March, 2016 Military Aviation News
03/29/2016
Belgian PM Charles Michel after meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry: “We will resume the mission of our F-16s and hold a debate in the parliament and the government to decide whether it is possible to expand the mandate”.
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03/29/2016
U.S. warplanes carried out airstrikes around Mosul on Monday in the intensifying effort to set conditions for retaking the ISIS stronghold in northwestern Iraq as part of the overall effort to defeat the terror group that has cost at least $6.5 billion, the U.S. military said.
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03/29/2016
According to the Department of Defense, the government has allowed the sale of nine Boeing Co., Poseidon maritime patrol planes to Britain in a deal valued at $3.2 billion. Congress was originally notified by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DCSA) on Thursday, with officials having 15 days to block the sale. Details of when the aircraft are scheduled to be delivered are not available.
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03/29/2016
The $500 million Russia spent on the military operation in Syria may soon pay off for the Kremlin, reports business daily Kommersant, as Moscow expects $6-7 billion worth of new arms contracts. According to the newspaper’s source, close to military exports and technical cooperation, potential customers are looking to buy the weapons proved in action. These are armaments in the inventory of Russian military or already bought by another country.
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03/29/2016
There's an old adage that in peace, a nation should prepare for war, and when at war, the same nation should prepare for peace. The United States' allies against the Islamic State seem to have forgotten that lesson after reports have emerged that weapons stores from the US are being tapped by other countries operating against ISIS.
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03/29/2016
Five years ago, a phone rang in the 28th Bomb Wing vice commander's office and made history. Less than 72 hours later, on March 27, 2011, more than 1,100 maintenance personnel launched four B-1B Lancer bombers from the Ellsworth Air Force Base flightline in blizzard conditions to support Operation Odyssey Dawn. It was the first time the aircraft had ever launched from a continental U.S. location in support of combat operations.
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03/29/2016
Last week senior Pentagon officials and a representative from a congressional watchdog agency testified before Congress about the status of the tri-service F-35 fighter program. F-35 is by far the biggest weapon development program in the world; to quote two of the officials testifying last week, it will provide the “backbone” of U.S. air combat superiority through 2070, and will serve as a “linchpin” for coalition air operations with allies — many of whom are buying it.
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03/29/2016
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said the Rafale aircraft deal which costs around Rs 60,000 crore is still on and assured that it will be concluded "very soon". His statement comes nearly a year after a government-to- government deal for the multi-medium role combat aircraft was announced. The French team of negotiators is scheduled to arrive in India on Tuesday. The two countries are expected to close the purchase of 36 Rafale mutli-role fighters.
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03/29/2016
Russia's Aerospace Forces will continue to lend support to the Syrian forces in their fight against terrorists despite the major withdrawal of the Russian military from Syria, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.
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03/28/2016
U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.
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03/28/2016
The United States government approved a sale of nine PA-8 military aircraft by Boeing to the UK, bringing the $3.2 billion sale a step closer to closure. The United States government made an announcement of the deal, which will be structured as a government-to-government sale, though the delivery date wasn't mentioned in the official statement.
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03/28/2016
Successful advising requires skill in a broad range of competencies that includes political-military relations, operations, and acquisitions. Advising the Afghan air force’s airlift mission seeks to strengthen the legitimacy of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as part of the counterinsurgency strategy of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
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03/28/2016
As the flagship defence partnership programme between India and Russia, BRAHMOS has charted a highly successful trajectory in a very short span of time. The world’s best supersonic cruise missile has proved its versatility as a multi-platform, multi-mission, multi-target weapon capable of knocking down the adversary in the modern-day complex battlefields.
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03/28/2016
It's not the largest - nor the most talked-about - aspect of Gulfstream's business. But, since 1967, when the U.S. Navy selected the Gulfstream G-I as the standard weapons system and navigational trainer for its A-6 crews, the Savannah business jet manufacturer has been recognized as the definitive choice for smaller-platform special-missions aircraft.
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03/28/2016
The Nigerian Air Force, NAF, has announced a planned expansion of its platforms in North-Eastern Nigeria towards speedy response in counter-insurgency operations. The Chief of Air Staff, Sadiq Abubakar, who stated this while on a visit to military formations and traditional institutions in Borno State announced that “the NAF is exploring the possibility of expanding the Air Force group in the North-East to ensure the total restoration of peace is achieved in the shortest time possible."
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03/28/2016
As the Air Force gets ready for the arrival of its newest aerial refueling and strategic military transport aircraft, a diverse group of Airmen is working hard to make sure the KC-46A Pegasus is ready to meet the service’s needs. Lt. Col. John Mikal is one of them. Mikal, a reservist KC-135 Stratotanker instructor pilot assigned to the 370th Flight Test Squadron, is also a KC-46 test pilot and member of the team that’s putting the Pegasus through a series of critical pre-production tests.
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03/28/2016
West London’s suburbs aren’t what most people would consider the natural home for a company that’s a world leader in sonar technology. But miles from the sea on an industrial estate in Greenford is the base of Ultra Electronics, the FTSE 250 business to which the Western world’s navies turn when they want to hunt submarines.
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03/28/2016
China is the world’s largest arms exporter, after the US and Russia. At the same, Chinese arms producers are still in pursuit of their niche in the global market.
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03/28/2016
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the operation involved Su-34 bombers and Su-35S multirole jet fighters. Malfunctions were detected in the flight control system and engines of the aircraft, the sources told RNS news agency. They added that the malfunctions were "not critical" and had no impact on the course of the campaign.
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03/26/2016
The People’s Republic of China continues to up the ante in the South China Sea. Various reports, including my own, suggest Beijing has now likely placed anti-ship missiles on Woody Island, a disputed island in this important body of water. This is on top of various other escalatory military deployments including advanced radar platforms, fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft batteries and various other systems that indicate China is seeking to expand its offensive and defensive military footprint.
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03/26/2016
Progress is being made in adding Brimstone to the strike package, and given Brimstone’s performance in the Middle East, that is a good thing. Brimstone has demonstrated its capability as a premier close proximity strike weapon against multiple targets.
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03/26/2016
The Indian Air Force (IAF) recently admitted that it could not fight simultaneously on two fronts. This is not the first time it has expressed this view. In 2009, it had told the government it did not have the capacity to do so. Of course, it did not mean that the IAF would remain a mute spectator on one front while fighting on the other. It was merely the IAF’s way of reminding the government of the urgent need to strengthen its fleet of aircraft.
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03/26/2016
While the world watched President Barack Obama extend a hand of friendship to Cuba’s leader Raul Castro and the Cuban people March 20, Air Force medics from the 59th Medical Wing stood ready to provide life-saving care.
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03/26/2016
As the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter inches toward Air Force combat readiness later this year, the Pentagon will take the troubled combat jet on a 14-stop tour around the world in an effort to boost the F-35’s flagging brand image.
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03/25/2016
As reported by DefenseNews.com, the service has recently revealed the number of A-10s that will be retired each year before the type is completely withdrawn from service in 2022. The plan call for the retirement of 49 planes or 2 squadrons in fiscal year (FY) 2018. This will be followed by 49 aircraft in FY2019, 64 in FY2020, and 96 in FY2021.
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03/25/2016
"The investigation about the refurbishment of Croatian MiGs in Ukraine is not a step towards the abolishment of the Croatian Air Force combat aircraft capability. If we determine that someone was guilty of what happened, they will not be spared", said Defence Minister Josip Buljevic in his first public comments on the scandal which has hit the Croatian Air Force in the last few days, reports tportal.hr on March 24, 2016.
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03/25/2016
The Air Force has flown more than half of the 87,000 coalition sorties over Iraq and Syria since the air campaign against the Islamic State militant group began, striking key locations and assets about 25 times a day, Lt. Gen. John Raymond told reporters Thursday.
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03/25/2016
The Iraqi military backed by U.S.-led coalition aircraft on Thursday launched a long-awaited operation to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State militants, a military spokesman said. In the push, Iraqi forces retook several villages on the outskirts of the town of Makhmour, east of Mosul, early in the morning on Thursday and hoisted the Iraqi flag there, according to the spokesman for the Joint Military Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool.
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03/25/2016
A Russian special forces officer has been killed in a combat operation near Palmyra in Syria, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday, citing a Russian military source in Syria. "While performing a special task to direct Russian air strikes onto terrorist targets, a Russian special forces officer was killed," Interfax quoted a source at Russia's Khmeimim air base in Syria's Latakia province as saying.
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03/25/2016
In an effort to keep pace with China’s growing air power, Japan has long sought to upgrade its aging fleet of U.S.-designed F-15J fighter jets. But with the U.S. refusing to sell its Asian ally new F-22 Raptors and persistent problems dogging Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Japan has reportedly opened talks with Western contractors about collaborating on a new stealth fighter.
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03/25/2016
In the early morning of January 17, 1991, 10 F-117 Nighthawks slipped through the air over Iraq. The aircraft, designed for a Soviet threat in Europe, were perfectly suited for penetrating Iraqi airspace, which relied almost entirely on Soviet air defense systems. The F-117 was designed to be as stealthy as possible: Its faceted shape reflected radar waves away, the exhaust was baffled and mixed with cool air, and the aircraft was painted a non-reflective black.
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03/25/2016
This week, Japan opened talks with US defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing to discuss a sixth-generation fighter aircraft. The move comes as Tokyo seeks to repel the expansion of China’s influence as Beijing takes a more aggressive regional posture.
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03/25/2016
Three US Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers operated with approximately 10 Republic of Korea Navy ships for seven days off the coast of the ROK peninsula, according to the US Navy press release.
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03/24/2016
The appearance of the Changhe Aircraft Industries Corporation (CAIC) Z-10 Thunderbolt attack helicopter at the 2016 Pakistan Day Parade was interesting. It was the first instance where the Pakistan Army had brought the Z-10 to the public’s attention. As far as the average Pakistani is now concerned, the Z-10 is as much a part of the armed forces as the JF-17 Thunder and Karakoram Eagle airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft.
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03/24/2016
Finmeccanica has secured a €300m contract to supply Aermacchi advanced M-346 aircraft from the Italian Ministry of Defense. Under the terms of the agreement, the company will supply an additional nine M-346 aircraft for the Italian Air Force, bringing the total ordered by Italy to 18.
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03/24/2016
The US is set to supply the Kenyan Air Force with five special military helicopters to boost efforts against terrorism. The helicopters militarily known as Huey II Standard are improved versions of the decades-old Bell UH-1H combat operation helicopters. The Bell UH- 1H Huey is a daily workhorse with an expansive cabin providing multi-mission flexibility and a standard seating of 12 people.
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03/24/2016
The U.S. Air Force is in the process of selling large Global Hawk drones and F-35 multi-role fighter planes to Japan and South Korea as part of a broader effort to better arm and equip allies in the Pacific theater, senior service officials said. “South Korea and Japan are going for the Global Hawk,” Ms. Heidi Grant, Under Secretary of the Air Force, International Affairs, told Scout Warrior in an interview.
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03/24/2016
In 2009, after two weeks of being embedded as an independent journalist with a small team of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, I ended up at Combat Outpost Monti, a 14-acre camp of tents, plywood huts, a few concrete bunkers and makeshift guard towers, and a helicopter landing area, all ringed by collapsible barriers.
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03/24/2016
Cybersecurity weaknesses in Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 are among “many unresolved deficiencies” hobbling the costliest U.S. weapons program as production of the fighter jet ramps up, the Pentagon’s top tester said. “The limited and incomplete F-35 cybersecurity testing accomplished to date has nonetheless revealed deficiencies that cannot be ignored,” Michael Gilmore, the director of combat testing, said in a prepared statement for a House Armed Services panel hearing Wednesday.
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03/24/2016
India is keen to consider Boeing’s offer to supply F/A- 18 Super Hornet fighter jets to the Indian Air Force (IAF). Sources said that New Delhi will take a hard look at the proposal in April when a high-level delegation will engage the Indian officials over the offer. US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter will be in India on April 10 in a visit that is expected to lift cooperation to a new level.
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03/24/2016
Federal investigators said Wednesday that Pratt & Whitney's engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter still is "not performing at expected levels" and is one of many glitches still plaguing the nation's next generation of fighter jets.
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03/24/2016
A Russian Il-76 (NATO reporting name Candid) military transport plane carrying 160 material and technical support personnel has departed from Syria to return home, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Wednesday.
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03/23/2016
Sweden’s defense command has responded to the growing unpredictability of a changed security landscape in the greater Baltic Sea area by toughening up the Military Strategy Doctrine (MSD) under which the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) deals with threats against the country’s sovereignty, Defense News reports.
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03/23/2016
The U.S. Air Force continues to have problems with the weight of its new the "look and shoot" helmet developed for the F-35. These HMDS (Helmet-Mounted Display System) smart helmets were first developed in South Africa during the 1970s and much improved by Israeli firms in the 1990s. HMDS are currently used by F-15, F-16 and F-18 pilots.
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03/23/2016
Lithuanian company FL Technics has won a tender to provide spare parts and components for aircraft operated by the Ethiopian Air Force (EAF), including L-39, An-12 and An-32 trainers and transports. The aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) company made the announcement on 18 March, saying the company’s military division – FL Technics Defence – will ensure the provision of various spare parts for Aero L-39 Albatros, Antonov An-12 and An-32 aircraft.
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03/23/2016
The second Red Flag of 2016 featured an international coalition training against a dynamic and integrated “Red Adversary” Force. The exercise, running from Feb. 29 to Mar. 11 included some 23 units representing the US Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines and contingents from NATO partners: the Aeronautica Militare (AM – Italian Air Force) and the Turkish Air Force (TAF).
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03/23/2016
Known for an ability to keep flying after taking multiple rounds of enemy machine gun fire, land and operate in rugged terrain, destroy groups of enemy fighters with a 30mm cannon and unleash a wide arsenal of attack weapons, the A-10 is described by pilots as a “flying tank” in the sky - able to hover over ground war and provide life-saving close air support in high-threat combat environments.
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03/23/2016
The March 22 terrorist attacks in Brussels come as the European Union is still reeling from the November Paris attacks and scrambling to solve the migrant crisis. More important, they come as nationalist forces are challenging key principles of the Continental bloc, including the free movement of labor and the Schengen Agreement, which eliminated border controls among several member states.
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03/23/2016
With his term set to end in June, it’s an appropriate time to review the Philippines’ military modernization efforts under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III. During his six years in office, military modernization has advanced at a scale unprecedented since the Marcos era – but it remains insufficient.
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03/23/2016
Boeing is likely to miss the first major requirement of its $51 billion tanker program for the U.S. Air Force: delivering the initial 18 aerial refueling planes by August 2017, according to the Pentagon agency that oversees contracts.
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03/23/2016
Japan has opened talks with Western defense contractors about building a new generation of fighter jets, sources say, in what would mark an important milestone in Tokyo's strategy to maintain its air superiority over rival China. The discussions with defense companies including Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Ltd come as Japan readies its ATD-X experimental aircraft for its first test flights within days.
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03/22/2016
A new agreement between the United States and the Philippines clears the way for a new permanent American military presence across five bases that will support rotational deployments near the contested South China Sea. The bases include:
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03/22/2016
Russia's Rostvertol has started mass production of Mi-28NE Night Hunter attack helicopters with dual controls. According to Rostec, the Russian state corporation that promotes exports, the dual-control configuration enables the helicopter to perform as a training platform as well as a combat aircraft and is the result of a modernization program.
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03/22/2016
The Indian Navy has retired the Sea Harrier fleet that operated from its aircraft carrier INS Viraat, and plans to replace them with MiG- 29Ks that India has bought from Russia. The Indian Navy bought 30 British-made Sea Harriers in 1983 but only 11 now remain. The Navy once considered upgrading the Sea Harriers but abandoned the plan.
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03/22/2016
A laser-guided bomb fired by the indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft missed its target during an exercise in Pokhran in Rajasthan and a probe had been ordered into this, a senior Indian Air Force officer said on Monday. This apart, the 'Iron Fist 2016' exercise on Friday was "largely successful", the officer said, adding the bomb missing the target was not due to pilot error.
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03/22/2016
The Department of Defense announced that the US Army has awarded Boeing a nearly $185 million contract to produce an undisclosed additional number of heavily-armoured Apache AH-64 attack helicopters.
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03/22/2016
The Egyptian Air Force carried out a anti-terrorist operation in the North Sinai province, and killed 20 militants from the Islamic State (Daesh) group, local media reported, citing a source in the military leadership.
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03/22/2016
Aircraft-Manufacturing Corporation MiG (RSK MiG) has built its first batch of pre-production Mikoyan MiG-35 aircraft, according to company CEO Sergei Korotkov. Without specifying how many of the aircraft have been built, he said that the planes will soon be delivered to the Russian Ministry of Defense for early testing.
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03/22/2016
According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, the recent agreement between the US and the Philippines, allowing for a US military presence at five military bases in the South China Sea, threatens "third party interests and sovereignty."
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03/22/2016
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed the price tag of the Russian anti-terrorist air operation in Syria – 33 billion rubles (about $464 million US). To get a handle on whether this was a little or a lot, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency has prepared an overview of some of the most expensive military operations since WWII.
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03/21/2016
One often hears of the fact that the US spends more on its military than most other nations combined. This is usually presented as evidence that the US is more powerful militarily—perhaps so powerful that it could take on the rest of the planet, and prevail. I find this attitude highly questionable. If we look at what sort of “defense” the US actually spends money on, and what it gets in return in terms of military capabilities, an entirely different picture emerges.
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03/21/2016
I had the chance to meet with students and to give a presentation at the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies which is part of the Australian Defence College. I made a presentation last year to the Williams Foundation, and this discussion was a follow on to that.
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03/21/2016
The death toll from purported Russian airstrikes on the ISIS-held city of Raqqa in the past 24 hours has climbed to at least 55, mostly civilians, Syrian opposition activists and the Islamic State group said Sunday.
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03/21/2016
The plan includes the induction of many man-portable mini and micro UAVs for short-range surveillance, and nuclear, biological, chemical detection in the battlefield. The Indian Army, Air Force and Navy propose to buy tactical UAVs, high-altitude long-endurance (HALE) UAVs, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAVs, and medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAVs.
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03/21/2016
Missions for the Army and Air Force are unique enough that the services will likely need to fly their own separate unmanned platforms for the foreseeable future, service leaders said Thursday.
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03/21/2016
India has been up in arms, so to speak, over last month’s announcement that the U.S. proposed to sell eight F-16 combat aircraft to Pakistan. Yet less than one week from that announcement, New Delhi got a hint that it might have a great opportunity to undercut Pakistan’s F-16 force posture – an offer from F-16 producer Lockheed Martin to add its prized fourth-generation fighter to the list of Make in India products.
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03/21/2016
The MiG-35 has a necessary set of avionics enabling the use of all means of currently available air weapons against aerial, ground and surface targets. It also had a single or a double seat option which was previously assigned to specialized training and combat aircraft.
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03/21/2016
Nearly 20 Russian combat aircraft, an air defense system and some 2,000 personnel will stay at Hmeymim airbase in Syria. According to experts, the task force has several goals – fighting terrorism, supporting President Bashar Assad, and control over the region.
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03/20/2016
Turkish warplanes have struck Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terror bases in northern Iraq late Friday once again, a week after 37 people were killed in a car bombing in Ankara. Turkish military said a total of 30 warplanes were involved in strikes on PKK targets late Friday and on Saturday morning. Ten military aircraft, including F-16, F-4 2020 jet fighters and tanker aircraft launched strikes against PKK targets in the Hakurk region in northern Iraq, the General Staff said.
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03/20/2016
The US and the Philippines announced Friday five locations where American forces will have access under a new defense pact, including one facing disputed islands in the South China Sea. The announcement came at strategic talks in Washington, where the allies reiterated their opposition to the militarization of outposts in those waters, where six Asian governments have competing claims.
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03/20/2016
U.S. and coalition military forces have continued to attack Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorists in Syria and Iraq, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today. Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.
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03/20/2016
Air strikes killed at least 39 civilians on Saturday in Raqa, the Islamic State group's main stronghold in Syria, a monitoring group said. At least five children and seven women were among the dead, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The raids came a day after 16 civilians were killed in strikes on the same city.
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03/20/2016
There are three meetings I attend every week, and they're the most important meetings in my current job. The first is wing stand-up, held three days a week, where we cover the status of our aircrew, pararescuemen, all 81 combat aircraft, the airfield, communications and logistics. Our mission is simple - deliver precise combat power from the air - and stand-up sets the tone. This, my most important meeting, lasts about 20 minutes, except when we fold in weekly intelligence updates.
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03/20/2016
The United States military authorities claim that old OV-10 Bronco battle-planes may prove to be more effective and cheap than modern F-15 and F-35 aircrafts.
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03/20/2016
On Mar. 16, the Russian Aerospace Forces (RuAF) welcomed the return of their Sukhoi Su-25 attack aircraft from Hmeymim airfield, in Syria, to their home base in the Krasnodar region. As reported by the Tass News Agency, during the ceremony, Alexander Galkin, the Russia’s Southern Military District commander, said the Frogfoots flew more than 1,600 sorties and dropped around 6,000 bombs since when Russian aircraft began missions against terrorists in Syria on Sep. 15, 2015.
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03/20/2016
Japanese banks drew on close commercial ties to Qatar when they lent funds that helped Doha pay last year’s down payment for Rafale fighter jets and missiles worth €6.3 billion ($6.8 billion), financial specialists said. A bank loan to Qatar, a nation rich in oil and gas reserves, signaled an economic shift for the Arabian Gulf nation and its strong business ties to Japanese lenders and construction companies.
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03/20/2016
The first Mi-8AMTSh-VA helicopter, adapted for freezing Arctic weather conditions, has been delivered to the Russian Armed Forces by the Ulan-Ude Aviation Plant in southeastern Russia, Zvezda TV reported on Friday.
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03/19/2016
Over the past decade, China has pursued an extensive and far reaching campaign of dredging and creating man-made islands within the South China Sea. These pursuits have put China at odds with Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and large sections of the international community including the US. One of the main areas that China's expansion has focused on has been the Spratly Island chain close to the Philippines.
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03/19/2016
Lockheed Martin has warned against rushing into a sixth-generation fighter programme without first boosting F-35 Lightning II numbers and implementing a “robust” modernisation programme to keep fifth-generation F-22s and F-35s capable against new counter-air threats.
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03/19/2016
In the middle of the Indian Ocean lies a relatively unknown island by the name of Diego Garcia. It’s home to one of America’s most important military bases—and a history of human rights abuse. The island was confiscated in 1966 from the local population of Chagossians in secret deals between the governments of the U.S. and U.K., resulting in the forced displacement of more than 2,000.
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03/19/2016
Eight sailors working on the flight deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower were injured Friday when a cable used to catch a landing aircraft’s tailhook broke, according to the Navy. Four of the sailors were flown by helicopter to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital with injuries that weren’t life-threatening, while two were taken to Portsmouth Naval Medical Center. Norfolk General has the only Level 1 trauma center in the region and handles the most severe injuries.
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03/19/2016
A trilateral air exercise conducted by the air forces of Singapore, Thailand and the United States ended on Friday (Mar 18) at Korat Air Base in Thailand, Singapore’s Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) said. Exercise Cope Tiger, the 22nd in its series, was conducted in two phases – a command post exercise at Changi Naval Base in Singapore from Dec 8 to 11, 2015, and a flying training exercise conducted at Korat Air Base in Thailand from Mar 7 to 18.
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03/19/2016
Marines with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 executed dissimilar air combat training and bilateral tactical mission training during the Komatsu Aviation Training Relocation exercise at Komatsu AB, Japan, March 7-18, 2016. Komatsu ATR is a dissimilar air combat training exercise allowing pilots with diverse aircraft to simulate aerial warfare and execute basic fighter maneuvers,.
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03/19/2016
Russia did carry out air strikes in Syria this week, a US military spokesman said on Friday, hours after asserting the opposite. "While we've seen no Russian air strikes in the northern areas of Syria this week, it appears the Russians have conducted some air strikes after all in southern Syria in the vicinity of Palmyra in support of the Syrian regime," US Central Command spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder told AFP.
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03/19/2016
Russia has withdrawn most of its strike aircraft from Syria, the US military said on Friday, adding that it was now entirely carrying out strikes in support of Syrian government forces “via artillery systems” instead of aircraft.
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03/19/2016
The deliveries of Russia's advanced President-S onboard defense systems (ODS) to Egypt will begin in "coming days," a senior Radio-Electronic Technologies Concern (KRET) executive said Friday.
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03/18/2016
The Philippine Air Force’s brand-new supersonic fighters will be taking part in this year’s “Balikatan” military training exercise with the United States. PAF spokesperson Col. Enrico Canaya said the two recently acquired FA-50 lead-in fighter jets from South Korea would be put through aerial maneuvers during the bilateral exercise in April. “This is definitely a good opportunity for us to enhance our training, especially with our American counterparts. This is a good development,” Canaya said T
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03/18/2016
The U.S. military is considering whether a Vietnam-era propeller-driven airplane could be useful in the fight against the Islamic State, after what appeared to be a successful trial run last year. Two OV-10 Broncos were deployed for barely three months last summer and fall as part of the international coalition battling Islamic State militants in the region, according to the U.S. Central Command.
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03/18/2016
Lockheed Martin held its annual media day this week, and CEO Marillyn Hewson assured those attending that the company was financially sound and poised to lead the industry in developing the next generation of military technology, from military lasers to hypersonic weapons. But the bulk of the company’s revenues rely on old-fashioned techniques — buying up other companies, profiting from the sale of big-ticket weapons systems, and pushing foreign sales.
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03/18/2016
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Thursday that his country’s more than five-month military operation in Syria had been a success, with the upper hand on the battlefield returned to the Syrian government and with President Bashar al-Assad ready to make the compromises necessary for a peaceful settlement.
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03/17/2016
A unique U.S. Navy F/A-18F bearing a brown camouflage scheme has likely had many question why a US Navy Strike Fighter would be such a color. A recent pass by the “Rhino” deep through “Rainbow Canyon” should put those questions to rest as the jet almost disappears as it races through the canyon at a very low level.
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03/17/2016
A military aircraft crashed in the Ecuadorian eastern province of Pastaza, killing all 22 people on board, military authorities said. The accident occurred at around 2:30 pm local time(1930 GMT), when the soldiers were to conduct a parachuting exercise, the Defense Ministry of Ecuador said in a statement.
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03/17/2016
Raytheon engineers have developed a software solution for integrating of new weapons into older aircraft. The software can be implemented across various platforms and current bomb rack systems.
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03/17/2016
Defence giant Lockheed Martin claims to have made a major breakthrough in its bid to perfect the SR-72 – dubbed the "Son of Blackbird". The firm claims to have developed a prototype capable of reaching Mach 6 – six times the speed of sound. The current airspeed record of Mach 3.5 is held by Lockheed's SR-71 Blackbird – seen as the "father" of the new superplane.
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03/17/2016
ISIS has claimed it has shot down an armed Iraqi Air Force Cessna with a 57mm anti-aircraft gun near the city of Kirkuk. The terrorist organisation has released footage showing the aircraft banking at an extreme angle as it plummets to the ground. The Iraqi Air Force has admitted it has lost the Cessna 208 Caravan, which was armed with Hellfire missiles, but blamed the crash on a 'technical fault'.
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03/17/2016
Remotely piloted aircraft don't fly themselves as autonomous super machines. They also don't require only a single pilot and sensor operator to function. The RPA enterprise of MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers is maintained or operated by Airmen from more than 30 Air Force career fields, each one playing a key role in supporting every combat air patrol. The patrols enable combatant commanders access to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities at all times.
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03/17/2016
Despite its history of cost overruns, the Pentagon's fifth-generation fighter program is on course to realize significant savings in coming years, the program manager said this week. Jeff Babione, Lockheed Martin's program manager for the F-35 program, told reporters Tuesday that the cost of the F-35A - the Air Force variant of the aircraft -- was expected to drop from nearly $100 million per plane to about $85 million by 2019, thanks to efficiencies and cost-cutting manufacturing technologies.
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03/17/2016
The F-35A Lightning II program took another step toward initial operational capability on Tuesday when two aircraft assigned to the 62nd Fighter Squadron successfully employed four laser-guided bombs on the Barry M. Goldwater Range. This marked the first weapons release by F-35s assigned to the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base.
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03/17/2016
Additional F-16s from the US remain central to Pakistan’s modernization efforts, but analysts say since there could be hurdles ahead, surplus fighters may be a credible alternative. News reports here citing senior officials have stated that the air force requires some 190 new aircraft to replace its legacy Mirage III/5 and Chengdu F-7 fighter fleets by 2020.
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03/16/2016
The Afghan Air Force flew more than 20,000 missions last year as the Afghan national security forces went through a significantly challenging year after assuming the full security responsibilities from the coalition forces. Hailing the Afghan forces for improving their capabilities, the NATO Secretary General said the Afghan security forces are ‘showing great courage and determination.”
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03/16/2016
RAF pilots were joined by the USAF for low flying training over the Welsh mountains on Monday. Their aircraft were seen flying over the Mach Loop, a set of valleys between Dolgellau and Machynllet, in north Wales, as part of the session between 10 and 11am. An RAF Hawk T2 from Hawks Valley, which is used to train pilots for fast low flying, was seen twirling over the hills at between 100ft and 250ft, at one point inverting over a ridge line - a technique often used to avoid enemy radar.
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03/16/2016
On Mar. 15, the Russian Defence Minister General of the Army Sergei ??Shoigu? ordered to redeploy a large part of the the Russian Aerspace Forces contingent deployed to Syria to fight terrorists.
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03/16/2016
The Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee is holding an inquiry into the planned acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter). ASPI has had a keen interest in this project for over a decade, so we made a submission.
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03/16/2016
If you were the CEO of an airline business and got a negative report about your new, very expensive aircraft that has been in development for a number of years, what would you say to your engineering and production managers? The report highlights look like this:
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03/16/2016
Russia's decision to withdraw its airgroup from Syria is putting pressure on the official Damascus to commit fully to the political transition, Syrian opposition figure and founder of the Organization for Democracy and Freedom in Syria, Ribal Assad told Sputnik.
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03/16/2016
A video look at Russia's mission in Syria over the past six months, and how it accomplished its stated goals, prompting a withdrawal.
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03/16/2016
Tensions on the Korean peninsula escalated to new highs this week, with the US and South Korea carrying out massive military drills, and North Korea test-firing missiles and threatening more nuclear tests. With tensions now threatening to spark open war, military analyst Konstantin Sivkov warns that if war did break out, both sides would lose.
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03/16/2016
Indian defense ministry signed 28 contracts - 18 with Indian companies and 10 with firms from Russia, the United States, Sweden and Israel - totaling to approximately $5.5 billion, according to official statement.
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03/15/2016
Russian defence ministry video showed the first group of aircraft taking off from Hmeimim air base in Syria on Tuesday morning and later in flight. Western officials cautiously welcomed the move, saying it could pressure Syria's government to engage in talks. Peace talks aimed at resolving the conflict are entering a second day.
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03/15/2016
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to start withdrawing the Russian air group from Syria on Tuesday, as the task assigned to it has been completed. "I think it is a clever decision because if they [aerospace forces] stay longer, it could potentially lead to an additional tension between the sides to the conflict and that could be dangerous. The job is done because the Daesh has been stopped," Mariani said.
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03/15/2016
Indian Air Force vice-chief Air Marshal BS Dhanoa admitted on Thursday that the IAF did not have sufficient number of warplanes to fight a two-front war, setting off alarm bells about the country's ability to tackle a combined threat from China and Pakistan.
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03/15/2016
As reported by world media, Turkish military aircraft carried out the attack early on Monday. This has been confirmed by the Turkish army. It was stated that 11 combat aircraft took part, attacking 18 previously established targets that have "all been destroyed."
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03/15/2016
Bulgaria’s Defence Council has approved the investment project for acquiring new fighter jets for the country’s Air Force, public broadcaster BNR reported on Monday. The decision was taken by the consultative body within the Defence Ministry last week, according to BNR.
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03/15/2016
The Air Force is still relying on tens of thousands of airmen to carry out its mission overseas — but the type of airmen being deployed is changing greatly. The number of airmen deployed last year has dropped from fiscal 2013, according to statistics provided by the Air Force Personnel Center.
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03/15/2016
Two Emirati pilots were martyred after the fighter aircraft they were flying in crashed while performing their national duty in Yemen as part of the Saudi-led coalition's Operation Restoring Hope. As per a statement issued by the UAE Armed Forces on Monday, the martyrs are Mohammed Obaid Salem Al Hammudi, based in Diba Al Hisn in the emirate of Sharjah, and Zayed Ali Al Kaabi, from Mebreh area in Fujairah.
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03/15/2016
For an indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) disparaged by the Indian Air Force brass as “overweight”, “underpowered”, “obsolete”, “a three-legged cheetah” and, in technical terms, as a plane that “cannot fly without telemetry, pull more than 6G or an angle-of-attack (AoA) greater than 20 degrees” and “with an air intake that starves the engine”, is supposedly afflicted with “53 identified shortfalls”, and fails to meet the “minimum air staff requirements (ASRs)”.
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03/15/2016
Two U.S. officials told CNN that the Obama administration has confirmed that ISIS senior operative Omar al-Shishani is dead. The officials said he was injured in a U.S. airstrike last week and then died subsequently, though they wouldn't say how they know he is dead. The initial U.S. assessment was that he was "likely killed" in the strike, but further assessments led them to understand he had been injured and only later died.
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03/15/2016
Lockheed Martin recently delivered two KC-130J Super Hercules aerial refuelers to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to be operated by Royal Saudi Air Force crews.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the 16th country to operate the C-130J Super Hercules to meet its refueling and airlift needs. Saudi Arabia has the distinction of having the largest legacy Hercules fleet outside of the United States of America.
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03/15/2016
Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin Company, today announced the second CH-53K helicopter has joined the flight test program and achieved first flight. In addition the first aircraft into the test program has achieved flight envelope expansion to 120 knots for the U.S. Marine Corps’ CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopter program.
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03/14/2016
Australia is set to walk a finely balanced diplomatic line as strategic competition heats up over China's heavily disputed and growing territorial claims in the South China Sea. Commander of the US Pacific Air Forces, General Lori Robinson, said in Canberra on Tuesday the U.S. and its partners had to "maintain a credible combat power" with China's "militarisation" of the South China Sea, warning that China's military build-up raised the risk of sparking a miscalculated, unexpected incident.
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03/14/2016
For nearly a month, the kingdom has been hosting forces from 20 allied nations, its first chance to practise integrating the Saudi-led Islamic Coalition announced last year to combat terrorism. This, say the Saudis, is the largest concentration of military forces in the region since the Desert Storm campaign of 1991 drove Iraq's army out of Kuwait.
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03/14/2016
On March 12, coalition military forces continued to attack ISIL terrorists in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, coalition military forces conducted six strikes using attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft against ISIL targets. Additionally in Iraq, coalition military forces conducted 12 strikes coordinated with and in support of the Government of Iraq using rocket artillery and attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft against ISIL targets.
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03/14/2016
The Egyptian parliament has approved government plans to secure a €3.37 billion (US $3.76 billion) loan to fund the acquisition of weapons and military equipment, including Navy vessels and fighter jets, as part of the country's ongoing force modernization program, a new parliamentary report has said.
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03/14/2016
Jodhpur: Iron Fist 2016, the Indian Air Force exercise in the Pokhran deserts, will prove to be a litmus test for Astra, the Beyond-Visual-Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM), which having successfully completed its user trials including those for its seekers will be officially fired for the first time on March 18 in full public view, including the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Mod
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03/14/2016
On Mar. 11, RF 16-2 came to an end. Among the more than 70 combat planes that took part in the exercise at Nellis Air Force Base, there were, for the first time ever, also 8 Eurofighter Typhoons of the Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force).
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03/14/2016
A quirky aircraft company that helped to win World War II and guide the U.S. into the jet age with its unconventional designs will have its colorful history preserved by the San Diego Air & Space Museum. The museum has acquired a huge archive of photos and records from the hey-dey of Vought Aircraft, the developer of such iconic war planes as the F4U Corsair, whose eerie whine earned it the nickname “Whistling Death.”
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03/14/2016
As Russia and the United States develop concepts for sixth-generation fighter jets, we look at the main demands made by the countries' militaries and the issues the projects would have to overcome.
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03/14/2016
A Syrian Air Force MiG-21US went down near an airfield in Hama province on Saturday. Conflicting reports have emerged over whether the aircraft crashed due to a technical failure, or was downed by jihadist militants; Russian analysts are questioning whether the terrorists now possess anti-aircraft missiles, and whether Russian planes are safe.
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03/13/2016
Deep in the Sahara, in the sun-baked Libyan town of Sabha, a ragtag group of gunmen agreed to show Timothy Michetti their most prized weapons. Michetti, an experienced investigator for a London-based company that tracks the sources of small arms in conflict zones, travelled there on a hunch.
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03/13/2016
China will create an international maritime judicial center to protect its national sovereignty and maritime rights, the country's Supreme People's Court said Sunday, according to state news agency Xinhua. The move comes as tensions rise in the South China Sea, where China is locked in long-standing maritime disputes with several countries.
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03/13/2016
As the Air Force's most advanced aircraft, the F-22 is in such high demand that Raptor pilots and crews are constantly deploying for training and wartime missions. It’s no doubt that the Raptor has been put on a pedestal in the Air Force’s trophy case. Even though the service only has 186 in inventory, according to Air Combat Command, it’s likely the world will see more of it in months to come.
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03/13/2016
Syrian Air Force MiG-21 has been downed by armed militants near a military airfield in western Hama Governorate, a military source told Sputnik. One pilot was able to eject to safety, the second one died in a failed emergency landing, according to the source. "A Syrian warplane MiG-21 was shot down near the Hama military airfield," the source said.
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03/13/2016
A spokesman for the Syrian opposition's High Negotiations Committee (HNC) criticized Saturday's statement of Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on the upcoming Geneva negotiations, calling them "nails in the talks' coffin.
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03/12/2016
In the middle of June 2015, a U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter took off from an air base in Alaska and flew over a military training range at 430 miles per hour. On command, something burst from the fighter’s flare dispenser—a drone roughly the size of a soda can and weighing just one pound.
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03/12/2016
U.S. troops in Jordan launched a GPS-guided rocket artillery attack into Syria for the first time on March 4, defense officials said, revealing an new facet of the American-led coalition’s ground-based fight against Islamic State militants.
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03/12/2016
Pacific Theater: Communist China is completing infrastructure in the South China Sea with which it can project military aggression. The Obama U.S. power vacuum brings “change” to yet another region of the globe. You’ve got to wonder if President Obama’s own national security personnel are crying out for help for America.
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03/12/2016
India’s plans to develop a home-grown regional transport aircraft (RTA) appear to have been scrapped, with state owned airframer Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) releasing a new request for information for the manufacture of a 50-80 seat dual-role regional aircraft in India.
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03/12/2016
The nation’s top generals and admirals will gather in the coming weeks to mull over ideas on what the Pentagon must do to close the gap as Russia and China continue to push the edge of their military capabilities. These talks are likely to shape decisions on what investments, policy and organizational changes the Defense Department would have to make to offset adversaries’ advances in high-tech weaponry such as precision weapons and air defense systems.
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03/12/2016
The Afghan air force will not reach necessary strength levels until 2020, according to a top U.S. general. General John Campbell, who ended his command of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan last week, told reporters Friday that some aircraft procured for the force would not arrive in Afghanistan until 2018. The force would then need an additional two to three years to train the pilots needed for the new aircraft, he explained.
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03/12/2016
US spy satellites, aircraft and ships observed as the North Korean navy searched for the missing submarine for several days, the officials said on Friday. The United States is unaware of the submarine’s current whereabouts. On Thursday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that North Korea had fired two short-range missiles. The missiles hit waters northeast of the port city of Wonsan, the South Korean military said.
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03/11/2016
China will be able to project "substantial offensive military power" from artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea's disputed Spratly Islands within months, the director of US national intelligence said.
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03/11/2016
The United States has deployed three B-2 Spirit nuclear stealth bombers to support U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Strategic Command announced Wednesday. The aircraft are the United States' most advanced bomber and part of its nuclear deterrent defenses. It is not the first time that the United States deployed the B-2 bombers to the Pacific Command. Last fall, the U.S. Air Force deployed three B-2s to Guam. In March 2013, the U.S. sent two B-2s to conduct a flyover near Seoul, South Korea.
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03/11/2016
As the Army builds its very first AH-64 Apache battalion in Alaska, soldiers in the unit are experiencing a lot of firsts. The 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, is the first Apache unit to permanently install skis on the bird. It also is the first to “cold-soak” the aircraft in temperatures as low as 20 degrees below zero for days at a time to see how the system reacts to such extreme cold.
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03/11/2016
India's Air Force has raised objections to the indigenous new generation anti-radiation missile (NGARM) currently in development. The 60-kilometer-range NGARM, developed by state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), will undertake flight trials in three months but Indian Air Force (IAF) officials say the missile is too bulky. DRDO is developing NGARM for the service's Mirage-2000H, Jaguar, Su-30 MKI and the upcoming Light Combat Aircraft.
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03/11/2016
Military spy drones used for non-war purposes over the United States were almost exclusively for disaster relief or during training for natural disasters, according to the Pentagon. "I can tell you with 100% certainty that these exercises are of a Defense support-to-civil authorities nature. It's (training for or responding to) a natural disaster of some kind, earthquake, flood, hurricane or nuclear-reactor blowing up. Something like that," said Air Force Lt. Col. Tom Crosson, Pentagon spokesman
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03/11/2016
Challenging the orthodoxy isn’t typically encouraged in large organizations, so when it happens, a minor celebration is in order. General Jonathan Vance, the country’s top soldier, is reimagining the future of the Royal Canadian Air Force – and that may include fewer fighter planes, but more drones.
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03/11/2016
At least 181 aircraft of the Indian Air Force will come together over Thar desert this month in a breathtaking aerial ballet during Exercise Iron Fist-2016 to showcase the force's combat capability across the entire spectrum of aerial operations. Defence Attaches from various countries, except those of Pakistan and China, are scheduled to attend the event that will project India's deterrence power.
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03/11/2016
There are no problems with the deliveries of Russian-made S-300 air defense systems to Iran, the chief of staff of the Iranian presidential administration said on Thursday. Earlier this week, an Iranian Defense Ministry source confirmed that there were no problems with the S-300 delivery to Iran, noting that work was underway to resolve the remaining technical issues.
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03/11/2016
The United States has launched airstrikes that destroyed some chemical weapons capabilities of the Islamic State (Daesh) and will continue such operations in the future, US Department of Defense spokesperson Peter Cook told reporters on Wednesday.
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03/11/2016
Russia is developing a multifunction image processing system and an upgraded laser guidance system for guided weapons for its newest Mi-28NM attack helicopter.
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03/10/2016
The US Air Force has begun studying future close air support (CAS) aircraft to succeed the Fairchild Republic A-10 as the Pentagon evaluates the weaponry it needs for “prolonged operations” of one year or more.
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03/10/2016
The Army plans to fly its Vietnam-era workhorse CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter for 100 years by continuously upgrading the platform through a series of ongoing technological adjustments designed to improve lift, weight, avionics and cargo handling, among other things. The Army goal is to allow the helicopter, which was first produced in the early 1960s, to serve all the way into the 2060s – allowing the aircraft service life to span an entire century.
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03/10/2016
The US Air Force's 90th Fighter Squadron based in Elmendorf-Richardson has equipped an F-22 Raptor with an AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder Tactical Missiles. USAF3rd Wing weapons manager chief master Sergeant Chuck Jenkins said: "This has been in the inventory for the Air Force and Navy for some years; it's nothing new to the military. But to put it on the Ferrari of aircraft, the F-22, the most advanced aircraft we have, it gives the pilots more manoeuvrability, larger range.
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03/10/2016
The government has played down reports that US supersonic long-range B-1B bombers could soon conduct training exercises from an RAAF base in Australia's north. Neither Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull nor Foreign Minister Julie Bishop denied this would happen or commented on a possible reaction from China.
Mr Turnbull said US forces rotated through Australia all the time under the close defence relationship.
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03/10/2016
A mission to recover a U.S. Army reconnaissance plane that went down March 5 in northern Iraq included Navy helicopters and Air Force personnel, according to a news article. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said Air Force pararescuemen and Navy choppers from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 5 out of Norfolk, Virginia, participated in the mission, which was launched from the nearby city of Erbil, according to an article in The Washington Post.
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03/10/2016
War was just an experiment for two of the U.S. military’s oldest and most unusual warplanes. A pair of OV-10 Broncos—small, Vietnam War-vintage, propeller-driven attack planes—recently spent three months flying top cover for ground troops battling ISIS militants in the Middle East.
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03/10/2016
The French Air Force is looking to recruit more mechanics to maintain fighter jets and also urgently acquiring bombs and equipment to support a high rate of operational use, air chief Gen. André Lanata said Tuesday. Urgent operating requirements have been posted for new munitions and satellite communications, he told defense journalists on March 8, daily Le Monde reported.
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03/10/2016
Congress and American defense officials are realizing that over the last few decades they committed the classic sin of militaries over the centuries. America trained and equipped to fight the last war, a special operations, low intensity conflict, incorrectly defining future threats to the United States. The realization is causing the U.S. government to rethink its procurement of the latest-generation combat aircraft, specifically the F-35 and F-22.
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03/10/2016
British military pilots have been flown to South Carolina to undertake intensive combat aircraft training as the two countries reform the famous 617 Dambusters squadron. Personnel from the Royal Navy and RAF have been embedded with the US Marine Corps as they undertake a unique F-35B Lightning II operational training programme in Beaufort.
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03/09/2016
Northrop Grumman, together with Saab Aerosystems, has supplied the attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) for the nEUROn unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator, it was announced on 7 March. The nEUROn has now completed over 100 test flights in Sweden, Italy and France.
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03/09/2016
ndian Air Force (IAF) will soon get its first women fighter pilot. IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha announced that the force's fighter stream will no longer be a male domain from June 18, 2016 when the first batch of women fighter pilot trainees is commissioned into the force.
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03/09/2016
Two F-35A Lightning II aircraft assigned to the 33rd Fighter Wing here successfully employed two laser-guided bombs Thursday morning at a nearby range, advancing the Air Force’s F-35A training syllabus ahead of F-35A Initial Operational Capability.
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03/09/2016
American B-52 bombers are “ready and able” to strike ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria, a top Air Force official confirmed Monday. The air campaign against ISIS is “taking a toll on our aircraft, our readiness and our airmen” but the “venerable B-52 … remains ready and able to meet combatant commander requirements,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said during a Pentagon press briefing.
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03/09/2016
It’s tough to find a good deal on a fighter jet these days. But if you’re willing to put a little time and money into a restoration project, the formerly communist republic of Albania has a deal for you.
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03/09/2016
Flying in Eurofighter Typhoons and F-16 jets, pilots from the Italian and Turkish air forces joined their U.S. partners in a Red Flag air combat training exercise Tuesday, roaring into partially cloudy skies north of Nellis Air Force Base. For the Italian Air Force, it’s the first time its fighter pilots and aircraft have flown in Red Flag’s 41-year history, officials said. It also marks the longest overseas deployment for the Typhoon detachment commanded by Col. Marco Bertoli.
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03/09/2016
It's a time-tested ploy. When a weapons system can't be justified based on cost, capabilities, and need, the manufacturer touts how many jobs the program will create. So it is with Lockheed Martin and its troubled F-35 combat aircraft.
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03/09/2016
North Korea’s provocative nuclear rhetoric has gotten so bad even the Kremlin has come out against the hermit kingdom, warning continued nuclear threats could justify an invasion. The warning was issued in the form of a written statement from the Russian foreign ministry. It follows North Korea’s threat it would engage in a “preemptive and offensive nuclear strike” in reaction to the start of joint U.S.-South Korean war games Monday.
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03/09/2016
Boeing and the Paramount Group, the South Africa-based global defense and aerospace business, have expanded their 2014 agreement to cooperate on an advanced mission system for a variant of the Advanced, High Performance, Reconnaissance, Light Aircraft (AHRLAC).
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03/09/2016
Russia's National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center acting chief Ruslan Shishin said that the US and French experts will conduct an observational flight over Russia under the Treaty on Open Skies on March 9-13.
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03/08/2016
On Mar. 1, 2016 the 90th Fighter Squadron (FS) belonging to the 3rd Wing stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska officially became the first combat-operational Raptor unit to equip an F-22 with the AIM-9X Sidewinder.
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03/08/2016
Despite speculation that parameters for the Air Force's T-X trainer are still up in the air, top officials say there will be no more changes to the program requirements. The Air Force’s requirements for 350 T-X jets to replace the service’s aging T-38 trainer fleet are pretty much set, according to Brig. Gen. Andrew Croft, director of plans, programs, requirements and assessments for Air Education and Training Command. Although a formal request for proposals will not be released until later this
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03/08/2016
The Afghan Air Force (AAF) in northern Balkh province of Afghanistan has received two A-29 Super Tucano light attack aircraft as part of NATO’s efforts to bolster the capabilities of the Afghan forces in fight against terrorism. The light attack aircraft have been deployed in Mazar-e-Sharif city, the provincial capital of northern Balkh province, amid deteriorating security situation in northern parts of the country.
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03/08/2016
The company will complete design and construction of the next evolution of the air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting device this year for carriage on a surrogate Sabreliner test aircraft. Separately, Lockheed will fly the Legion infrared search-and-track (IRST) pod on a Boeing F-15C in the coming months as the US Air Force looks to fill a long-standing "capability gap” related to passive infrared detection of airborne threats.
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03/08/2016
Since the second half of 2015, there has been considerable speculation about China’s rumored military reforms. Speculation became especially intense after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a plan at the September 3 military parade in Beijing to cut 300,000 troops.
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03/08/2016
The Indian Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has reportedly approved the purchase of two more Phalcon Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) in defence sales, totalling approximately $3bn, from Israel. Under the terms of the tripartite agreement with Israel and Russia, the Israeli-made Phalcon radars will be mounted on Russian IL-76 aircraft, reported The Hindu.
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03/08/2016
China is building a second aircraft carrier; its enhanced design will allow the vessel to carry more fighter jets as well as an early warning patrol aircraft, an anti-submarine warplane and several helicopters, according to a spokesman for the Chinese People's Liberation Army's Navy.
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03/08/2016
The pilots of an attack aviation regiment based in Russia's Krasnodar region have commenced special training sessions using a flight simulator which offers them the opportunity to step inside the virtual cockpit of the Su-25SM attack aircraft, according to the press service of the Russian Southern Military District.
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03/08/2016
Since 2010 Russia has finally been able to replace many of its Cold War era electronic warfare aircraft with modern equipment. The Cold War era aircraft was based on military versions of the four engine turboprop Il-10 airliner. The most visible of these was the 66 ton Il-38, which was the Russian answer to the American P-3 anti-submarine aircraft. Like the Americans and other Western nations the Russians replaced the four engine Cold War era aircraft with more modern twin engine jet airliners.
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03/07/2016
On Feb. 17, 2016 the 17th Special Operations Squadron (SOS) of the 353rd Special Operations Group (SOG) from Kadena Air Base, conducted a unit-wide training exercise during which its aircrews performed the first five-ship MC-130J Commando II formation flight in Pacific region.
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03/07/2016
The US is considering deploying its massive Boeing B-52 Stratofortress long-range strategic bomber against Islamic State, a report citing US Air Force officials says. The aircraft is capable of simultaneously dropping 32 tons of bombs.
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03/07/2016
The planes and personnel at Ellsworth Air Force Base are getting a break after 11 years of continual B-1 bomber jet deployments. Members of an Ellsworth squadron finished a six-month deployment in January, and for the first time since 2005, no other B-1s from Ellsworth or Dyess Air Force Base in Texas flew out to the U.S. Central Command’s Area of Responsibility to replace the returning squadron.
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03/07/2016
The “Ramses 2016” military and naval exercise is being held off the coast of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and are expected to last for several days, the army said on its Facebook page. Paris announced the manoeuvres Tuesday saying the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which is being used to launch air strikes on the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, would also take part.
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03/07/2016
China will raise its defense spending by 7.6 percent this year, a budget report to the country’s Communist-controlled parliament showed on Saturday, a smaller increase than past years as it seeks a more efficient military. It was the “lowest defense budget increase in six years”, the official news agency Xinhua said, adding it came “in the wake of rising economic headwinds and last year’s massive drawdown of service people”.
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03/07/2016
In an ABC News exclusive, "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz went aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, the Navy’s massive aircraft carrier which is home to more than 5,000 sailors, armed with hundreds of precision guided weapons, and is at the heart of the fight against ISIS.
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03/07/2016
When it comes to the Joint Strike Fighter jet, our most expensive defence acquisition yet, Australia is either a nation of rich optimists or fools, according to the man who until recently was the head of test and evaluation for the Australian Defence Force.
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03/07/2016
If the Russian Aerospace Forces’ performance took NATO by surprise, it is because earlier Russian operations did not suggest that level of ability. Russian aviation took serious losses in the 2008 conflict with Georgia: 7 aircraft shot down including a Tu-22M bomber, 4 damaged, or one loss per each 17 combat missions. There was practically no new aircraft procurement since 1994. Russian aircrews flew far fewer hours than their NATO counterparts.
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03/06/2016
Russia's heavy aircraft carrier - Admiral Kuznetsov - in summer may go to the Mediterranean Sea, a high-ranking official at the Russian Navy told TASS on Saturday. "This summer, we plan the Admiral Kuznetsov's campaign in the Mediterranean Sea, where it will lead the Navy group in that region," the source said. Right now, the aircraft carrier is at Murmansk’s 35th Shipyard, where specialists prepare it for the long-distance campaign.
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03/06/2016
A Dutch F-35A Lightning II will touch down on home soil for the first time for environmental compatibility trials this spring according to a Royal Netherlands Air Force release. The F-35 will conduct several low-altitude circuits, take-offs, and landings at both Leeuwarden Air Base and Volkel Air Base, where the aircraft will eventually be based. The RNLAF plans to replace its legacy F-16A/B fleet with a minimum of 37 F-35s, split between the two bases.
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03/06/2016
The Canadian Forces officially marked what it is calling the “transitioning of the Air Task Force-Iraq mission” during a parade Saturday in Kuwait. That transitioning is the end of the CF-18 combat mission.
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03/06/2016
A few days ago a Russian state-owned aircraft manufacturer announced the sale of 50 MiG- 29 fighters to a North African country, most likely Egypt. On mid-February a senior Israeli defense official said, regarding Israel’s need to assimilate the F-35 joint strike fighter, that although there is peace with Egypt the latter focuses on Israel. Therefore Israel “must be ready for every possible scenario and every radical strategic shift, because we have no other choice.”
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03/06/2016
UK Prime Minister David Cameron last week announced a plan with France to invest more than £1.5 billion (US $2.1 billion) to build a prototype combat drone, signaling a further step by the two European partners to stay in the military top tier on a bilateral basis. “Today we have agreed to jointly invest £1.5 billion to develop the next generation of a combat air system,” Cameron said at a March 3 joint press conference with French President François Hollande, at Amiens, northern France.
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03/05/2016
The United States and Russian Federation must make Syria's cessation of hostilities work or else it may become necessary to delay the resumption of peace talks, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura told Reuters on Tuesday. Without progress on the cessation of hostilities and on access for humanitarian aid, de Mistura said he could "slightly" postpone the next round of peace talks, which has been pencilled in for Monday, March 7.
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03/05/2016
The U.S. balance-of-power strategy in the Middle East is approaching a potential pitfall. A number of crucial arms contracts for the sale of U.S. weaponry to several Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are at risk of falling through because of Israeli opposition. The United States' final decision on whether to sign will anger one of two sides, Israel or the GCC, and both already harbor misgivings about continued U.S. support.
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03/05/2016
India is mulling manufacturing one more line of fighter aircraft to replenish its dwindling fleet and a decision in this regard is likely to be taken in a year's time, Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha said today. The Chief of Air Staff said the second line of fighter jets will be in addition to light combat aircraft Tejas and 36 Rafale planes that India will procure from France.
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03/05/2016
Following the announcement by the Saudi Defense Ministry on Saturday February 14th that the kingdom intended to commit both air and ground forces to the fight against ISIS in Syria, the first four Royal Saudi Airforce F-15S strike fighters arrived at Incirlik air base on Friday February 26th. These jets were immediately proceeded by approximately thirty officers and men and supporting equipment aboard two C-130 transports.
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03/05/2016
As we reported last year, the debate between F-35 supporters and critics became more harsh in July 2015, when War Is Boring got their hands on a brief according to which the JSF was outclassed by a two-seat F-16D Block 40 (one of the aircraft the US Air Force intends to replace with the Lightning II) in mock aerial combat.
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03/05/2016
Even though China says its military is growing at a relatively modest pace of about 7 percent this year, it is clear that the country is marching toward a top-to-bottom expansion and modernization of its forces. Here's a look at how it's been changing:
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03/05/2016
The Zoopark-1 missile and artillery ground reconnaissance complex is designed to automatically determine the coordinates of enemy artillery positions (mortars, field artillery, rocket volley fire systems and tactical missile launch positions) to provide target sighting information to its own countermeasure equipment, as well as to monitor its own firing results.
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03/05/2016
The office of the Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen announced on Friday that the country may expand its anti-Daesh campaign in Syria by sending F-16 fighter jets, C130J transport aircraft and 400 military personnel to the war-torn country.
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03/05/2016
Moscow and Jakarta will sign a contract in April for the deliveries of 10 Russian Su-35 Flanker multirole fighter jets to replace Indonesia’s fleet of F-5 Tigers, the Jakarta Globe reported Friday.
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03/04/2016
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), officials announced the first flight of Predator B/MQ-9 Reaper Extended Range (ER) Long Wing, which is retrofitted with enhanced long-endurance wings with more internal fuel capacity and additional hard points for carrying external stores.
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03/04/2016
British pilots expressed concern about a joint plan with France to allocate 2 billion euros to acquire combat drones, announced the British pilots union. According to the official organization, its employees are particularly skeptical about the safety of planes in mid flight in case they are hit by those unmanned devices that will invade the country's airspace, as this is a strategy in place through year 2015.
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03/04/2016
The loss of the Air Force’s Long Range Strike Bomber contract to rival Northrop Grumman in October has placed Boeing’s defense business in a tough spot. But a list of “unfunded priorities” submitted to Congress by the U.S. Navy could breathe $1.5 billion in new life into the aerospace giant’s fighter jet business, potentially sustaining key production lines until Boeing can find new foreign customers for aircraft like the F/A-18 Super Hornet.
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03/04/2016
House appropriators Thursday questioned the Army’s decision to cut 35 percent of its planned aviation modernization funding from the fiscal 2017 budget request and strongly urged the service to reconsider the move. But Army leaders said the only way the cuts could be reversed would be to get additional funding.
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03/04/2016
The U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning will make its Cleveland National Air Show debut this year. Also in attendance will be the F-22 Raptor tactical fighter. "The Air Combat Command told me we are the only civilian air show to have both," Kim Dell, executive director of the show said Thursday. Both are built by Lockheed Martin.
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03/04/2016
Defense ministers of France and the United Kingdom endorsed today the plan to launch the development of full scale operational demonstrator of the ‘Future Combat Air System’ Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) next year. This phase will prepare for the full-scale development of unmanned combat air system (UCAS) operational demonstrators by 2025.
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03/04/2016
The Boeing test team successfully completed the first flight of the program’s second KC-46A tanker aircraft yesterday, taking off from Paine Field and landing later at Boeing Field in Seattle. During the flight, Boeing test pilots performed operational checks on engines, flight controls and environmental systems.
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03/04/2016
By 2030 China will be on par or exceed the United States in terms of its air force capabilities, American defense expert Dave Majumdar writes, adding that the People's Liberation Army Air Force is rapidly fielding newer and much more capable weaponry.
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03/04/2016
The United States has delivered eight UH-60A Blackhawk helicopters to Jordan to help its coalition partner secure its border from Daesh terrorists, the US Embassy in Jordan announced on Thursday.
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03/04/2016
Russia will replace all Su-24 bombers on the Crimean Peninsula with the Su-30SM multirole fighters which can strike targets on the surface and in the air.
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03/03/2016
The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) has awarded a performance based logistics (PBL) contract to GKN Aerospace to provide support services for the national Armed Forces' JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircraft. A follow-on from an initial five year RM12 PBL agreement, the new agreement requires the company to support the operations for JAS 39 Gripen C/D users for a period of four years.
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03/03/2016
The news has been abuzz before and during the ceasefire announced amid Syria’s conflict about Saudi Arabia’s possible intervention. Saudi Arabia has threatened to intervene amid incomprehensible, contradicting rhetoric, claiming that it would enter Syrian territory to “fight” IS (the Islamic State), but would do so only now because the Syrian government has refused to step down.
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03/03/2016
If one word can sum up the 2016 Australian Defense White Paper (DWP 2016), it is “forward.” The document is more “forward” than its predecessors in terms of projected funding commitments and the dizzying time-scales and costs involved in delivering complex platforms like submarines and frigates. More controversially, since ‘forward defense’ has Vietnam-era connotations in Australia, it also signals a more geographically forward defense posture and pattern of engagement in the region.
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03/03/2016
China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) will be able to match or exceed the United States Air Force in the number of fielded combat aircraft by 2030. Moreover, while American forces will still maintain an edge, the technological gap between the two great power will have closed significantly between now and then.
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03/03/2016
The U.S. Army's manual to help troops identify fast-moving aircraft has at least one major issue: it seems to have trouble itself distinguishing planes. The guide is hobbled with misidentifications and misspellings of aircraft names. The vital training doc has also failed to keep up with changes in the geopolitical environment, listing obsolete aircraft and drones, and virtually ignoring the Asia-Pacific.
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03/03/2016
In another milestone before the plane reaches operation, airmen from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, dropped bombs from an F-35 Lightning II, the first combat squad to do so, a press release from the Air Force said. “This is significant because we’re building the confidence of our pilots by actually dropping something off the airplane instead of simulating weapon employment,” said Lt. Col. George Watkins, commander of the 34th Fighter Squadron and one of the pilots who dropped the bombs.
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03/03/2016
The experience of using Russia’s combat aircraft in Syria inspires optimism, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said at a meeting on the development of the country’s combat aviation on Wednesday. "I want to say at once that the experience of the combat use of our aviation in Syria testifies to the high mastership of the design potential and our designers and technologists," Rogozin said, adding that the skills and courage of Russian combat aviation pilots should be added to this.
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03/03/2016
“The upgrade of the Tu-160 bomber is being carried out under the presidential decree. I think that by 2019, this modernized aircraft will start its flights,” Bondarev said following the meeting on the development of Russian combat aircraft. Deputy Defense Minister, Yuri Borisov, in February 2016, said that the work on the restoration of this aircraft includes a great amount of teamwork and collaboration.
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03/03/2016
The Syrian Army and allied popular units have inflicted heavy losses on Daesh terrorists in the northern Raqqa province in a series of fierce clashes with the enemy, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.
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03/02/2016
This variant of the four-engined transport includes modifications to the flight, navigation, radio communication and lighting systems, and has replaced obsolescent parts to keep the aircraft viable for 40 years, United Aircraft Corporation says. The modernisation project was conducted by the company “in accordance with the tactical and technical requirements issued by the military space forces of the Russian Federation”, it says.
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03/02/2016
Decades after the U.S. Air Force unveiled one if its first stealth combat planes, the B-2 bomber, lawyers are still arguing over the origins and legal ownership of the technology that allows pilots to fly virtually undetected by enemy radar. On February 19, a federal appeals court ordered a hearing to determine whether the Pentagon infringed on a patent owned by Zoltek, a materials company from St. Louis, when it developed the stealthy coating for the F-22 fighter plane and B-2 bomber.
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03/02/2016
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday warned China against what he called "aggressive" actions in the South China Sea region, including the placement of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island, and said they would have consequences.
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03/02/2016
For a company that suffered a big loss when the U.S. Air Force awarded rival bidder Northrop Grumman Corp. the $80 billion stealth bomber award — with a subsequent protest going in the Falls Church contractor’s favor— The Boeing Co.’s legacy aircraft business is humming along nicely.
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03/02/2016
With tensions high and the United States and South Korea ready to hold their massive annual war games next week, which North Korea sees as a dress rehearsal for invasion, Pyongyang is warning it will respond to any violations of its territory with “merciless” retaliation, including strikes on Seoul and the U.S. mainland.
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03/01/2016
Belarus, Russia’s western neighbor and only ally in East Europe, is ordering at least a dozen new Su-30SM fighter-bombers to replace 37 elderly (1980s vintage) MiG-29 fighters. Belarus tried upgrading the MiG-29s in 2004 but the 13 aircraft that were refurbished demonstrated that it was not worth the effort. Meanwhile in 2013 Belarus decided to retire its Su-27 fighters.
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03/01/2016
Swedish aerospace and defence company Saab introduced the Swordfish long-range, multi-role maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) mission system on Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier's Global 6000 jet aircraft and Q400 turboprop aircraft platforms in February 2016.
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03/01/2016
Kevin Rudd told Hillary Clinton in 2009 that while they needed to integrate China into the world community as much as possible, they also needed to be "preparing to deploy force if everything goes wrong". This conversation, leaked by Wikileaks and never denied, exposed the true thinking behind his government's defence white paper delivered that year. Australia and the US had agreed on a strategy of classic hedging, working towards the best outcome on China while preparing for the worst.
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03/01/2016
I admit it, as a former infantryman, I’m a partial to the A-10 Thunderbolt II. I don’t mind that it’s ugly. I don’t mind that it entered service all the way back in the mid 1970s, making it older than me. I don’t mind that it’s slow, basically a flying 30 mm cannon sheathed in a 1,200-pound titanium “bathtub.” In fact, these are exactly the things that endear the A-10 to grunts like me. It’s our plane. It was made for us and us alone.
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03/01/2016
A European Parliament vote to impose an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia has increased the pressure on Canada to review its own, multi-billion-dollar weapons deal with the Gulf power.
The vote comes as serious questions are being raised in Ottawa over mounting evidence that Canadian-made weapons are being used by parties fighting in the war in Yemen.
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03/01/2016
China is likely to announce a substantial increase in the military’s budget, according to analysts, amid a massive reorganisation of the PLA and increased tensions over territorial claims in the East and South China Seas. The government is expected to reveal its proposed annual budget for the world’s biggest army this Saturday, when the National People’s Congress opens its annual session.
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03/01/2016
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working on a new generation of electronic warfare systems that are based on artificial intelligence (AI). If the program were to prove a success, the new A.I.-driven systems would provide the United States military a way to counter evermore-capable Russian and Chinese radars.
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03/01/2016
The SR-10 light dual-pilot jet trainer aircraft caused a sensation when it first took to the Russian skies in late December 2015. For the first time in Russian aviation, a private design bureau had created a plane – from scratch, without public financial support – which can edge out aircraft produced by the aviation industry's big guns in the markets.
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03/01/2016
The Russian center on Syrian reconciliation said Monday that Russian combat jets have carried out airstrikes against the Nusra Front militant group, which is forbidden in Russia, north of the Syrian city of Aleppo to stabilize the situation.
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