March 21, 2014 Military Aviation News
03/21/2014
There’s an old saying in the military that we’re always training for the last war, so fixated on the lessons of our most recent conflict that we’re blind to the emerging threat. For years, that last war was the Cold War, and the emerging threat was the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan. Slowly, painfully, eventually, the military reoriented itself. The result?
(Read More...)
03/21/2014
Boeing has announced it will be displaying its powerful Super Hornet at the Royal International Air Tattoo this year. The multi-role fighter, originally developed by the United States Navy and now in service with the Royal Australian Air Force at Fairford on July 12 and 13.
(Read More...)
03/21/2014
Ukraine will play host, but the US military will call the shots, in an upcoming military exercise called Rapid Trident that will bring together some 1,300 international forces in Ukraine for a long-planned exercise. Although the United States canceled Atlas Vision 2014, which was scheduled to take place in July in the northeastern Russian city of Chelyabinsk, the Pentagon says it will go ahead with plans for a multinational military exercise this summer in Ukraine.
(Read More...)
03/21/2014
If your windows rattled Thursday, no need to worry. That was just the Air Force, not an earthquake. The Air Force's aerial demonstration team, the Thunderbirds, arrived Thursday afternoon at MacDill Air Force Base as its F-16 pilots prepared for this weekend's Tampa Bay AirFest 2014.
(Read More...)
03/21/2014
The Air Force is surging ahead with work to extend the service life of its fleet of F-16 fighter jets despite recent budget cuts to programs aimed at upgrading the planes, service officials said. The service is in the early phases of a Service Life Extension Program, or SLEP, for about 300 of its fleet of 976 F-16s designed to add eight to ten years of additional combat life to the aircraft, said Maj. Sean Tucker, F-16 program element monitor.
(Read More...)
03/21/2014
The US Air Force (USAF) is defending plans to retire entire fleets of aircraft over the next five years, citing budget pressure and the need for better technology. The USAF favoured procurement of new platforms in its fiscal year 2015 (FY 2015) budget proposal in order to keep pace with adversaries' increasing technological sophistication, officials said on 18 March. However, doing so forced service planners to make difficult cutbacks in its legacy fleets.
(Read More...)
03/21/2014
The Israel Air Force showed off its new cutting-edge training aircraft, the M-346, on Thursday. The plane underwent a successful test flight, and was presented at a ceremony in Italy by provider Alenia Aermacchi. Officials from the Defense Ministry brokered theUSD $1 billion dollar deal to purchase 30 jets from the Italian manufacturer in July 2012, and on Thursday representatives from the ministry and the IAF attended the event.
(Read More...)
03/21/2014
Large air forces are rare. As a result ten nations (U.S., China, Russia, India, North Korea, Egypt, South Korea, Pakistan, Japan, and Taiwan) have about 60 percent of the combat aircraft in service. But while the U.S. has only 19 percent of the 15,000 combat aircraft in service, they have a far higher percentage of the air combat capability. This becomes clear when you take into account the quality of the aircraft, pilots and support services.
(Read More...)
03/21/2014
Ukraine would be inflicting unnecessary damage upon itself if it breaks off ongoing cooperation with Russia’s defense industry, a senior Russian official said Thursday. “If the Ukrainian leaders who recently came to power choose the path of destructive engagement with Russia, I think they will be punishing themselves, punishing the Ukrainian people, who are happy to work with our businesses,” Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said.
(Read More...)
All Articles