March 16, 2013 Military Aviation News
03/16/2013
It's called the "death spiral," and America's newest warplane, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is in danger of falling into it before the plane has even gone into service. The term - recently invoked by top brass involved in the F-35 program - refers to a budgeting Catch-22 that plagues the defense industry. To keep the cost per airplane low, you need to build and sell a lot of planes. But in tough economic times, governments cut orders to save money. That pushes up the cost per plane.
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03/16/2013
The U.S. Air Force has sided with Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer (ERJ), saying Friday that the company and its lead American partner Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), should continue with its light air support contract after a four day suspension.
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03/16/2013
The NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency (NETMA) announced this week that it has awarded a contract to the trinational Panavia consortium to further upgrade the Tornado for the Italian air force. The latest in a series of upgrades will allow Italian Tornados to carry the small-diameter bomb (SDB) and the advanced anti-radiation guided missile (AARGM).
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03/16/2013
There is a growing disquiet in northern Nigeria over the commencement of operations of American drones now stationed just across the border in the Niger Republic. Drones are unmanned, remotely controlled aerial vehicles fitted with guns and missile launchers.
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03/16/2013
The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee have joined together in asking the Pentagon to reconsider the purpose of its new military battle medal for drone aircraft pilots and similar "cyberwarriors," who rarely if ever actually set their boots on the battlefield.
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03/16/2013
When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his forces to launch a surprise attack on the South Korean island of Baengnyeong in the Yellow Sea, North Korean coastal guns, including 76- and 122-millimeter guns, opened fire. Soldiers from the North’s elite military units entered Gangwon Province via AN-2, an aircraft for low-altitude penetration into the South, and started guerrilla warfare.
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03/16/2013
The United States has violated Pakistan's sovereignty and shattered tribal structures with unmanned drone strikes in its counterterrorism operations near the Afghan border, a U.N. human rights investigator said in a statement on Friday. U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson, visited Pakistan for three days this week as part of his investigation into the civilian impact of the use of drones and other forms of targeted killings.
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03/16/2013
The U.S. Navy has found that it’s actually cheaper to use a F-18E aircraft for aerial refueling than to have other combat aircraft land and wait in line to refuel on the carrier. This landing and waiting consumes a lot of fuel. If the waiting aircraft turn off their engines (to save fuel) the aircraft has to undergo an hour of safety checks before it can turn on the engines again. Turns out it is easier and cheaper to send another F-18E aloft carrying six tons of fuel and use the usual inflight
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03/16/2013
March 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s Ufa-based engine maker will deliver the first 10 of 920 AL-31FP engines for the Su-30MKI Flanker-H to India before the end of March, the manufacturer said on Friday. The contract with India, the largest one with a foreign client in post-Soviet history, was signed last October, and engine deliveries are to be completed by 2022.
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03/16/2013
A new Russian carrier-deck pilot training site will be ready for operation by fall, the Federal Agency for Special Construction Work confirmed on Friday, replacing a Soviet-era base in Ukraine which Kiev has said it may lease to other countries. “The construction work there is effectively complete. I believe aircraft will start flying there in August or September,” Grigory Naginsky, head of the Federal Agency for Special Construction Work (Spetsstroi) said.
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