Military Aviation News Archive
11/04/2019
United States and South Korea are expected to again skip their yearly winter air drill as they did last year in order to extend support to the present denuclearization talks with North Korea, according to a source. As mentioned by the South Korean News Agency, there is a mutual understanding among the military forces of the two countries to delay the Vigilant Ace air exercise which is scheduled to take place in the month of December.
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11/04/2019
On October 6, around fifty U.S. commandos in northeastern Syria tasked with hunting down ISIS forces were withdrawn from territory near the Turkish border controlled by the Kurdish-Arab SDF faction. The U.S. withdrawal was a prerequisite for a Turkish attack against the SDF which subsequently took place. The remaining hundreds of U.S. forces elsewhere in northeastern Syria were endangered in the crossfire and had to be withdrawn a few days later.
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11/04/2019
A former Spanish Air Force Mirage F1M, now registered N574EM, is about to move to Nellis Air Force Base to start providing advanced adversary services to the U.S. Air Force. In a pretty cool digital paint scheme. The role of Aggressors is to train fighter pilots in the most realistic way: the must fight aircraft that are as analogous as possible to the real threat.
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11/03/2019
On October 18, the U.S. Air Force awarded a $6.4 to $7.5 billion dollar contract to seven private companies to provide aggressor air combat training services to the Air Force through 2024. That huge sum is all dedicated to one goal: sharpening the skills of Air Force fighter pilots by putting them in realistic air battles against foreign jet fighters.
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11/03/2019
Advances in computer power, processing speed and AI are rapidly changing the scope of what platforms are able to perform without needing human intervention. The Air Force and DARPA are now testing new hardware and software configured to enable 4th-Generation aircraft to command drones from the cockpit in the air, bringing new levels of autonomy, more attack options and a host of new reconnaissance advantages to air warfare.
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11/02/2019
The Air Force’s MiG-27 strike aircraft would fly into the sunset on the last day of this year, bringing to an end the era of ‘swing-wing’ fighters in the IAF. IAF sources said the fleet is formally being retired on December 31 and a ceremony is being organised at the Jodhpur airbase, where the last remaining MiG-27 outfit, No.29 Squadron, also called Scorpions, is based.
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11/02/2019
How do you make a 51-foot-long, 35-foot-wide fighter jet, with an engine that generates 43,000 pounds of thrust, vanish? You don't. There's no black magic that exists to make something that big disappear. The F-35A Lightning II isn't invisible, but it does have a "cloak," which makes it very difficult to detect, track, or target by radar with surface to air missiles or enemy aircraft.
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11/02/2019
It couldn’t be better even if the late Tom Clancy were to have written it, and we have to believe he is smiling down from the tactical high ground of the afterlife. The latest Russian 5th generation “stealth” combat aircraft, the Sukhoi Su-57, was assigned an official NATO reporting name this week: “FELON”
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11/02/2019
The U.S. Air Force has taken another step toward bringing a small number of new aircraft to Hurlburt Field as part of the service’s light-attack aircraft initiative. The Air Force hinted at the purchase of up to six light-attack turboprop aircraft earlier this year, when it included $35 million in its budget request for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. However, the federal defense funding bill that would provide money for the purchase remains tied up in congressional wrangling.
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11/02/2019
The Indonesian air force plans to buy two squadrons of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 72 Viper fighters, while also following through on its plan to purchase a squadron of Russian’s Sukhoi Su-35s. Jakarta plans to make the formal request for the aircraft on 1 January 2020, Marshal Yuyu Sutisna, air force chief of staff, said to local news agency Antara on 28 October.
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11/01/2019
The U.S. State Department has approved a possible $4.5 billion upgrade program for 98 of the Japan Air Self Defense Force (JASDF)’s fleet of Boeing/Mitsubishi F-15J Eagles to the Japanese Super Interceptor (JSI) standards. According to a Defense Security Cooperation Agency release, the program will see the delivery and integration of the APG-82(v)1 Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, Advanced Display Core Processor II Mission System Computer, ALQ-239 Digital Electronic Warfare System, ARC
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11/01/2019
BAE Systems announced a $36.7 million contract from the U.S. Navy to develop and demonstrate a next-generation, dual band Fiber-Optic Towed Decoy (FOTD) to protect aircraft and pilots from advanced threats.
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11/01/2019
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter’s mission capability rate was hurt due to difficulty Lockheed Martin and its suppliers had producing spare parts, an issue caused by a three-year push to dramatically increase production of the aircraft, a top US Air Force official says.
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10/31/2019
PAC JF-17 Thunder combat aircraft, developed jointly with China, reaffirmed its position as the front line fighter of the Pakistan Air Force after displaying exceptional performance at PAF’s Inter-Squadron Armament Competition on Wednesday. The most anticipated contest of the force’s operational year was held at Sonmiani firing range, said a statement issued by the PAF in Karachi.
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10/31/2019
The U.S. Navy is looking to the past for a possible solution to its current aircraft carrier problems. Borrowing an idea employed in World War II, the service is seriously looking at retrofitting smaller ships normally used to transport Marines into battle. Instead of troops, the new “Mini Carriers” would have a squadron of F-35B Lightning II jet fighters.
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10/31/2019
Upgrades to help America’s aging B-2 bomber fleet detect and evade the improving air defenses of rivals China, Russia and Iran are running almost three years late and over budget.
The service now estimates it will take until at least until September 2024 before eight of the U.S.’s 20 stealth bombers are upgraded to have an initial combat capability, according to an Air Force statement.
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10/31/2019
Lockheed Martin won a $25 million contract to start engineering and manufacturing work on a new version of its GPS Spatial Temporal Anti-Jam Receiver (GSTAR) which will be installed in the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter. The installation of the new anti-jam GPS is part of the most recent F-35 modernisation phase, called Block 4, says Lockheed Martin in a media release on 29 October.
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10/30/2019
The US State Department approved a $4.5 billion package to upgrade 98 examples of Japan’s Mitsubishi F-15J Eagle air superiority fighter fleet. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency told the US Congress of the possible sale on 29 October, it says in a media release. The agency is required by law to tell the US Congress, but the notice does not mean the sale is finished.
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10/30/2019
Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office agreed to a $34 billion production contract for 478 examples of the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter. As part of the three year deal, the price of all aircraft variants will fall an average of 12.7% from lot 11 to 14, the company says.
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10/30/2019
French defence minister Florence Parly has welcomed the delivery of the first two Dassault Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft upgraded to the new standard 6 specification. Parly was shown the capabilities of the modified twin-turboprops during a 2h demonstration flight from the French navy’s Lann-Bihoue base in Britanny, northwest France on 24 October.
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10/30/2019
Amid criticism from the US Air Force that it is moving too slowly towards fixing the KC-46A Pegasus in-flight refuelling tanker Boeing is touting incremental improvements that is says should help get its troubled programme back on track.
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10/27/2019
China is steaming ahead with plans to build four large, flat-deck carriers equipped with catapults, having already launched two lower-capacity carriers with curved ski-ramp decks. Meanwhile, the PLA Naval Air Force is already looking ahead to outfit those carriers with the gold-standard of twenty-first century military aviation: stealth fighters.
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10/27/2019
The U.S. Air Force is officially putting down its money to buy two different models of light-attack aircraft. The service will purchase two to three aircraft each of the Textron Aviation AT-6 and Sierra Nevada Corporation/Embraer Defense & Security A-29 aircraft. The handful of planes will be used to support “allies and partner capacity, capability and interoperability via training and experimentation,” according to an Air Force announcement.
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10/26/2019
The US Air Force (USAF) released its final request for proposal (RFI) for about half a dozen Textron Aviation AT-6 and Sierra Nevada /Embraer A-29 light attack aircraft. The RFI was issued on 24 October. The USAF plans to purchase two to three light attack aircraft from each manufacturer, the service says in a media release.
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10/26/2019
Airbus Defence & Space sees the A400M tactical transport as its top sales priority in the Asia-Pacific region, while also eyeing opportunities for tankers and support aircraft. Johan Pelissier, head of Asia-Pacific at the airframer, says the two markets with the most potential for the A400M are South Korea and Indonesia.
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