Military Aviation News Archive
03/11/2022
Russian strikes hit near airports in western Ukraine on Friday as the military offensive widened, and invading troops kept up pressure on the capital Kyiv and the besieged port city of Mariupol. The airstrikes on the Lutsk military airfield left two Ukrainian servicemen dead and six people wounded, according to the head of the surrounding Volyn region, Yuriy Pohulyayko.
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03/11/2022
The Chinese military is searching for a patrol plane that crashed into the South China Sea earlier this month, Taiwan's intelligence agency said on Thursday, becoming the first government in the region to officially confirm several days of speculation.
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03/11/2022
The planned $2.2 billion FMS deal for Lockheed Martin to sell a dozen C-130J-30 Super Hercules aircraft and associated equipment to Egypt passed an important milestone on Thursday, after the US Senate voted 81-18 in favour of the proposal.
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03/11/2022
A well-armed Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter brings to mind an oft-quoted line from the fictional Bruce Banner before transforming into the Hulk: "You won't like me when I'm angry." That sentiment could certainly be directed at anyone foolish enough to confront an F-35 operating in "beast mode," where it could carry a full 22,000 lbs of ordnance, including air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions.
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03/11/2022
Prime Minister Imran Khan, along with other federal ministers, service chief and the Chinese ambassador, attended the induction ceremony of the single-engine fighter jet at the special invitation of Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmad Babar. The premier congratulated the nation on the induction of the new multi-role fighter aircraft and also thanked China for delivering the fighter jets to Pakistan in a short period of eight months.
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03/11/2022
Foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia arrived in Turkey on March 10 for a face-to-face meeting, the first time since the two countries went to war two weeks back. The meeting comes after several rounds of discussions between the two sides in Belarus. The fifth-generation Su-57 ‘Felon’ is a heavyweight fighter. There is speculation that Russia’s Southern Military District deployed the jet to Ukraine.
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03/10/2022
War between Turkey’s two Black Sea partners has given an unexpected jolt to the country’s quest for new fighter jets and its domestic program to make new-generation aircraft. “The war has practically killed all potential Turkish-Russian deals in strategic weapons systems,” said a senior Turkish diplomat, who deals with NATO and security affairs and was not authorized to speak to the press. “This will be a de facto part of our proactive neutrality.”
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03/10/2022
The US does not support the transfer of combat aircraft to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told the Polish Minister of Defense that the US does not support the transfer of MiG-29s to the Ukrainian air force “at this time,” either by Poland transferring them to Ukraine with the US backfilling Poland’s fleet or by Poland transferring the MiG-29s to the US to then give those to Poland.
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03/10/2022
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is in the midst of acquiring 114 multi-role fighter jets, a project that is projected to cost Rs 1.3 trillion and take at least a decade to complete. While a Request for Information (RFI) has already been made, the Ministry of Defense has yet to approve an Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) (MoD). Technical bids, commercial bids, and assessment trials will take at least ten years after the RFP is issued, by which time the IAF will have retired its vintage MiG-21 Bisons.
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03/10/2022
The U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) will remain in the eastern Mediterranean to help maintain the security of Eastern Europe. The carrier, flagship of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (CSG), conducted fixed-wing flight operations in the north Aegean Sea late last week.
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03/10/2022
The Russian army is routinely committing war crimes in Ukraine and Poland will provide evidence, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, said on Wednesday. Speaking after talks in Vienna with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer Morawiecki said: "Russia attacked Ukrainian cities and villages with full force which, today, is seen as a perpetration of war crimes."
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03/09/2022
President Putin has directly addressed the mothers of soldiers serving in Ukraine, telling them: "I know how worried you are" and trying to reassure them. But some mothers, grandmothers, sisters and girlfriends have been telling the BBC they are desperately anxious about loved ones in the military - young men who appear to have had little idea what they were being sent to do.
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03/09/2022
One, from last week, shows a Russian helicopter flying low, just above the tree line - in the hope of avoiding what's about to happen next. Tracking its path is the smoking trail of a surface-to-air missile. In a matter of seconds the missile has found its target. On impact the Russian helicopter crashes to the ground, before bursting into a fireball.
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03/09/2022
After a period where the deal seemed off, Poland said on Tuesday evening that it is willing to hand over its fleet of 28 MiG 29s to the US – which is in turn expected to pass them on to the Ukrainian air force. Poland is also expecting the US to supply it with more advanced F-16s to fill the gap.
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03/09/2022
The United States rejected a surprise offer by NATO ally Poland on Tuesday to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets to a U.S. base in Germany as a way to replenish Ukraine's air force in its defense against invading Russian forces. The United States has sought to speed weapons deliveries to Ukraine. But the prospect of flying combat aircraft from NATO territory into the war zone "raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance," the Pentagon said.
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03/08/2022
On paper, Russia’s quest to occupy Ukraine looks like a foregone conclusion. With about four and a half times as many soldiers, five times as many tanks and armored vehicles, and 10 times as many military aircraft, common sense tells us that Ukraine does not stand a chance. In fact, history tells us otherwise.
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03/08/2022
On top of that, visually confirmed losses of the Russian newest Su-34 (NATO reporting name: Fullback) fighter-bomber now exceed 4 aircraft during its invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on Sunday reported that Russian Su-34s struck at Ukrainian military infrastructure and civilian residents in Kharkiv, Chernihiv during an invasion.
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03/08/2022
NATO has nearly doubled the number of military jets on alert across Europe amid concerns that Russia’s reckless flying in international airspace could escalate alongside its war in Ukraine. The alliance’s move to constantly guard its eastern edge highlights how rapidly the security situation has evolved in and out of Ukraine over the past 10 days, as well as the stakes of NATO’s biggest test since its founding in 1949.
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03/07/2022
The F-35B Lightnings of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron from RAF Marham, have started flying armed patrols as part of the pre-planned Enhanced Vigilance Activity, which is a NATO led Operation initiated due to the unfolding events in Ukraine. The British 5th generation aircraft joined the RAF Typhoon FGR4 jets, flying from both RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire and RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, and the rest of the NATO assets that have been dispatched to the region following the Russian invasion of Ukr
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03/07/2022
On March 6, the Ukrainian army shot down a Russian fourth-generation Sukhoi-30SM multirole fighter jet. The Russian Su-30SM shot down by Ukraine's Army can be seen in flames in exclusive footage obtained by Republic Media Network. It's worth noting that the Su-30SM is a multi-role fighter aircraft built for the Russian Air Force by JSC Sukhoi Design Bureau. It's a more sophisticated version of the Su-30MK combat aircraft.
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03/07/2022
Though Russia has now committed about 95% of the combat power it amassed along Ukraine’s borders, the Pentagon has seen “limited changes on the ground” while the airspace remains contested, a senior U.S. defense official said Sunday evening. After 11 days of war, “Russian forces continued efforts to advance and isolate Kyiv, Kharkiv and Chernihiv across the north and east are being met with strong Ukrainian resistance,” the official said, in an email to reporters.
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03/07/2022
Russia on Sunday warned Ukraine's neighbours including NATO member Romania against hosting Kyiv's military aircraft, saying they could end up being involved in an armed conflict. "We know for sure that Ukrainian combat aircraft have flown to Romania and other neighbouring countries," defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a video briefing.
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03/07/2022
The top body of Turkey’s defense industry has started cooperating with United Kingdom-based Rolls-Royce on the engine to power the country’s National Combat Aircraft (MMU), the head of the authority said Saturday. In a televised program on broadcaster CNN Türk, Ismail Demir, head of the Presidency of Defense Industries (SSB), commented on the developments regarding the MMU, a long-awaited domestic defense industry project.
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03/06/2022
The Italian Air Force detachment, originally made of four Eurofighters, recently increased to eight, has carried out 20 alert scrambles and 400 flight hours supporting enhanced Air Policing Area South (eAPA-S) in Romania, since December 2021.
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03/06/2022
Shocking battlefield footage from today shows Ukrainians cheer and applaud as they appear to shoot down two Russian aircraft in the Chernihiv and Mykolaiv oblasts as forces were also earlier said to down a Russian helicopter near Kyiv. This comes as Volodymyr Zelensky in an address this morning urged Ukrainians to continue fighting Putin's forces.
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