January 20, 2016 Military Aviation News
01/20/2016
It was reported late last week that Washington might offer Taipei surplus Boeing AV-8B Harrier II Plus strike aircraft as the U.S. Marine Corps retires the venerable jump-jets in favor the stealthy, supersonic F-35B Joint Strike Fighter. According to Defense News, the Harriers would be offered under the Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program.
(Read More...)
01/20/2016
The U.S. is adding more than 1,100 personnel and spending $1 billion on new C-130J aircraft and support facilities at Yokota Air Base as part of the Pacific pivot. The servicemembers and their families will arrive at the base over the next few years along with a Special Operations Squadron bringing 10 CV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, said Col. Douglas C. DeLaMater, 374th Airlift Wing commander.
(Read More...)
01/20/2016
Canada has been excluded from a meeting of defense ministers in Paris this week to discuss the fight against Islamic State militants. The apparent snub follows new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's vow that he would remove the country's six fighter jets from the anti-IS coalition and at a time the U.S. is looking for its allies to step up their contributions.
(Read More...)
01/20/2016
German Tornado jets deployed to Syria for reconnaissance missions can't fly at night, Bild daily reported Tuesday in a new embarrassment for the Defense Ministry, which has been battling equipment problems. The six aircraft sent to Syria are fitted with surveillance technology, and had been touted as being capable of taking high-resolution photos and infrared images, even at night and in bad weather.
(Read More...)
01/20/2016
As the secretary of the air force has put it many times, the US military is on the losing side of the cost curve – with few aircraft coming in, and cuts, cuts and more cuts just to pay the bills. In terms of aircraft, USAF is smaller today than at any point since it split from the army in 1947. This month marks the 25th anniversary of Operation Desert Storm – arguably the greatest display of combat airpower in history. Now, the air branch is reminiscing about how mighty it once was.
(Read More...)
01/20/2016
A record number of Air Force drones crashed in major accidents last year, documents show, straining the U.S. military’s fleet of robotic aircraft when it is in more demand than ever for counterterrorism missions in an expanding array of war zones.
(Read More...)
01/20/2016
For the past two years, Chinese territorial encroachment in the South China Sea has surged to unprecedented levels. Last week the Philippine Supreme Court handed down a decision that could provide the ideal way for the U.S. to respond.
(Read More...)
01/20/2016
wo Chinese soldiers were “co-conspirators” in a plot to steal US military secrets, including designs for the F-35 stealth fighter and other warplanes, a Canadian newspaper reported Tuesday. The unnamed pair allegedly worked with a recent immigrant to Canada now facing extradition to the United States to identify and raid secure databases of US military contractors, said the Globe and Mail newspaper, citing a prosecution summary of a cyber espionage probe launched in 2014.
(Read More...)
01/20/2016
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has won a $43.7 million US Air Force foreign military sales contract to supply France with MQ-9 Reaper Drones, the US Department of Defense announced.
(Read More...)
All Articles