March 01, 2016 Military Aviation News
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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