Military Aviation News Archive
12/04/2024
Pakistan is reportedly moving forward with a major upgrade to its air power capabilities, clearing the path for the acquisition of China’s J-35, a cutting-edge fifth-generation stealth fighter. According to Indian defense outlet idrw.org, citing 24 News HD, the decision was finalized shortly after the J-35’s debut at the Zhuhai Airshow in southern China. Russian media outlets have also begun to amplify the news, further fueling speculation about its regional implications.
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12/04/2024
The governments of Japan, Britain and Italy are coordinating to include Saudi Arabia in their joint development of a next-generation fighter jet, Japanese government sources have said. Given the challenge of reducing development costs, the three governments are apparently interested in Saudi Arabia’s financial clout as a major oil producer. They are expected to reach an agreement on the matter by the end of this year.
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12/04/2024
The Navy is keeping its fleet of F/A-18 Super Hornets at 80 percent readiness, six years after former Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered both the Air Force and Navy to raise their fighters’ readiness levels. The Air Force, meanwhile, has abandoned that goal and its fighters’ mission capable rates are still lagging.
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12/04/2024
The first two Sukhoi Su-35SE Flanker-E fighter jets were reportedly delivered to the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) recently. According to Flugrevue, a private ceremony was held during the handover at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur aircraft manufacturing facility (KnAAPO) in Russia’s Far East. The Su-35SEs’ components were brought to an airbase in Hamadan for reassembly upon their arrival in Tehran. Their delivery marked Iran’s acquisition of its first 4.5-generation fighter jets.
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12/03/2024
Deliveries of Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II combat aircraft to the Royal Australian Air Force have resumed following a year-long delay. Three of the final nine F-35As on order arrived at RAAF Base Williamtown on 29 November after a ferry flight from Fort Worth in Texas in the US, where they are manufactured.
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12/03/2024
‘Listening to new options’, according to a senior civilian advisor, is a key piece of the US Air Force process of force redesign. One of those options is using the fighter-like drones that will come from the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which was central to a panel discussion at the US Mitchell Institute’s Air Power Futures Forum in November. Another is a tighter focus on electromagnetic spectrum operations, the currently favored term for electromagnetic warfare (EW) and related activi
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12/03/2024
The Indian Navy is close to finalizing a landmark deal for 26 Rafale M naval fighter jets, with the contract expected to be signed by early 2025. “Rafale Marine is at an advanced stage of negotiations and is only one level short of taking it to the Cabinet Committee on Security,” Navy Chief Admiral DK Tripathi stated at the annual Navy Day press conference on December 2, 2024, indicating that the agreement could be finalized as early as the following month.
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12/03/2024
The last of the classic Cold War-era MiG-21 Fishbed fighters in Europe have been stood down from operational duties. Assigned to NATO, the Croatian Air Force was the final European operator of the MiG-21, a type that originally entered service back in 1959 and which had been a presence over the continent ever since then, in the hands of more than a dozen different nations.
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12/02/2024
Russian fighter jets have executed a series of airstrikes since early morning, targeting positions in the surrounding areas of the cities and towns of Murk, Khan Shaykhoun, Kafr Nebl, Hazarin and Tel Kawkabah in the southern countryside of Idlib and northern countryside of Hama. However, no casualties have been reported so far.
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12/01/2024
The Ministry of National Defense tracked nine Chinese military aircraft, seven naval vessels, and one official ship around Taiwan between 6 a.m. on Saturday (Nov. 30) and 6 a.m. on Sunday. Of the nine People’s Liberation Army aircraft, three crossed the Taiwan Strait median line in the nation’s northern and southwestern air defense identification zone, according to the MND.
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12/01/2024
In his evening address on November 29, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi noted a conversation with president of France Emmanuel Macron. The conversation was aimed at strengthening Ukraine's air defense, as well as "comprehensive defense support and accelerating the transfer of Mirage aircraft."
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12/01/2024
The networking with the Gripen gives the Super Tucano accurate airborne threat movements thanks to the Swedish jet’s advanced radar. The Brazilian Air Force uses its Super Tucanos to combat drug cartels and perform slow mover intercepts.
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11/30/2024
On November 29, 2024, Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) announced a major achievement for the KF-21 Boramae, which successfully completed 1,000 test flights without any incidents. This accomplishment underscores the exceptional safety and reliability of the fighter jet as it undergoes rigorous testing to achieve operational readiness.
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11/30/2024
The chief Prosecutor of the Dutch Supreme Court has requested approval of a Court of Appeals decision to stop exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, according to an official statement Friday, Anadolu Agency reports. The Netherlands’ Supreme Court said the decision by the Court of Appeals on 12 February, which halted the export of F-35 parts due to concerns that Israel was using them to violate international law, must now be approved.
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11/30/2024
The Croatian Air Force has taken delivery of its seventh of 12 pre-owned Rafale combat aircraft from France as part of a foreign military sale signed in 2021. The handover is part of Zagreb’s ongoing transition from its Soviet-made MiG-21 supersonic jets operational since the country’s independence in 1991. Croatia’s defense agency noted that the deliveries of the Dassault-made platform will continue, with one unit to be shipped monthly until next year’s second quarter.
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11/30/2024
Russia and China conducted a joint bomber flight over the Sea of Japan and East China Sea on Friday, causing Japan and South Korea to launch fighter aircraft in response. The joint bomber flight was the first time China deployed nuclear weapons capable bombers in the joint flight. It’s the second joint bomber flight this year following an earlier flight through the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone in July.
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11/29/2024
A French Navy Rafale M fighter jet recently refueled an A400M transport aircraft to test the capabilities of a new refueling pod. The NARANG refueling pod, developed by Safran Aerosystems, was designed for use with the Rafale F3-R standard. It enables the Dassault fighter jet to operate as a small tanker aircraft, commonly called “buddy refueling.” In the French military, this mission is colloquially known as “nounou,” which means “nanny” in French.
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11/29/2024
The Netherlands’ top defense official has downplayed the prospect of transferring Swedish Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine now, saying such a move would not “make sense” at this time. Gen. Onno Eichelsheim, Amsterdam’s Chief of Defense and the most senior military advisor to the defense minister, told Breaking Defense that Kyiv is facing a shortage of pilots, which would complicate the integration of additional aircraft like the Gripen.
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11/28/2024
Turkey is seeking to rejoin the F-35 program as the United States shows signs of a potential shift in policy, following Turkey’s progress with its homegrown Kaan, a fifth-generation fighter jet that made its maiden flight in February, Defense Minister Yasar Güler said, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
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11/28/2024
While the F-35 will ideally engage and destroy adversaries at range with its complement of missiles, it’s always possible that they may end up in a visual engagement in which case Lightning pilots will be very glad to have an internal gun.
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11/28/2024
Elon Musk is slated to head up the Department of Government Efficiency and slash federal spending, with a salvo of messages on Musk’s own Twitter/X platform giving some idea what he has in his sights. He wants to make $2 trillion in savings and his signaling looks potentially alarming for defense contractors….at least some of them.
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11/27/2024
A US military patrol plane flew over politically sensitive waters separating China and Taiwan on Tuesday, as the US seeks to reinforce the airspace as international. The US and its allies regularly cross through the 180-kilometre (112-mile) Taiwan Strait, either by ship or aircraft, angering Beijing. China considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and claims jurisdiction over the body of water separating the two.
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11/27/2024
The US has proposed a deal to supply F-16 Fighting Falcons as replacements for the Colombian Air Force’s Israeli-made Kfir combat aircraft. The potential deal stipulates up to eight of the Lockheed Martin jets and could cost around 2.5 billion Colombian pesos ($566.4 million), according to Bogotá-based news agency Blu Radio.
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11/27/2024
China is cutting down on the time it takes to train raw students to be fighter pilots and transitioning to a full fleet of fourth-generation training aircraft—but won’t have a fully modernized pilot training system until 2030, according to a new paper from Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute.
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11/26/2024
The Ministry of National Defense tracked 12 Chinese military aircraft, seven naval vessels, and one official ship around Taiwan between 6 a.m. on Sunday (Nov. 24) and 6 a.m. on Monday. Of the 12 People’s Liberation Army aircraft, eight crossed the Taiwan Strait median line in the nation’s southwestern air defense identification zone (ADIZ), according to the MND.
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