September 24, 2014 Military Aviation News
09/24/2014
Prime Minister David Cameron supports airstrikes targeting Islamic State in Syria by the U.S. and five Middle Eastern allies and will discuss how the U.K. might contribute to efforts against the militant group in the coming days, the British government said Tuesday. "The PM will be holding talks at the United Nations in New York over the next two days on what more the U.K. and others can do to contribute to international efforts to tackle the threat we all face from ISIL [Islamic State]," the st
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09/24/2014
Lawmakers have rejected the Pentagon's request to shift as much as $1.5 billion in war spending to buy eight new Lockheed Martin F-35 jets and 21 additional Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopters. The Defense Department asked for the additional jets and helicopters in a Sept. 8 request for permission to shift, or reprogram, about $2 billion in its war operations budget, partly to pay for expanded operations against Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria.
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09/24/2014
Supporters of the A-10 “Warthog” fighter say the Pentagon should halt plans to scrap the jet, saying it is needed in the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
The Pentagon has pushed for years to retire the A-10, which provides close air support for troops on the ground in battle, anticipating the need for more advanced aircraft in future ground wars.
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09/24/2014
At least a dozen Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships are carrying out flights in Azerbaijan in the second joint Turkish-Azerbaijani military exercises conducted so far this year. The F-16 fighter jets, C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft and Super Cobra and Black Hawk helicopters reportedly arrived in Azerbaijan on Thursday to take part in what the Defense Ministry in Baku called “large-scale” exercises of its ground forces that ended on Saturday.
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09/24/2014
The F-22 Raptor, one of the most expensive fighters in the world, undertook and successfully completed a combat mission for the first time ever Monday in Syria. The next generation Raptor, which has a total program price tag north of $79 billion, had sat out two wars and at least one previous smaller conflict since going operational in late 2005 before being called on to hit a single target in Syria Monday: an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) "command and control building."
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09/24/2014
Russia is very secretive with data on their military budget. But during a recent speech the commander of the Russian Air Force let slip some interesting bits. He said that the aircraft the air force was now buying (Su-30s, Su-35s, Su-34s) cost over a “billion rubles” ($28 million) each. That was known to be an understatement and it ignored the fact that the three aircraft, although all derived from the older Su-27, are each quite different.
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09/24/2014
Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet that entered its airspace over the Golan Heights, the first such strike in nearly 29 years amid heightened fighting between the regime and rebels for control along the sensitive border. The intercept is the latest sign of instability along the Golan Heights frontier stemming from the Syrian civil war, although former Israeli air force officers said they believed that the Syrian jet crossed into Israeli-controlled airspace by accident.
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09/24/2014
The United States used F-22 fighter jets - fifth-generation aircraft - to make airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria on Tuesday, Gen. William Mayville, Joint Staff director of operations, said at a Pentagon briefing. “This strike was the first time the F-22 was used in a combat role. The flight of the F-22s delivered GPS-guided munitions - precision munitions targeting only the right side of the building,” Mayville said.
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09/24/2014
The United States has carried out airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria with the aid of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, Fox News reported Tuesday, citing an anonymous source. According to Fox News, the airstrikes targeted about 20 IS facilities, including training sites and arms depots. The United States reportedly used B-1 bombers, F-16 and F-18 fighters, MQ-1 Predator drones and Tomahawk missiles fired from the USS Arleigh Burke destroyer.
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09/24/2014
On 23 September the US with Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched 14 strikes against IS in Syria, hitting a number of targets, including Raqqa, a stronghold in eastern Syria captured by the group in 2013. Separately, US forces also carried out eight strikes against a network of al-Qaeda veterans named Khorasan who had established a safe haven west of Aleppo and were plotting imminent attacks against the West.
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