January, 2015 Military Aviation News
01/31/2015
Marines with Marine Fighter Attack Squadrons 115, 122 and 312 as well as Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadrons 533 and 224 are participating in the Marine Division Tactics Course aboard Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, Jan. 12 to Feb. 6. The MDTC provides groundside and airborne instruction in doctrine, tactics and weapons considerations to F/A-18 Hornet aircrew and Marine air intercept controllers.
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01/31/2015
The killing of three American aircraft mechanics at the Kabul airport was done by a man in an Afghan uniform who was killed at the scene of the shooting, the Pentagon said Friday.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the mechanics were Defense Department contractors, but the circumstances of the attack are under investigation.
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01/31/2015
With the initial operating capability date of the F-35 Lightning II quickly approaching, the Air Force appointed Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian as the director of a larger Air Force F-35 Integration Office, Feb. 1. In addition to gaining new leadership, the F-35 Integration Office will also grow from a staff of four to 12 and be collocated with Air Force acquisition fighter program element monitors and liaison officers from the major commands.
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01/31/2015
One of the newest lawmakers on Capitol Hill is a former A-10 driver, and she is wasting no time protecting her former aircraft. Rep. Martha McSally, a freshman Republican from Arizona, on Jan. 29 sent a letter to President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging them not to seek to retire the A-10 in their fiscal 2016 budget request, expected to be unveiled Feb. 2.
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01/31/2015
It's budget season again, which means it's time for another round of budget gimmicks on the part of the Pentagon. The Obama administration's new Pentagon budget proposal exceeds the budget caps established in current law by $34 billion. That's a hefty sum even by Pentagon standards.
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01/30/2015
Aircraft maker Lockheed Martin says there is no technical problem with aircraft's 25mm gun, although its computer software isn't yet complete and it hasn't been fully tested on the aircraft.By the time these advanced aircraft enter operational service with the RAAF in 2020, the gun will be fully functional.
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01/30/2015
A congressionally mandated commission on Thursday called for an overhaul of the military’s compensation and retirement system, recommending changes so that future service members will contribute to their own retirements and could choose private-sector healthcare plans. A long-awaited report from the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission made 15 recommendations that members said would increase the financial options troops have without reducing their overall compensation.
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01/30/2015
Nearly four dozen aircraft of the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center in Nevada are to receive logistics and maintenance support from DynCorp International. The task order received for the services has a performance period of one year and carries a maximum value of $44.5 million.
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01/30/2015
Faced with mounting criticism from European governments over production problems with its newest military transport plane, the Airbus Group on Thursday announced a management shake-up at its military aircraft unit and promised a restructuring of the business to address what it said were “unacceptable” delivery delays.
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01/29/2015
The Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas has achieved a rare technological breakthrough with three consecutive start ups of its engine in extreme sub-zero temperatures of Ladakh region in Jammu and Kashmir.
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01/28/2015
Engine failure caused an MQ-1B Predator drone to crash July 14 in Afghanistan, the Air Force announced this week. The Predator was flying a reconnaissance mission near Kandahar Air Base when it crashed after experiencing engine failure. The Air Force, however, did not recover the wreckage of the drone, and investigators were not able to determine the specific root cause of the problem, Air Combat Command said in a news release.
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01/28/2015
Boeing Co.’s maritime surveillance aircraft will get an increase in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2016 budget, with the Navy to request 16, one more than planned for that year, according to budget documents. The Navy will request $3.4 billion for the plane, the P-8A Poseidon, according to documents from the Defense Department comptroller circulating in the military services.
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01/28/2015
Back in September 2013, as rumors that the backbone of the Polish fighter force was to be deployed to Syria, we explained that one of the main flaws of the “Jastrzab” (Polish name for the F-16) was that the aircraft lacked AIDEWS (Advanced Integrated Defensive Electronic Warfare Suite ) capabilities.
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01/28/2015
About 1,100 airmen, including part of a squadron of A-10 close air-support jets, will be deployed from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base by mid-March. It’s one of the biggest near-simultaneous deployments from the Tucson base in memory.
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01/28/2015
Over the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the U.S. and Greek air forces continue bilateral flying training missions here. The training, which began Jan. 16 and will run through Feb. 13, aims to bolster the nations' warfighting capabilities through combined air operations as well as maintain joint readiness between the two NATO partners.
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01/28/2015
The Zambian Air Force will take delivery of an undisclosed number of trainer, transport and fighter aircraft and aerial defense systems this year as part of a major re-equipment program to improve operational and airlift capabilities. Addressing senior Army, Air Force and Defense Ministry officials at the Air Force Headquarters Annual Ball for 2014 recently held in Lusaka, commander Brig. Gen. Jabes Zulu said the additional aerial defense assets will include a new radar system to secure national
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01/28/2015
Iran expects Russia to meet its contractual obligations to deliver the S-300 air defense systems, canceled by Moscow after international sanctions were imposed on the country, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaei told RIA Novosti in an interview Tuesday. “Iran continues to view the S-300 contract as legitimate and not a subject of international sanctions as it was signed before the introduction of sanctions and the [S-300] is a defensive rather than an offensive system,” Sanaei said.
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01/27/2015
Canadian special forces have twice exchanged gunfire with Islamic State fighters in Iraq since the first confirmed ground battle between Western troops and IS earlier this month, a senior officer said Monday. Recalling the first incident, Captain Paul Forget told a briefing: "Two similar events have occurred over the last week and, in both cases, Canadian special operations forces, again acting in self-defense, effectively returned fire, neutralizing the threat."
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01/27/2015
The A-10 Thunderbolt II, commonly called the Warthog, is a powerhouse of a plane. Boasting a massive ordinance load and one of the most powerful guns ever mounted on an aircraft, it's playing a major role in the US Air Force's bombing campaign against ISIS. Despite its successes in combat, the Air Force wants to put the plane out of commission. The USAF is fighting with Congress to get approval for a plan to retire the aircraft from service — for good.
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01/27/2015
Barack Obama would've felt a tad disconcerted. A day after he slammed Russia for being a "bully" encroaching on Ukraine's sovereignty, he witnessed his country's frontline military aircraft being closely flanked by top-notch Russian fighters. First, a Poseidon-8I longrange maritime reconnaissance aircraft of US make was escorted by two Russian MiG-29K fighters, codenamed "Fulcrum-D" by NATO forces.
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01/27/2015
JF-17 Thunder, the multi-role and all weather fighter aircraft, was formally inducted in the prestigious Combat Commanders' School (CCS) of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) here on Monday.
The induction of this indigenous war fighting machine will further facilitate advanced combat training of PAF fighter pilots. Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (Operations), Air Marshal Sohail Aman, was the chief guest on the occasion.
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01/27/2015
The F-16 jet "lost power", crashing at Los Llanos air base in Albacete, Spain's defence ministry said. At least five other planes were damaged. One of the two Greek pilots had performed a wrong manoeuvre, local media said. Both pilots were killed. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will travel to the scene of the crash on Tuesday.
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01/26/2015
On Jan. 19, the National Defence Department hosted one of its routine technical briefings to update the media on recent developments in the allied military campaign against ISIS in Iraq. In the past, various commanders have detailed the number of sorties undertaken by our combat aircraft and the targets they had successfully engaged.
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01/26/2015
As the EA-6B Prowler flies into retirement and the Corps takes a new approach to electronic warfare, Marines who spent their careers in the radar-jamming aircraft will be transferred to other military occupation specialties. Most Marines in the 7588 electronic warfare officer MOS will become 7315 unmanned aircraft systems officers. Concurrently, the Corps is changing the duties of the 7315 MOS.
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01/26/2015
As relations continue to expand between China and Taiwan since the election of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou in 2008, so does espionage. With the 2009 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, cross-strait ties have flourished. The number of Chinese visitors to the island is now around 3 million annually. The joke among many government officials in Beijing, according to media reports, is that it will be easier to buy Taiwan than invade it.
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01/26/2015
Renewing their expansive defence framework for another 10 years, India and the US on Sunday decided to kick off joint manufacturing of four relatively modest military products and explore the development of two more high-end technologies.
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01/26/2015
Afghanistan's armed forces are so short of combat-ready aircraft that, late last year, they began fitting machine guns and rockets to Russian-made Mi-17 transport helicopters, dubbed "flying tractors", to bolster their air power. With new planes capable of engaging Taliban insurgents delayed by over two years, and NATO air missions backing up troops on the ground now at a minimum, the fledgling Afghan Air Force is scrambling to provide even basic support.
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01/26/2015
Germany ceased arms exports to Saudi Arabia, with some of the delivery contracts cancelled or left for later revision amid region's instability, the Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday citing government sources. According to the newspaper, the decision was made after the Bundessicherheitsrat (Germany’s Federal Security Council) meeting on Wednesday, which involved German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel.
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01/25/2015
Moray-based Tornado fighter jets are finally being fitted with anti-crash systems – a quarter of a century after they were first recommended. The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that eight of the RAF’s Tornado GR4s now have the collision avoidance technology installed, with more to follow.
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01/25/2015
In recent years Iran’s drones have buzzed into action over Israel, Syria and Lebanon. And now Iranian drones are returning to the scene of their birth—the skies of Iraq, where Tehran’s flying robots saw their combat debut during the 198os Iran-Iraq war.
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01/25/2015
Aircraft from 21 Air Force and Marine Corps squadrons, as well as aircraft from the United Kingdom and Australia, will take part in three weeks of combat training exercises beginning Monday at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Under Red Flag 15-1, more than 125 aircraft will depart Nellis twice a day. Some aircraft will stay in the air for up to five hours as pilots practice combat maneuvers.
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01/25/2015
Two Marines died after their helicopter crashed on a training mission in Southern California, the military said in a statement. The aircraft went down around 4:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. ET) Friday at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California.
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01/25/2015
Taranis is an unmanned combat aircraft system advanced technology demonstrator programme. The Taranis demonstrator is the result of one-and-a-half-million man hours of work by the UK’s leading scientists, aerodynamicists and systems engineers from 250 UK companies.
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01/25/2015
The international US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS) has launched 26 airstrikes against the militants' positions in Syria and Iraq in one day, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Saturday. The United States and its allies have “continued to attack ISIL terrorists in Syria, using attack, bomber, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft to conduct 13 airstrikes.
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01/24/2015
Northrop Grumman has stood up a pair of teams dedicated to developing a "sixth-generation" fighter for both the Navy and Air Force, years before the services intend to issue requests for information on potential replacements for current aircraft. It's an aggressive move that Tom Vice, president of Northrop's aerospace division, hopes will pay off in a big way for his company.
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01/24/2015
The Royal Bahraini Air Force (RBAF) is to embark on a comprehensive modernisation plan to enhance the capabilities of both its fixed- and rotary-winged combat fleets, a senior officer disclosed on 22 January. Speaking at the IQPC International Military Helicopter conference in London, Colonel Salah Al Mansoor, Head of Planning, HQ, RBAF, said that the service is about to undertake a two-phased recapitalisation programme that will see some of its current inventory first upgraded, with new platfor
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01/24/2015
The Colombian Air Force (FAC) has reportedly grounded its entire fleet of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)-built Kfir C-10 all-weather, multirole combat aircraft. The move is a precautionary measure against the risks of their operation after one aircraft crashed while performing approach manoeuvres near the Air Combat Command Base No. 1 in Colombia last month, as reported by Defensa.com.
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01/24/2015
A-10 Warthogs are attacking Islamic State targets in Syria. But even with this newest round of combat, the U.S. Air Force still asserts that the venerable attack plane isn’t worth keeping around. In November 2014, the flying branch sent the blunt-nosed, straight-winged attack planes back to the Middle East for the first time since the American withdrawal from Iraq.
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01/24/2015
NATO scrambled Typhoon fighters after a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft was spotted over the Baltic Sea, Bloomberg reports. "NATO Baltic Air Policing QRA ESP Typhoon jest on 23 JAN scrambled to intercept RU Armed Forces Il-20 over the Baltic Sea," Latvian National Armed Forces (NBS) said via a post on Twitter.
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01/23/2015
A prominent lawmaker is calling for an investigation of a major general's reported comments blasting officers as treasonous if they work with Congress against Air Force plans to retire the A-10. Maj. Gen. James Post, vice commander of Air Combat Command, reportedly told officers at a recent meeting of the Tactics Review Board at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, that they were not to speak with Congress about the service's attempt to retire the attack jet.
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01/23/2015
Russia’s traditional view of the outside world is colored by a deep sense of insecurity and paranoia. This is best exemplified by the events in Ukraine, where the Kremlin acted to preserve its traditional geographic bulwark against the West. This pattern of protectionism is also apparent in Moscow’s current understanding and approach to the situation in the Arctic.
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01/23/2015
The local naval aviation community is gearing up for a historic day. On Thursday morning, the last remaining P-3C Orion squadron on the East Coast will deploy for the final time. The United States Navy is phasing out the aircraft. Naval Air Station Jacksonville has been home to the P-3C Orion since the Cold War era of the 1960s. People on the First Coast might recognize it by its four propellers. It's often seen flying over the city.
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01/23/2015
A 2013 Air Force plan to expand its drone fleet is flawed and risks overspending $8.8 billion on unneeded aircraft, the Defense Department Inspector General says in a September report obtained by Air Force Times this week. Forty-six of the 401 MQ-9 Reapers in the planned procurement are potentially excess, according to the report, which comes as the Air Force says it is in dire need of personnel and aircraft to address the increased need for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance sorties.
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01/23/2015
Taiwan has arrested an alleged Chinese spy, the first such apprehension in Taiwan in decades, according to the National Security Bureau. The question many here in Taipei are asking is whether China will attempt some sort of swap to get him back. China is holding two Military Intelligence Bureau agents who were captured in Vietnam more than a decade ago.
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01/23/2015
Only one in five of allied combat aircraft sorties over Iraq and Syria have dropped a weapon, according to statistics from the U.S. Central Command for the first five months of Operation Inherent Resolve. By the end of December, a total of 6,981 close air support/escort/interdiction sorties had been flown, plus 2,164 ISR sorties and 1,992 airlift/airdrop sorties.
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01/23/2015
The US military wants to upgrade its stable of combat choppers. One possible model for future combat aircraft can take off and land vertically, and then fly like a traditional airplane.
Bell's V-280, which combines a combat helicopter's fuselage with tilt-rotors, would basically be a Black Hawk that can adjust its thrust to fly like a fixed-wing aircraft once it's airborne.
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01/23/2015
The F/A-18 Super Hornet infrared search and track (IRST) system, developed and integrated by Boeing and Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT], received approval from the U.S. Navy to enter low-rate initial production. The IRST system consists of Lockheed Martin’s IRST21™ sensor, the GE Aviation FPU-13 Fuel Tank Assembly and the Meggitt Defense Industry Environmental Control unit.
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01/23/2015
Russia and India have agreed to speed up work on the fifth-generation fighter jet they are developing together, among other joint projects tackled during a Wednesday meeting between the countries' defense ministers. Speaking on the heels of the meeting in New Delhi, Indian defense chief Manohar Parrikar told reporters he had discussed "all the issues including the fifth-generation fighter aircraft" with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu.
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01/21/2015
First, they tried an F-104. “Not enough wing or thrust,” recalls Jack Petry, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. When NASA engineers were launching rockets at Florida’s Cape Canaveral in the 1960s, they needed pilots to fly close enough to film the missiles as they accelerated through Mach 1 at 35,000 feet. Petry was one of the chosen.
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01/21/2015
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is to supply Iraq with a number of Embraer EMB-314 Super Tucano light strike aircraft to help combat the Islamic State, a government official has reportedly disclosed. With IHS Jane's having first reported that the UAE had recently ordered up to 24 Super Tucanos, the official told Defense News on 17 January that the emirates will transfer an undisclosed number to the Iraqi Air Force (IqAF) "before the end of the month".
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01/21/2015
The ‘smallest Air Force in history’ is dealing with more missions than ever. So the flyboys are calling in the military contractors to operate their jets. The U.S. Air Force fleet of planes and pilots is stretched so thin, the service is considering hiring private military corporations flying supersonic jets to train its fighter jocks in mock air combat.
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01/21/2015
“Physics probably favors detection and the ultimate demise of stealthy systems.” So predicted the Hart-Rudman Commission in 1999. Sixteen years later, it’s time for the Department of Defense to ask tough questions about whether to continue investing scarce resources into stealth technology. Foremost among those questions is this: Are we sacrificing too much capacity in a quest for an exquisite capability, a capability that may not offer the edge it once did and whose efficacy is in decline?
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01/21/2015
Even as India is to discuss again France the $22 billion deal to supply 126 Dassault Rafale fighter jets to the Indian Air Force, a big team from Airbus is set to land in India on January 21, ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit. The timing of the visit is significant, say informed sources. Airbus which had held 46.32 per cent of Dassault Aviation, had sold 8 per cent of the company back to Dassault for $979 million late last year.
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01/20/2015
Flawed software will hobble the first of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighters to be called combat-ready, limiting the plane’s ability to drop bombs, share data with other aircraft and track enemy radar, Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg news service writes. He noted that finding is from the Defense Department’s chief weapons tester found.
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01/20/2015
In mid-November 2014, Flight International was given the opportunity to visit BAE Systems’ facility at Warton in Lancashire, to be briefed by its Eurofighter Typhoon chief test pilot Mark Bowman and project manager Luke Dickson about the successful introduction and first deliveries to the Royal Air Force under the Phase 1 Enhancement (P1E) programme.
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01/20/2015
Boko Haram’s campaign of abduction and terror has spread beyond Nigeria to become a regional threat which African armies lack the strength to defeat, experts warned on Monday.
The Islamist gunmen struck across Nigeria’s eastern border into Cameroon on Sunday, raiding two villages and taking about 80 people captive. Boko Haram routinely sells its prisoners into slavery. The latest incident was the biggest case of mass abduction ever recorded in Cameroon.
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01/20/2015
Canadian special forces have clashed with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group by exchanging gunfire in Iraq in recent days, in the first confirmed ground battle between Western troops and ISIL, a senior officer has said. The Canadians came under mortar and machine gun fire while training Iraqi troops near front lines and shot back in what Canadian special forces commander Brigadier General Michael Rouleau described as self-defence, killing the ISIL fighters.
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01/20/2015
Two of the Air Force's most contentious budget proposals, getting rid of excess bases and retiring aging aircraft, will be back on the table in next year's budget, despite congressional votes just a month ago that rebuked both requests. President Barack Obama's budget for the Defense Department, which is scheduled to come early next month, will violate the $523 billion sequestration cap for 2016.
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01/19/2015
They're old, gray and approaching retirement — but the Marine Corps' EA-6B Prowlers are still fighting terrorists. The service's aging fleet of jets used for electronic warfare have flown hundreds of hours over Iraq and Syria in support of the fight against the Islamic State group. They may be some of the final combat missions for Prowler squadrons before the Corps starts to retire the aircraft and adds electronic warfare capabilities to a variety of platforms.
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01/19/2015
At least 35 Syrian soldiers were killed in a cargo plane crash in northwestern Syria, sources on the ground and state media said Sunday. The plane, which carried Syrian government personnel and military equipment, went down at the Abu al-Duhur air base in Idlib province. Sources told the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that it "crashed as a result of collision with electricity transmission wires."
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01/19/2015
In late spring or early summer, the US Air Force will decide who will build its next-generation bomber. Yet, despite all the hype and public interest, the program remains shrouded in mystery. The Long Range Strike-Bomber (LRS-B) program is stealthy, literally and figuratively. Few details are actually known about the bomber's capabilities or design. But the program's impact is already being widely felt throughout the Pentagon and its industry partners.
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01/19/2015
Delay in its projects leading to a steep escalation in cost has proved to be the bane of the DRDO. The delays have led to the country being left with no option but to equip the armed forces with expensive foreign equipment. A report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on defence tabled in Parliament just last month let the cat out of the bag.
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01/19/2015
Chinese spies stole key design information about Australia's new Joint Strike Fighter, according to top secret documents disclosed by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
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01/19/2015
India on Saturday inducted the light combat aircraft (LCA) with defence minister Manohar Parrikar handing over the first home-built plane to the air force in Bangalore, 33 years after the project was conceived to replace ageing Russian MiG-21 fighters. India on Saturday inducted the light combat aircraft (LCA) with defence minister Manohar Parrikar handing over the first home-built plane to the air force in Bangalore, 33 years after the project was conceived to replace ageing MiG-21 fighters.
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01/19/2015
Israeli army has refused to give any comments on the reports of Tel-Aviv’s participation in the airstrikes on Lebanese Hezbollah militant group in Syria. Earlier in the day, western media, citing sources in Hezbollah, reported that an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles on Amal Farms in Quneitra, killing six members of the organization.
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01/18/2015
India has politely turned down a suggestion by Barack Obama's security teams that a 5-km "no-fly zone" be imposed around the majestic Rajpath during the Republic Day parade, which will have the US President as the chief guest for the first time. A no-fly zone would have led to the customary flypast on January 26 being cancelled.
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01/18/2015
China's mainstay J-11A jet fighter has been refitted with an upgraded avionics packages to warn of incoming missiles, according to a report published Friday by Shanghai-based news website New Outlook. The web portal suggested that several protruding additions observed on either side of the fuselage and in front of the cockpit canopy, in photos released by China Military Online, a website sponsored by the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
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01/18/2015
Fourteen F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 18th Aggressor Squadron took off Jan. 17 in transit to Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, and Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. The group of fighters, along with more than 150 maintainers from the 354th Maintenance Group, is deploying to support the CENTURY ALOHA and COPE NORTH exercises.
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01/18/2015
Australia’s Air Task Group has clocked up 100 days and 3500 hours of combat operations as part of international efforts to disrupt and degrade Daesh, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Since October, the Air Task Group has conducted regular combat and support missions over Iraq as well as assisting Coalition operations.
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01/18/2015
Officials have said the U.S. Navy wants 12 V-22 Ospreys and are willing to push the Marines’ existing order to the back of the line so they can put the tiltrotor aircraft into action in a new capacity. Boeing representatives referred comment to Public Affairs at the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command in Patuxent River, Md., where several messages placed were not returned Wednesday.
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01/18/2015
Little Rock Air Force Base is the home of C-130 Hercules aircraft and aircrew training, but it can also be a home away from home for many international students. The 314th Airlift Wing's "Center of Excellence" hosts students from all over the world to learn the C-130 and its mission inside and out.
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01/18/2015
The Air Force is increasing financial incentives for some remotely piloted aircraft pilots to encourage them to stay in service, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced on Thursday. The maximum amount of monthly incentive pay will be increased for RPA pilots in the 18X career field who opt to keep flying drones beyond their initial six-year commitments.
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01/18/2015
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar handed over the first of the indigenously-built Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas to the Indian Air Force (IAF) in Bengaluru on Saturday. The ceremony took place in the presence of Air Chief Marshal Anup Raha at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bengaluru.
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01/17/2015
To everyone’s surprise, the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF), often incorrectly abbreviated to SAF or SAAF, has been able to maintain a high pace of operations in the now almost four-year long war. Orginally destined to engage in a fierce but short war with Israel, it never anticipated to fight what is essentially a war of attrition between the Assad-led party and its adversaries, and has found its role in the conflict through trial and error.
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01/17/2015
The days of catapult shots and arrested landings will soon be coming to an end for mail, parts and passengers headed to and from aircraft carriers, as the Navy plans to phase out its aging C-2A Greyhounds in favor of the V-22 Osprey for carrier on board delivery missions.
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01/17/2015
Investigators have determined a Jan. 15, 2014, crash during a dogfighting exercise, which destroyed an $85 million F/A-18E Super Hornet and seriously injured the pilot, was "preventable," according to a new report. The investigation, dated Nov. 24, 2014, was blunt in its assessment: "Bottom line up front, this was a preventable mishap," the investigator wrote.
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01/17/2015
As part of a broader project of land reclamation, beginning in November China started efforts to develop Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands. As of late November the reef had been built up to 3,000 meters long and between two and three hundred wide. This makes it large enough, in the assessment of analysts with IHS Jane’s and the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, to argue that China’s first airstrip in the Spratly Islands might be under development.
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01/17/2015
Thirty-two years after the project was sanctioned, the first of the indigenously-built Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is finally expected to be handed over to the IAF today. This will be the start of a process of induction of the fighters being built at home under a project which has already estimated to have cost the exchequer over Rs 17,000 crore.
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01/17/2015
Russia's Western Military District has received a fresh batch of Mi-17V-5 transport helicopters and is set to receive more, the head of the district's press service Colonel Oleg Kochetkov told Russia's RIA Novosti on Friday. "About ten of the new Mi-8MTV-5 [the domestic designation for the Mi-17V-5] military transport helicopters have entered into the army aviation brigade in the Western Military District, stationed in the Pskov region," Kochetkov told RIA Novosti.
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01/16/2015
The Air Force remains busy flying surveillance and strike missions against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, and those flights are affecting the service's plans for its future, top officials said. Since Operation Inherent Resolve began in August, the Air Force has flown about 60 percent of the more than 16,000 air sorties. These include remotely piloted aircraft flights to monitor the situation, and the service's share of the 5,886 bombs that have been dropped as of Dec. 31.
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01/16/2015
In the face of an expansionist China seeking to dominate the East and South China Seas, Tokyo has set its largest defense budget ever to help defend islands that it rightfully considers Japanese territory. As its military, economy and ambitions grow, so too does China's assertiveness about control of the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the larger South China Sea. Chinese military doctrine refers to establishing dominance over what it calls the "first island chain,".
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01/16/2015
History was made Thursday morning at Nellis Air Force Base as the first F-35 fighter jet that will be used at the weapons school touched down. "This is happening," said Brigadier General Chris Short, 57th Wing Commander. "And to put iron on the ramp, it's exciting."
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01/16/2015
Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jet is on track to meet the Marine Corps's July target to declare the jet ready for combat use, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said Thursday. The F-35 B-model, which can take off from shorter runways and land like a helicopter, was making good progress, Mabus told reporters after a speech to the Surface Navy Association.
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01/16/2015
Three Russian military aircraft and helicopters have made it into Flightglobal's 2015 Top 10 most popular military aircraft in a ranking by the respectable British aviation news and information site published late last week. Craig Hoyle, who compiled the Top 10, notes that the ten planes and helicopters in the list account for nearly a third of the 52,000 combat, special mission, tanker and transport aircraft, helicopters and trainers in use by 160 countries around the world.
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01/15/2015
Japan’s government has passed its largest-ever defence budget amid a tense two-year territorial standoff with China. The \4.98-trillion yen ($42 billion) package tops the previous record set in 2002 and mark’s Japan’s third straight year of increased military spending.
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01/15/2015
Several thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean, a year ago Thursday: Two Navy fighter jets banked toward each other at more than 400 mph.The roaring F/A-18 Super Hornets converged, crossing within 1,000 feet of each other before zooming back into formation and preparing to do it again.
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01/15/2015
In a surprise move, India has removed the head of the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Avinash Chander, "to pave way for younger generation to head the nodal agency." The Appointments Committee of the federal Cabinet approved the termination of Chander’s contract effective Jan. 31, 15 months ahead of schedule.
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01/14/2015
Canadian fighter jets flying over Iraq have stepped up the pace of their attacks on Islamic State extremists, dropping bombs for five straight days. Details are sometimes vague about what was hit but since combat operations started in late October, CF-18 fighters have dropped munitions 22 times and eight of those missions have happened since New Year’s Day.
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01/14/2015
The Russian T-50 PAK-FA appears to be optimized for the air-superiority role like the F-22 more so than the multirole, strike-optimized F-35. Like the Raptor, the PAK-FA is being designed to fly high and fast to impart the maximum amount of launch energy to its arsenal of long-range air-to-air missiles—which would greatly increase the range of those missiles.
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01/14/2015
India wants France to stick to the original terms of its deal to buy Rafale fighter jets, or it might call it off. If the manufacturers fail to comply, India may opt for the Russian designed Su-30 currently being produced domestically. France’s Dassault Aviation still has a chance to ink the huge $20 billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contract to deliver 126 Rafale fighter jets to the Indian Air Force if the company complies with the contractor’s original demands.
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01/14/2015
The French Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is deploying with its battlegroup to the Gulf, and is understood to be preparing to contribute to coalition air strikes against Islamic State. Sailing on 13 January, the carrier battlegroup - which includes a nuclear-powered attack submarine - will head from Toulon through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean and the Gulf on Operation 'Arromanches'. The deployment is scheduled to last until May at the earliest.
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01/14/2015
Russian and Indian officials have agreed the preliminary design for the Sukhoi/Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), Russian state media reported on 10 January. Design of the export variant of the Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA combat aircraft has now been completed, the Sputnik news agency quoted Andrey Marshankin, the regional director of international cooperation at the united Russian-Indian aircraft manufacturing company, as saying.
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01/14/2015
Flight testing isn't what it used to be. Usually, a comment like that would be a throwback to the days of The Right Stuff and fighters that went supersonic on their maiden flights, but even in the 1980s - as our report on the start of flight tests with the Dassault Rafale A shows - things moved faster, literally.
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01/14/2015
Russia will create an Air-Space Force from the merger of its Air Force and Space Forces in 2015, the country's Armed Forces General Staff chief, Valery Gerasimov, said Tuesday. “A new type of armed forces will be created in 2015, the Air-Space Forces, by combining two already existing types of military armed forces: the Air Force and Space Forces,” Gerasimov said.
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01/12/2015
For over a decade, academics, policymakers, and government officials have been engaged in a relentless debate about Chinese military capabilities and intentions. To some, China is likely an expansionist country akin to Germany before WWI. Others argue that China’s assertive behavior in its regional offshore island disputes is simply a manifestation of the Chinese Communist Party’s focus on domestic stability, which precludes any broader global ambitions.
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01/12/2015
British military capability planners are eyeing a major improvement to ground-based air defenses in the Falkland Islands amid continuing signs that Argentina is looking to update its Air Force with modern strike aircraft. Argentina and the UK fought a short but bloody war over the British territory in 1982. The dispute received new life recently by Argentinean President Cristina Kirchener's launching a diplomatic war of words in an effort to eject the British.
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01/12/2015
Seventy years after the end of World War II, talk about any kind of military expansion remains highly sensitive here in Japan. Just consider the position of Akifumi Arai, president of the Tamagawa Trading Company, a relatively small Nagano-based business that supplies sensors and gyroscopes used to guide torpedoes and missiles for Japan's self-defense forces.
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01/12/2015
India plans to take a final call, one way or the other, on the gigantic $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to acquire 126 French Rafale fighters before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits France and Germany in April.
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01/12/2015
A second, this time secret submarine hunt was launched in the Stockholm archipelago when a "very credible" informant reported seeing a possible conning tower a week after Sweden called off the initial search operation, the Swedish Armed Forces said Sunday. “We consider the informant to be very credible. We had ships and ground units nearby, so we were able to quickly respond to that observation.
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01/11/2015
North Korea said on Saturday it was willing to suspend nuclear tests if the United States agreed to call off annual military drills held jointly with South Korea, but Washington rejected the proposal as a veiled threat.
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01/11/2015
Dassault has offered the latest version of the Rafale fighter, the F3R for nearly double the price of the F3 version it originally bid with in the Indian fighter aircraft competition.
The company is reportedy insisting that India take the latest version as the French company is upgrading aircraft in the French Air Force to the F3R version and all future aircraft manufactured will be of the latest version.
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01/11/2015
Seventy years after the end of World War II, talk about any kind of military expansion remains highly sensitive here in Japan. Just consider the position of Akifumi Arai, president of the Tamagawa Trading Company, a relatively small Nagano-based business that supplies sensors and gyroscopes used to guide torpedoes and missiles for Japan’s self-defense forces.
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01/11/2015
An advanced electronic warfare (EW) suite developed by the DRDO was successfully tested onboard the country's Light Combat Aircraft Tejas-PV1 today. "After obtaining due flight clearances and certification, the first flight sortie of LCA PV1 with the EW equipment operational took place today. The equipment was noted to be detecting radar signals operating in and around the flight path," a Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) release said here.
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01/11/2015
The regional director of international cooperation at the united Russian-Indian aircraft manufacturing company reported Saturday that Russia and India have completed the creation of the export version of the Sukhoi/HAL Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft.
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01/10/2015
The United States has conducted thousands of sorties in an effort to destroy its combat platforms stolen by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. Officials said the U.S. Air Force conducted thousands of missions against ISIL. They said the air strikes damaged or destroyed 3,222 targets since August 2014.
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01/10/2015
Military officials held a ceremony yesterday at U.S. Naval Base Guam in Santa Rita to establish a new Navy task force as part of a rebalance of forces in the Asia-Pacific region. "In the past few years, it's been a priority to rebalance forces as we wind down from Afghanistan and Iraq and move into the Pacific region," said Joint Region Marianas Public Information Officer Lt. Tim Gorman.
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01/10/2015
Russia is also developing combat laser weapons alongside with the US said army general Yury Baluevsky, former Chief of the Russian General Staff. The US is field testing various combat 50-150 KW combat lasers on ships, trucks and fighter jets. Last year, China indicated that their combat lasers were shooting down drones. The Chinese laser defense system is able to shoot down various small aircraft within a two-kilometer radius and can do so in five seconds after locating its target.
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01/10/2015
Minutes after returning from a flight over the Avon Park Air Force Range, where they participated in laser-guided weapons practice, Navy Lts. Kevin Loughmiller and Nick Adams stood on the soggy flightline at MacDill Air Force Base recalling “a mindblowing” experience from a few days earlier.
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01/10/2015
The Air Force expects to lose more remotely piloted aircraft pilots to attrition than it trains this fiscal year, Air Combat Command spokesman Benjamin Newell said Friday. The active-duty Air Force already has a shortfall of RPA pilots, in part because more RPA pilots are joining Air National Guard units, an Air Combat Command official told reporters Thursday.
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01/10/2015
The biggest threat to U.S. military helicopters flying in combat zones today is heat-seeking missiles. The compact, shoulder-fired missiles are gradually becoming available to virtually every militant group that threatens U.S. overseas interests, and the latest versions are equipped with seekers that can readily distinguish between real targets and simple countermeasures such as flares.
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01/10/2015
Iran has begun mass production of the Saeghe (Thunderbolt) indigenously developed combat aircraft, state media announced on 7 January. Quoting an Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) spokesperson, the Fars News Agency reported that the country now has 'several squadrons' of the Northrop F-5E Tiger II-derived aircraft in operational service. Prior to the report, the IRIAF was understood to have only about three Saeghe fighters flying with the 23rd Fighter Squadron.
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01/10/2015
Boeing last month delivered the eighth P-8A Poseidon of 2014, completing all planned deliveries to the U.S. Navy for the year on time and on cost. That airplane, the 21st overall for the program, flew from Seattle to Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida on Jan. 8. It joined other P-8As being used to train Navy crews.
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01/10/2015
NATO airplanes are not allowed to pass over Iranian airspace, commander of the Khatam ol-Anbia Iranian air defense base said. The official made reference to an early September ISAF flight, which was reportedly forced to land.
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01/09/2015
The Pentagon says the move will save around $500m (£300m) a year, and comes as the US military seeks to shift its attention towards Asia. But the US has named RAF Lakenheath to be the first permanent European base for the F-35 aircraft. The US currently has more than 60,000 troops stationed in Europe, mostly in Germany, Italy and the UK.
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01/09/2015
The US Air Force (USAF) has employed considerably more munitions in its campaign against the Islamic State over recent weeks, the service disclosed on 6 January. This increased expenditure of weaponry was revealed in an article on deployed USAF armourers that was published on the service's official website.
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01/09/2015
Islamic insurgents in Iraq are on their “back foot” and haven’t been able to launch successful counter-attacks, according to the commander overseeing this country’s Iraq air campaign. Brig.-Gen. Dan Constable, who commands Joint Task Force Iraq, told journalists Thursday that coalition air strikes have allowed Iraqi forces on the ground to push back the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
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01/09/2015
Like an able pilot with his wits about him in an out-of-control warplane, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar may be preparing to ditch Rafale touted as the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) answer, which the Indian Air Force has set its heart on procuring at any cost, and going for the more economical and sensible Su-30 option instead.
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01/09/2015
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced five defense projects on Wednesday, following a Defense Industry Executive Committee meeting in Ankara. Davutoglu said that Turkey would order four more fifth generation Stealth F-35s, which will be the new front line fighters of the Turkish Air Force.
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01/09/2015
The demand for drones to fly surveillance missions keeps going up, but the number of remotely piloted aircraft pilots is going down, so the Air Force is considering increasing retention bonuses for RPA pilots, said Col. Ray Alves of Air Combat Command. "We're looking at incentives of how we maintain people in the career field and how we incentivize growth in the career field … to give them bonuses similar to what I received as a young major, my pilot retention bonus," said Alves.
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01/09/2015
Boeing has improved the realism of ground-based F-22 Raptor training by delivering the first simulators for that aircraft with an immersive, 360-degree visual environment. Two simulators were installed, each paired with the Constant Resolution Visual System (CRVS), Boeing’s patented display that provides high-resolution imagery for pilots to train with nearly 20/20 acuity.
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01/08/2015
Four airmen were disciplined through administrative means for their role in a friendly fire incident last June in Afghanistan. Five American soldiers and one Afghan soldier were killed June 9 in Zabul province when a B-1B Lancer dropped a bomb on them, mistakenly believing they were insurgents. An investigative report by U.S. Central Command investigating officer Air Force Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian.
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01/08/2015
Though many Americans may not have realized it, December 28th marked what the U.S. government called the official end of the war in Afghanistan. That war has been the longest in U.S. history – but despite the new announcement that the formal conflict is over, America's war there is far from finished.
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01/08/2015
The United States possesses more, bigger and more heavily-armed warships than any other country. By some measures, the U.S. Navy maintains a 13-navy standard. In other words, it can deploy as much combat power as the next 13 largest fleets combined. And in one very important respect, the American fleet is actually at a temporary low point — and will only grow more powerful in the coming decade.
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01/08/2015
The U.S. Navy has contracted GE Aviation for the repair, replacement and support of components in F414 engines used by its fleet of F-18 aircraft. The contract is a three-year performance based logistics award with a value of $460 million and is the latest in a series of PBL awards for the F414 given to the company since 2002.
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01/08/2015
India plans to kick-off its own fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) development project this year to build on the expertise gained in the long developmental saga of the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft. Top defence sources on Wednesday said the preliminary design stage of the futuristic fighter called the advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA), with collaboration among IAF, DRDO and Aeronautical Development Agency, is now "virtually" over.
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01/07/2015
Cubic Corp. has been awarded a series of contracts from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics to produce and add enhancements to the Air Combat Training System (ACTS) of the F-35 fighter jet, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Unlike the wing-mounted pods used on fourth generation fighters, the F-35 version of the P5 Combat Training System (P5CTS) incorporates an internally mounted subsystem that enables the fifth generation jet to maintain its stealth characteristics while training.
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01/07/2015
The nation's governors plan to continually press Army leadership to let the National Guard keep its assets after a bitter battle last year when the service said it would move helicopters out of the Guard. The Army originally planned to consolidate the Guard's Apache attack helicopters into the active duty, while the Guard would receive several hundred Black Hawks and retain its Lakota multi-use helicopters.
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01/07/2015
Bernard Gray, the Chief of Defence Materiel, said the military is on target for operational capability on land and at sea with the aircraft. It comes after the MoD signed the contract for the first 14 jets, some of which will fly from HMS Queen Elizabeth when she is based in Portsmouth. Mr Gray said: ‘Signing the contract paves the way for the first batch of operational combat aircraft.
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01/07/2015
If you think your office needs a lick of paint and some new furniture, spare a thought for fighter pilots. Those who fly fighter aircraft like the F-16 or the Tornado are still, in effect, working in a 1970s office - because that's when those aircraft were originally designed.
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01/07/2015
The South Korean Defense Ministry has said in a white paper that North Korea is in possession of missiles that could reach the US mainland, Xinhua reported Tuesday. "[North Korea has the] capability to threaten the US mainland," an extract from the document read, as quoted by the news agency.
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01/06/2015
An Israeli air force squadron equipped with Alenia Aermacchi M-346 "Lavi" advanced jet trainers is close to being declared operational, having already received nine aircraft from an eventual 30-strong fleet. Israel's first M-346 landed at Hazerim air base in the south of the country last July, and deliveries are continuing on schedule.
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01/06/2015
Even after over a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s armed services field incompatible aviation technology that hinders battlefield communication between U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps combat aircraft. The Pentagon is making an effort to fix the problem, but whether it will succeed is an open question.
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01/06/2015
The Indian Air Force is struggling to fill its hangers with good quality fighter planes made in India as indigenous efforts for the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) conceived more than three decades ago are yet to make it to service standards. This, in a country whose ancient scientists had conceived workable fighter planes thousands of years ago.
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01/06/2015
The United States has asked Spain to grant permanent status for the deployment of US troops at the joint-use Morón Air Base in Spanish Andalusia, El Pais said Monday, citing a letter from US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. According to the newspaper, Hagel wrote a letter to Spanish authorities proposing to introduce changes to the 1988 Agreement on Defense Cooperation between the US and Spain in order to “turn Morón de la Frontera into a permanent base for responding on crises in Africa.”
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01/06/2015
No violations of Russian airspace have been registered in the past year, Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Klimov said Saturday. “In 2014… no violations of state borders by foreign aircraft or breach of air rules by domestic users were registered,” Klimov stated.
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01/05/2015
U.S. Special Operations Forces are in the fight in Iraq against ISIL (Islamic State), but not in the way you might think. According to Gary Boucher, outgoing spokesperson at the Combined Joint Task Force for Operation Inherent Resolve - these Special Operations Forces (SOF) are currently partnered with Kurdish Regional Government Forces, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service.
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01/05/2015
As if more evidence were needed that the United States and Russia have indeed embarked upon a New Cold War, the news comes that Russia has revised its military doctrine for the first time since 2010. Decrying what it sees as Western efforts to turn Ukraine into a "front line of confrontation,” the revised doctrine would allow for Russia to deploy precision conventional weapons “as part of strategic deterrent measures” against what it sees as its principal threat: NATO.
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01/05/2015
Saudi Arabia is looking to offload its remaining Northrop F-5E/F Tiger II combat aircraft, according to a solicitation posted online on 18 December. The proposed sale, details of which were posted on the AvBuyer website, will see the Kingdom divest itself of 79 F-5 aircraft that it procured in the 1970s and 1980s.
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01/05/2015
Paris has indicated that it will try to carry forward the much-delayed talks in order to strike the deal as soon as possible. The signing of the deal will allow France to export 126 Rafale fighter aircraft to the South Asian country. India is yet to finalise the deal with France as it is looking at the option of acquiring more Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter jets from Russia.
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01/05/2015
Will the Islamic State last through 2015? It seems unlikely. At least, not as the effective force it represented in 2014, especially after its June 9 conquest of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq. By the end of 2014, after initial successes on several fronts in both Iraq and Syria, ISIS forces began to be pushed back on several fronts.
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01/05/2015
The state Air National Guard hopes that 73 words signed into law on Dec. 16 by President Obama as part of a $1.1 trillion spending bill represent a commitment to modernize its eight aging C-130s and keep it in business past mid-2020. At that time, the planes will need to have been upgraded to be able to fly in a satellite-based navigation and air traffic control system that is becoming the world standard. But first, the planes have to survive likely Air Force cuts in the Air Guard’s C-130 fleet.
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01/05/2015
The U.S. Air Force’s fleet of drones is being strained to the “breaking point,” according to senior military officials and an internal service memo acquired by The Daily Beast. And it’s happening right when the unmanned aircraft are most needed to fight ISIS. The Air Force has enough MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones. It’s just doesn’t have the manpower to operate those machines.
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01/05/2015
Here we retell and update the stories of people and events that were top newsmakers in 2014. Expect some of them to continue to make news in 2015.
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01/05/2015
Every fighter pilot will be able to stay airborne for longer durations as the plane will be able to replenish its supply of oxygen in air itself in the not-toodistant future. On Board Oxygen Generation System (OBOGS) — developed by the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) to produce oxygen in air — will allow pilots to fly without the aid of heavy oxygen cylinders.
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01/05/2015
The Pakistan Armed Forces killed at least 31 militants and destroyed a number of shelters and training facilities in the country's northwest, the army said Saturday. "[Four] terrorist hideouts and a suicide bomber training center were destroyed. 31 terrorists, including some suicide bombers, were killed in precise aerial strikes in Tirrah, Khyber today," the army's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) press statement read.
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