Military Aviation News Archive
07/26/2014
AH-64E Apache Guardians from 1st Armed Reconnaissance Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, conducted deck landing qualifications aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu (LHA 5) off the coast of Hawaii, July 19, as part of the Navy’s Rim of the Pacific Exercise 2014.
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07/26/2014
Fairchild Air Force Base participated in a Red Flag exercise above the Nevada Test and Training Range, July 2014. This exercise is one out of a series of training programs that occur multiple times throughout the year, affording Airmen an opportunity to participate in exercises that showcase the most realistic combat training without real enemy fire. Red Flag occurs at Nellis Air Force Base, outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, and Eielson AFB, outside of Fairbanks, Alaska.
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07/26/2014
The first of 12 new Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon combat aircraft for the Royal Air Force of Oman (RAFO) departed the company's production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, on 22 July. The departure, which was disclosed on the Lockheed Martin Code One blog, saw the first four Block 50 F-16s begin the 13,500 km ferry flight to the sultanate.
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07/26/2014
A military base in Poland could soon be repurposed to support NATO in its mission to reassure eastern European allies of its oversight amid the Ukraine-Russia conflict. NATO’s top commander in Europe, Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, told a briefing in Naples this week that he plans to recommend “having capability in the forward area — preposition supplies, preposition capabilities, and a basing area ready to rapidly accept follow on forces.”
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07/26/2014
Barely a year after the world's most sophisticated drone proved it could take off and land on the deck of an aircraft carrier, the project is at a crossroads, with huge implications for the future not only of drone warfare but US seapower writ large. The US navy will soon release a request for proposals from a handful of defense companies for the development of the Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike vehicle, or UCLASS.
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07/26/2014
North Korea recently lifted a flight ban on most of its older warplanes. This ban was imposed in May after a MiG-17 crashed into the sea off the west coast. There was a mechanical failure and given the age of most North Korean aircraft and shortages of spare parts and fuel for flying time over the last decade it was felt prudent to ground most of the air force until the oldest aircraft could be checked for any common problems.
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07/26/2014
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is in the process of inducting more Su-30 MKI aircraft and Light Combat Aircraft, parliament was informed Friday. Defence Minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha that Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft and Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft would also be procured.
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07/26/2014
The Iraqi government Friday confirmed that Russia has begun delivery of attack helicopters and warplanes as part of an arms deal intended to bolster the foundering military effort to retake the nearly half of Iraq lost this year to Islamist militants.
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07/25/2014
Organizations, businesses and military forces from across the globe gathered in Farnborough, England, to celebrate 100 years of aviation at the Farnborough International Air Show, or FIA, July 14 -20. FIA is a biennial international trade show for the aerospace industry to demonstrate the latest in both civilian and military aircraft capabilities.
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07/25/2014
Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine, supplied with an increasing amount of advanced weaponry by Russia, have downed more than ten aircraft over the past three months. Since May 2, pro-Russian separatists have been confirmed to have shot down 11 aircraft over eastern Ukraine. Since shooting down flight MH17 on July 17, the rebels have downed an additional two Ukrainian Sukhoi 25 fighter jets.
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07/25/2014
Australia is to take delivery of its first F-35 fighter jet on Thursday from Lockheed Martin. It plans to buy another 72. Australia is building a $1.47 billion New Air Combat Capability Facility and has been referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defense Darren Chester announced on Australian Defense Forces Website.
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07/25/2014
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced his resignation Thursday, creating new uncertainty in his nation at a crucial moment in its military offensive against pro-Russian rebels in the east. The move was sure to distract Ukrainian politicians even as leaders from around the world push for unfettered access to the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down deep inside rebel-held territory.
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07/25/2014
The Swedish defence export agency FXM announced that the Saab Gripen will not be entered for Denmark’s new fighter competition. Denmark has issued an 800-page “Request for Binding Information” (RBI) on alternatives to the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II stealth fighter; it is one of two international F-35 partners that has not yet committed to the program. The Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and the Eurofighter Typhoon are the other contenders in Denmark.
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07/25/2014
Why would India buy the Rafale combat aircraft rejected by every other interested country—Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Singapore, and even the cash-rich but not particularly discriminating Saudi Arabia and Morocco? The French foreign minister Laurent Fabius’s one-point agenda when he visited New Delhi was to seal the deal for Rafale, a warplane apparently fitting IAF’s idea of a Medium Multi-role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) in the service’s unique typology.
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07/25/2014
This week, Lockheed Martin officially took delivery of a key part of the F-35 fighter’s combat functionality—the pilot’s helmet. The most expensive and complicated piece of headgear ever constructed, the F-35 Gen III Helmet Mounted Display System (HMDS) is one of the multipurpose fighter’s most critical systems, and it's essential to delivering a fully combat-ready version of the fighter to the Marine Corps, the Navy, and the Air Force.
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07/25/2014
A ceremony was held today at Lockheed Martin, commemorating the official roll out of the first two F-35 Lightning II aircraft for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). “Today, we celebrate a milestone in the U.S.-Australia partnership, a partnership built on strength, friendship, and technological innovation,” said Frank Kendall, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics.
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07/25/2014
After lifting more than 4.5 million pounds of cargo and conducting thousands of delivery missions for the U.S. Marine Corps, the Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace Corporation [NYSE: KAMN] K-MAX cargo unmanned aircraft system (UAS) has returned to the United States following a nearly three-year deployment in Afghanistan.
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07/24/2014
Lockheed Martin (LM) and BAE Systems reported progress this month on their rival upgrades for F-16 Fighting Falcons. Two aircraft from each company’s launch customer (Taiwan for LM, South Korea for BAE) are now in rework, ironically just a few miles from each other in Fort Worth, Texas. Meanwhile, the ferry of Iraq’s first two new Block 52 aircraft in September is looking unlikely.
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07/24/2014
It’s become popular to depict American UAVs as some kind of super weapon and a danger to world peace. Anyone who understands how modern warplanes operate knows this is not true, but the mass media and many politicians who find it useful to follow whatever idea the mass media is behind have created a fictional reality in which UAVs do unspeakable things that are unique in human history.
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07/24/2014
Starting on Saturday the SA Air Force (SAAF) will stand up and be counted for operational and combat readiness when Exercise Winter Solstice 1V starts. The two week long exercise will see portions of airspace over Eastern and Northern Cape utilised by jets, helicopters and transport aircraft in partially simulated field training exercise.
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07/24/2014
After more than a dozen years fighting wars against unsophisticated opponents and technology in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Air Force is refocusing its training on tests ripped from the headlines — surface-to-air missiles, chemical weapons and cyber warfare. The training, according to military analysts and the service's top boss, a former fighter pilot himself, is vital to the service as it faces increasingly sophisticated threats from Eastern Europe to the Pacific.
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07/24/2014
The horrifying deaths of 298 passengers of a jetliner shot down over Ukraine have focused the world's attention on a previously unrecognized threat: the proliferation of surface-to-air missiles in the hands of rogue, non-state actors. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was brought down by a BUK-17, a high-tech Russian-built missile designed to intercept high-speed, high-altitude combat aircraft.
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07/24/2014
Airbus, Boeing and Lockheed Martin have confirmed they have submitted bids to replace the Royal Danish Air Force’s aging F-16 combat jet fleet but Saab has withdrawn from the competition. The Danes invited two European and two US bidders to respond to a request for binding information by July 21 to supply between 24 and 30 jets. Only three of the contenders replied with bids.
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07/24/2014
Two Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jets were shot down on Wednesday in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. The planes were downed in an area of heavy fighting between government forces and Russian-backed separatists, near where a Malaysia Airlines jet was blown out of the sky last week, killing 298 people and drawing international dismay.
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07/24/2014
Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] recently demonstrated its Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) dual-mode guidance section during a second internally funded flight test at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. During the test, the rail-mounted JAGM flew 6.2 kilometers and initially acquired the target using its precision strike, semi-active laser. The dual-mode guidance section then engaged its millimeter wave radar, and the moving target was destroyed.
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