealthy) aircraft. Even without the double arrowhead nose, the planform is distinct and notable.

Wings

The wings on the aircraft seen in Project Fear’s footage look to have a significant dihedral, and possibly drooping tips. At the same time, the relative quality of the video, given how far away the subject was, as well as the fact that it was captured in infrared at night, makes it hard to say definitively.

The design has already evoked the memory of Boeing’s Bird of Prey advanced technology demonstrator aircraft, which is understood to have been tested at Area 51 in the 1990s, but was only revealed to the public in 2002. This wing shape would also be in line, broadly speaking, with the renderings of the F-47 that the Air Force has released to date, which also shows the wings have a positive dihedral, though those may not fully reflect the actual design for operational security reasons.

“Now, whether that has the gull wing, up/down, like the Bird of Prey, I can’t tell,” Cummings told us. “I would be surprised if they had the droop [sic] wingtips, like on the Bird of Prey.”

“They’re a little hard to do once you have landing gear in that, because the inboard section would have to have a lot of dihedral to it, and I don’t know what you’re gaining,” he explained.

“Now, that’s not saying that the Bird of Prey doesn’t work. It works. I’m just saying, for simplicity’s sake, and long straight edges,” using “a clipped delta wing with MANTA-type exhaust, to me would be the best solution,” he added, speaking broadly. “Long straight edges for LO [low observability; stealthiness] are the best, no matter what you do. The longer the edges, the better RCS [radar cross section] you have in terms of the types of radars that use – the shorter it is, kind of the worse it is. So, if you can have a nice long straight leading edge and a relatively long straight trailing edge, combined with 3D thrust vectoring, in my opinion, it just doesn’t get much better than that.”

MANTA here refers to the Multi-Axis No-Tail Aircraft (MANTA), a Lockheed design derived from the F-22, which is also known by the designation X-44A. The MANTA never came to be, at least that we know. The designation was later re-applied to a completely unrelated flying wing-type drone, the existence of which was first reported by TWZ.

Cummings also highlighted the stealth advantages, in general, of choosing a tailless planform.

“There’s no intersections. Every time you have an intersection, you have a chance for an RCS reflector. I mean, anytime you have an angle, you have a chance for a reflector. So, if you do [it] with a way without any tails, mostly vertical tails – you can use a horizontal tail like we did on a YF-23, a V-Tail, if you keep it ported, lined up with a wing,” he explained. “You can see that there’s no gap between the wing and the tail [on the YF-23], and if you look at the angles from above, they’re exactly the same. To me, that’s a really ideal configuration. But if you can eliminate the tails completely by using thrust factoring, even better.”

“Ported” in this case means keeping the control surface locked in the same geometric plane as the wing while cruising.

In terms of wing shaping, “ideally it would be the old Dorito chip,” Cummings said, speaking generally. “Remember the ‘Hopeless Diamond,’ the original [Lockheed’s Have Blue demonstrator that evolved into the F-117]? I mean, that would be the optimum shape, but that’s very poor aerodynamically, very poor – very hard to balance, very hard to control.”

“You have a very, very high sweep, very, very long edge, you know, followed up by an angular [sic] on the back, which is less of a threat area. With a nice angled cut off on the back. If you can make it fly,” he continued.

The overall planform does look well-suited to cruising at supersonic speeds. This would be in line with the F-47 being originally envisioned primarily as a replacement for the F-22 Raptor, though that view has since shifted, at least publicly. Supercruise is a signature capability of the F-22.

A combination of high dihedral and drooping tips can be potentially beneficial for supersonic flight, gaining performance from riding on the resulting compression wave. However, Cummings said he did not think this would be applicable in the discussion around the potential design of the F-47.

“You really, in my opinion, need to be going more like Mach 3 to really take advantage of that, and this airplane, I’d be surprised if it did more than Mach 2.2,” he said. “Like the Bird of Prey, it was subsonic. I mean, there was no reason at all, from an aero-lift standpoint, to do it that way, from an aero-lift standpoint. There might be some advantage from an RCS standpoint, but not from an aero-lift standpoint.”

Cummings used the XB-70 Valkyrie bomber, which had wingtips that could be canted down into a drooped position during flight, as an example of an aircraft that does benefit from this feature when it comes to aero-lift. The XB-70 was designed to fly at speeds above Mach 3.

There is the possibility that what looks like ‘droop’ in the wingtips of the design seen in the video Project Fear released could actually depict wingtips that articulate. We cannot say with certainty one way or the other at this time. China’s J-XDS heavy sixth-generation stealth fighter notably has swiveling wingtips, which could help provide critical stability at slower speeds and during hard maneuvering, which are especially sensitive areas of the flight envelope for tailless designs.

Fuel capacity will also be a major factor in the design of the wing. A tailless delta-winged aircraft could offer greater fuel capacity compared to what is seen in the Project Fear video. Significant unrefueled range has long been expected to be a major requirement for the F-47, which we will come back to later on.

For its part, in May 2025, the Air Force released a graphic with unclassified details about its current and future fighter fleets, which listed the F-47’s top speed as “Mach 2+” and put its combat radius at “1,000+” nautical miles. While this is greater than that of any other fighter in the USAF’s inventory by a relatively sizable margin, it is not what one would expect from a heavy tailless delta, so this makes some sense considering the F-47’s unique planform.

Canards

The presence of canards has been a hot topic of discussion surrounding the F-47, even before Project Fear released its video. Canards were a feature that was visible in one of the official renderings released back in March 2025, and that came as a surprise to many.

Canards do provide additional maneuverability and stability, especially for a delta-wing aircraft, and at high angles of attack. Traditional vertical tails also help with stabilization, so canards could offer further benefits when used in tailless designs. However, they have historically been less than ideal for low observable designs, especially from the frontal aspect, which is of critical importance for the survivability of tactical jets flying into harm’s way. TWZ explored all of this in detail at the time.

The presence of canards in the F-47 rendering, and now on the design in the Project Fear footage said to have been taken near Area 51, together with the rest of what can be seen of their planforms, has also recalled the design of the X-36 uncrewed demonstrator. Also known as the Tailless Fighter Agility Research Aircraft, this X-plane was developed by Boeing’s Phantom Works advanced projects division, and you can learn more about it here.

“I’ve always liked the X-36. I always thought that was a great place to start if you’re going to have a canard airplane,” Cummings told us. “The X-36 had yaw thrust vectoring, so they eliminated the vertical tails, which was really fantastic. So, yeah, I think X-36 would be a good place to start.”

“I suspect the wing would probably be either level or maybe minus two degrees, and the canard would probably be plus 10 degrees,” he added when asked about whether the F-47’s canards might have the same dihedral as the main wings.

“You need that type of separation to really have the canard be extremely effective throughout the envelope of the airplane. In fact, if you look at the Chinese J-20, I think that’s about exactly what the J-20 use[s],” he explained, noting that this kind of configuration is called a “close couple.”

“Now, if you’re widespread, you might be less than that, but if you’re close coupled, I would say, plus 10 on the canard, minus two to three on the wing, would be about optimum,” he added.

The degree to which the canards on the F-47 or the design seen in the Project Fear video might be able to articulate is not clear. The canards on the J-20 and many other existing designs have a wide range of motion up and down, and can deflect asymmetrically.

“The original LockMart [Lockheed Martin] design for CALF [the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter], pre-JSF [Joint Strike Fighter], was a canard,” Bill Sweetman, a long-time aviation journalist, also told TWZ. “You might want to lock the foreplane in cruise to avoid gaps, but all very doable. The key is to maintain the edge alignments.”

CALF was merged with the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) effort in the early 1990s to create the JSF program, which led to the F-35. CALF had also evolved from earlier Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) efforts called Advanced Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (ASTOVL) and STOVL Strike Fighter (SSF), which began in the 1980s.

“As for range – might be a toss-up. A delta [wing] gives you huge capacity but a lot of wetted area, and a canard might trim differently in the cruise,” Sweetman also noted, highlighting a potential link between decisions relating to the wing design and canards.

As mentioned earlier, the still image that Project Fear released had also raised the possibility of the design having not just canards, but a “double-arrowhead” configuration. This sparked new interest in Cummings’ “Christmas Tree” fighter concept, also known as the DP-21. From what is visible in the full video, it seems less likely now that the aircraft has this kind of configuration.

“The only advantage of the Christmas Tree design, the only advantage, is it’s a four-spike design,” Cummings said. “No one, to my knowledge, no one in the history of aerospace has made a four-spike fighter.”

It would be “pretty much invisible to radar, as a four-spike airplane,” he added. “In my opinion, it would be a true breakthrough, because it’s never been done.”

As TWZ has previously explained:

“A four-spike design like the B-2 critically has nothing from the head-on aspect, as well as from the rear, which helps immensely with survivability. These are the most critical signature areas, especially the front as the aircraft is heading into hostile territory. Also, because these are located along the path of flight, these spikes can stay consistent on a threat radar as the aircraft moves directly toward or away from the sensor, and are not fleeting in nature like those from the side. So a four-spike aircraft would be very attractive for a tactical fighter meant to persist in contested territory.”

As an aside, Cummings also talked about the value of a canard configuration for a carrier-based fighter, something we have also touched on in the past. Boeing is also in the running to build a sixth-generation fighter for the U.S. Navy, commonly referred to as F/A-XX. The company has released a rendering of its submission to that competition, which shows distinct similarities to the official concept art of the F-47 that has been released to date.

When it comes to a navalized design, canards would be beneficial “mostly for control in landing, and really good control at takeoff,” Cummings said. “If you do it right, you can use the canard in conjunction with thrust vectoring to get everything to do positive lift instead of the wing. You got a wing now that’s giving you pitch-down moment, and now you got a canard giving you pitch-up moment to counter it. So you get the kind of moments you need to get off quickly off the airplane [sic; aircraft carrier] and land in a very, very good aerodynamic situation.”

“Let’s put it this way, we did this same kind of layout on the YF-23, and it worked. Believe it or not, we had a canard version of YF-23. Most people don’t know that, but we actually did, and that was for the Navy, for the same exact reason,” he noted.

Weapons bays

Project Fear’s video does not offer any clues as to the configuration of any weapons bays on the design said to have been spotted near Area 51 or the F-47. However, Cummings spent considerable time in the interview highlighting how these internal bays influence the rest of any fighter design.

“Every fighter design is driven around the weapon bay, period. What weapons do you take? How big are they? How long are they? And you design from the inside out,” he told us. “So, then the question becomes, what can I do to wrap this in an airframe that’s really, really good aerodynamically, and really, really good from an RCS standpoint.”

“There’s really two separate issues there. The wing really has very little to do with the actual weapons bay itself. That weapons bay, the airplane’s laid out around the weapons bay, and then the area plot is laid out around the weapons bay and the wing integration,” he continued. “Those things together have to have a nice, beautiful, smooth, Sears-Haack plot. And that’s really hard to do, by the way, it’s really hard to do.”

“Everything wants to be in the CG [center of gravity],” Cummings added. “The wing[‘s] maximum thickness, the weapons bay, the inlet, and the landing gear, they all want to be in the same place where you want the least amount of cross-sectional area. And yet they’re all there, and nobody wants to give anything.”

“The thing that would work the best was [sic] if you had really small diameter weapons,” in Cummings’ opinion. “That would be good, because then you could really tighten everything, because you can’t do anything about landing gear size. It’s very difficult to do anything about inlet size. It’s very difficult to do anything about wing thickness.”

“About the only area where you can make any headway is if somehow you could get smaller diameter weapons, or like that new Peregrine weapon,” he added.

Peregrine is an air-to-air missile concept that Raytheon first unveiled back in 2019. It is a truncated derivative of the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), as you can read more about here. Other companies have put forward compact air-to-air and air-to-surface munitions over the years, as well, for exactly the reasons Cummings highlighted. TWZ has also long called attention to the value smaller air-launched weapon designs could offer in terms of magazine depth, especially for internal carriage on stealthy aircraft.

There has been a particular surge in the development of more compact (and lower-cost) air-launched munitions recently, with designs that are increasingly blurring the line between traditional missiles and long-range kamikaze drones. Though the initial focus has been on air-to-surface applications, there is also explicit interest in extending these developments into the air-to-air realm.

“To me, the biggest improvement, the way to get the area down, is if you could put the Peregrine weapon in,” he said. “Then you could slim the weapons bay down. … That would be a home run.”

The new AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM), a joint development effort by the U.S. Navy and Air Force, is also interesting to consider in the context of slimming weapons bays down. A core requirement for the AIM-260 was to have roughly the same form factor as the AIM-120. However, JATM’s only control surfaces are four small fins at the tail, making it narrower than the AMRAAM. The AIM-120 has fins around the middle of the body, as well as at the tail end of the missile. AMRAAM variants have also been developed with mid-body fins with clipped tips, a change originally driven by the constraints of the F-22’s internal bays.

Weaponry may be something of a wild card when it comes to the F-47 due to a new factor in the equation: Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and other similar loyal wingman-type drones. Acting as quarterbacks for uncrewed aircraft will be a key role for the Air Force’s new sixth-generation fighters. The service’s future CCA fleets will be armed, at least for air-to-air combat, right from the start.

CCAs will open up new operational possibilities that might allow for the F-47’s organic weapons load to be kept more limited, with drones providing the additional magazine depth. It might be possible then to truncate the F-47’s overall design, or optimize it differently, including for higher performance and lower cost, by limiting its organic weapons carriage capacity.

TWZ previously touched on many of these points after the Air Force floated the idea of a new light fighter, potentially as an alternative to the combat jet component of the NGAD initiative, back in 2024. That came amid a deep review of the NGAD requirements, which called its future into question. The service ultimately decided to stick with its original plan, leading to the F-47.

At the same time, the F-47 is supposed to be a heavy-hitting, deep-penetrating fighter in an era where standoff weaponry, even for very stealthy aircraft, is also of increasing importance due to advancements in enemy air defenses. So we will have to wait and find out if weapons carriage capacity was exchanged for other advantages or if the F-47 will pack a major, outsized punch of its own.

Other design aspects

Project Fear’s video does not offer clear insights into a host of other features that would be important factors in the overall design of the plane seen therein, as well as the future F-47. For instance, the shaping and location of the inlets are absolutely critical for safe and reliable engine function, and blending them with other aspects of a stealthy aircraft can be especially complicated. As Cummings noted, other essential components like the landing gear also have to be squeezed into the available volume, and trade-offs have to be made to accommodate everything that is necessary.

There are still questions about what engines the F-47 will use, even just initially. The Air Force has been pursuing so-called adaptive cycle designs through an adjacent effort known as the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) program. General Electric and Pratt & Whitney have been working on competing designs, known as the XA102 and XA103, under NGAP.

In very general terms, adaptive jet engines have bypass ratios that can be adjusted on demand while in flight between modes optimized for fuel efficiency or power. With this kind of propulsion, a tactical jet like the F-47 could switch between higher and lower bypass modes as appropriate for general cruising, including transits to and from operating areas, and actual combat. This would help conserve fuel, as well as extend the aircraft’s range and loiter time. As TWZ has noted in the past, this could be particularly valuable in a future high-end fight against China in the Pacific, where tankers would be in high demand and under threat, and available bases could be few and far between.

The General Electric video below offers a general overview of adaptive cycle technology in relation to that company’s XA100 engine, which preceded its XA102 design.

GE XA100: Tested and Ready for F-35

“General Electric’s advanced programs lead, Harvey Maclin, was at the time [of the X-36’s development] talking about fluidic thrust vectoring — injecting air into an engine’s exhaust on one side or the other — as a solution that did not involve stealth-defeating outside flaps,” Sweetman wrote in a piece for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (APSI), which was published on June 16. “Maclin was GE’s advocate for an engine design (the Controlled Overall Pressure-ratio Engine) that had evolved from the variable-bypass F120, the losing candidate for powering the ATF. This new design could switch from a configuration good for subsonic flight (as a turbofan) to a turbojet mode that could push a fighter through the air supersonically without afterburning – that is, it could cruise supersonically. The design was the direct ancestor of today’s adaptive engines and a perfect match for an X-36-like combat aircraft.”

Supercruise is a huge factor here. As mentioned earlier, this is a key capability for the F-22, with its two F119 turbofans. However, the Raptor also has a notoriously short combat radius. Its design is optimized for higher-speed flight, but it still consumes a lot of gas in supercruise. As such, F-22s typically only use their ability to cruise supersonically for relatively short dashes. The jets also regularly fly with underwing drop tanks to extend their range and on-station time, but this negatively impacts their radar signature. Stealthy drop tanks are now in development as part of a larger Raptor 2.0 upgrade package. TWZ has discussed much of this in the past in a detailed piece that explored what might be expected from the NGAD combat jet in terms of performance, which was published years before the F-47 selection.

Unrefueled combat radius and maximum range requirements are also key parts of this equation.

“My preference would be one of the newer types that are compound engines with variable flow, where they have [the] capability to operate both as what you call a turbofan and as a turbojet,” Cummings also told us. “They’re more complex, but I think in the end you would get the kind of range you’re going to need out of this airplane in the Indo-Pacific region. I think the range, just my estimations, I think the range is going to be double that of the F-22. I think it’s going to have to be double to get the range in the Indo-Pacific region.”

“It’s not, but I think it will be,” he added when asked if he felt this view was reflected in what has been seen on the F-47 design so far. “I think it will be part of the design. I think the engine will have to meet the needs of extremely long range. That’s my opinion.”

As noted earlier, the Air Force has said the F-47’s combat radius will be “1,000+” nautical miles, which is long, but not necessarily as long as many were expecting. The infographic that provided the specifications for the service’s forthcoming sixth-generation fighter also offered figures for the F-22 (590 nautical miles) and the F-35A (670 nautical miles). Based on the official data, the F-47 will offer at least a roughly 30 percent boost in combat radius over the F-35A. This is broadly similar to what the Navy has said it is aiming for with the F/A-XX in terms of range extension (a 25 percent increase) compared to existing types.

As mentioned in the discussion about the wings, the need to carry sufficient fuel to meet (or even exceed) unrefueled range targets will have impacts on various aspects of the design. This would notably be another potential trade-off when it comes to determining the size and configuration of the weapons bays.

There are other performance parameters to consider, as well, including operational ceiling. F-47’s capability in this regard is expected to be in line with that of the F-22, which is capable of regularly operating at over 60,000 feet. Flying at similar altitudes and being able to remain there longer would be advantageous for the F-47. A perch like this would extend the reach of its weapons and increase the field of view for its sensors. This would also be very beneficial for line-of-sight datalinks, including those used to control drones.

Another outstanding question is whether the F-47 might be a single- or two-seat design.

“I suspect it will be [a two-seat] one. There’s been a lot of talk about having a two-place [design] to operate the CCAs, but I don’t know – it would have to be in the requirements to start with,” Cummings said. “The way they would do it was, there would be, like the F-18 [F/A-18 Hornet], there would be a common fuselage that accommodated both a single and a two-place [configuration] from day one. You would do it from day one. You wouldn’t do it later.”

TWZ has long highlighted the value of two-seat designs, including the Air Force’s new F-15EX Eagle II, in the airborne drone controller role. Cumming said that if it were up to him, he would have a two-seat version available for this reason.

“I’m looking at what’s going on with the CCAs. I would at least have a two-place version on paper,” he said. “Because, and again, this is just my opinion, with all the information that’s coming in, especially like on F-35, all the information that’s coming in on all the other threats and everything else that’s going on, to do that, along with operating the CCAs, to me [it] would be a bit overwhelming. And if they’re really, really going to have that many CCAs in the air, again, just to me, it just seems reasonable and logical to have a second seat, at least in some versions.”

Advances in autonomy, helped by developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning, could help reduce the workload to a level that is more manageable by a single pilot. There would still be major tradeoffs to doing this, especially given the broader complexities of the missions that F-47s are expected to be tasked with.

Go with what you know

At the end of the day, one of the biggest factors for Boeing in designing the F-47, and that of its progenitors, may just be efforts to leverage past work on designs like the Bird of Prey and the X-36 to help burn-down risk. Broader institutional practices can also drive companies to lean toward particular designs as a rule.

“It’s been my expectation that Boeing would lean heavily on their experience with Bird of Prey and the X-36. It’s deeper than risk reduction in the traditional sense,” Steve Trimble, another long-time aviation journalist, Aviation Week‘s defense editor, and friend of TWZ, told us. “These companies have a system of design codes that they’ve built up over decades that they stray from at their peril. You build what you know, in other words.”

“Beyond that, it’s difficult for me to comment knowledgeably about why Boeing went this route versus a tailless delta. They obviously committed to that approach three decades ago for a reason,” he added. “Darold Cummings has spoken about how difficult it was to make his Christmas Tree design for Northrop controllable, but Boeing accepted a similar challenge. One would presume that their analysis showed it was worth it. But I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to speculate on their reasons.”

“I didn’t have any particular expectations. Western concept art is usually misleading and has no input from the high side,” Sweetman also told us. “I had seen what I thought was some X-36 legacy in the 2025 concept, but would not have gone there without the connection of Wiechman consulting for the RCO [Rapid Capabilities Office] (and presumably the APO [Aerospace Projects Office] too).”

The Wiechman mentioned here is Alan Wiechman. He “began his career at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, supporting the HAVE BLUE, Sea Shadow, and F-117 Nighthawk” and then later worked for McDonnell Douglas, where he “contributed to many efforts including the F-15, F-18E/F, F-23, X-45, X-36, the Boeing Bird of Prey, and other classified activities,” according to an obituary following his passing in 2023.

The Rapid Capabilities Office that Sweetman referred to is a U.S. Air Force organization that has led work on several cutting-edge, high-priority programs over the years, including the development of the B-21 Raider stealth bomber and the X-37B reusable spaceplane. The Aerospace Projects Office is part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA had a direct hand in the crafting of at least two classified X-plane demonstrators that fed into the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, which birthed the F-47.

“Wiechman’s obituary in 2023 noted that he had ‘most recently’ been an adviser on stealth to the USAF Rapid Capabilities Office,” Sweetman also wrote in his APSI piece. “And now there’s an X-36-like shape over Nevada.”

At several points during his interview with us, Cummings also reiterated his particular design preferences.

“If I were doing the airplane, and I’ve done it, I would use the longest straight edge possible,” Cummings told us. “Looking down from the top or the bottom, you really couldn’t see the inlet, it would be underneath the wing, and you would use the MANTA-type 3D thrust vectoring. To me, that would be the optimum.”

“The ‘Christmas Tree’ design, to me, is not a very maneuverable airplane. It’s not very maneuverable, because it really has difficulties at high-angle-of-attack maneuvering, like tight turns, because you have the way the surfaces are laid out,” he added. “For an overall airplane that’s not a four-spike, I would rather do the designs … like the MANTA type of a layout than what we’re seeing in the pictures of what they’re saying is the Boeing F-47.”

Lingering questions

Many questions still remain as to why the Air Force would pursue a sixth-generation fighter with rear-swept wings and canards rather than a more triangular, modified delta-wing planform. As noted, the design that looks to be emerging now could offer greater maneuverability, but also trade-offs in other capabilities as a result. This is all despite a steady trend in downplaying the importance of maneuverability in future aerial combat and focusing more on engaging threats beyond visual range, hopefully before friendly forces are even detected. This has been going on for decades now, and has been fueled further by the advancement of stealth technology and deeply networked ‘kill webs’ that incorporate assets from across air, land, sea, space, and even cyberspace domains.

“The other thing is, it’s really interesting when we did it with YF-23 – and this is, again, 43 years ago – the whole thing was first shot, first kill,” Cummings noted in speaking with us. “Before the enemy even saw, you killed them. You don’t really need to maneuver.”

As another point of comparison, despite its previous experience with fourth and fifth-generation canard fighters, China has notably gone in the opposite direction with its next-generation J-36 heavy tactical jet and, to a lesser extent, the aforementioned J-XDS. The J-36’s planform is clearly optimized for straight-line performance, combat radius, and payload over maneuverability and agility. The smaller J-XDS presents a more balanced design, but one that is still not likely to possess extreme agility. Much debate remains about the expected mission profiles of both of these aircraft, and how that influenced their design. TWZ explored all of this in far greater detail in a feature last year.

As highlighted at the start of this story, years of prior concept art from U.S. companies, including Boeing, had also largely pointed to a canard-less, tailless delta-wing design being in line to become the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation fighter. Canards have been present, on-and-off, in renderings of notional sixth-generation carrier-based designs for the U.S. Navy.

It’s worth pointing out here that we also have very little information on the designs that lost out to the F-47. In 2025, former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said that Boeing’s design was distinctly different from the competing entry from Lockheed Martin, but did not elaborate further. He also described both designs as viable. Kendall’s remarks came during an edition of the Defense & Aerospace Report‘s Air Power Podcast.

How the Air Force’s Agile Concept Employment (ACE) concepts of operations could have shaped the selection of the F-47, and the aircraft’s design, is something else worth considering. ACE is a set of concepts for distributed and disaggregated operations that puts heavy emphasis on deploying forces rapidly or in an otherwise irregular manner, to forward locations that may be remote, austere, or otherwise non-traditional in nature.

Visualizing ACE

ACE is seen as critical for enabling future operations and reducing the vulnerability of friendly forces, especially in a high-end fight, such as one against China in the Pacific. New logistics and other requirements are also now emerging, particularly when it comes to what will be necessary to push stealthy platforms with more specialized maintenance requirements far forward. The demands of ACE operations are already known to be deeply baked into the Air Force’s requirements for its future CCA drones. It could very well be that this unique canard and rear-set wing design was significantly better than a modified delta for operating from shorter fields, we just don’t know.

The first F-47 is in production now, and the Air Force has publicly said that it is targeting a first flight in 2028. Despite some speculation about what was seen in the Project Fear video, there is no hard evidence so far that it has already entered flight testing. The Air Force will eventually have to show the actual design to the public, at least in part, with the fighter set to be the service’s premier tactical aviation asset, starting hopefully in the early 2030s.

There is always the possibility that the actual F-47 looks quite different from what we have seen so far, and even does away with the canards. We have no indication that this is the case at this time. In fact, now with this demonstrator aircraft, everything points to that not being the case.

As progress continues on the F-47, more insights into what certain design decisions were and what benefits they offer, as well as more details about their origins, should emerge. For now, it is interesting to see a design continue to materialize that is distinctly different from what many were expecting the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter to look like.

Special thanks again to Olivier Vargas for sharing his interpretation of the design seen in the Project Fear video.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

US President Donald Trump gave his blessing earlier this week to domestic Ukrainian production of the missiles.

Ukraine must make every effort to start domestic production of desperately needed Patriot interceptor missiles as soon as possible, now that Washington has agreed to grant Kyiv the necessary licences, President Volodymyr ⁠Zelenskyy has said.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday after returning from this week’s NATO summit in Turkiye, Zelenskyy said that political approval had been obtained from US President Donald Trump when they met in Ankara and the challenge now was to quickly take the practical steps needed to begin production.

“We resolved this issue ‌politically,” he said. “It’s now very important that our technical teams, all our representatives from different ministries, representatives of the executive branch, start working on this without delay, so that we can get licences very quickly and start production in Ukraine as soon as possible.”

Although Kyiv has received regular donations of Patriot missiles from its allies for its defence against Russia’s invasion, global supplies are running low, and Ukraine is using the interceptors at a faster rate than they can be produced in the US.

Zelenskyy has been pressing the US to allow Ukraine to start producing the missiles itself to overcome the supply shortage.

At a joint news conference with Zelenskyy in Ankara on Wednesday, Trump told him: “We’re going to give a licence to you to make Patriots. This way, you can’t complain that we’re not giving them enough.”

The Patriot is a US-made air defence system. Its PAC-3 interceptor – short for Patriot Advanced Capability-3 – is one of the few Western weapons capable of shooting down the ballistic missiles Russia has ⁠increasingly fired at Ukrainian cities.

Zelenskyy said his meeting with Trump had been a success, and he had also reached agreements with European allies.

“I believe this was a productive summit for Ukraine. In the coming days, we’ll receive a package from the United States, and there were also some separate agreements,” he said, referring to securing more PAC-3 interceptors.

“President Trump has repeatedly emphasised that today, only two to three countries in the world can produce Patriots, because the others are not technologically ready. Ukraine is recognised by America as a country that is ready to do this,” Zelenskyy said.

“Now, after our agreement with the president, our teams, our diplomats, the foreign ministries and defence ministries need to agree on all the remaining technical details. The sooner we reach those agreements, the sooner we will be able to produce Patriots.”

Patriot production will take months

However, Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister, warned that setting up domestic production of the mobile, surface-to-air systems will take many months.

On his Telegram channel, Beskrestnov said a production licence would typically come with technical process documentation, training for specialists, supplier contacts and foreign consultants to help launch manufacturing.

The main obstacle would be time, rather than Ukraine’s technical or organisational capacity, he said, due to bottlenecks, including the long production cycle for some subcontracted components, which could take 12 to 24 months.

During the NATO summit, Trump praised Zelenskyy for doing “an amazing job”, a sharp change in tone from past criticisms of the Ukrainian leader.

Trump insisted that he remained determined to facilitate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.

“It’s not the easiest; not the easiest thing,” the US president said of an eventual peace settlement. “There’s a lot of commitment, and there’s a lot of love of the countries and everything else. But I think we’ve made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks.”

South Korean computer chip maker SK Hynix has raised $26.5bn (£19.8bn) in its New York share offering, marking the largest ever listing by a foreign firm in the US.

The company, a key supplier to artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia, said on Thursday that it had sold 177.9 million American depositary shares for $149 each. The shares are set to begin trading on Friday on the Nasdaq.

In May, SK Hynix saw its market value top $1tn in its home country, lifted by the boom in demand for AI chips.

Its share price has more than tripled in South Korea this year, which along with Samsung Electronics has helped boost the benchmark Kospi index by more than 70% over the same period.

SK Hynix is one of the world’s leading memory chip makers. The industry has been given a major boost by the hundreds of billions being spent on AI.

Shares in rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron have more than doubled in recent months.

The US listing gives SK Hynix easier access to huge amounts of potential investment from the world’s biggest economy, which has fewer barriers than South Korea, said Seoul National University finance professor Jaewon Choi.

Traders are closely watching the listing as a “yardstick to test the water” for whether investor enthusiasm for memory chip makers will continue, Choi said.

The AI boom has triggered a rush of companies raising money on the the stock market.

In June, GrokAI owner SpaceX became the world’s biggest ever listing as it raised $85.7bn.

Meanwhile, AI developers Anthropic and OpenAI are preparing to go public, with valuations of more $1tn.

Demand for SK Hynix’s offering was reportedly over seven times more than the number of shares available, highlighting the strong investor appetite for a key company in the AI supply chain.

Each American depositary share is equivalent to a tenth of a Seoul-traded common share, SK Hynix said.

The offering gives US investors a way to buy SK Hynix shares without having to trade via an overseas stock exchange.

The company has pledged major investments to develop South Korea’s chip making and AI capabilities in the coming years.

The country’s government is likely to be counting on SK Hynix’s US listing to raise funds that can support the firm’s domestic investments, said Hanyang University business professor Yun Youngjin.

But the Nasdaq listing carries some risks, especially if investors move money towards the US and away from South Korea’s stock market, Yun added.

In June, the country’s government unveiled plans for more than $880bn of investments in partnership with SK Hynix and Samsung.

Both SK Hynix and Samsung have stock market valuations of more that $1tn, joining growing group of firms which includes tech giants Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Google-owner Alphabet.

The U.S. Navy’s Nimitz class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has been underway for 210 straight days – well over half a year – in support of Operation Epic Fury and the subsequent blockade of Iran. This looks to be a record-setting milestone. Lincoln, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3 (CSG-3), is currently operating in Middle Eastern waters.

Abraham Lincoln, the fifth Nimitz class supercarrier and self-styled “most capable CSG in the fleet,” departed Naval Base Guam on December 12, 2025, after a quick one-day port call. Port calls, or temporary visits to friendly countries, allow the crew to disembark for “liberty” – to step on solid ground – and break up the grueling, nonstop schedule experienced during deployments. However, the stop in Guam, a strategic U.S. territory in the Western Pacific, was so brief that much of the crew likely never went ashore.

Lincoln and CSG-3, made up of more than 5,000 Sailors and Marines, quietly left Naval Base San Diego three weeks earlier on November 21, 2025. At the time, the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean was the focus of public attention, and Lincoln was expected to conduct a routine Pacific patrol. An Iran contingency was on the table following Operation Midnight Hammer, when B-2 bombers struck nuclear targets deep inside Iran, and Lincoln’s Composite Training Unit Exercise (COMPTUEX) included preparing for a fight in the Middle East. COMPTUEXs are weeks-long capstone training events for carrier strike groups that come right before they deploy.

After leaving Guam, Lincoln conducted operations in the South China Sea before entering the Indian Ocean and arriving in the northern Arabian Sea in late January. Aircraft from Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9 launched sorties in the opening salvo of Operation Epic Fury, and the CSG was instrumental in enforcing the naval blockade that followed. Since the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed on June 17, Lincoln has remained in the northern Arabian Sea, launching retaliatory strikes during the recent skirmishes.

The CSG has been deployed for more than seven months now and would likely be among the first naval assets to rotate out of the theater if an agreement is reached between the U.S. and Iran. The details and scale of the drawdown of forces in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) AOR, as per the MOU agreed to by American and Iranian officials last month, are to be determined within 30 days if a final deal is reached before the deadline in mid-August. A new spate of tit-for-tat strikes just this week has created serious uncertainty around future talks between Washington and Tehran. More than 20 U.S. Navy surface combatants are still operating in the region.

“We’ve officially claimed the title for most consecutive days at sea for any modern aircraft carrier,” Lt. Commander Alexis Travis, an officer currently serving aboard Lincoln, wrote on Instagram on June 16.

We have reached out to the Navy to confirm whether this is indeed a record-breaking period at sea. However, we have not received a response as of the time of publication.

In June 2020, the U.S. Navy did announce that the Nimitz class carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Ticonderoga class cruiser USS San Jacinto had set a new record after spending 161 days consecutively operating at sea. Eisenhower did not make a stop in port until the next month, having been at sea for 206 consecutive days in the end. This was, in part, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when port access was severely limited due to quarantine restrictions. The carrier had left Norfolk in January 2020 for a deployment to the Middle East and launched combat sorties during Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan, returning home nearly seven months later without a single stop. Prior to that, USS Theodore Roosevelt held the record in 2002, supporting the post-9/11 response. Roosevelt left Norfolk in September 2001 to participate in Operation Enduring Freedom and spent 160 days at sea before anchoring in Bahrain for a reprieve in February the following year.

In April, USS Gerald R. Ford, the newest American carrier and largest in the world, logged the longest deployment on record at 326 days. Ford, while deployed for nearly eleven months, was operating primarily in the U.S. European Command-6th Fleet area of responsibility (AOR) and U.S. Southern Command-4th Fleet AOR, which is relatively friendly territory, and made at least nine port calls in Marseille, Oslo, Palma de Mallorca, Split, St. Thomas Island, and Souda Bay. Between port calls and stops to refuel and make emergent repairs, Ford averaged a visit to port every 36 days.

The Lincoln CSG, which also includes guided-missile destroyers from Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 21, served as the tip of the spear in Operation Epic Fury. DESRON 21 fired dozens of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) against Iran, and provided defensive measures for the CSG, using Standard Missiles and other armaments to intercept incoming threats. The embarked “air wing of the future,” CVW 9, launched thousands of sorties and pressured Iran’s southern axis during the 40-day war, successfully escorted commercial ships through the contested Strait of Hormuz, and hunted and disabled Iranian-affiliated vessels attempting to run the blockade. The carrier’s air wing notably includes F-35C Joint Strike Fighters assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 (VMFA 314), giving it better penetrating capabilities. The CSG has proven its ability to blend and interoperate high, medium, and low-end naval and joint capabilities, for offensive and defensive purposes, as well as integrate across platforms, including manned and unmanned systems, conventional and unconventional, surface and subsurface, overt and covert, and more, during nonstop combat operations.

The destroyers escorting Lincoln were able to make port calls before the war began, but some have been at sea for over four months. USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., the Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Commander, moored at Navy Terminal in the Port of Duqm, Oman, for two days in mid-February. USS Michael Murphy, the last destroyer to leave the Persian Gulf before the first shots were fired, docked in Dubai, UAE, from February 25-27, and left the day before the city was targeted in the initial waves of Iran’s counterattack. Satellite imagery reviewed by TWZ at the time showed Murphy’s precise location the day prior was targeted. USS Spruance, the only San Diego-based destroyer operating with CSG-3, deployed on the same day as Lincoln, and has been at sea for just as long, with one port call in December in Guam. Spruance was spotted firing a black TLAM on the first day of Epic Fury.

“Literally no one signed up for this,” Lt. Commander Travis also wrote on Instagram. “And yet here we are, still doing it safely and successfully. Just a strong group doing tough stuff, breaking records and then waking up and doing it again.”

When the crew serving tirelessly aboard Lincoln will next set foot on land is unknown, and with the fate of the U.S.-Iran MOU similarly uncertain, it may be some time.

Contact the author: ian.ellis-jones@teamrecurrent.io

Caracas, July 9, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) –  Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has called on UK King Charles III to release her country’s gold reserves held at the Bank of England in order to finance relief and reconstruction efforts following the devastating earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24.

“I have decided to send a letter, among others, to the King of England asking for the release of the gold being held at the Bank of England. That gold belongs to our people and should be used to address the terrible, tragic consequences of the twin earthquakes,” Rodríguez said in a televised broadcast on Wednesday.

The acting president also revealed that she held a phone conversation with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva to discuss the release of Venezuelan resources that remain blocked by the institution.

Earlier on Wednesday, during a virtual meeting with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil likewise urged countries holding Venezuelan assets abroad to “begin a process of releasing” those funds so they can be used for the country’s recovery.

Gil specifically referred to the gold reserves held by the Bank of England and Venezuelan funds blocked under US sanctions. Around 31 metric tons of gold, currently valued at approximately US $4.2 billion, remain frozen in London. In addition, nearly $5 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) allocated by the IMF in 2021 also remain inaccessible.

On Wednesday, Rodríguez and Georgieva reportedly discussed the use of Venezuela’s $350 million SDR reserve fund, which is different from the SDR allocation.

On June 25, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License 60, authorizing earthquake relief-related transactions until October. However, OFAC’s waiver does not authorize the unblocking of assets subject to US sanctions regulations or “any other transaction or activity prohibited by another Executive Order.”

Meanwhile, 113 prominent economists, including Isabella Weber, Jeffrey Sachs, and James K. Galbraith, signed an open letter calling for immediate action to “unfetter Venezuela’s humanitarian response and reconstruction from ongoing economic and financial sanctions, asset freezes, and onerous debt burdens.”

“We urge governments, international financial institutions, and creditors to act now, on the principle that lives, public health, and economic recovery take precedence over coercion and collection,” the statement read. The economists suggested mechanisms including emergency liquidity, sanctions relief, and debt cancellation as a “minimum response […] to allow Venezuelans to rebuild with dignity.”

Along similar lines, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher warned that the earthquakes are likely to generate “a very difficult economic situation” that could reduce Venezuela’s GDP by “several percentage points,” arguing that sanctions “must be eased so they do not hinder the arrival of humanitarian assistance or recovery efforts.”

Fletcher added that during emergencies, access to financial resources, banking channels, and international cooperation mechanisms can determine how quickly aid, supplies, and reconstruction funding reach affected communities.

Preliminary assessments by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimate infrastructure and essential services losses at approximately US$6.7 billion. However, the final figure could reach $8.7 billion, depending on housing and asset losses, and the estimates do not include the full extent of infrastructure damage or the long-term reconstruction costs.

For its part, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) estimates that rebuilding Venezuela will require approximately $37 billion. According to its assessment, $24 billion would be needed to replace damaged buildings—including homes, schools, businesses, and hospitals—while another $13 billion would be required to repair critical infrastructure such as telecommunications, highways, and electricity networks.

Different analyses have placed the recovery costs between $12 and $20 billion.

So far, however, the Trump administration has pledged $300 million in humanitarian assistance, whereas Venezuela’s US-based frozen assets are valued at $11-13 billion. The White House also retains control over Venezuela’s oil export revenues, returning a portion of the funds to Caracas at its discretion.

Rodríguez announced on Wednesday that countries offering humanitarian aid can monitor its distribution through a digital platform used to coordinate deliveries across the 87 temporary shelters established for displaced families throughout the country. The acting president has vowed to prioritize the well-being of families who lost their homes and to provide new housing solutions in the coming months.

The latest official update placed the death toll from the earthquakes at 3,889, while the number of injured remains at 16,740 and the number of displaced people stands at 17,907.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Regional health agency warns of increased risk of a disease outbreak after Venezuela’s twin earthquakes

Venezuela’s authorities say the death toll from twin earthquakes last month has risen to 3,889, as regional health agencies warn of an increased risk of disease.

Lawmaker Jorge Rodrigues said on Thursday at least 16,740 people had been injured and 17,907 displaced.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned that displaced people across Venezuela’s northern coast, the area most affected by the tremors, are at risk of disease because of limited access to clean water and regular medical care.

“In the coming weeks, the greatest health risks may stem not only from injuries caused by the earthquakes, but also from disruptions to health services, overcrowded conditions, deficiencies in water and sanitation and reduced access to vaccination and routine healthcare,” PAHO’s director Jarbas Barbosa said.

The agency is working with Venezuela’s health ⁠ministry to improve vaccine access and trace any outbreaks of respiratory or digestive illnesses, especially in shelters set up for those who lost their homes.

The United Nations launched an appeal for roughly $300 million to assist 1.3 million people in urgent need of aid in Venezuela.

PAHO urged immediate disbursement of the remaining $15 million in requested emergency aid to repair damaged hospitals and to maintain basic sanitation in camps for the displaced to prevent a health emergency.

The current heatwave is not expected to break any daily temperature records, however, on Thursday the Met Office announced there have been eight days in 2026 where the heat has reached or exceeded 34C.

There were two in the May heatwave, four in June’s and so far two in this one, which is a record for the calendar year, surpassing 1976 and 2020. A further 34C plus reading is anticipated on Friday.

During June’s heatwave, temperatures peaked at 37.7C in Lingwood, Norfolk, smashing the previous June record of 35.6C.

Wales also recorded its hottest June day with 35.9C in Cardiff, while Northern Ireland equalled its June record with 30.8C in Castlederg, County Tyrone.

Scotland fell just slightly short of hitting its all-time June record which was 32.2C set in 1893. In June its top temperature was 31.2C at Threave, in Dumfries and Galloway.

In this July heatwave the highest temperature so far this time has been 35.5C at Wisley in Surrey, on Thursday.

Although temperatures will drop off a little into the weekend, many places will still reach the official heatwave thresholds through much of next week.

People may be drawing comparisons with 1976, where the UK saw 16 consecutive days above 30C, but this record is not likely to be broken.

The highest temperature recorded in the UK was during the unprecedented heatwave of 2022, when an astonishing 40.3C was recorded in Coningsby, Lincolnshire.

An image has appeared, apparently for the first time, showing a Chinese J-15T carrier-based fighter launching while carrying four anti-ship missiles. The photo offers the clearest indication yet that China’s rapidly evolving carrier force is overcoming one of its longstanding operational constraints: getting heavily loaded strike fighters airborne from its flattops.

The image, at the top of this story, shows a J-15T in full afterburner moments before leaving the deck of the Fujian, the first People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) carrier equipped with catapults. The fighter is armed with four YJ-83K anti-ship missiles — double the number previously seen carried by a J-15 — amounting to a weapons load of roughly 6,400 pounds before accounting for any additional stores that may not be visible.

Previously, in fact, it seems that the latest J-15T version has only ever been seen with a single YJ-83K training round, while the aircraft was still in prototype form.

The YJ-83K is a widely used subsonic anti-ship missile, broadly equivalent to the U.S.-made AGM-84 Harpoon. The radar-guided, turbojet-powered weapon has a reported range of around 112 miles and is armed with a 360-pound high-explosive, semi-armor-piercing warhead. The YJ-83K is a sea-skimming missile cruising at an altitude of 65-100 feet, before dropping down to 16-24 feet during the terminal phase. Most significantly, each of these weapons weighs around 1,600 pounds.

The very reason behind the development of the J-15T was to maximize the potential of Flanker operations from the Fujian, which is equipped with an electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), and subsequent carriers. As such, the J-15T is primarily distinguished from the original J-15 in being equipped for catapult takeoff but assisted recovery (CATOBAR) operations, as well as short takeoff but assisted recovery (STOBAR) operations.

Videos provide a comparison of a STOBAR J-15 carrier launch and a CATOBAR J-15T launch from Fujian:

The previous two PLAN aircraft carriers, the Liaoning and Shandong, both employ ‘ski-jump’ takeoff ramps to launch fixed-wing STOBAR aircraft.

As we have discussed in the past, the primary benefit of the J-15T is its ability to be catapult-launched from a carrier with a heavier payload of fuel and weapons. After all, the Flanker airframe has always been able to carry impressive fuel and weapons loads, but this has been strictly limited when configured for STOBAR operations. This is something that has hampered Russian Navy carrier operations, as much as Chinese ones.

Also significant is the fact that the J-15T has started to introduce domestically produced WS-10H turbofans in place of the Russian-made AL-31F engines previously found on production J-15s.

In the past, it appears that the heaviest loads seen carried by STOBAR J-15s launched from the Liaoning or Shandong comprised two YJ-83Ks and four air-to-air missiles, or, for air defense, four PL-12 medium-range air-to-air missiles and two short-range PL-8B air-to-air missiles.

Regardless, the fact that J-15Ts are now launching from the carrier with weapons loads of around 6,400 pounds is significant.

As well as increasing the anti-shipping potential of the J-15T, the same payload could be translated into additional fuel or other weapons loads.

Among the other weapons options for the jet are the more advanced PL-10 short-range and PL-15 medium-range air-to-air missiles. The J-15T has also been noted with the long-range YJ-15 anti-ship missile, and with a ‘buddy’ refueling pod. Other versions of the YJ-83K that could find their way onto the J-15 include the improved YJ-83KH, which features an imaging-infrared seeker and extended range.

The ability for the J-15T to launch from a catapult-equipped carrier with a heavier payload doesn’t just impact the potential of the strike fighter. It will also translate to the two-seat carrier-compatible J-15 versions, intended to take on additional roles. Chief among these is the CATOBAR-capable J-15DT electronic warfare aircraft, intended to operate in a role similar to the U.S. Navy’s EA-18G Growler. With its array of external jamming pods, the J-15DT also needs to launch (and recover) at heavier weights to make the most of its potential.

There are also rumors concerning a CATOBAR version of the two-seat J-15S, which could serve as a carrier trainer and/or as a multirole strike platform equivalent to the F/A-18F. Here, again, the EMALS will greatly enhance its capabilities.

Beyond marking another milestone in the rapid evolution of China’s carrier aviation capabilities, the new image suggests that the combination of the J-15T and the catapult-equipped carrier Fujian is beginning to deliver the kind of fully armed launch performance that its ski-jump carriers have long struggled to achieve.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

Turkey emerged as one of the biggest diplomatic winners from the NATO summit in Ankara after President Donald Trump lavished praise on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, promised to lift U.S. sanctions and signalled openness to restoring Turkey’s access to the F-35 fighter jet programme.

The public display of warmth contrasted sharply with Trump’s criticism of several NATO allies during the summit and highlighted improving U.S.-Turkey relations after years of tensions.

Turkey rolls out high-profile welcome for Trump

Turkey spared little effort in welcoming Trump to Ankara.

The visit featured a red, white and blue aerial display by Turkish jets, while a newly opened airport terminal was named after the U.S. president. Erdogan personally greeted Trump at the airport before the two leaders walked together, exchanged warm remarks and held talks ahead of the summit.

Trump later described Erdogan as a close friend and repeatedly praised the Turkish leader during the two-day gathering.

Trump says Erdogan convinced him to attend

For Turkish officials, securing Trump’s attendance was itself considered a diplomatic achievement.

Trump, who has frequently criticised NATO and questioned the alliance’s value, said he attended the summit because Erdogan was hosting it.

Erdogan welcomed the remarks after the summit.

“It was valuable that Trump emphasised the importance he places on myself and our friendship,” Erdogan said.

US signals shift on sanctions and F-35 fighter jets

The most significant outcome for Ankara was Trump’s indication that he intends to remove U.S. sanctions imposed after Turkey purchased Russia’s S-400 missile defence system in 2019.

Trump also said he was willing to consider allowing Turkey back into the F-35 stealth fighter programme, although he later clarified that he had not made a final decision.

If implemented, both moves would reverse major elements of U.S. policy that had severely strained bilateral relations during Trump’s first presidency.

Congress and Russia remain potential obstacles

Despite Trump’s promises, significant hurdles remain.

U.S. lawmakers have previously insisted Turkey cannot participate in the F-35 programme while retaining the Russian-made S-400 system, making congressional approval uncertain.

Turkey could also face complications with Russia because agreements governing the S-400 purchase include end-user obligations that may limit Ankara’s options.

As a result, the announcements currently represent political commitments rather than guaranteed policy changes.

Erdogan strengthens Turkey’s position inside NATO

The summit reinforced Turkey’s ambition to play a larger role within NATO.

As the alliance’s second-largest military, Turkey has increasingly promoted itself as an indispensable security partner while seeking greater participation in European defence initiatives.

Trump also publicly defended Erdogan against criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposed potential U.S. sales of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.

The episode underscored Ankara’s growing diplomatic influence within the alliance.

Trump overshadows summit with disputes involving allies

While relations with Turkey improved, Trump generated fresh tensions elsewhere during the summit.

He threatened to halt U.S. trade with Spain over defence spending disputes and repeated claims regarding Greenland, drawing criticism from fellow NATO members.

Despite those disagreements, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte later described the summit as demonstrating alliance unity.

Human rights concerns receive limited attention

The summit also highlighted how Turkey’s strategic importance has reduced public Western criticism over democratic issues.

The gathering took place amid arrests of opposition figures, journalists and a prominent comedian in Turkey, prompting questions about democratic freedoms.

Rutte reiterated that democracy includes freedom of expression, free media and the right to protest.

Opposition figures argued Erdogan’s increasingly close relationship with Washington reflects growing political dependence on the United States, while critics contend Western governments have become less vocal about human rights as Turkey’s military and geopolitical importance has grown.

Future outlook

The NATO summit could mark a turning point in U.S.-Turkey relations if Trump’s pledges on sanctions relief and the F-35 programme translate into policy. However, congressional resistance, Turkey’s continued possession of the Russian S-400 system and wider geopolitical considerations remain significant obstacles. Ankara is also expected to continue pushing for greater influence within NATO and broader participation in European defence initiatives.

Analysis

The NATO summit marked one of the strongest public displays of U.S.-Turkey relations in years, with President Donald Trump using the gathering to signal a willingness to reset ties with Ankara after years of friction over Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defence system. For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, simply hosting Trump and receiving repeated public praise from him represented a significant diplomatic victory that reinforced Turkey’s strategic importance within the alliance.

Trump’s promises to lift sanctions and reconsider Turkey’s return to the F-35 fighter jet programme address two of Ankara’s longest-standing demands. However, turning those pledges into reality will be far more difficult. U.S. law and congressional opposition remain major obstacles, particularly while Turkey continues to possess the Russian-made S-400 system. Moscow could also object if Ankara takes steps that undermine agreements linked to the missile purchase.

The summit also highlighted a broader shift in Western priorities. During previous U.S. administrations, especially under Joe Biden, democratic backsliding and human rights concerns were central issues in relations with Turkey. This time, those concerns received relatively little attention as NATO focused on defence spending, military cooperation and regional security, reflecting Turkey’s growing value as a defence producer and a key NATO member on the alliance’s southeastern flank.

Trump’s warm embrace of Erdogan contrasted sharply with his confrontational approach toward several other NATO allies, including Spain and Denmark. That dynamic allowed Turkey to emerge from the summit with enhanced diplomatic standing even as broader alliance tensions persisted.

Whether this diplomatic momentum produces lasting policy changes will depend on decisions in Washington after the summit. If sanctions are eased and progress is made on the F-35 issue, bilateral ties could enter their most constructive phase in years. If congressional or legal barriers prevent those moves, however, the summit may ultimately be remembered more for its symbolism than for delivering concrete strategic gains.

With information from Reuters.

England defender Jarell Quansah has been given a two-match ban for his red card against Mexico.

Quansah was sent off in the 54th minute of the 3-2 win following a high challenge on Jesus Gallardo.

It was classed as serious foul play, meaning the Bayer Leverkusen player was handed an extra match on top of the automatic one-game suspension by Fifa’s disciplinary committee.

Former Liverpool man Quansah will miss Saturday’s quarter-final with Norway (22:00 BST) and a potential semi-final against Argentina or Switzerland.

Quansah, 23, will be available if England reach the final in New Jersey on 19 July.

The Football Association (FA) was considering whether to appeal, but under the tournament regulations there is no avenue to contest the ban.

However, BBC Sport has been told the FA made very strong representations to Fifa over the process that reached the Quansah red card decision, arguing that the referee was shown a still image of the tackle and slow-motion replays before being shown the incident in real-time on the pitchside screen, and that this could have resulted in ‘outcome bias’.

In the Premier League, officials are always shown incidents at full speed first – though England’s top flight is an outlier.

The ban complicates matters for head coach Thomas Tuchel at right-back.

Quansah filled in against Mexico while England were without the injured Reece James, with Djed Spence only used as a substitute after a minor fitness issue.

However, Tuchel has said he expects James to be available against Norway after missing games because of the hamstring injury he sustained in the second group match against Ghana.

Tuchel’s assistant coach Anthony Barry said the Quansah news was “disappointing”.

“Disappointing, not with the decision, just the fact that we lose a good player,” he added.

“He was excellent in training, and of course we have some injuries in that position, so it looked like a space had opened up for Jarell.

“But the decision’s been made, we won’t waste any more energy on it. Overall for us, we lose a good player for two games, but it’s just another hurdle that we have to overcome.”

Winger Bukayo Saka said the ban was “incredibly frustrating for us, and for him”.

“But it is what it is. We have to adapt and pick a team to win against Norway,” he added.

Fifa has announced that French referee Clement Turpin, who took charge of England’s 4-2 win over Croatia, has been appointed to officiate the Norway game.

July 9 (UPI) — More than a dozen news organizations asked a court to sanction OpenAI for withholding evidence in lawsuits filed against the company for copyright infringement.

The New York Times, New York Daily News, The Intercept and 14 other news organizations asked a federal court on Thursday for sanctions against the artificial intelligence company for lying about its ability to provide data showing how it has used copyrighted material to train its models.

The companies had sued OpenAI for violating copyright law by using their content to create a secondary product — its AI models — without paying for it, The New York Times and Variety reported.

In court, the AI company had said it could not search training datasets and output data, but earlier this year one of the company’s employees said during a deposition that the data could be accessed.

“The evidence is in OpenAI’s training data sets and ChatGPT output logs,” the organizations said in the court filing.

“But instead of just producing that evidence at the start of the case and focusing on the merits of its fair use defense, OpenAI chose obstruction,” they said.

In addition to accusing OpenAI of lying about searching for the organizations’ content in its data, they allege that the company deleted data logs, which would violate a court order to preserve relevant evidence.

An attorney for the organizations said in a statement that OpenAI had claimed that searching its ChatGPT outputs was “infeasible, burdensome and invasive of users’ privacy” but then lied about having already done searches.

OpenAI called the news organizations’ allegations in the filing “blatantly false,” and said that its use of their content falls under “the long-established principles of fair use.”

Quansah will miss England’s quarterfinal against Norway after being sent off for a sliding studs-up ​tackle.

England defender Jarell Quansah has been suspended for two matches following his red card in the team’s World Cup last-16 victory over Mexico, leaving manager Thomas Tuchel short of back-line options for the latter stages of the tournament.

The two-match ban, confirmed on Thursday, means that Quansah will miss England’s quarterfinal against Norway on Saturday in Miami and a potential semifinal should they advance.

Quansah was sent off after a video review determined that he made a sliding studs-up tackle in the round-of-16 match against the cohosts.

Jude Bellingham’s goal and a Harry Kane penalty double inflicted a rare defeat on Mexico at their Estadio Azteca as 10-man England won a nerve-racking World Cup classic 3-2 to reach the quarterfinals.

England had been weighing a possible appeal after FIFA overturned a one-match suspension imposed on United States striker Folarin Balogun earlier in the tournament.

The defender would only be available again for selection if England reach the World Cup final.

The suspension is a setback for Tuchel as England attempt to continue their run in the tournament, with the team’s defensive problems compounded by injuries.

England midfielder Jordan Henderson had surgery on his left wrist following an injury sustained after tripping over an advertising board during the team’s celebrations for the win over Mexico. He rejoined the team at its camp in Kansas City and has been ruled out for the remainder of the World Cup.

A day earlier, France coach Didier Deschamps revealed that an appeal against a yellow card shown to Michael Olise in the World Cup last-16 win over Paraguay had been rejected by FIFA.

“The yellow card has not changed. We were notified by FIFA this morning; it has been maintained,” Deschamps told reporters in Foxborough on Wednesday, on the eve of France’s quarterfinal showdown with Morocco at the Boston Stadium.

A French court ruling allows the leader of the far-right National Rally to run for president next April. It reduced and suspended Marine Le Pen’s prison sentence and ban on seeking public office, while upholding her conviction over a European Parliament jobs scam.

She will have to wear an electronic monitor for a year while on house arrest. Le Pen has said it will prevent her from campaigning and plans to challenge the decision in France’s highest court. But she is leading in opinion polls.

Will her candidacy take her all the way to the Elysee Palace? Or will voters who are wary of Le Pen’s nationalist, anti-migrant policies unite around a common rival, as they have in the past?

Presenter: Tom McRae

Guests:

Bruno Cautres – Professor at the Centre for Political Research at Sciences Po

Rim-Sarah Alouane – Legal scholar specialising in civil liberties and constitutional law

Victor Mallet – Senior editor and former Paris bureau chief at The Financial Times and author of the book Far-Right France: Le Pen, Bardella and the Future of Europe

Berlin says it has agreed a deal with the United States to buy U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles, providing a significant boost to Germany’s long-range strike capabilities. The move comes after the United States appeared to renege on its plan to deploy a long-range fires battalion in Germany, and as NATO allies in Europe race to enhance their conventional standoff missile deterrent against Russia.

An agreement on the sale of Tomahawk missiles to Germany was reached with U.S. officials on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Ankara this week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced after his return from Turkey.

“This will close an important strategic gap in our defense, and at the same time, we will work to develop our own European systems and station them in Europe,” Merz told the Bundestag lower house of parliament in Berlin today.

Citing German government sources, Reuters reports that a letter of intent for the procurement was signed Tuesday.

Germany had previously sought to buy Tomahawks, but these efforts had been rebuffed by Washington.

Specifically, Berlin wanted to acquire the ground-launched version of the system, with up to 400 of the latest Tomahawk Block Vb missiles, valued at more than $1 billion, according to reports.

All Block V Tomahawks are provided with a two-way datalink, allowing them to receive course correction and other targeting updates, as well as be entirely re-tasked, during flight. The Block Vb subvariant is fitted with a joint multi-effects warhead that makes it suitable for striking a wider variety of land targets.

The Tomahawk Block V has a range exceeding 1,000 miles depending on the exact configuration.

Currently, the longest-range indirect fires capability fielded by the German Army is the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), known in German service as the Mittleres Artilleriraketensystem II (MARS II). The longest-range artillery rockets currently available for the system can hit targets out to around 43 miles. Germany has not received the far larger Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic missiles that can engage threats out to 186 miles depending on the variant.

As well as the Tomahawk missiles, Germany will need to buy the Typhon launchers to deploy them. Reports in the German media suggest that a request for the launchers was already made in July 2025.

Germany had also been looking at the possibility of acquiring the naval version of the Tomahawk, to arm its planned Type 127 frigates, although these have since been canceled.

Regardless, acquisition of the Tomahawk would be a big deal for Germany.

Outside of the United States, only Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom currently use the Tomahawk. All of these export operators use the naval version of the missile, making the German development all the more significant.

Washington’s approval to sell the Tomahawk/Typhon combination to Berlin would seem to confirm that the United States won’t, after all, be sending a U.S. Army long-range fires battalion to Germany.

In May, amid something of a breakdown in relations between Berlin and Washington, triggered by German criticism of the U.S. war in Iran, the United States announced it would reduce its ⁠military presence in Germany by 5,000 soldiers.

At the same time, it was reported that the Pentagon had also decided to abandon plans to deploy the Army’s 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force (2MDTF) to Germany.

German officials moved to try to smooth things over, stating that there had been no “definitive cancellation” of the missile deployment by the United States.

First announced under the Biden administration, the 2MDTF was to start “episodic deployments” to Germany in 2026, followed by “longer-term stationing” of various types of long-range missiles in the same country. As well as Tomahawk, 2MDTF’s Typhon launchers can fire the SM-6 multi-purpose missile. In the future, they are also intended to be armed with “developmental hypersonic weapons,” like the Dark Eagle, and potentially others like the Operational Fires (OpFires) hypersonic missile and the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) short-range ballistic missile.

With that in mind, Germany’s Typhon launchers could potentially receive some of these missiles in the future, too.

For Germany, however, the Tomahawk procurement is seen as a temporary solution until domestically (or European) developed long-range weapons become available.

For the longer term, Germany is part of the European Long-Range Strike Approach (ELSA). The initiative, led by France and also involving Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, aims to develop a new long-range strike capability, potentially in the form of a cruise missile, a ballistic missile, or a combination of both.

Earlier announcements indicated that ELSA is intended to deliver a missile with a range of 1,000 to 2,000 kilometers (621–1,243 miles), with entry into service planned for the 2030s.

Separately, Germany and the United Kingdom have also unveiled plans to jointly develop a deep precision-strike weapon with a range exceeding 2,000 kilometers. However, the project remains at an early stage, with no industrial framework yet agreed.

Together, these initiatives underscore the growing determination among European NATO members to develop long-range strike capabilities in response to the increasing Russian threat along the alliance’s eastern flank.

Germany’s planned procurement of ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles reflects a dramatically altered European security environment following the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Signed in 1987 at the height of the Cold War, the accord prohibited the United States and the Soviet Union — and later Russia — from deploying ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles, whether nuclear or conventionally armed, with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310 and 3,420 miles).

Ironically, one of the weapons outlawed by the INF Treaty was an earlier ground-launched version of the Tomahawk cruise missile, the U.S. Air Force BGM-109G Gryphon, which was also deployed in Germany, not without controversy.

The treaty effectively unraveled after the United States withdrew in 2019 during President Trump’s first term, citing Russia’s deployment of the prohibited 9M729 (SSC-8 Screwdriver) ground-launched cruise missile, an allegation Moscow has consistently denied. Russia formally suspended its own participation in the agreement in 2023, removing the last legal barriers to the deployment of intermediate-range land-based missiles in Europe.

Since then, both Russia and NATO have moved to rebuild capabilities that had been absent from the continent for more than three decades. Even before its formal withdrawal, Moscow had signaled its intention to field new INF-range missiles in response to comparable U.S. deployments, while repeatedly using nuclear signaling — including high-profile exercises and explicit threats — in an effort to deter greater Western support for Ukraine.

Russia has also used the war in Ukraine to demonstrate and refine its expanding missile arsenal. In November 2024, it employed the new Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in combat for the first time. Although the version used against Ukraine carried conventional warheads, perhaps even inert ones, a nuclear-armed Oreshnik would be capable of striking most major Western European capitals and critical NATO military infrastructure.

At the same time, there are indications that Russia has employed the 9M729 operationally in Ukraine, while continuing work on additional intermediate-range strike systems, including a reported ground-launched hypersonic missile that could be based on the Zircon naval missile, or an enhanced Iskander-M ballistic missile. Russia has also reinforced its forward posture by deploying nuclear-capable Iskander missiles and  MiG-31 Foxhound aircraft armed with Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad in the Baltic, while transferring tactical nuclear weapons, or at least their delivery infrastructure, to neighboring Belarus.

Against this backdrop, Germany’s decision to acquire ground-launched Tomahawks is part of a broader effort to restore NATO’s long-range conventional deterrence and strike capabilities. The missiles are part of a wider European push to counter Russia’s growing inventory of intermediate-range weapons and reestablish a more credible balance of long-range conventional firepower on NATO’s eastern flank. This has become all the more important since the previous security guarantees provided to the continent by the United States are increasingly being questioned.

While we don’t yet know the numbers of Tomahawks involved, they will still likely be divorced from the reality of a high-intensity conflict. Ukraine is now striking Russia with long-range cruise missiles regularly. The numbers needed across NATO for a sustained engagement will be very high, so collectively Europe will likely only accelerate and broaden its long-range missile capabilities based on these lessons learned.

Germany’s Tomahawk procurement reflects a fundamental shift in NATO’s approach to deterrence in Europe, where long-range conventional strike capabilities are once again viewed as essential rather than escalatory. With Russia fielding new intermediate-range missiles, NATO’s relations with the United States under strain, and European allies launching their own development programs in this area, a new missile race is accompanying the changing security environment on the continent.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com