May 24, 2013 Military Aviation News
05/24/2013
The U.S. Navy's long awaited MQ-4C Triton surveillance drone took its first flight yesterday in Palmdale, California. A Navy press release, delivered yesterday, points out that with 360-degree scanning capability and an Automatic Identification System — meaning it can classify different types of ships by itself — the MQ-4C will be the main Naval spying drone at sea from 2015 onwards.
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05/24/2013
It may be high-tech but it's also flawed – for better or worse, the US' F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is here to stay. Today, David Axe walks us through the developmental problems that have plagued this troubled aircraft from the start.
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05/24/2013
The F-35 Integrated Test Force is wrapping up a series of night flights, which are testing the aircraft's capability when flying in instrument meteorological conditions. It is a necessary step in delivering a core competency to the warfighter - the ability to fly the jet safely when there are no external visibility references for the pilot.
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05/24/2013
A United Nations human rights investigator has called for all states to declare a moratorium to prevent so-called “killer robots” being deployed on the battlefield. Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on executions, said that unmanned robotic weapons systems with varying degrees of autonomy and deadliness were being tested or used by the United States, Britain and Israel without debate on moral and legal issues.
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05/24/2013
The Indian Air Force will be operating its fleet of about 120 MiG-21Bis fighters until 2019, that is, two years later than they were originally scheduled to be decommissioned, said Norman Anil Kumar Browne, Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force. The decision by the Indian Air Force is due to the delay in the commissioning of India’s own HAL Tejas LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) and the purchase of 126 French Rafale fighters.
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05/24/2013
Numerous countries are interested in obtaining a fighter jet jointly developed by Pakistan and China, said a senior officer of the Pakistan air force. "We've been receiving inquiries and expressions of interest on the JF-17 Thunder from many countries in the Middle East, Africa and even as far as South America," Air Marshal Sohail Gul Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, told China Daily on Thursday.
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05/24/2013
In a wide-ranging speech on foreign policy on Thursday, President Barack Obama defended his administration's use of drones to kill terrorists abroad, and in a nod to concerns, outlined plans to limit the use of such strikes. As described in a White House statement, the key elements of the president's policy for the use of force in counterterrorism operations outside the United States and outside a war zone are as follows:
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05/24/2013
The European Aerospace Defense and Space Company (EADS) on Thursday offered to invest US$2 billion in South Korea's long-delayed fighter jet development project if it wins Seoul's jet procurement deal. The multinational defense firm made the offer as its Eurofighter Tranche 3 has been competing with Lockheed Martin's F-35 stealth jet and Boeing's F-15 Silent Eagle for the 8.3 trillion won ($7.3 billion) contract to replace the South Korean Air Force's aging fleet of F-4s and F-5s.
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05/24/2013
Australia may save millions on state-of-the-art combat aircraft after defence company Lockheed Martin trumpeted the first-ever fall in the cost of the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Lockheed Martin revealed a $US4.5 billion ($4.6bn) reduction in costs in 2012 in an update report to US congress.
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05/24/2013
The news for the May 23 flight of Turkish combat aircraft over Agathonisi does not mainly focus on the fact that the aircraft possibly recorded and photographed the establishments on the island, but on the fact that for some reason the two Turkish RF-4 and the two F-16 that accompanied them stayed in the FIR (Flight Information Region) of Athens and in Greece’s national airspace for 40 minutes.
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