April 11, 2012 Military Aviation News
04/11/2012
After remaining grounded for over a month after two crashes in close succession, the Mirage-2000 multi-role fighters are expected to take to the skies by end-April. Air chief marshal (ACM) N A K Browne, on the sidelines of IAF annual commanders' conference on Tuesday, said the Mirage-2000 fleet was undergoing systematic technical checks and would resume flying operations by month-end.
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04/11/2012
Eligible pilots, combat systems officers and engineers have an opportunity to join the ranks of airpower pioneers like Jimmy Doolittle and Chuck Yeager, but they have to apply for U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School to do so.
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04/11/2012
On Apr. 8, 2012, the first Voyager aircraft took to the skies for her maiden flight under the command of an AirTanker crew, to signal the commencement of the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) service to the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft, a version of the Airbus Military A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft, took off from RAF Brize Norton for a training sortie around the United Kingdom to allow the AirTanker crew to familiarise themselves with the aircraft.
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04/11/2012
A contract has been signed Apr. 5 between Eurocopter and PT Dirgantara Indonesia/Indonesian Aerospace for the supply of six EC725. To be received in 2014, Indonesian Aerospace will customize and deliver these combat search and rescue configured helicopters to the Indonesian Air Force under a contract signed with the Indonesian Ministry of Defence last month.
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04/11/2012
The Army's helicopter fleet is tired. It's flown six times harder over the past ten years than any Army leader expected in the hot, dusty climates of Iraq and Afghanistan. That's why service leaders have started scraping the paint off select helicopters to find hidden cracks. Army maintainers found one helicopter riddled with over 300 cracks in its airframe after removing the paint.
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04/11/2012
Stick or twist? That is the choice facing UK defence secretary Philip Hammond, who is poised to announce a decision on the future of the nation's carrier strike ambitions and choice of embarked combat aircraft. The main issue to be decided is whether to keep faith with a decision made in late 2010 to switch allegiance from Lockheed's short take-off and vertical landing F-35B to the manufacturer's C-model carrier variant.
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04/11/2012
Kenya increased spending on military equipment last year with the importation of eight war ships and six armoured vehicles, data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) shows. Kenya’s overall military spend rose to Sh52.2 billion ($594 million) in 2010 from Sh47.5 billion ($580 million) in 2009. The figures are adjusted for inflation and are based on a mean annual exchange rate of Sh88 to the dollar.
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04/11/2012
The Pentagon plans to increase its fleet of armed and long-haul surveillance drones by at least 45 percent over the next 10 years. The U.S. military’s inventory of unmanned aerial vehicles, will grow to 645 aircraft in fiscal 2022 from about 445 in fiscal 2013, including versions of Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) (NOC)’s RQ-4 Global Hawk and General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predators.
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04/11/2012
“Will Minister Antony resign?” More than any other, this is the one question that I have been asked by Americans in recent weeks about the defence minister who has been in the news for the better part of this year. Most of the people asking this question have some connection with the military-industrial complex in the United States of America or the country’s defence and strategic community.
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04/11/2012
Georgia conducted a test flight of its first domestically produced unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on Tuesday, the Georgian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili observed the “successful” test flight, which took place at a military base near the capital of Tbilisi “amid complex terrain and climate conditions,” the statement said.
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