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Steve Trimble
April 29, 2026
Castelion has released a rendering of a Boeing F/A-18 firing an air-launched variant of the hypersonic Blackbeard strike missile. Credit: Castelion
A binary choice in the cold arithmetic of modern air warfare has long seemed to stump U.S. military planners. The first option meant paying for a few exquisite, costly aircraft because they could reliably penetrate contested airspace, which would enable them to deliver large quantities of short…
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