Special Purpose

Military Aviation News Archive

Boeing Opens New P-8 Production Facility in Seattle

11/12/2010

Boeing today celebrated the opening of a new P-8 aircraft production facility near Boeing Field in Seattle. The refurbished factory gives Boeing and its P-8 teammates the space they need to install mission systems and conduct tests on aircraft for current and future customers.

Aviation Nation show set for Nellis

11/11/2010

Parking lots at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway open at 8 a.m. Saturday and Sunday for the public to take buses to the annual Aviation Nation air show at Nellis Air Force Base.

DSA delivers first production A400 top shells to Airbus

11/11/2010

South Africa’s contribution to the Airbus Military A400M programme has taken another step forward with the delivery of the first set of production top shells for the aircraft’s fuselage to the planemaker this week. Six pre-production sets have previously been delivered.

Upgraded Boeing F-15Cs Arrive at US Air Force’s Kadena Air Base

11/11/2010

Boeing and U.S. Air Force officials at Kadena Air Base celebrated the arrival of four F-15Cs upgraded with the APG-63(V)3 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar on Oct. 21. The newly arrived F-15Cs will join the APG-63(V)1 and (V)2 aircraft already in the 44th and 67th Fighter Squadrons to provide unmatched combat power for the defense of Japan.

One million combat flight hours flown by US Army unmanned aircraft

11/11/2010

The US Army's unmanned aircraft fleet surpassed the 1 million combat flight hours mark on 27 October 2010. Earlier in 2010, the Army's unmanned aircraft fleet achieved a historic milestone of 1 million flight hours, of which roughly 89 percent of those hours flown were "combat flight hours" or approximately 884,000 hours.

California's Mystery Contrail Likely an Aircraft, Pentagon Says

11/11/2010

The Pentagon concluded that a contrail videotaped off the Southern California coast this week probably was caused by a non-military aircraft, a spokesman said.

Russia signs $54-mln arms contract with Indonesia

11/11/2010

Russia started the first day at an arms show in Jakarta with a contract on the delivery of munitions for Sukhoi-family fighters to Indonesia, worth $54 million, a senior defense official said on Wednesday.

Pilot ejects as Indian MiG-27 crashes

11/11/2010

An Indian air force MiG-27 ground attack aircraft crashed in Rajasthan, western India, on Wednesday according to the IANS news agency. The pilot ejected safely.

Combat aircraft top international arms sales: think tank

11/10/2010

Combat planes account for one third of all global arms transfers, with the United States topping the list of sellers and India, the United Arab Emirates and Israel the biggest buyers, according to the SIPRI think tank.

India may have to pay more for C-17 airlifters: Boeing

11/10/2010

The 10 Boeing C-17 heavy airlifters the Indian Air Force (IAF) wants to buy could cost much more than the $4.1 billion initially tagged, Boeing says, a sure sign that hard bargaining is on the cards.

Kazakhstan teams up with Sagem Defense to build UAVs

11/10/2010

Kazakhstan Engineering and Sagem Defense Security have signed a deal to set up a joint venture to manufacture tactical unmanned aerial vehicles, the Kazakh company said on Tuesday.

First Navy F-35 Arrives At Pax River

11/10/2010

The first F-35C Lightning II carrier variant, the U.S. Navy’s first stealth fighter, arrived at Naval Air Station (NAS) Patuxent River, Md., on Saturday, Nov. 6 at 2:37 p.m.

Boeing Receives $106 Million Small Diameter Bomb Contract Extension

11/10/2010

Boeing today announced it has received a $106 million contract extension from the U.S. Air Force for nearly 2,700 Small Diameter Bomb Increment I (SDB I) munitions and approximately 380 BRU-61 carriages.

IAI delivers converted tanker

11/09/2010

Israel Aerospace Industries has delivered a converted B767-200ER Multi-Mission Tanker Transport to the Colombian air force.

Qatar Targets 2012 Fighter Decision

11/09/2010

Evaluation of program candidates has begun, the service’s commander, Brig. Gen. Mubarak Bin Mohammed Al-Khayarin, tells the Shephard Air Power Middle East conference here. The goal is to make a type selection before the end of 2012.

F-35 Delays Speed Up UAV Development

11/09/2010

Unable to buy new aircraft designs (because they are too expensive, or simply take too long to get into service), and facing the prospect of unmanned aircraft (UAVs) displacing more and more manned ones, the American military is spending a growing chunk of its budgets on upgrading and refurbishing the combat aircraft they already have.

Fighter delivers a costly lesson

11/08/2010

Not for the first time, the Joint Strike Fighter is making headlines for all of the wrong reasons - cost and schedule overruns and cancelled orders. This is not good news when the aircraft is the planned future of Australia's air combat force.

UK closes in on $11bn fighter deal

11/07/2010

The multi-role combat aircraft, manufactured by a joint venture between Britain's BAE Systems, Italy's Alenia Aeronautica and the German-Spanish giant EADS, has come top in the Indian Air Force's technical assessment of rival bids, beating the American F16 and F18s, the Russian MiG 35 and its closest rival, the French Dassault Rafale.

India-U.S. business deals

11/07/2010

The Obama administration said Saturday that U.S.-India trade deals support 53,670 U.S. jobs and have a total value of $9.5 billion in U.S. export content.

Final deal to build Europe's A400M military plane

11/07/2010

European governments have agreed a final funding deal for the 20bn euro (£17.3bn) programme to build a new military transport aircraft.

Refurbished F-16s On Their Way to Chile

11/06/2010

The first F-16s that the Netherlands have sold to Chile took off from Leeuwarden Air Base this morning on their way to their new home in Antofagasta.

Arab Gulf States on a Puzzling Arms-Buying Spree

11/06/2010

Mystery shrouds high levels of military spending and arms procurement in the Gulf states among which Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates stand out, says a new document by the eminent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

New fighter faces new delay, cost hike

11/06/2010

Details of an upcoming report on JSF technical progress, leaked in the United States, point to higher costs and further delays in the program which is already running around four years late.

New life support system for combat aircraft

11/06/2010

The ILSS technology, which was hitherto developed by only a few advanced countries, enables a fighter pilot to venture to the limits of the aircraft capability in terms of flight altitudes and G(gravitational)-forces.

US prods industry for F-22 fighter successor ideas

11/06/2010

The U.S. Air Force has begun peering into the far blue yonder for a futuristic aircraft to replace Lockheed Martin Corp's (LMT.N) F-22 fighter, a move that has cheered the aerospace industry.