Military Aviation News Archive
04/29/2015
A US Air Force refuelling aircraft disappeared off the radar over the English Channel last night but has since landed safely in Britain. The Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker left Amiens in northern France at 0.05am local time (11.05pm BST) and was last reported on a flight tracking website between Dover and Calais 15 minutes later.
Read More...
04/29/2015
For decades, senior military leaders and analysts have predicted the demise of manned aircraft. The Navy, expressing that the end is on the horizon, has created a new office to oversee unmanned air systems. Unmanned aircraft have certainly proven indispensable for more than a dozen years in reconnaissance, strike, communications relay and even transport. And the Air Force plans to increase its reliance on unmanned aircraft to remove worrying "about the limitations of the human body."
Read More...
04/29/2015
Outside this city at a Ukrainian army facility called the Polygon, which is typically used for tank training, about 200 civilian volunteers gathered this past weekend for a military exercise.
Many had no military experience; some had never held a weapon. But many decided to train for war due to widespread worries about an escalation in the Ukraine conflict and the potential for it to spread all the way to Dnipropetrovsk, with its nearly 1 million residents, is Ukraine’s fourth largest city.
Read More...
04/29/2015
Hundreds of air strikes later, Hadi remains in Riyadh and the Houthis remain near Aden. Riyadh needs a new approach. After nearly four weeks of consistent aerial bombardment against Houthi military positions across Yemen, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — with full backing from its colleagues in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, and Morocco — announced with great fanfare on April 21 that Operation Decisive Storm had ended.
Read More...
04/29/2015
Ending the deadlock over Rafale fighter aircraft deal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi finalised the delivery of 36 fighter jets in fly-away condition during his France visit two weeks back but more shocking is how the Indian government sidelined the ‘Make In India’ project to seal the deal with Dassault Aviation, a French defence manufacturer. There are multiple reasons behind the immediate actions of buying the Rafale jets
Read More...
04/29/2015
The House Armed Services Committee inserted $683 million into the 2016 defense bill to stop the Air Force from retiring the A-10 Warthog. However, Air Force leaders said the service will have to mothball F-16s and delay the deployment of the F-35 in response to the move by the committee.
Read More...
04/29/2015
Saab announced today that it has developed PS-05/A fighter radar to a new version designated Mk4 for Gripen C/D improved performance and operating range. The PS-05/A Mk4 is the recent development of PS-05/A radar, originally developed for the Gripen fighter. A new hardware configuration with a complete new radar back-end gives improved radar performance and operational range, enhancing Gripen Weapon System capabilities and offers full AMRAAM and Meteor integration.
Read More...
04/29/2015
The information necessary to hack a military drone is freely available to the public, in academic publications and online documents, according to an Israeli defense manufacturer. One such paper was published just a month before Iran claimed it downed a CIA stealth drone in 2011, Esti Peshin said Monday at the Defensive Cyberspace Operations and Intelligence conference in Washington DC. Peshin is the director of cyber programs for Israel Aerospace Industries.
Read More...
04/29/2015
A pilot landed an F-18 equipped with the aptly named “Magic Carpet” software program on the deck of the Navy's Nimitz-class supercarrier USS George H W Bush, naval-technology.com reported. "This underway marked the first use of the Magic Carpet technology on an aircraft carrier. This software greatly reduces misses and wave-offs, which translates into more time on-mission and makes us an overall more effective force.”
Read More...
04/29/2015
The US State Department has approved a foreign military sale with Australia for the Boeing Company’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler aircraft in the amount of $1.5 billion, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced in a release on Tuesday.
Read More...
04/28/2015
The New York Times noted that “the coalition carried out airstrikes in several other provinces, suggesting a broadening, rather than a scaling back, of the monthlong Saudi air offensive against Houthi rebels.” Saudi-led warplanes targeted the Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies, forces loyal to Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, in the northern city of Saada, the western city of Taiz, and the southern city of Aden, reported The Associated Press.
Read More...
04/28/2015
The House announced moves this week to protect the A-10 Thunderbolt from a proposed retirement. The aircraft program is fully funded in a version of the annual defense budget unveiled Monday by the House Armed Services Committee. An Arizona congresswoman said she also plans to float an amendment that would bar the Air Force from eliminating the aircraft, also known as the Warthog, when the committee votes on the massive defense bill Wednesday.
Read More...
04/28/2015
Chosen by Italy, Israel, Poland and Singapore to prepare their pilots to the 4th and 5th Gen. fighter jets, the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 “Master” is considered one the world’s most advanced jet trainers.
Read More...
04/28/2015
Sweden's Saab AB on Monday ruled out facilitating the sale of Gripen fighter aircraft to Argentina as the result of a deal to build and export combat jets from Brazil. Argentina has expressed interest in buying 24 Gripen fighter jets from its Latin American neighbour once Brazil is able to export them, early next decade. Such a deal would face an almost certain veto from Britain, which provides some 30 percent of the Gripen's content, including the radar on its next-generation Gripen E/F.
Read More...
04/28/2015
A solemn ceremony to hand over four new training and combat aircraft Yak-130 to personnel of the 116th guards assault airbase took place at the Lida airfield on 27 April, BelTA has learned. The four new aircraft will make up an independent wing as part of the airbase. The aircraft were delivered to Belarus on board of an IL-76 cargo aircraft. They were then assembled by specialists of the Russian R&D corporation Irkut using the premises of the 116th airbase.
Read More...
04/28/2015
For decades, the Arab Gulf countries have been a very strong market for Western combat aircraft manufacturers. The Mideast is the largest single export fighter market, accounting for 29%, or $38 billion, of Teal Group’s $130.5 billion 2015-2024 export fighter forecast. This excludes tens of billions of dollars in weapons, support, and upgrade work. But over the past year, there have been profound political changes and diplomatic shifts in the region.
Read More...
04/28/2015
Lockheed Martin continues to advance C-130 aircrew and maintenance training under recent contract awards from the U.S. Air Force valued at more than $80 million. Contracts include the delivery of the following training solutions.
Read More...
04/28/2015
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter also said that Washington’s defense cooperation with Tokyo would no longer be relegated to Japan’s surrounding waters as outlined in the 1997 defense guidelines. The new framework, according to Carter, would be extended to anywhere in the world where the two nations have common security interests.
Read More...
04/28/2015
Two separate US government watchdogs are outlining problems with the engines used in their F-35 jet fighters - one finding the systems unreliable and another citing dozens of violations in its quality assurance inspection.
Read More...
04/27/2015
Israel's military said Sunday it launched an airstrike on its border with Syria after spotting militants carrying a bomb in the Israeli-held Golan Heights. The military said it carried out the strike after troops saw "a group of armed terrorists" approach the border with an explosive intended to target Israeli troops. It said that Israeli aircraft "targeted the squad, preventing the attack."
Read More...
04/27/2015
The People's Liberation Army has begun loading operational J-15 carrier-based fighter jets onto the Liaoning, China's first and only aircraft carrier, reports the Beijing-based Sina Military Network. Recently leaked photos reveal that four J-15s, developed by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation and the 601 Institute, have been moved onto the Liaoning, which sources indicate will eventually be able to carry up to 24 fighter jets of similar size.
Read More...
04/27/2015
Syrian military aircraft have bombed the north-western town of Jisr al-Shughour today, a day after insurgents seized control of it as part of a broader offensive that has left government forces in the area reeling. The opposition campaign, spearheaded by the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front and Islamic rebel factions, has captured the two largest urban centres in Idlib province in the space of a month.
Read More...
04/27/2015
Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry says a military training aircraft has crashed, killing the instructor and a student pilot. The official Saudi Press Agency quoted the ministry as saying the accident happened Sunday morning and involved a plane affiliated with the King Faisal Air Academy, a military flight school in the capital, Riyadh. It gave no further details.
Read More...
04/27/2015
Royal Navy ship-launched surveillance drones could be sent to scour the Mediterranean as part of Britain’s effort to combat the migrant crisis, under plans being considered by defence chiefs. The Navy’s new ScanEagle remote-controlled aircraft would search for dangerously overloaded boats packed with people making the perilous crossing from Libya to Europe.
Read More...
04/27/2015
Air raids, naval shelling and ground fighting shook Yemen on Sunday in some of the most widespread combat since a Saudi-led alliance intervened last month against Iranian-allied Houthi militia who have seized large tracts of the country. There were at least five air strikes on military positions and an area near the presidential palace compound in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa at dawn on Sunday, while warships pounded an area near the port of the southern city of Aden, residents said.
Read More...