December 10, 2011 Military Aviation News
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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