October 23, 2012 Military Aviation News
10/23/2012
More than six months after the auditor general delivered his scathing critique of the F-35 program, the Harper government has yet to direct the air force to look at aircraft other than the contentious stealth fighter. And the Public Works secretariat overseeing the troubled replacement for the existing CF-18 jet fighter fleet is still attempting to define what the government means when it promised to look at "other options."
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10/23/2012
Honeywell announced today that its Spectra Shield® ballistic material will be used to improve armor protection on U.S. Army helicopters. The Protective Group, Inc. (TPG), a leading developer and integrator of lightweight composite armor for military aircraft, is incorporating Spectra Shield material into armor upgrades for U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
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10/23/2012
The UK is to double the number of armed RAF "drones" flying combat and surveillance operations in Afghanistan and, for the first time, the aircraft will be controlled from terminals and screens in Britain. In the new squadron of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), five Reaper drones will be sent to Afghanistan, the Guardian can reveal. It is expected they will begin operations within six weeks.
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10/23/2012
The Pentagon is inviting the aerospace industry to help brainstorm the next era in U.S. air- combat superiority after the F-35 and F-22 fighters are retired, decades from now. Reflecting the rise of drone warfare, an 18-month evaluation will consider both piloted and unmanned aircraft working in tandem with a network of weapons, sensors, electronic warfare and command-and-control capabilities, according to a memo by Frank Kendall.
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10/23/2012
Just one month after China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was commissioned, photographs are appearing on the Internet of the Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark fighter jet operating over the ship. The photographs have appeared on Chinese-language military blogs and government-run newspapers. The images show the J-15 flying just above the carrier deck, along with a photograph of a Changhe Z-8 search-and-rescue helicopter taking off from the deck.
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10/23/2012
An F-35A test aircraft, flown by U.S. Air Force Maj. Matthew Phillips, completed the first aerial weapons release of an AIM-120 AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile) from a conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft, Oct. 19. The aircraft, known as AF-1, jettisoned the instrumented AIM-120 over the China Lake test range from an internal weapons bay.
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10/23/2012
The tri-national Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) has successfully completed certification testing for its advanced Mode 5 Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system at Pratica di Mare Air Force Base in Italy.
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10/23/2012
he first C-5M Super Galaxy production joint acceptance flight with Lockheed Martin and the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) occurred Oct. 17, here at the Lockheed Martin facilities. The joint aircrew included: (from left: Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Huff, Flight Engineer, Lt. Col. Robert Griffith, Aircraft Commander, Master Sgt. Garrad Mitchell, Flight Engineer, Lockheed Martin pilot, Butch Johnson, LM Flight Engineer Larry Frias and LM Flight Engineer John Linville.
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10/23/2012
A recent weapons flight test in the Utah desert may change future warfare after the missile successfully defeated electronic targets with little to no collateral damage. Boeing [NYSE: BA] and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., successfully tested the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) during a flight over the Utah Test and Training Range that was monitored from Hill Air Force Base.
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