December, 2011 Military Aviation News
12/31/2011
The Indian defense procurement bureaucracy has struck again. Despite over a decade of pressure from the Indian Air Force to obtain new trainers, new basic flight training aircraft have still not been obtained. As a result, trainee pilots are only getting 25 hours of flight time before going off to train on a specific type of aircraft (fighter, transport, helicopter). These trainees are supposed to get 75 hours before moving up to the advanced trainers and service aircraft. This problem has been
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12/31/2011
All six crewmen aboard a Sudanese military helicopter were killed when it crash-landed and burned in North Kordofan state on Friday, the army said. Fire broke out because of a "technical problem" aboard the Russian-made aircraft three minutes after takeoff from a base at El Obeid, the state capital, army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad told AFP.
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12/31/2011
The year has been a rollercoaster ride for the CIA -- incredible highs coupled with significant lows. But those dramatic ups and downs also underscored how intelligence is evolving and the agency is changing to keep pace. Keeping secrets is becoming more difficult and what the agency does is sometimes more visible.
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12/31/2011
Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer Friday won a Defense Department contract to manufacturer military aircraft in Jacksonville. The contact, totaling $355 million, represents 50 high-wage jobs initially at an Embraer facility at Jacksonville International Airport. Mayor Alvin Brown, who lobbied heavily for the contract, said the company could begin hiring in January.
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12/31/2011
The Air Force has bought a new hunter-killer aircraft that is the fastest and largest armed drone in its fleet. The Avenger, which cost the military $15 million, is the latest version of the Predator drones made by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., a San Diego-area company that also builds the robotic MQ-9 Reapers for the Air Force and CIA.
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12/31/2011
In an effort to provide virtual war simulated training to new recruits, the Ministry of Defense has proposed the development of war games along the lines of popular commercial versions like Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. The British Military is expected to benefit from the cheap production costs of war games compared to actual weapons training with aircraft, tanks and explosive rounds.
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12/31/2011
Sierra Nevada and its major partner Embraer have been awarded a firm-fixed price contract for $355.1 million for the U.S. Air Force’s Light Air Support (LAS) aircraft program; but competitor Hawker Beechcraft indicated it will continue to fight the move in court.
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12/31/2011
Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma told India Strategic in an interview that the Navy was satisfied with the progress of the first eight Indian P8-Is being built by Boeing under a 2009 order and that the second order for four more aircraft was being processed to be placed within the current fiscal ending March 2012.
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12/31/2011
Mexico bought three Russian Mi-17V-5 tactical transport helicopters, an informed source in the Mexican military circles told RIA Novosti on Saturday. The Mexican navy ministry, which along with defense ministry is charged with efforts against drug trafficking and organized crime, signed a contract with Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport on December 22.
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12/31/2011
The U.S. Army is almost ready to deploy to Afghanistan a new rotary-wing surveillance drone, the Boeing A160T Hummingbird, equipped with a cutting-edge 1.8-gigapixel camera, the army says. Three drones, or unmanned air vehicles (UAV) in military jargon, will be deployed to Afghanistan in May or June, after they complete flight testing in Arizona at the beginning of the year, said the US Army's project manager for unmanned air systems modernization, Lt. Col. Matthew Munster.
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12/30/2011
There’s been lots of grumbling over the cost of the $380 billion F-35 fighter program, and some wheels squeak louder than others. On Wednesday, the Navy awarded a $1.1 billion contract for 30 F-35 engines to Pratt & Whitney Military Engines of East Hartford, Conn.
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12/30/2011
How may gamers out there want to get a downloadable content (DLC) packs for free? Well, if you are pinning for some new skills for your Ace Combat – Assault Horizon in its multiplayer mode, you’ll be delighted to hear that this holiday season, Japanese video game developer-publisher Namco Bandai is equally pinning to sell you some Ace Combat DLC for “free”.
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12/30/2011
BAE Systems‘ information and electronic systems integration sector has won a $13,480,910 firm-fixed-price contract to provide CXP digital transponder hardware to the U.S. Army and Navy and the governments of Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands.
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12/30/2011
Relying on contractors has brought companies that operate for profit into some of America's most sensitive military and intelligence operations. And using civilians makes some in the military uneasy.
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12/30/2011
A US aircraft carrier entered a zone near the Strait of Hormuz that is now being used by the Iranian navy for military drills, an Iranian official said on Thursday amid rising tensions over the key oil-transit channel. "A US aircraft carrier was spotted inside the manoeuvre zone ... by a navy reconnaissance aircraft," Commodore Mahmoud Mousavi, the spokesman for the Iranian exercises, told the official IRNA news agency.
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12/30/2011
Boeing Chairman, President and CEO Jim McNerney today welcomed the announcement by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that it has reached an agreement to purchase from the U.S. government 84 new Boeing F-15 fighter aircraft and to upgrade 70 of its existing F-15s.
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12/29/2011
Two F-16 fighter jets flew over to check on an airplane that lost radio contact, government officials said. It happened "in the vicinity of the National Capital Region at approximately 1215 EST today," NORAD said Wednesday afternoon.
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12/29/2011
The F-22 Raptor continues to have growing pains. The Air Force says it is implementing a technical order requiring the backup oxygen system in each F-22 to be removed, inspected and returned to service before that aircraft can fly again. The system, known as the Emergency Oxygen System (EOS), is designed to be used when the pilot is having physiological symptoms that indicate a problem with the main air supply.
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12/29/2011
The British military has had to radically improve some of its simulated training war games to keep the attention of recruits who have grown up in the Playstation and Xbox generation, a Ministry of Defence scientist has admitted.
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12/29/2011
Offsetting losses in other manufacturing sectors, the St. Louis economy continues to benefit from military aerospace production dating to the first prototypes that rolled out of McDonnell Aircraft Company hangars in the mid-1940s.
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12/29/2011
The Eurofighter is in a face-off with France’s Rafale for the race to provide 126 fighters to the Air Force, that is grappling with a serious shortage of combat aircraft. A decision on the matter is expected within the next few weeks, with Defence Ministry officials indicating that the winner would be announced by the first week of January.
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12/29/2011
Experimental testing on the strike-fighter plane Su-25UBM destined for the training of pilots, with performance suitable for combat missions has been completed. The certification that confirms the end of the tests has been signed by the commander in chief of the Russian Air Force, Colonel-General Alexander Zelin, who has recommended the start of its mass production.
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12/29/2011
China on Wednesday dismissed media reports saying that Chinese troops had entered North Korea, Xinhua said. Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said reports claiming that Chinese force had entered North Korea as requested by the country to help maintain its stability were “totally groundless.” Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands paid their last respects to former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as the reclusive country started a two-day funeral service for its deceased “dear leader.”
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12/28/2011
The IAF has inducted its sixth C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft procured from the US at the Hindon air base near here. This is the last of the six C-130J Super Hercules ordered by India under the US Foreign Military Sales program, IAF officials said.
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12/28/2011
Swedish defense and security company Saab recently received two orders worth a combined total $36.7 million. The first, from the Swedish Defense Materiel Administration, is for continuous support of the operational capacity of the Gripen jet fighter. Gripen is a single-engine, multi-role aircraft. It comes in four variants and is used by Sweden, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Thailand and South Africa. It has a maximum speed of 1,372 mph at altitude.
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12/28/2011
Two months ago, the U.S. MQ-1 Predator UAV fleet hit a million hours in the air. Over 20 percent of those hours were flown this year. The Predator replacement, the MQ-9 reaper has flown nearly 250,000 hours so far. America's large UAVs (MQ-1, MQ-1C, MQ-9, RQ-4 and RQ-170) flew some 400,000 hours this year.
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12/28/2011
India's quest to modernise its armed forces into a lean, mean fighting machine continued in 2011, with a few critical deals materialising and several others facing time overruns. During the past 12 months, India finalised the purchase of some important military equipment, such as 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III heavylift cargo planes from the US and the upgrade of 51 Mirage-2000 combat planes initially by the French manufacturer and later in India.
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12/28/2011
Aircraft manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft Corp. filed suit Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims after it was excluded from an Air Force contest to supply a small number of attack planes to Afghanistan and other allies.
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12/28/2011
Venezuela became the largest importer of Russian arms for ground forces in 2011, the Moscow based Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade (CAWAT) said on Tuesday. Russia delivered a large consignment of arms to Venezuela under contracts signed in 2009 and 2010, CAWAT head Igor Korotchenko said without offering any figures.
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12/27/2011
The commander of the Indian Air Force recently took an hour-long flight in one of Indias Russian made Su-30MKI jet fighters. This was to reassure Indian pilots that the Su-30MKI was safe. One had crashed recently, and there were widely publicized reliability problems with the engines used in the Su-30MKI, and many of the other Russian designed and built components of the aircraft.
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12/27/2011
Advantage in purchasing military equipment, senior IDF officer explains, is in the price, which would likely be dramatically lower than buying same equipment new. Due to the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East and potential delays to existing procurement plans, the IDF is looking at the possibility of purchasing fighter jets and other platforms used by the United States military in Iraq.
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12/27/2011
For the first time, U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B STOVL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft are being armed with long-range AMRAAM air-to-air missiles. Although the AV-8B is primarily a ground attack aircraft, it can also be quite effective in air-to-air combat. The first AMRAAM equipped AV-8Bs are aboard the amphibious ship (which looks like a small carrier) USS Makin Island.
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12/27/2011
Unmanned systems have revolutionized combat aviation, providing a colossal advantage in the fight against terror with surveillance and close-air support. Recently, a detachment of Marines from Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 in Afghanistan added aerial resupply to the list of UAV capabilities. The detachment completed its first unmanned aerial system cargo delivery in a combat zone using a helicopter in Afghanistan, Dec. 17.
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12/27/2011
The government is all set to announce the winner of the Indian Air Force (IAF) competition for 126-plus combat jets early in 2012. Authoritative sources told India Strategic defence magazine that the process was nearing completion but there were volumes of paperwork and the complicated costs involving Transfer of Technology (ToT), Offsets, Lifecycle Upgrades and Maintenance Support. Every detail was being looked into as this was India’s - and the world’s - single biggest defence tender yet in t
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12/27/2011
The drone had been in the air for close to five hours before its mission crew realised that something was wrong. The oil temperature in the plane’s turbocharger, they noticed, had risen into the “cautionary” range. An hour later, it was worse, and it just kept rising as the minutes wore on. While the crew desperately ran through its “engine overheat” checklist trying to figure out the problem, the engine oil temperature, too, began skyrocketing.
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12/27/2011
It was the second win in Asia for the JSF (in 2007, Australia placed an initial order for 24 F-35s, and Canberra could acquire up to 100 aircraft). This order was the latest in a string of losses for the leading European fighter aircraft programmes, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the French Rafale. If these programmes do not secure an export order soon, it could be the end of their chances to sell to one of the world's most lucrative arms markets: Asia.
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12/27/2011
Iran has capability to disrupt any military plots the U.S. may seek to implement against it, Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said on Monday. Iran has the requisite technology and equipment, including unmanned aerial vehicles, to “counter electronic and covert warfare,” Vahidi was quoted by Press TV as saying.
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12/26/2011
The Israeli government has canceled a $141 million contract to supply Turkey with an advanced aerial intelligence system, Israeli officials confirmed on Friday. The move appeared to reflect a profound reassessment of strategic ties with Turkey, a former ally, months after Turkey downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel.
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12/26/2011
The first batch of P-81 maritime reconnaissance aircraft being purchased by the Indian Navy from Boeing Corporation of US will carry a vital and innovative mobile satellite service (MSS)-based communication system developed by Hyderabad-based firm, Avantel.
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12/25/2011
Iran launched a large-scale 10-day naval exercise on Saturday in an area stretching from the east of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden, Press TV reported. The exercise, codenamed Velayat 90, will feature advanced weapon systems and technology, including Tareq and Ghadir submarines, ground-to-sea missile systems and torpedoes.
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12/23/2011
$480 million in funding will bring a C-27 J Spartan Aircraft here to Fargo. Senator John Hoeven says this aircraft gives North Dakota's National Guard empowerment and a stronger voice in shaping the nation's defense policies. This new aircraft provides key support for our nation's defense and homeland security operations. It's a versatile cargo aircraft used to transport materials in support of combat operations.
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12/23/2011
An unmanned helicopter capable of carrying more than 3,500 pounds of cargo (1.6 tonnes) has begun supplying troops in Afghanistan, US military officials said Thursday. It is hoped the K-MAX, which conducted its maiden flight with cargo in a combat zone on Saturday, will help save lives by reducing the need for vehicle convoys which are often a target of roadside bombs.
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12/23/2011
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be a cornerstone of Japanese defense. The Japanese know something about technology. And as a leader in technology worldwide, the Japanese decision validates the cutting edge role of the F-35.
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12/22/2011
The Philippines has asked the United States, its closest security partner, to give it at
least a squadron of second-hand F-16 fighters to help upgrade its territorial defences, the foreign secretary said on Wednesday. The Philippines has no air power to speak of, with its 40-year-old F-5A/Bs fighter jets retired from service several years ago. It has no bombers or surveillance aircraft and still flies Vietnam War-era UH-1H helicopters.
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12/22/2011
India's Air Chief on Wednesday flew a one-hour sortie in a Sukhoi combat jet in a bid to restore his pilots' confidence after doubts were raised over the aircraft's safety following a crash on December 13, the third since the plane was inducted in 1997.
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12/22/2011
Never colonised, Oman has benefited from a long and close alliance with Britain, which helped transform the tribal levies and palace guard of Muscat and Oman into modern armed forces.
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12/22/2011
News of the death of Kim Jong-il was accompanied by conspicuous muscle flexing by the North Korean military. The “Dear Leader” left behind an enormous war machine, the maintenance of which consumes the bulk of the country’s daily activities. How does this machine work and what does the future hold for it?
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12/22/2011
The drone had been in the air for close to five hours before its mission crew realized that something was wrong. The oil temperature in the plane’s turbocharger, they noticed, had risen into the “cautionary” range. An hour later, it was worse, and it just kept rising as the minutes wore on. While the crew desperately ran through its “engine overheat” checklist trying to figure out the problem, the engine oil temperature, too, began skyrocketing.
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12/22/2011
With its Dec. 20 decision to purchase Lockheed-Martin's Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning II as Japan's next generation fighter aircraft, the Japanese government gets to have its cake and eat it too. What Japan wants is simple: the most advanced military technology available (or at least better than what China has); activity in the domestic weapons industry; and good relations with the United States. They get all this and then some with the F-35.
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12/22/2011
A Saudi Hawk jet aircraft of the Royal Saudi Air Force crashed during a training mission in the north-western region (Tabuk) yesterday morning, the Saudi Telegraph has reported. The newspaper reported that an official source of the Ministry of Defence said the crash was caused by a bird collision, which led to a malfunction in one of its engines. The source said the pilot managed to eject safely in a parachute.
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12/22/2011
The US Department of Defense has announced that Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $600 million fixed-price foreign military sales contract for the supply of 12 additional Block 50 F-16 C/D fighters (eight single-seat F-16Cs and four two-seat F-16Ds) to the Royal Air Force of Oman.
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12/21/2011
The fifth Airbus Military A400M military airlifter has made its first flight, marking the end of a highly successful year for the programme and meaning that the full fleet of Grizzly development aircraft is now in the air, completing the flight-test programme. Known as Grizzly 5, the aircraft took off from Seville, Spain with a take-off weight of 125 tonnes at 08:55 local time (GMT+1) and landed back at Seville 2 hours 10 minutes later.
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12/21/2011
As Iraq continues along the long road towards rebuilding its Air Force aircraft fleet, it continues to evaluate the available options like the Italian one represented by the M-346 of Aermacchi, the British BAE Hawk and the Korean KAI T-50 Golden Eagle. However, at the moment the Czech offer appears to have stolen a march as the nation’s interest has now switched to second-hand Aero L-159A: a single-seat light multi-role combat aircraft designed for a variety of air-to-air, air-to-ground and reco
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12/21/2011
The aerodrome, in West End Road, will host Typhoon jets before and during the Olympic Games next summer, and
has been designated as the main base for military aircraft in the capital, in a security operation that includes 13,500 troops across the various London 2012 venues. HMS Ocean, the largest warship in the Royal Navy, will be anchored in the Thames at Greenwich, from where Puma and Lynx helicopters will be on 24-hour standby to combat any terrorist attack.
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12/21/2011
The U.S. aerospace industry will post solid gains for 2011, but faces strong headwinds in 2012 and beyond with predictions of massive job losses if budget sequestration efforts go into effect, said the head of the Aerospace Industry Association (AIA).
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12/21/2011
As the world watched the last convoy pass through the gates at Khabari Crossing on the Kuwait-Iraq border, they may not have realized those on the ground had some help in the skies from airmen with a historic lineage. Col. Rodney Petithomme, 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group commander, and Lt. Col. Jason Plourde, commander of the 79th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron “Tigers," both part of the Tuskegee Airmen heritage, flew the last combat mission over Iraq, Dec. 18, 2011, piloting F-16s.
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12/21/2011
The battle to win a $1.5 billion contract to supply Australia with new combat transport aircraft has heated up. A US bid document has prompted a European competitor to suggest its offer could save as much as $300 million in the lifetime of the project. The tender for as many as 10 ''battlefield airlifter'' aircraft to replace the RAAF's DHC-4 Caribou, which were retired in 2009, has been under way since September.
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12/20/2011
As Iraq continues along the long road towards rebuilding some military capabilities, including a fully independent and capable air force, the acquisition of an advanced jet trainer aircraft is being accorded a high priority. It seems, though, that the nation’s interest has now switched from the BAE Hawk, KAI T-50 Golden Eagle and Aermacchi M-346 to second-hand Czech Aero L-159As.
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12/20/2011
As unmanned aerial vehicles become increasingly common, warfighters continue to press for more imagery from a broader range of high-resolution sensors, putting more pressure on those who design the systems that collect images and send them to analysts. System developers are responding by deploying different types of sensors and electronics that analyze and compress images before they’re transmitted.
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12/20/2011
Today, the Honourable Julian Fantino, Associate Minister of National Defence, made the following statement following Japan's decision to purchase the next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Like Canada, countries are choosing this state-of-the-art aircraft over other fighters including the F-18 Super Hornet and the Eurofighter Typhoon.
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12/20/2011
Oman has placed a $600m order with Texas-based Lockheed Martin for a second batch of 12 F-16C/D Block 50 fighters, the US Ministry of Defence has said. The new aircraft, which includes ten single-seat fighters and a pair of two-seat trainers, will join 12 of the aircraft already in service with the Royal Air Force of Oman, the DoD said in a contract notification.
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12/20/2011
The 2012 defense authorization bill will likely mean the retirement of four B-1 bombers from the Dyess Air Force Base fleet over the next five years, U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer said. The legislation, approved last week by Congress, mandates the retirement of six B-1s staggered over five years to save about $400 million, free up funds to reinvest in modernizing the aging fleet and provide spare parts to keep the remaining B-1s in the air. It's not clear yet which B-1s the Air Force will cut.
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12/20/2011
With the death of Kim Jong Il, and the apparent succession by his youngest son Kim Jong Un, the world's fourth largest Army, and a modest but capable nuclear arsenal, fall into the hands of an unknown man in his late 20s. The exact age of the younger Mr. Kim is unknown, as his birth date may have been changed to reflect a more auspicious number, but he was likely born Jan. 8 in 1982 or 1983.
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12/20/2011
Eventually it may become passé to call drones the “eyes in the skies” for ground troops, if only because they will be called on to do so much more than the reconnaissance missions that so far have been their forte. Efforts continue to outfit more unmanned aircraft systems with weapons. And the day is coming when UAS will carry cargo and people in and out of war zones, officials said Dec. 16 at an Army Aviation Association of America conference in Arlington, Va.
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12/20/2011
Flying drone aircraft over Afghanistan from the comfort of a military base in the United States is much more stressful than it might seem, even for pilots spared the sacrifice of overseas deployment and separation from family and friends.
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12/20/2011
The Japan Ministry of Defense has announced its selection of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II as the Japan Air Self Defense Force’s (JASDF) next generation fighter aircraft, following the F-X competitive bid process. The F-35A conventional takeoff and landing variant (CTOL) was offered by the United States government with participation from Lockheed Martin. The initial contract will be for four jets in Japan Fiscal Year 2012, which begins April 1, 2012.
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12/19/2011
Seoul put South Korean forces on high alert and Pyongyang urged an increase in its "military capability" as the death of North Korea's enigmatic leader Kim Jong Il spurred fresh security concerns in the tense region.
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12/19/2011
Two early warning aircraft that were sent to the United State in June last year for upgrades have been returned and will be tested soon, military sources said Sunday. They have been retrofitted with more efficient eight-blade propellers and their radar and surveillance systems have been upgraded. The two aircraft, originally called E-2T, were sold to Taiwan by the U.S. in the 1990s.
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12/19/2011
The Israeli and Italian Air Forces on Friday completed a two-week joint training exercise involving fighter jets from both nations. The exercise involved pilots flying F-16A, F-16C and F-15Is from three Israeli squadrons, pitted against Italian Air Force pilots flying Eurofighter Typhoons and Panavia Tornado strike fighters.
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12/19/2011
After first denying that the Iranian military had captured the CIA's RQ-170 Sentinel spy drone, and then reluctantly acknowledging the fact only after PressTV aired footage of the killer bot, the Associated Press reported that "the Obama administration said Monday it has delivered a formal request to Iran" that they return it.
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12/19/2011
The last U.S. soldiers rolled out of Iraq across the border to neighboring Kuwait at daybreak Sunday, whooping, fist bumping and hugging each other in a burst of joy and relief. Their exit marked the end of a bitterly divisive war that raged for nearly nine years and left Iraq shattered, with troubling questions lingering over whether the Arab nation will remain a steadfast U.S. ally.
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12/19/2011
Around 1,100 Air Force pilots fly remotely piloted aircraft – or drones. These planes soar over Iraq or Afghanistan but the pilots sit at military bases back in the United States. A new Pentagon study shows that almost 30 percent of drone pilots surveyed suffer from what the military calls "burnout." It's the first time the military has tried to measure the psychological impact of waging a "remote-controlled war."
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12/18/2011
The RAF faces a freeze on recruiting pilots after being forced to clear a three-year backlog of trainees caused by defence cuts, confidential documents show. Despite sacking 170 trainee pilots earlier this year, air force chiefs have found they still have 150 recruits “too many” for their flying programme, papers passed to The Telegraph disclose.
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12/18/2011
Russia will try to stop any military attack against Iran as the two countries have mutual interests and any attack against Tehran would also be a serious problem for Russia, a Russian military analyst tells Press TV.
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12/18/2011
Miss Blessing Liman made history on Saturday, December 10, 2011, when she became Nigeria’s first female military pilot. 25-year-old Blessing was commissioned along with her male colleagues who completed the Direct Short Service Course 2010/2011 at the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Base, Kaduna. It may be argued that the emergence of Nigeria’s first female military pilot is long overdue.
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12/17/2011
The Serbian air force, left with just a handful of operational planes after wars in the 1990s, wants to buy a dozen aircraft at a cost of around 1 billion euros (1.3 billion), a defence official said on Friday. "The procurement of two squadrons, weapons systems, spares and training will likely require additional borrowing," said the official, who asked not to be named. "Parliamentary approval would be needed."
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12/17/2011
A hack led to the recent capture of a United States RQ-170 Sentinel drone by Iran, a science-oriented tech site reported. The Christian Science Monitor interviewed an Iranian engineer who said they exploited a vulnerability in the drone's system to fool it into landing in Iran. “The GPS navigation is the weakest point. By putting noise (jamming) on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain,” the Iranian engineer said.
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12/17/2011
The Air Force is buying a single General Atomics Predator C Avenger jet-powered unmanned combat aircraft, the service said in a document posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website on Friday. According to the heavily redacted document, Lt. Gen. Thomas Owen, commander of the service’s Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, approved the procurement. The value of the sole-source contract was redacted.
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12/17/2011
India Friday signed a fresh agreement with Russia for the licensed production of 42 Sukhoi fighters for which the Russians will provide technical and equipment support. The new deal comes a week after an Indian Air Force (IAF) Sukhoi Su-30MKI crashed near Pune in Maharashtra following which the entire fleet of 120 planes in six squadrons has been grounded while the case of the accident is investigated.
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12/17/2011
The US has recorded budget cuts and is expected to also record budget cuts during the forecast period. Despite this, North America is expected to account for the largest share of 42.9%, of the total global expenditure on military aircraft during the forecast period. The high demand in the region is primarily driven by the development of 2,456 F-35 multi-role fighter aircraft as part of the Joint Strike Fighter program and 452 V-22 Osprey transport aircraft.
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12/17/2011
The Army of today is making plans for the helicopter of tomorrow -- fast, tough, and even semi-autonomous. And with the Pentagon's target date of 2030 to begin fielding a fleet of these next-generation vertical-lift aircraft, one can only hope that the Army won't be overly beholden to designs based on the futuristic blueprints of today.
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12/16/2011
U.S. officials in Baghdad have spoken of the sacrifices made by both Americans and Iraqis at a formal ceremony marking the end of U.S. military operations in Iraq after nearly nine years of war. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that "after a lot of blood spilled by Iraqis and Americans, the mission of an Iraq that could govern and secure itself has become real."
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12/16/2011
The US Department of Defense on December 14th, has announced that Lockheed Martin have been awarded $600M fixed-price contract for a Foreign Military Sales program that will provide the government of Oman 12 additional F-16 C/D block 50 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft.
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12/16/2011
There is no chance that Canada will cancel its order for about 65 F-35 joint strike fighters.
That fact was underlined again this week with reports from Japan that before Christmas, Tokyo will announce its intention to buy as many as 50 of the state-of-the-art stealth warplanes.
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12/16/2011
The most interesting intelligence-related incident in recent times has been the loss of an American RQ-170 Sentinel ''stealth'' Unmanned Aircraft System to Iran earlier this month. Another term for the aircraft is ''low-observable Unmanned Aerial Vehicle'' or UAV. The ''RQ'' denominator indicates that it is not an armed aircraft, unlike the Predator or Reaper UAVs with their ''MQ'' prefix and air-to-surface-missile fits.
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12/16/2011
The raging arms race in the region between the U.S, China, Japan and Russia has shifted from naval weapons to fighter planes. The Japanese government says it will select Lockheed Martin's F35 stealth jet as its choice for the next-generation fighter plane. Tokyo will apparently announce its selection later this week. It will purchase four of the radar-evading fighters in 2016 and deploy a total of 50 in stages. The total cost is estimated at W10.23 trillion (US$1=W1,156).
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12/16/2011
The British government's most senior defence and security policy advisers are finally facing up to a fundamental shift in the world's military and economic balance. More than two decades after the end of the cold war, they are acknowledging some harsh realities - Europe will no longer be able to rely on the US, Europe is getting progressively poorer, and the people of Europe want to spend less on weapons, not more.
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12/16/2011
The Air Force made public a long-awaited report about the death of a pilot who crashed in the Alaskan wilderness in the military's most expensive fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor. An Air Force accident investigation board issued a report that said Capt. Jeff "Bong" Haney, 31, was at fault when his F-22 crashed near Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson during a test mission at night in November 2010.
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12/16/2011
Develop one aircrew mask that can be used on over 100 different air frames. That is the challenge for researchers assigned to the Joint Service Aircrew Mask-Fixed Wing Program.
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12/16/2011
There’s been much talk in the media of an apparent offer by the Seychelles of a base for Chinese ships deployed to the Gulf of Aden and the West Indian Ocean, to help combat piracy. While it’s not yet clear if the offer has been accepted, Chinese media reports suggest that Beijing is actively considering it as a “resupply” base.
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12/16/2011
Belarus has taken delivery of the first consignment of advanced Tor-M2 antiaircraft missile systems from Russia, Belarusian Defense Minister Yury Zhadobin said on Thursday. “The first two units arrived yesterday,” he told the Belta news agency. All 14 systems will have been delivered before December 24, he said, adding that the first Tor-M2 battery would be based in the Brest region.
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12/15/2011
As the military scrambles to deal with a U.S. spy drone lost in Iran, it was revealed that the U.S. Air Force has bought a cutting edge, jet-powered stealth drone -- and plans its immediate deployment in Afghanistan.
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12/15/2011
An Air Force investigation into what caused the crash of an F-15E Strike Eagle during a night combat operation over Libya last March has concluded that a weight imbalance was a major factor. Col. Scott Shapiro, who led the accident investigation, said in a Wednesday phone interview from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, that the right wing of the jet was supporting at least 1,000 pounds more weight than the left side at the time of the March 21 crash.
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12/15/2011
One of the oldest planes the United States Air Force still flies is used to carry out some of America's most sensitive and critical missions. Whether it's aiding NATO troops in Afghanistan, providing surveillance over North Korea or examining Japan's hurricane ravaged coast, the high altitude U-2 keeps flying despite initial plans to retire it by the end of this year.
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12/15/2011
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Wednesday he was confident of selling Rafale fighter jets to Brazil and could beat off rival bids because the aircraft’s technology cannot be matched. The Rafale is competing against US aviation giant Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet and Swedish manufacturer Saab’s Gripen jet for a tender from Brazil to supply 36 multi-role combat aircraft.
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12/15/2011
U.S. aerospace sales for 2012 may remain unchanged from this year’s revenue of $218 billion because of weak military sales, an industry trade group said today.
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12/15/2011
These are decisive days for the Eurofighter Group, as its plane is competing in two major tenders in Japan and India. The first tender seems to have been lost, as announced yesterday by the Japanese press, having favored the F-35 Joint Strike fighter of which 40 units should be purchased to boost its self-defense, despite being more expensive than the two other competitors, the Eurofighter Typhoon and Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet.
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12/15/2011
House and Senate conferees agreed on $662.4 billion for the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill, about $26.6 billion below the president’s original request, reflecting the level of reductions in national security spending required under August’s budget agreement. Almost all the cuts were made in the Pentagon’s core budget, with only $2.3 billion coming out of funds for Afghanistan and Iraq, and $1.2 billion from the nuclear weapons program.
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12/15/2011
Iran has nearly completed their examination of a crashed U.S. Air Force spy drone and are preparing to reverse-engineer it so it can be mass-produced for the Iranian military. Iran refused requests from the U.S. that the drone be returned.
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12/15/2011
The report, dated Nov. 29, sounds alarms that technological and performance problems, which will be costly to resolve, lie ahead for the already troubled and over-budget warplane. Among the issues raised are unexpectedly severe shaking and failures of an important electrical component. However, the report does not suggest that any of the problems cannot be overcome or that the F-35 will be unable to fulfill its intended capabilities.
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12/15/2011
An action-packed 2011 saw air power put to the test across its full spectrum of activities, from all-out conflict and clandestine cross-border raids to flying humanitarian relief missions in the wake of natural disasters. For once, the main defence headlines of the year were not driven by coalition action in Afghanistan or Iraq, but the result of the "Arab Spring" movement that swept through Middle Eastern and North African nations, bringing unrest and political upheaval.
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12/14/2011
A frontline Sukhoi jet of the Indian Air Force ( IAF) crashed near this Maharashtra town Tuesday but the two pilots bailed out to safety, an officer said. The crash of the SU-30MKI combat jet occurred around 1.30 p.m. "The pilots are safe," the officer said, adding that there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties on the ground.
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12/14/2011
The appearance of a Russian navy battlegroup off the coast of Scotland last night raised fresh concerns over the UK government’s decision not to have any surveillance aircraft. Ministry of Defence (MoD) sources told The Scotsman that a Type 42 destroyer, HMS York, had to be despatched from Portsmouth to shadow the group of Russian ships, 25 miles off the coast of Moray.
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12/14/2011
Japan is poised to decide which new fighter jets will defend its borders for the next generation, in the most highly anticipated deal of a miserable year for military aircraft producers. The decision, likely before the end of the year, will define whether Tokyo continues its almost exclusive technical military partnership with the US or turns to Europe for major front line weapons for the first time since the second world war.
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12/14/2011
Aviation Week cites several of the problems in the report. Of interest is how the F-35 program spins events to make them sound like progress. For instance, it was reported in the media recently that the F-35 reached Mach 1.6 in a test. Few glowing statements were spared. Not reported was that after the flight, the aircraft program was limited to Mach 1 performance because of damage to the horizontal stabilisers and engine thermal protection.
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12/14/2011
An American military drone which had been used to monitor piracy off the East African coast has crashed at an airport on the island nation of Seychelles during a routine patrol, officials said.
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12/14/2011
Iranian officials have crowed they are mining "priceless technological information" from a CIA spy drone that went down days ago inside Iran's borders, broadcasting triumphant images of what they said was the craft on state TV. But many experts say the loss of the RQ-170 Sentinel drone — like the U-2 spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960 — may have more value as propaganda than as a treasure trove of technological secrets.
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12/14/2011
The White House is pointing to a proposed sale of F-16 fighter jets to Iraq as a sign of a deepening security partnership, though delivery of the aircraft is a few years away, and Iraq's fighter pilots are still learning to fly. That means Iraq will be left with a gap in its defenses after the departure this month of the last U.S. forces stationed in the nation.
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12/14/2011
Army officials have not identified the deceased soldiers or the cause of the crash, as an investigative team traveled to the site to begin work Wednesday morning. The two-seat reconnaissance choppers crashed after 8 p.m. Monday in the southwest training area of the sprawling base, killing all four on board, according to the Army.
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12/14/2011
The final F-22 Raptor fighter jet rolled off the assembly line during a ceremony at the Lockheed Martin aircraft plant at Dobbins Air Reserve Base. The U.S. military is turning to the less costly F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to complement its operational fleet of 187 Raptors, amid concerns in Washington that the $153 million F-22 is too costly and too high-tech for its own good.
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12/14/2011
The Boeing Company today delivered the second Peace Eye 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft to the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF).
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12/13/2011
France still hopes to find a buyer for its Rafale fighter jets and has no intention of giving up on its aviation industry because of difficulties selling the aircraft abroad, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Monday. France delivered its 100th Rafale plane this summer and production is due to stop in 2021 if no new order materialises.
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12/13/2011
In 2011, gamers were graced with two Ace Combat titles, one on consoles and the other on the Nintendo 3DS. Both games carry the title “Assault Horizon” but they are both completely different titles when it comes to the gameplay department. In Assault Horizon on the consoles, players can expect very explosive dog and ground-fights while in Legacy, they are toned down due to the limitations of the 3DS hardware.
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12/13/2011
Fresh troubles are delaying India’s indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft program, with final operational clearance slipping by over a year to December 2014. Testing challenges and performance-parameter issues have delayed flight testing, operational envelope expansion and certification, leading to the Indian air force (IAF) reluctantly agreeing to a 12-month slip in declaration of the aircraft as fully operational.
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12/13/2011
Even as the last F-22 fighter jet rolls out of flag-draped doors at a Lockheed Martin Corp assembly plant on Tuesday, the Air Force has taken steps that leave open an option to restart the premier plane's production relatively cheaply. The Air Force is preserving the hardware used to build the jet, not scrapping it, although it insists this is solely to sustain the fleet over its projected 30-plus years' "lifecycle."
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12/13/2011
Iraq wants to buy an additional 18 Lockheed Martin F-16IQ Fighting Falcon jets, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress on Dec. 12. The $2.3 billion sale includes 24 Pratt and Whitney F100-PW-229 or General Electric F110-GE-129 engines, and would be managed under the Pentagon's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) apparatus, the release says. The deal would also include a host of ancillary equipment such as targeting pods, weapons and conformal fuel tanks.
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12/13/2011
Hu said that China's navy should "make extended preparations for warfare," adding that the navy should "accelerate its transformation and modernization in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security. Our work must closely encircle the main theme of national defense and military building."
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12/13/2011
The U.S. Army's MQ-5B Hunter unmanned aerial ISR vehicles will be reset by Northrop Grumman from C-Band communications to a tactical common data link. The work comes under two contractor logistics support contract modifications worth $91.2 million. Each features a one-year performance period.
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12/13/2011
The ability to defend the skies and operate overseas at the same time would be in peril if the Harper government buys fewer stealth fighters than planned, the head of the Royal Canadian Air Force said Monday. Lt.-Gen. Andre Deschamps said the air force would have to review how much "concurrent activity" it could handle if the number of radar-evading F-35s drop below the 65 aircraft the government has promised.
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12/13/2011
China on Monday said its naval fleet would only seek supplies or recuperate in the Seychelles during anti-piracy operations, denying reports that Beijing might break with its long-standing policy by setting up a military base overseas with a presence in the Indian Ocean archipelago.
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12/13/2011
Today Boeing announced completion of all flight testing needed for the B-52 Combat Network Communications Technology (CONECT) program to receive low rate initial production (LRIP) authorization from the U.S. Air Force. The flight test program was conducted at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., by Boeing and the Air Force.
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12/12/2011
The United States has finally vacated the Shamsi Airbase in the Washuk district of Balochistan after using it for numerous covert and overt operations in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan in the war against terror for over a decade.
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12/12/2011
The loss to Iran of the CIA's surveillance drone bristling with advanced spy technology is more than a propaganda coup and intelligence windfall for the Tehran government. The plane's capture has peeled back another layer of secrecy from expanding U.S. operations against Iran's nuclear and military programs. Like the Soviet Union's downing of the American U-2 spy plane during the Cold War, Iran's recovery of the drone has cast a spotlight on part of the U.S.-Iran spycraft.
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12/12/2011
The Pentagon and the U.S. Army are in the early stages of a far-reaching Science & Technology effort designed to engineer, build and deliver a next-generation helicopter with vastly improved avionics, electronics, range, speed, propulsion, survivability, operating density altitudes and payload capacity, service officials said.
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12/12/2011
There appears to be growing consensus that the Marine Corps can better survive a cut in forces over weapons programs to meet expected 2013 budget cuts. Two local men — Harry Blot, retired Marine Corps lieutenant general and Joint Strike Fighter advisor, and Hugh Overholt, retired Army major general and attorney who has led the area’s lobby for continued military air presence at Cherry Point — agree with the Marine Corps logic outlined in stories published on TheHill.com Thursday and Friday.
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12/12/2011
Tight budgets will ground some Air Force aircraft that traditionally appear in smaller air shows, but the organizer of Thunder Over the Valley in Santa Maria retains high hopes of landing an F-22 demonstration team and other military aircraft in 2012.
The Air Force’s Air Combat Command has announced a reduction of single-ship demonstration teams in 2012.
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12/12/2011
Nearly nine years after the United States threw out Saddam Hussein and dissolved his feared security machine, Iraq's rebuilt military is a long way from matching up with regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel. With little air defense, marginal control of its borders and a tenuous grip on Sunni insurgents and Shi'ite militias, Iraq may depend on American military help for years to come, even as most U.S. troops leave Iraqi soil by mid-December.
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12/12/2011
The group of Marines sprang into action and raced into combat position, with weapons aimed, as they assaulted a possible terrorist stronghold. Moments later, they were sipping sodas and chatting with friends about weekend plans. For them it was just another exercise in a war-game training simulation — a computer-generated virtual world that can take them to remote war zones, help them learn combat tactics and terrain, and have them home in time for dinner.
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12/12/2011
Military aircraft designers at the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. in Fort Worth, Texas, will build 30 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) advanced combat aircraft and advanced avionics for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps under terms of a $4 billion contract modification announced late Friday from the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md.
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12/11/2011
Eurofighter's director for its Typhoon Malaysia programme was responding to negative news reports that the multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) was too costly. "Our approach is to provide a figure... this can go down later (depending on what the requirements are)," he said at the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace exhibition.
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12/11/2011
The Alberta Aviation Museum will be getting its own F-104 Starfighter aircraft after a local waterbombing and forest firefighting aircraft company stepped in with a donation to commemorate its founder. Air Spray Ltd., whose founder Don Hamilton died in July at age 86, will be giving up to $40,000 to the museum to help it purchase one of the fastest planes ever operated in Canada.
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12/11/2011
If you listen to defense industry lobbyists, hawks in Congress and the Pentagon, the sky is falling and with it, American security. It isn’t. The failure of the “supercommittee” to reach a deficit agreement is supposed to trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts in federal spending over the next decade, nearly $500 billion of that from the basic Pentagon budget. Many Republicans, and some Democrats, are already talking about getting the Pentagon off the hook.
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12/11/2011
The Pentagon and the U.S. Army are in the early stages of a far-reaching Science & Technology effort designed to engineer, build and deliver a next-generation helicopter with vastly improved avionics, electronics, range, speed, propulsion, survivability, operating density altitudes and payload capacity, service officials said.
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12/10/2011
The C-130J Super Hercules aircraft of the Indian Air Force has set the record for the longest ever flight undertaken by a military aircraft in the country without refuelling. "Two C-130J Super Hercules aircraft successfully flew non-stop for 9 hours and 45 minutes from Rome in Italy to Muscat in Oman in June this year setting a record for longest flight without refuelling by any IAF aircraft," IAF officials said here.
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12/10/2011
Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) is being awarded a $4 billion fixed-price U.S. Navy contract for 30 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, the fifth batch of low-rate initial production, the Defense Department said on Friday. The deal would provide 21 conventional models for the Air Force, six carrier variants for the Navy and three short-takeoff and vertical landing versions for the Marine Corps, a notice in the Pentagon's daily contract digest said.
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12/10/2011
The U.S. Army last month rolled out the latest upgrade to Boeing’s iconic Apache attack helicopter—the AH-64D Longbow Block III. The version includes at least 25 technology upgrades and, importantly, interoperability with unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that permits a pilot in flight to control a drone, tap into its streaming video and use its sensors for target engagement.
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12/10/2011
Malaysia’s requirement for a new multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) was a key feature of this week’s Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace (LIMA) exhibition. Although no formal request for proposals (RFP) has been issued, the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab Gripen were all on flying or static display in pairs.
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12/10/2011
Russia's Irkut Corp. has signed a contract with the country's Defense Ministry for 55 Yak-130 jet trainers for delivery in 2015. "As part of efforts to form a new image of the Russian armed forces, the Defense Ministry pays primary attention to equipping the armed forces with state-of-the-art hardware and to enhancing its combat capability," Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said.
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12/10/2011
This week we learned that a stealthy RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crashed 140 miles inside Iran with its wreckage recovered by Iranian security forces. Dubbed "the Beast of Kandahar" in 2009 after it appeared at a U.S. airbase there, the RQ-170 flew clandestine missions over Abbottabad, Pakistan, collecting intelligence prior to the May raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
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12/10/2011
The Pentagon’s purchase of F-35 Lightning II combat jets may have to be stretched out, the top U.S. uniformed official said. “We are committed, that is to say, the U.S. military, to the development of the fifth-generation fighter, clearly,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington on Friday. “There are some fact-of-life changes that we’ll probably have to make based on the ability to procure it on timelines that we’d like to have.”
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12/09/2011
Victor Komardin, the deputy director of Russia’s arms export agency Rosoboronexport, contends that the two short-listed candidates for India’s Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition have effectively ruled themselves out by putting too high a price on their fighters.
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12/09/2011
Production on France's Rafale fighter jet could be stopped if foreign buyers don't materialize, the country's defense minister warned Wednesday. Gerard Longuet maintained that the Rafale - which has long failed to win any contracts abroad and is currently used solely by the French armed forces -- is an "excellent plane." However, he acknowledged the Rafale is handicapped by its price, which is higher than its U.S. rival.
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12/09/2011
Fighter jets bombed the southern Somali town of Baardheere on Thursday, killing at least one civilian, and fighting broke out in the north of Mogadishu, exposing the government's struggle to secure the capital.
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12/09/2011
The after-market division of Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. has joined two Malaysian firms for aircraft maintenance and support in the country. A Memorandum of Understanding to explore business opportunities was signed Wednesday in Malaysia and involves Sikorsky Aerospace Services, AIROD Sdn. Bhd., and Aviation Design Center Sdn. Bhd.
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12/09/2011
Iran paraded what its military described as a captured C.I.A. stealth drone on national television on Thursday and lodged an official diplomatic protest, portraying the visual images as an intelligence and propaganda windfall in its conflict with the West over its nuclear program.
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12/09/2011
Sudarshan Shakti, a joint exercise of the Southern Army & South Western Air command (SWAC) in the desert has entered into its final phase. The desert-exercise has enabled the army with the air force to use the latest technology to create and be ready for real-time war-like situations.
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12/09/2011
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's aerial bombing campaign in Libya tested the capabilities of Dassault Aviation's Rafale as a multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) and it passed with flying colours, said a French air force pilot who flew it during the campaign.
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12/09/2011
Georgia was named a NATO aspirant country for the first time on Thursday, the country’s deputy premier said. Georgia, which has been proactively seeking NATO membership since a coup in 2003, was included on the list during a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers that opened on Wednesday in Brussels
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12/08/2011
The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) and the Indian Air Force (IAF) have been conducting a Joint Military Training (JMT) since October 14. The Ministry of Defence said the training at Kalaikunda Air Force Station, India, will end on the December 9.
The RSAF has deployed F16-D+ fighter aircraft, RBS-70 missile system fire units and PSTAR radar to join the IAF's MiG-27, MiG-21 and Hawk MK 132 fighter aircraft for this year's training.
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12/08/2011
Britain and France plan to work together on developing military drones, the British defence minister said on Wednesday. Referring to an agreement last year to increase military collaboration in a bid to cut costs, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond told a parliamentary committee there would be a joint announcement on drones by London and Paris.
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12/08/2011
France has taken delivery of the first of eight Airbus Military CN235 aircraft, ordered last year for 225 million euros, to compensate for delays in receiving the A400M. The French General Directorate of Armaments, DGA, received the first aircraft on November 17, two months ahead of schedule. The aircraft will be operated by Escadron de Transport 62 at Creil-Senlis.
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12/08/2011
The Department of Defense (DOD) is looking to mobile application development to improve its development of sensors for drones and other military surveillance, reconnaissance, and intelligence vehicles.
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12/08/2011
The current financial crisis in Greece has led to enormous cutbacks in government spending. The military has not been exempt. This year alone, the defense budget will be cut about a third. Over the next two years, the reduced budget will be cut another 15 percent. The army will lose 11 of its 30 brigades, but the air force has disbanded one of 16 squadrons, but kept the aircraft in service by moving them to surviving squadrons. The navy has retired some older patrol boats.
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12/08/2011
France warned on Wednesday that defence giant Dassault would halt production of its Rafale multirole fighter jet if it remains unable to sell any abroad. "If Dassault doesn't sell any Rafales abroad, the production line... will be stopped" once France has received the 180 aircraft it has ordered, Defence Minister Gerard Longuet told a small group of journalists including AFP.
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12/08/2011
U.S. moves to strengthen its military alliances in Asia are not aimed at containing China, a top U.S. defense official said Thursday. She said her comments came in response to Chinese questions about a decision to base 2,500 Marines for training in Australia next year. Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy said she communicated that message to her Chinese counterparts during annual defense talks in Beijing.
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12/08/2011
The United States is in discussions with Libya over ways to help rebuild the country's military, which the U.S. military considers essential to unify the country and bring rival militias under national control.
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12/08/2011
An airborne signals intelligence system configured specifically for the newest C-130J aircraft has been delivered to the U.S. Air Force by Lockheed Martin. The system, which is part of the Senior Scout program that enables C-130 aircraft to be used for tactical signals intelligence and reconnaissance, will undergo acceptance testing in December.
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12/08/2011
Lockheed Martin delivered the first Modernized Day Sensor Assembly (M-DSA) upgrade prototype units to the U.S. Army for use on the Apache attack helicopter. Five System Design and Development (SDD) Laser Rangefinder Designators (LRFDs) were recently delivered to the Army under a three-year contract awarded to Lockheed Martin in September 2008 to modernize the Apache’s Day Sensor Assembly.
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12/07/2011
Russia started the first day at an arms show in Malaysia with a preliminary agreement on the delivery of six Su-30MK2 fighters to Indonesia, the Kommersant business daily said on Wednesday. Kommersant cited a Russian source at the talks with Indonesia during the LIMA-2011 arms show on the main island of Langkawi as saying that a contract on the Su-30MK2 delivery could be signed as early as by the end of 2011.
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12/07/2011
So just how often do US military drones "disappear"? The US military acknowledged Sunday that one of its unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAV’s, had gone missing over western Afghanistan late last week. “The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status,” a statement released by NATO forces in Afghanistan said Sunday.
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12/07/2011
The U.S. drone that apparently fell into Iran's hands was part of a joint CIA-military reconnaissance operation, Fox News has learned. A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the spy plane was being used for the CIA-military operation along the Afghan-Iranian border when it lost connectivity and disappeared.
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12/07/2011
Eurofighter Typhoon will take pride of place as one of the highlights of the daily flying display at LIMA 2011 as it debuts at the show. On Tuesday 6 December the world’s most advanced multi-role combat aircraft, flown by BAE Systems’ Typhoon Test Pilot, Nat Makepeace, will take to the skies for the first time over Langkawi, demonstrating its incredible agility and speed.
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12/07/2011
Combat Electromagnetic Environment Simulators for E-3 aircraft are being provided to the U.S. Air Force by Northrop Grumman. The CEESIM system will be used to support maintenance of the U.S. Air Force E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System, Electronic Support Measures Operational Computer Program software.
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12/07/2011
Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $835,000,000 firm-fixed-price, time-and-material and cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a Foreign Military Sales Program which will provide the government of Iraq with the following: 18 F-16 C/D Block 52 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (12C models and 6 D models); support equipment; technical orders; integrated logistics support; and contractor logistics support.
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12/07/2011
The Department of Defense is already preparing for more than $400 billion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, and if the automatic reductions dictated by the 2011 Budget Control Act are not reversed, that number will increase by an additional $500 billion–$600 billion.
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12/07/2011
The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] on Nov. 28 received a U.S. Navy contract under the Foreign Military Sales Program to provide the first major upgrades for the Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) fleet of eight F/A-18D Hornet fighter aircraft.
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12/06/2011
Although it's by no means out of the woods yet it seems clear now that the 3DS is having a good Christmas. Key games Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 are both excellent and to judge by the charts they seem to be selling well. But while Nintendo has been shocked into action with their own games they’ll need to rely on other companies to pad out the rest of the system's release schedule. Something this new Ace Combat manages surprisingly well.
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12/06/2011
Spring 2012 at NAS Patuxent River, Md., and an unusual shape joins the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters flying the pattern at the U.S. Navy’s test center. The tailless flying wing is Northrop Grumman’s X-47B unmanned combat air system demonstrator (UCAS-D), being prepared for autonomous landings on an aircraft carrier in 2013.
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12/06/2011
The Indian Navy briefly touches upon the national consciousness every year on December 4 when it celebrates Navy Day to commemorate its successful sea-borne bombing of the Karachi harbour in the 1971 war with Pakistan. Similarly, it now makes news whenever its warships successfully interdict Somali pirates and rescue merchant vessels off the Gulf of Aden or elsewhere.
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12/06/2011
The first set of two Mirage 2000 combat jets of the Indian Air Force (IAF) have flown out for upgrade at the facilities of Thales, the French defence and aerospace giant, as part of a $1.35 billion deal for the 51-aircraft fleet. "Two aircraft - a single seater and a double-seater - have flown out to the French Air Base near Istres. The aircraft will reach Monday-Tuesday after halts in two countries in the Gulf and two in Europe," Thales country director Eric Lenseigne said.
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12/06/2011
Service in the drone squadrons of Israel, the world's oldest military operator of pilotless aircraft, sometimes begins on the fields of teenaged model plane enthusiasts. Veteran air force officers scout new talent among radio-controlled model clubs, a drone commander said Monday during a rare media tour of his unit.
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12/06/2011
The global economic crisis and the pressure it creates on defense spending means the U.S. and its allies must agree on new ways to split and share their military responsibilities, a top former U.S. defense official said.
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12/06/2011
An interservice battle fueled by disagreements over the purchase and operation of small, fixed-wing cargo planes has divided the Air Force from its own National Guard component and the Army. The debate between the parties over the future of the C-27J cargo aircraft, built by L-3 Communications and Alenia, has intensified in recent weeks in advance of the Pentagon finalizing its 2013 budget proposal, which is expected to determine the fate of the program.
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12/06/2011
Gloom and doom from one side, glee and visions of sugar plum fairies from the other: As usual, the Pushmi-pullyu beast that is America’s political elite has it exactly wrong as it weighs the dire (or wondrous) implications of “Draconian” cuts facing the U.S. armed forces over the next decade.
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12/06/2011
A U.S. super-secret spy plane believed to be in Iranian possession could be a major loss for the U.S. military -- and a major gain for Iran. According to a senior U.S. military source with intimate knowledge of the Sentinel drone, the aircraft likely "wandered" into Iranian air space after losing contact with its handlers and is presumed to be in tact since it is programmed to fly level and find a place to land, rather than crashing.
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12/06/2011
Lockheed Martin received two contracts totaling $30.6 million from the Naval Surface Warfare Center for the Target Sight System (TSS), the fire control system for the U.S. Marine Corps’ AH-1Z Cobra attack helicopter.
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12/05/2011
The congressional supercommittee concluded its work without an agreement on $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. The impasse could lead to automatic cuts to national defense, which accounts for 20 percent of federal spending. Congress has already cut $460 billion from the defense budget over the next decade; automatic triggers could allow an additional $600 billion in cuts.
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12/05/2011
The United States on Sunday appeared to give credence to Iranian state media reports that Iran had come into possession of a downed U.S. surveillance drone. The American-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan issued a brief statement Sunday saying that an unarmed U.S. reconnaissance aircraft had gone missing while on a mission in western Afghanistan late last week.
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12/05/2011
An American special plane arrived in Balochistan on Sunday to airlift American military personnel from Shamsi airbase after the government sought its vacation by December 11. The government had asked the U.S. to vacate the airbase hours after NATO fighter jets and helicopters bombed two border posts in Mohmand agency near the Afghan border and killed 24 soldiers on November 26.
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12/05/2011
Sikorsky Aircraft Corp.'s S-92® "Legacy of Heroes" demonstration helicopter will be shown on static display at the Langkawi International Maritime & Aerospace Exhibition beginning Dec. 6. Sikorsky is a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp..
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12/05/2011
There are celebrations at Linkoping, the home of the Gripen NG fighter, which is barely two hours from Stockholm in one of Sweden’s ultra-friendly inter-city trains. On Tuesday, the Swiss government announced its selection of the Gripen fighter for the Swiss Air Force, turning away the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale.
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12/04/2011
Swiss socialists want to hold a referendum on the government's 3.1 billion franc (2.5 billion euro) purchase of a new fighter jet fleet if the deal affects spending elsewhere, it was reported on Saturday. The Federal Council revealed on Wednesday its proposal to buy 22 Swedish-made Gripen planes to replace its ageing F5 fighters.
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12/04/2011
The U.S. Air Force's fleet of stealthy F-22 Raptor fifth-generation fighters has suffered two additional "physiological incidents" since Nov. 21, the service confirmed Dec. 2. "Since 21 Nov., there have been two physiological incidents and no events of interest," said Air Combat Command spokeswoman Kelly Sanders in an emailed statement.
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12/04/2011
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today vowed to fight an Air Force proposal, currently under consideration at the Defense Department, to eliminate the C-27J program. The elimination of the C-27J could have a serious impact on the 179th Airlift Wing at the Mansfield Air National Guard Base. The C-27J, in addition to being used in overseas operations, is also used domestically for disaster relief and other missions.
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12/04/2011
Production of Lockheed Martin Corp's (LMT.N) F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the costliest arms purchase in history, should be slowed because of the potential number of airframe cracks and "hot spots" turning up in testing and analysis, the Pentagon's F-35 program director said.
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12/04/2011
Congress’ failure to make a deficit deal could cut the number of soldiers by up to 25 percent, leaving the smallest Army since just before World War II. That, in turn, means you stand a good chance of deploying more often. You will do so with older gear, weapons and vehicles, and your pay and benefits — which are protected right now — are likely to see changes in the near future. For military leaders, the choice comes down to cutting soldiers, cutting programs or reducing pay and benefits.
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12/03/2011
A MiG-21 combat aircraft of the Indian Air Force on Friday crashed near Mangalia village of Rania Mandi in Sirsa but the pilot managed to eject moments before the plane went down. The combat aircraft of AIF took off from Sirsa Air Force station base around 10am for its regular practise. The plane crashed around 1pm in the fields of Mangalia village.
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12/03/2011
India's first carrier-borne naval fighter aircraft "LCA Tejas (Navy)" will take to the skies for its maiden flight this month, a top defence official said today, adding that it will form the air element of the Indian Navy. "LCA (Navy) will be flown in the month of December.I think by the end of this month, it should fly", V K Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Director General of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said.
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12/03/2011
Citing budget constraints, only the Air Force’s flagship aircraft—the F-22 Raptor—survived the chopping block, subsequently banishing the A-10 Warthog East and West, F-16 Viper East and West, and the F-15E Sentry Eagle teams to the history books, at least for the 2012 airshow season.
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12/03/2011
Airmen from the 772nd Expeditionary Airlift Squadron successfully completed an airdrop mission to Combat Outpost Herrera in east Afghanistan, using GPS-guided bundles to deliver the supplies Nov. 27.
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12/03/2011
The stealth design of the F-35 joint strike fighter is supposed to make it nearly invisible to enemy radar, but the super high-tech combat aircraft may not be able to avoid the bull's-eye of Pentagon budget-cutters. Congress' failure last month to agree on $1.2 billion in additional deficit reduction measures means the Defense Department is facing enormous funding cuts mandated by law.
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12/02/2011
A major defense contractor has joined with AVX Aircraft Co., a fledgling Fort Worth company, in an effort to win a Navy contract for an unmanned surveillance helicopter. AVX officials announced Wednesday that they teamed with BAE Systems, a $36 billion international conglomerate based in Great Britain, to submit a proposal for the planned Medium Range Maritime Unmanned Aerial System.
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12/02/2011
The Russian Air Force is receiving about a hundred new or refurbished aircraft and helicopters next year. That's a big improvement over a decade ago, when the air force got no aircraft, and only enough fuel to allow most pilots a few hours a month (on average) in the air.
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12/02/2011
Raytheon is offering its advanced combat radar system to South Korea as the air force opens its competition for radar upgrades to its F-16 aircraft. The RACR employs active electronically scanned array technology, a statement from Raytheon said. The system is the same AESA radar that Raytheon pioneered for the U.S. Air Force's F-15C and fielded in December 2000.
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12/02/2011
The cost for the Marines to fix and fly their full fleet of V-22 tiltrotors has grown by nearly two-thirds over just four years, according to a Pentagon estimate. In 2008, the Defense Department calculated the “lifetime” cost of operating 360 V-22 Osprey transports at $75 billion over roughly 30 years. Today the figure is more than $121 billion — a 61-percent increase.
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12/02/2011
The Swiss Federal Council decided to purchase 22 Swedish-made Saab Gripen fighter jets to replace its ageing F-5 Tiger. The planned purchase will be put to Parliament as part of the Government's 2012 arms programme.
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12/02/2011
The Bell Boeing V-22 Program, a strategic alliance between Bell Helicopter, a Textron Company, and The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], drew wide international attention at the Dubai Airshow held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from Nov. 13 to 17.
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12/02/2011
The Russian Air Force is planning to acquire about 60 new and modernized air defense systems in 2012, Air Force spokesman Col. Vladimir Drik said on Thursday. “The new acquisitions include S-400 long-range air defense missile systems, Nebo-U radars and Pantsir-S1 short range missile/gun systems,” Drik said. The Air Force will receive up to 10 Su-34 Fullback fighter-bombers, about 10 Su-25SM Frogfoot attack fighters, and an unspecified number of Su-35S Flanker-E multirole fighters.
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12/01/2011
Korea on Wednesday unveiled its first unmanned tiltrotor aircraft, capable of vertical takeoff and landing as well as high-speed navigation. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute disclosed the new “smart” aircraft at the aerospace center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province. The state-funded aerospace think tank is negotiating with government agencies for commercial use of the vehicle.
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12/01/2011
Moscow is deploying warships at its base in the Syrian port of Tartus. The long-planned mission comes, providentially, at the very moment when it could help prevent a potential conflict in the strategically important Middle Eastern country. The Russian battle group will consist of three vessels led by the heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser, Admiral Kuznetsov.
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12/01/2011
A new app from the U.S. Air Force Recruiting Service challenges users to see if they have what it takes to design the next generation of military aircraft. The Make It Fly app for the iPhone hit the Apple store in November and already has positive reviews. The free program lets you build and fly your own aircraft—from fighter jets to remotely piloted bombers.
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12/01/2011
China's Ministry of National Defense criticized U.S. plans to establish a permanent military presence in Australia, accusing Washington of acting antagonistically in the region and perpetuating a Cold War mentality.
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12/01/2011
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Reuters that he was trying to discuss the incident with Pakistan behind closed doors. "Candidly we don't want to try to resolve this issue through the media. No offense," he said in an interview as he flew back to Washington after a trip to London. "The one thing I will say publicly and categorically is that this was not a deliberate attack."
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12/01/2011
Prince Harry has returned to the UK after completing a major exercise in the US, flying Apache helicopters with the Army, St James's Palace has said. The prince spent eight weeks taking part in Exercise Crimson Eagle in California and Arizona. He flew the aircraft in mountainous and desert conditions, during both day and night, as well as firing its weapons.
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12/01/2011
French military and business jet manufacturer Dassault Aviation SA (AM.FR) said Wednesday it was "astonished" at the Swiss government's decision to buy 22 Gripen fighter jets from Swedish defense and aerospace company Saab AB (SAABF, SAAB-B.SK) instead of Dassault's Rafale multirole combat aircraft.
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12/01/2011
The Russian Navy will take part in several international drills, including those involving the United States, Britain and France, in the new training year which begins on Thursday, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said.
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12/01/2011
The Armed Forces of Turkey and the UK have signed a military cooperation treaty during an official state visit to Britain. The treaty was signed by the deputy chief of the Turkish general staff, General Hulusi Akar and the UK's Secretary of State for defence, the Rt Hon Phillip Hammond and will enable greater cooperation between the Armed Forces of Turkey and the UK.
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