Quick, which national air force killed 35 fighter pilots and yet never technically scored a single “victory”? The answer is the Albanian Air Force, which lost 35 of its own fliers in accidents but never fired a shot in anger. You can give that answer only a little while longer, though, according to a Reuters dispatch from Tirana. The Balkan nation, ruled for decades by the Stalinist/Maoist maniac Enver Hoxha, is scrapping its entire fleet of Soviet-designed MiGs, many of which date to the 1950s. (Hoxha died in 1985) The danged things are just getting too expensive to keep up and fuel, and too dangerous to fly. The armed forces chief, Gen. Pellumb Qazimi, told Reuters, “If anyone wants to buy them, they are welcome.” He added that some interested Western buyers “wanted to turn them into bars.” At one point, Albania’s air arm boasted 125 MiG-15s, MiG-17s, and MiG-19s.
Celebrating 100 Years of Liquid-Fueled Rockets
March 11, 2026
March 16, 2026, marks 100 years since Dr. Robert H. Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. Over the past century, new and ever more capable liquid-fueled rockets have literally propelled humanity into space. Why liquid-fueled rockets?