March 10, 2016 Military Aviation News
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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