Military Aviation News Archive
03/21/2022
China has fully militarized at least three of several islands it built in the disputed South China Sea, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment and fighter jets in an increasingly aggressive move that threatens all nations operating nearby, a top U.S. military commander said Sunday.
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03/20/2022
Four Chinese military aircraft, two fighter jets and two bombers, flew into the southwestern part of Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ) Saturday, the Ministry of National Defense said. The sortie consisted of two twin-engine Xian H-6 strategic bombers, and Shenyang J-11 and Shenyang J-16 fighter jets, according to a statement released by the ministry.
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03/20/2022
The absence of stealth aircraft appears to be a particularly impactful dynamic in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, given that advanced air defenses have made it possible to close large swaths of the sky to attacking aircraft. An effective fifth-generation stealth fighter would quite likely be able to find and destroy enemy air defense systems, something that fourth-generation aircraft seem to have been unable to do.
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03/20/2022
The Russian Ministry of Defense has announced Russian forces made use of the Kinzhal hypersonic aero-ballistic missiles to destroy a large underground warehouse of missiles and aviation ammunition of Ukrainian troops in the village of Delyatyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region, in Ukraine’s western part, on Mar. 18, 2022.
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03/20/2022
Dozens of soldiers were killed when Russian troops bombed a Ukrainian military barracks in the southern city of Mykolaiv, witnesses told AFP on Saturday while a rescue operation was underway. “No fewer than 200 soldiers were sleeping in the barracks” when Russian troops struck early Friday, a Ukrainian serviceman on the ground, 22-year-old Maxim, told AFP without providing his last name.
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03/19/2022
A US military aircraft with four people onboard has crashed in northern Norway, the country’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centres (JRCC) told Reuters on Friday. The V-22 Osprey aircraft was taking part in a NATO military exercise called Cold Response when it was reported missing at 6.26pm CET (9.26pm UAE), the JRCC said.
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03/19/2022
Russian missiles on Friday targeted a facility used to repair military aircraft near the airport in Lviv, the Ukrainian authorities said as the war entered the 23rd day. However, no casualties were reported during the strike, news agency AP reported. "Several missiles hit a facility used to repair military aircraft and damaged a bus repair facility, though no casualties were immediately reported. The plant had suspended work ahead of the attack," Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
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03/19/2022
Even as much of Russia's military is tied up in the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow is demonstrating that it can still operate in the Far East with shows of force in Japan's neighborhood. Four Russian tank landing ships were observed passing through the Tsugaru Strait between Honshu and Hokkaido on Tuesday and Wednesday, traveling westward into the Sea of Japan, according to Japan's Defense Ministry.
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03/19/2022
The Swedish Air Force provided a vital role to the 414th Combat Training Squadron’s Red Flag-Nellis 22-2 with two air bosses. Their participation promotes interoperability between friendly forces and the exchange of information for both future Red Flag exercises and the Swedish Arctic Challenge Exercise.
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03/19/2022
The Air Force’s next budget proposal, expected to be released by the end of March, will provide more clues on how it hopes to mix manned fighters and bombers with autonomous combat drones. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall views this concept as so vital that elements of it made up two of the seven operational imperatives he outlined in his March 3 keynote address to the Air Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium here.
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03/18/2022
The Iraqi Security Media Cell said on Thursday that four rockets fell in open areas in Balad Airbase, leaving no damage or casualties. The media cell stated that the authorities will hunt down the perpetrators of this “cowardly terrorist act”, reassuring Iraqi citizens that “the acts of criminal terrorist gangs will not pass unless the perpetrators are put behind bars and under the judgment of the law.” Balad Airbase houses Iraqi F-16, L-159, and T-6 fighter jets.
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03/18/2022
Jet fighter designers at the Boeing Co. are enhancing electronic warfare (EW) capability to a major upgrade of Japan's F-15 combat aircraft under terms of a $24.6 million order announced Wednesday. Officials of the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, are asking the Boeing Defense, Space & Security segment in St. Louis to add EW capability to upgrades involved in the Japan Super Interceptor (JSI) program.
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03/18/2022
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Bundestag in a video call for the first time on Thursday morning before the German parliament opened. The Ukrainian president told German parliamentarians that "help came too late to stop war" with Russia, which invaded the country on February 24.
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03/18/2022
The Taiwanese Air Force announced that it would ground its fleet of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets on March 14. The announcement came after a unit of the said aircraft crashed off the southeastern coast of the island during a routine training session. This is the second time a combat aircraft was lost in a span of three months, showing its accident-prone fleet. Though fortunately, the pilot operating the aircraft was rescued this time around.
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03/18/2022
As the Ukraine-Russia war drags on, military aviation experts are noticing that anti-aircraft missiles like the Stinger and Igla are not the only threats Russian pilots face in the skies over Ukraine. In fact, a dangerous combination of doctrine, training and equipment is partly to blame for the heavy losses the VKS, the acronym for Russia’s air force, have sustained in the three-week-old war.
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03/17/2022
Ukrainian officials accused Russia on Wednesday of bombing a theater where hundreds of displaced families have sought refuge in the besieged port city of Mariupol, part of a string of intense attacks that continued even as diplomats said they were making progress in peace talks.
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03/17/2022
Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has plunged the world into its worst military crisis since the end of the Cold War. From the U.S. standpoint, the war carries two opposing dangers: We could underreact, and thus let Russia get away with unprovoked aggression that will destroy the world order. Or we can overreact, allowing the conflict to spiral out of control. Put another way: We can’t afford to start a larger war, but we also can’t afford to let Russia win.
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03/17/2022
It’s not hard to explain the startling losses of aircraft and pilots the Russian air force has suffered as the Ukraine war enters its third week. Russian air-warfare doctrine, plus a shortage of precision-guided munitions, all but forces its fighter and attack pilots to fly low and slow underneath cloud cover within just a few miles of Ukrainian troops.
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03/17/2022
The F-35 is a state-of-the-art stealth bomber, which Germany's air force has long coveted The F-35 Lightning II is considered the most modern fighter jet in the world. The jet, made by US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, is considered more than just a fighter aircraft. It is essentially an armed computer with a jet engine that can network with other aircraft in the air as well as ground forces, processing thousands of pieces of information every second.
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03/16/2022
The top U.S. general for forces in the Middle East said on Tuesday that he believed the United States would provide Egypt with F-15 aircraft. "I think we have good news in that we're going to provide them with F-15s, which was a long, hard slog," General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said during a congressional hearing.
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03/16/2022
The U.S. military conducted an aircraft carrier-led exercise in the Yellow Sea and intensified air defense artillery drills at a base in South Korea in response to increased missile tests from North Korea, U.S. forces said Tuesday.
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03/16/2022
For nearly three weeks, top U.S. Air Force officials have closely watched Russian troops advance — and stall — in Moscow’s attempt to reclaim Ukraine. In recent public appearances, service leaders said their real-time look at Russian capabilities hasn’t given them a reason to rethink existing strategy or spending.
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03/16/2022
From mid-February, eight Eurofighter Typhoons of the Aeronautica Militare and six Eurofighters of the German Air Force’s Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 74, jointly operate from Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, supporting NATO’s eAPA-S (enhanced Air Policing Area-South) mission, to protect the allied airspace in the Black Sea region, where tensions with Russia are at their highest since the Cold War years following the invasion and the war underway in Ukraine.
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03/16/2022
In the skies above Eglin and along the Emerald Coast, 40th Flight Test Squadron aircrew flew a five-ship formation Jan. 31. This formation wasn’t just any grouping of test aircraft, it represented for the first and last time, all five fighters in the 96th Test Wing inventory. Included were the F-15EX Eagle II, the F-15E Strike Eagle, the F-15C Eagle, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the A-10 Thunderbolt II.
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03/16/2022
Almost three weeks into Russia’s large-scale armed aggression against Ukraine, Kyiv is increasingly calling on NATO to protect Ukrainian airspace. The alliance has repeatedly refused the request out of fear that this would mean engaging in a direct confrontation with Russia. Yet, with dozens of Ukrainians being killed by Russian aerial attacks each day, there are still many ways in which NATO can help Ukraine protect itself.
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