The image shows a middle-aged man with gray hair holding up a book titled "N-4 Down" against a dark background.

Mark Piesing

Mark Piesing, a freelance journalist based in Oxford, UK, was a finalist for Media Aviation Awards in both 2024 and 2025. He is author of N-4 Down: The Hunt for the Arctic Airship Italia. Learn more more at markpiesing.com or follow him @MarkPiesing.

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UK World War II propaganda poster boasting about how Allies' airborne leaflet propaganda is used to alter the behavior of the enemy.

Military strategists weaponize fear, confusion and deception.

View of an U.S. Air Force F-86A Sabre in flight against a mountainous background, 1951. The first American swept-wing fighter aircraft, the jet countered the Soviet Union's MiG-15 during the Korean War.

It ushered in the era of high-speed jet combat.

Long thin airplane with no windows, a bulbous nose and a downward-facing tail.

Uses have ranged from gunnery training to targeted killings.