Military Aviation News Archive
05/28/2022
Tensions with Russia have been escalating in the area since Finland and Sweden submitted applications to join NATO on May 18. A Mikoyan MiG-31 'Foxhound' and a Sukhoi Su-24 'Fencer' jet were intercepted near Norway’s airspace on Thursday. The jets were observed outside Finnmark, in Norway's far north, but did not enter official Norwegian airspace.
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05/28/2022
The relevant statement was made by the Air Assault Forces Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. “Today Ukrainian servicemen from the anti-aircraft artillery missile battalion of the 95th Separate Air Assault Brigade have shot down another combat helicopter used by Russian occupiers, Ka-52 ‘Alligator’,” the report states.
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05/28/2022
A Swiss alliance seeking to block the purchase of F-35 fighter jets said Friday it had received nearly enough support to put the controversial military contract to a referendum. The left-wing Stop F-35 alliance said it had almost secured the 100,000 signatures required under Switzerland’s direct democracy system to force an issue to a vote. The consortium has said it does not want the jets because they are costly, and because of a number of technical issues reported with the planes.
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05/28/2022
“Today, May 27, around 14.00 o’clock a MiG-29 fighter of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine shot down a Russian fighter Su-35, which posed a threat to Ukrainian aircraft in the sky of Kherson region”. This is the very short text that has been released few hours ago on Telegram and other social networks by the Ukrainian Air Force.
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05/27/2022
The Armed Forces of Ukraine eliminated almost 90 Russian invaders, also destroying a helicopter and two enemy mortars in the past day. That’s according to the Operational Command East’s report on Facebook, seen by Ukrinform. It is noted that Ukrainian defenders continue to hold back Russian troops in the east.
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05/27/2022
The commander of the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), Brigadier Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior, stated on Monday that he will seek to reduce the number of KC-390 Millennium ordered from Embraer from 22 to 15 units. This is the second time that the FAB intends to reduce the acquisition of the KC-390. Originally 28 units had been ordered from Embraer, but the reduction in the expected Defense budget because of the economic crisis resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
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05/27/2022
Ukrainian air defenses have claimed another victim: a top Russian fighter pilot. Kanamat Botashev, a retired major general in the Russian Air Force, was killed when his Su-25 ground attack aircraft was hit by a Stinger missile, according to the BBC’s Russian-language service (English translation here), which contacted three of Botashev’s former subordinates.
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05/27/2022
The U.S. military estimates that Russia has lost nearly 1,000 tanks and “a not insignificant amount” of personnel in its now three-month long attack on Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official said Thursday. “We believe they’ve lost or rendered inoperable almost 1,000 of their tanks in this fight,” the official told reporters, but noted that “they still have a lot left available to them.”
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05/26/2022
Alert 5 reported that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin disclosed during a press briefing which the Czech Republic has transferred its attack helicopters to Ukraine. “I’m especially grateful to Denmark, which announced today that it will provide a Harpoon launcher and missiles to help Ukraine defend its coast. I’d also like to thank the Czech Republic for its substantial support, including a recent donation of attack helicopters, tanks and rocket systems.
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05/26/2022
Four Chinese H-6 bombers and two Russian Tu-95 bombers conducted joint flights together on Tuesday around Japan and the Republic of Korea, prompting both countries to scramble fighter aircraft to monitor the flights. The joint flights took place the same day U.S. President Joe Biden was meeting his Australian, Indian and Japanese Quad grouping counterparts in Tokyo, though both the Russian and Chinese defense ministries stated that the flights were part of their annual military cooperation plan.
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05/26/2022
A short overview of developments at the front as of the evening of 24 May 2022 according to military expert Roman Ponomarenko: The battle for the Donbas is underway, where Putin has deployed a lot of forces. In Luhansk Oblast alone, the Russians have 25 battalion-tactical groups (20,000 soldiers) and according to President Zelenskyy’s May 23 statement, they have “20 times more equipment” in the Donbas than the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
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05/26/2022
It’s a history steeped in remarkable figures: 54 world records, two million flying hours, operated by 26 different entities across 22 nations, and able to be configured for 17 quite different mission objectives. But now Lockheed Martin’s C-130J Hercules has reached another milestone: the delivery of the 500th airlifter in early 2022.
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05/24/2022
Denmark will arm Ukraine with with a modern Harpoon anti-ship launcher and missiles to protect its coasts, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday after concluding the latest U.S.-led meeting of international defense chiefs to coordinate military aid for Ukraine.
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05/24/2022
With Helsinki and Stockholm now formally requesting membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the world will reach an important juncture. The overwhelming Western anger at Vladimir Putin’s Russia makes ratification by NATO’s 30 legislative branches a strong likelihood in the weeks or months to come. Turkey is objecting now, but some degree of debate, as well as give and take, within the alliance is normal in such matters.
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05/24/2022
Uruguay is negotiating the purchase of six to 12 A-29 Super Tucano aircraft from Brazil for up to $40 million, defense news site Infodefensa reported. The deal would include parts, tools, and replacement material. “Considering the operational availability of these aircraft and the existence of Uruguayan pilots capable of flying them, it would be a matter of a few months to organize a schedule of deliveries, training of flight and ground personnel, as well as the adequacy of facilities.
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05/24/2022
Throughout my 10-year flying career in the United States Air Force, the A-10C Thunderbolt II, affectionately dubbed the Warthog, has been the subject of divestment. There is a joke amongst the A-10 community that discussions of getting rid of the A-10 started 2.5 minutes after the last one rolled off the Fairchild-Republic assembly line in 1984. Despite such quips, there is one resounding fact that defines our community; the mission comes before the plane.
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05/24/2022
Two Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter aircraft have arrived in India to showcase their operational capability at a naval facility in Goa as the Indian Navy plans to acquire a fleet of combat jets for its indigenous aircraft carrier (IAC) Vikrant, people familiar with the development said. The demonstration by the aircraft will start this week at the shore-based test facility (SBTF) at INS Hansa, the naval air station in Goa, they said.
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05/24/2022
A veteran Russian diplomat in Geneva has resigned over his country’s invasion of Ukraine in a rare political protest from within the Russian foreign policy establishment. Boris Bondarev, a counsellor at the Russian permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva, wrote in a public statement: “Never have I been so ashamed of my country.”
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05/23/2022
Technicians linked to the Syrian military’s infamous barrel bombs that have wreaked devastation across much of the country have been deployed to Russia to help potentially prepare for a similar campaign in the Ukraine war, European officials believe. Intelligence officers say more than 50 specialists, all with vast experience in making and delivering the crude explosive, have been in Russia for several weeks working alongside officials from Vladimir Putin’s military.
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05/23/2022
Images of wrecked and abandoned vehicles — casualties in Moscow's invasion of Ukraine — are calling into question the quality and reliability of Russian-made military hardware. A recent report by the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute found that the conflict has damaged the reputation of Russia's defence equipment in Southeast Asia, once a source of considerable revenue for the country.
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05/23/2022
In what was called dubbed a “Special Military Operation,” Ukraine was invaded on Feb. 24, 2022 by a vast Russian army, seeking—in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own words—to turn Ukraine into a neutral and disarmed state, as well as to “de-Nazify” its government. Russia’s “Special Military Operation” is indistinguishable from a high intensity, full-scale war between unequal contenders: On one side, a nuclear superpower with a vast manpower pool deploying huge stockpiles of modern weapons.
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05/23/2022
The need for speed for military aircraft has long been crucial, especially during the Cold War Era. Whether it’s to outrun the enemies, shorten the aircraft’s exposure to enemy airspace, or prevent the anti-aircraft systems from achieving a full lock and targeting it, speed has long been a reliable form of defense. This had changed in recent years when modern advances focused on stealth and progress in interception methods means the once untargetable and speedy SR-71 was no longer invulnerable.
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05/22/2022
Firefighters were today battling a blaze at a major Russian aerospace institute. The blaze with thick black smoke was at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute in Zhukovsky, a facility involved in research on Russian warplanes. The inferno seen on videos is the latest at strategic Russian sites during the war with Ukraine with suspicions that some may be sabotage.
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05/22/2022
The war in Ukraine has increased Beijing’s sense of urgency to prepare for any change to Taiwan’s status quo, according to analysts, with satellite imagery confirming mainland China has stepped up efforts to get its military shipbuilding schedule back on track. Recent pictures from commercial satellites show construction has resumed at a rapid pace at several shipyards run by the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) conglomerate.
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05/22/2022
In the last few years, Beijing has not only increased economic and political pressure on Taiwan but has also flown warplanes across the mutually respected median line. It has become a pattern for the Chinese air force to infiltrate the island’s ADIZ while also deploying its naval forces to conduct drills. The repeated flouting of norms has prompted Taiwan to regularly dispatch its fighter jets to intercept Chinese planes.
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