• A series of NATO air policing missions around Estonia has seen F-35 and Rafale jets called into action.
• French Rafale jets intercepted a Russian IL-18 aircraft off Estonia's coast on Friday.
• Dutch F-35s intercepted three Russian aircraft over the Baltic Sea last week.

A series of recent NATO air policing missions around Estonia has seen Dutch and French fighter jets called into action to intercept Russian aircraft.

Two French Rafale jets intercepted a Russian Ilyushin Il-18 airliner off the coast of Estonia on Friday, the General Staff of the French Armed Forces said in a post on X.

NATO Air Command said the mission was the Rafale's first scramble since it began an air policing mission based out of Šiauliai, Lithuania.

It comes after Dutch F-35 fighter jets intercepted a number of Russian aircraft over the Baltic Sea last week.

The Dutch defense ministry said two F-35s stationed in Estonia were scrambled after three Russian planes — an Antonov An-72, a Su-24, and an Ilyushin Il-20 — were identified in the region.

Dutch F-35s have been keeping a watch over NATO airspace on the alliance's eastern flank since the start of December, the ministry said.

It's not the first time such an incident has occurred in recent months.

Norwegian F-35s were called into action in November in response to Russian aircraft "not adhering to international norms" off the coast of Norway, NATO's Air Command said at the time.

Italy's air force also intercepted a Russian Coot-A plane flying over the Baltic Sea on the same day.

The Rafale

The Dassault Rafale is a French twin-jet fighter aircraft that can operate from both an aircraft carrier and a land base.

It entered service with the French Navy in 2004 and with the French Air Force in 2006.

It is used to carry out a variety of missions, including air policing, deep strikes, and reconnaissance, according to the manufacturer.

The F-35

The F-35, which is billed as the "most advanced fighter jet in the world" by manufacturer Lockheed Martin, has faced criticism from Elon Musk.

The Tesla CEO said on X in late November that the jet's design "was broken at the requirements level, because it was required to be too many things to too many people."

"This made it an expensive & complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes," Musk wrote, adding: "And manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway. Will just get pilots killed."

Some reports have suggested that Musk may be eyeing the F-35 program, and possibly other fighter jets, for potential spending cuts through his role in the Department of Government Efficiency.

Although he would likely face an uphill battle to do so, as Business Insider previously reported.

• The Sea Vampire made history as the first jet-powered aircraft to land on a carrier in 1945.
• The UK and US navies developed fighter jets to operate aboard aircraft carriers after World War II.
• The de Havilland Vampire was adapted for naval use, becoming the aptly named Sea Vampire.

When the British experimental jet fighter touched down on the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Ocean nearly eight decades ago, it wasn't just a historic landing — it was a giant leap in naval aviation.

Aircraft carriers carrying propeller planes proved to be one of the most valuable sea-based assets in World War II. After the war ended, the two largest navies at the time — the UK Royal Navy and the US Navy — fast-tracked carrier testing for the jets revolutionizing air forces.

Some land-based fighter jets were redesigned to achieve that purpose — for the Royal Navy, it was the de Havilland Vampire, the second jet-powered aircraft to be produced and flown by Britain.

The Royal Navy modified the Vampire to make the aircraft's design more fitted for sea trials, aptly naming the naval variant the de Havilland Sea Vampire.

On December 3, 1945, the Sea Vampire successfully landed and took off from the flight deck of the HMS Ocean, becoming the first jet aircraft in history to do so, greatly expanding the combat range and speed of the carrier squadrons.

Royal Navy aircraft carrier

The Royal Navy Colossus-class aircraft carrier HMS Ocean was commissioned just months before it was a part of the historic carrier landing.

Shortly after commissioning in August 1945 — the same month Japan surrendered after the US dropped two nuclear bombs — the ship was upgraded to conduct night fighter operations, equipped with improved radar and direction-finding equipment.

The light fleet carrier's flight deck measured nearly 700 feet and accommodated more than three dozen aircraft. The Ocean was armed with close-in antiaircraft weaponry, including a Bofors 40 mm gun and a two-pounded naval gun known as the "pom-pom" due to the sound it makes when firing.

A renowned test pilot

The landmark landing could only be carried out by an aviator of equal renown. Capt. Eric "Winkle" Brown was the chief naval test pilot for the Royal Aircraft Establishment, the UK's leading flight research facility at the time.

As a highly experienced test pilot, Brown already had a number of broken records under his belt — he was the first to land a twin-engine aircraft on a carrier, the first to land a tricycle gear aircraft on a carrier, and the first to land a rotary-wing aircraft on a ship at sea.

The first take-off and landing on a carrier

The Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm developed three prototypes as part of their efforts to create a fighter jet that could operate aboard carriers, as well as new deck-landing techniques.

The flight trials for the Sea Vampire prototype took place off the south coast of England. The Sea Vampire trial planned to have the aircraft land on the Ocean's flight deck at 95 mph, though strong gusts caused the plane to land faster than anticipated.

Due to the aircraft's tail-down angle and the pitching of the carrier's flight deck, the plane's trailing edge wing flaps hit the deck, breaking their hinges upon landing.

Brown, however, was determined to pull off a perfect landing. He made several more takeoffs and landings on the Ocean, accomplishing the feat on the fourth try despite the initial damage to the Sea Vampire.

Carrier landings were considered some of the most challenging maneuvers at the time, so demonstrating that higher-speed fighter jets could safely land marked a turning point in naval aviation. The first successful jet-powered carrier landing catalyzed the innovation of carrier technology and design to better accommodate jet aircraft, including angled flight decks, steam-powered aircraft catapults, and more advanced arresting gear.

The advancements ushered in a new era, expanding and enhancing the capabilities of both the flattops and the aircraft they carried. Jet engines have greater thrust than propellers, allowing aircraft to fly much faster and at higher altitudes. These changes led to a strategic shift in naval warfare with a greater focus on air superiority at sea.

"The only thing we can say is, we took the bull by the horns, accepting the limitations in engine performance, to show jet propulsion was conceivable for naval operations," Brown said in a 2015 interview published in the British aviation magazine Aeroplane Monthly.

Vampire variants

Following the successful fight landing and take-off, the FAA ultimately decided to use the Sea Vampire as a more cost-effective training aircraft rather than a first-line fighter.

In 1947, the mass-produced version of the Sea Vampire featured the model's larger flaps and airbrakes and a modified arresting hook. The Navy ordered 30 Sea Vampires, but only 18 were actually delivered to the Royal Navy.

A few years after the 1945 carrier landing, the Sea Vampire went on to test the feasibility of landing a jet with wheels retracted on a flexible 150-foot "carpet" atop a carrier deck.

While the tests aboard the light carrier HMS Warrior were ultimately successful, wheelless aircraft couldn't land on conventional airfields or runways without the shock-absorbing "carpet," making the innovation more trouble than it was worth.

After pilots reported issues with the Sea Vampire's slow takeoff without a catapult, the training jets were pulled in the late 1950s and scrapped by 1960.

Which came first?

While Brown's landing and takeoff on the HMS Ocean is remembered as the first jet-powered aircraft carrier landing, some argue that the US Navy accomplished the feat a month earlier.

On November 6, 1945, US Navy Ensign J.A. West landed a Ryan FR-1 Fireball fighter jet, the Navy's first jet-engine fighter aircraft, on the deck of the escort carrier USS Wake Island using jet power after the plane's main piston engine malfunctioned.

The Fireball was a mixed-propulsion aircraft, meaning it was powered by both a piston and jet engine. Standard takeoffs and landings from carrier decks at the time were typically powered by the aircraft's piston engines because early jet engines alone were not powerful or reliable enough for sustained flight.

While West was approaching the carrier deck, the American-made jet's main piston engine failed, causing the plane's propeller to spin out of control. In a last-ditch effort to safely land the Fireball, West switched to the Fireball's turbojet engine and successfully landed on USS Wake Island using jet power alone.

Although West's landing was ultimately successful — albeit unintentional — the credit for the first jet-powered carrier landing is more often given to Brown's pure-jet Sea Vampire, as the Fireball was a hybrid aircraft.

• Marc Andreessen says that AI-controlled jets are "far superior" to their crewed counterparts.
• Drones, he said, can move much faster because they don't have to carry a person.
• Andreessen's comments echo that of Elon Musk, who said this week that he thinks crewed fighter jets are inefficient.

Elon Musk isn't the only tech executive who thinks drones are way better than fighter jets.

Marc Andreessen, a cofounder and general partner of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, made a similar comment during an interview on The Joe Rogan Experience that aired Tuesday.

AI-controlled jets, Andreessen told Rogan, are "far superior" to fighter jets that need pilots.

"And there's a bunch of reasons for that. And part of it is just simply the speed of processing and so forth," Andreessen said.

"But another big thing is if you don't have a human in the plane, you don't have the, as they say, the spam in the can, you don't have the human body in the plane," the venture capitalist continued.

"You don't have to keep a human being alive, which means you can be a lot faster, and you can move a lot more quickly," he added.

Representatives for Andreessen at Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Musk has been weighing in on the F35 fighter jet while advocating for drone warfare

Andreessen's comments to Rogan echo Musk's, who criticized the Pentagon's F-35 program in a series of X posts on Sunday.

"Crewed fighter jets are an inefficient way to extend the range of missiles or drop bombs. A reusable drone can do so without all the overhead of a human pilot," Musk wrote in one of his posts.

Musk continued to comment on fighter jets on Tuesday, making an X post responding to Andreessen's interview with Rogan.

"Future wars are all about drones & hypersonic missiles. Fighter jets piloted by humans will be destroyed very quickly," Musk wrote on Tuesday.

In the meantime, Silicon Valley has become increasingly interested in disrupting the defense sector.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he was a "licensed arms dealer" during a lecture he gave at Stanford University in April.

Schmidt said this was because he was working with Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun to mass-produce drones for Ukraine's ongoing war with Russia.

Then, in August, startup accelerator Y Combinator said it was backing its first weapons startup, Ares Industries. The company said it wants to make smaller and cheaper anti-ship cruise missiles.

Musk's remarks on the F-35 have taken on a heightened significance given his recent appointment as the co-lead of President-elect Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Musk hasn't specified any cost cutting plans for the F-35 program. However, he did reference the Defense Department's $841 billion budget in an op-ed he wrote with his DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy for The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

"The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent," the pair wrote.

Drones have been game-changing in modern warfare, but military experts say there are still advantages to having manned fighter jets over drones.

Justin Bronk, a Royal United Services Institute airpower analyst, told BI that a human pilot's flexibility is "very difficult to replicate in an automatic system."

The viability of drone technology also needs to be weighed against the F-35's extensive bombing, surveillance, battle management, and communications capabilities. On that front, uncrewed aircraft are "simply not there," Mark Gunzinger, a retired US Air Force pilot and the director of Future Concepts and Capability Assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told BI.

When approached for comment, a Pentagon spokesperson told BI on Monday that the US's combat-capable aircraft "perform exceptionally well against the threat for which they were designed."

"Pilots continually emphasize that this is the fighter they want to take to war if called upon," the spokesperson said.