Military Aviation News Archive
05/20/2014
Boeing's Reconfigurable Airborne Multi-Intelligence System (RAMIS) aircraft has flown for more than 1,000 hours, demonstrating the reliability of the platform and systems that can be adapted for many missions. Boeing has also demonstrated the system's intelligence-collection during several U.S. government exercises.
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05/20/2014
Russia and China will conduct large-scale joint naval drills to demonstrate the strengthening of military cooperation between the two powers as Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to arrive in China on Tuesday amid worsening relations between Moscow and the West over Ukraine.
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05/19/2014
Virtually every commercial airliner and military aircraft worldwide has a warning system in place. But despite near misses occurring at the rate of one every two weeks, the devices have not been fitted to either the £60million Typhoon, or to Tornado GR4s – the RAF’s two combat jets. RAF sources claimed the equipment had been left out for financial reasons – leaving pilots to rely on eyesight and ground radar to avoid crashes.
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05/19/2014
The introduction of the Alenia Aermacchi M-346 "Lavi" advanced jet trainer aircraft into the Israeli air force's inventory will enable the service to reduce the time of its pilot training course by six months. Speaking to the Israeli air force magazine, the commander of the fighting training department at the service's flight academy – identified only as Lt Col Gal – said the M-346 will enable the unit to certify a fighter pilot in 18 months.
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05/19/2014
From a worsening civil-military divide to a moribund defence production sector, from the lack of strategic decision-making or higher defence reforms to huge operational gaps in military capabilities, India's new defence minister will have to fix them all. After eight years of a "holding operation" by the risk-averse A K Antony, the country's longest-serving defence minister ever, the Indian defence establishment needs to be seriously jolted out of its status-quoist stupor.
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05/19/2014
Britain's long-delayed £70 million stealth fighter may need to be cancelled because of its poor performance, according to an analysis by a senior American air force officer. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter being built for British and US forces is based on outdated ideas of air warfare, it is claimed. The aircraft could be unable to evade enemy radar and be too expensive for long campaigns.
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05/19/2014
A Sentinel reconnaissance aircraft left RAF Waddington on Sunday morning bound for the Ghanian capital of Accra, west of Nigeria and close to where Islamist terror group Boko Haram are believed to be holding the girls. The high-tech surveillance jet will assist US aircraft in attempting to find the schoolgirls, who were abducted in northeastern Nigeria on April 15.
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05/18/2014
A Laos plane crashed Saturday in the northern part of the country, killing the defense minister and the mayor of the capital city of Vientiane, according to Thailand’s foreign ministry officials Officials have not been able to confirm the cause of the accident but did clarifiy that three people survived the crash of AN74-300, which carried at least 14 people including Douangchai Phichit, the defense minister of Laos and his wife.
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05/18/2014
The fourth consideration (one argued by the pro F-35 lobby) is the value placed on continued R&D and active production of the fighter aircraft. Aircraft need to be upgraded and replacements will need to be acquired with such a small quantity by of 65. Only Saab and Lockheed have production lines scheduled beyond 2019. The Super Hornet production line is scheduled to be shut down in 24 months with no R&D funding offered in the most recent US Federal Budget.
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05/18/2014
Fighter jets serving in the NATO air-policing mission had to take off from its home base in Šiauliai, northern Lithuania, twice this week in response to unidentified airplanes approaching the air-space of the Baltic states. On Wednesday, UK fighter jets Eurofighter Typhoon took off from Šiauliai to identify an object flying close to the Latvian international waters without a flight plan. After identifying it as a Russian military helicopter, the NATO jets returned to their base in Šiauliai.
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05/18/2014
A Marine Osprey unit here has taken on an exclusive new mission that could have far-reaching implications for the future of the military’s prized tiltrotor aircraft. With combat operations in Afghanistan set to end this year, the Marines had planned to conclude V-22 deployments last fall.
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05/18/2014
Nigeria and its neighbours have vowed to join forces against Boko Haram under an accord described as a declaration of war on the Islamic militants holding more than 200 schoolgirls.
Meeting in Paris, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and his counterparts from Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger approved an action plan to counter an organisation that has been blamed for 2000 deaths this year as well as last month's abduction of the schoolgirls from northeastern Nigeria.
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05/17/2014
South Korea is spending several hundred million dollars to upgrade most (96 percent of) their 140 KF-16 fighters. These were assembled in South Korea from 1994 to 2004 under license and are going through a mid-life upgrade in the United States. This will involves installing a more powerful AESA radar, new electronics (displays, sensors and computers) as well as new cabling and other related components f0r 134 KF-16s.
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05/17/2014
Six months from now, the German air force should receive its first new tactical airlifter in more than 40 years, with the expected delivery of its lead A400M. Scheduled for acceptance during November, aircraft MSN18 is the twelfth production example of the A400M from a combined order for 170 from European partners Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Turkey and the UK, plus four for first export buyer Malaysia.
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05/17/2014
A ceremony May 15 marked the end of the eighth annual Exercise Eager Tiger, a multinational event during which fighter pilots and crews from around the world gather to practice techniques and enhance interoperability. Throughout the week, the U.S. and Jordan put their best pilots and maintainers forward to compete in a loading competition, an aircraft scramble and a first-run attack scenario, all aimed at building tactical proficiency while also allowing joint training.
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05/17/2014
The Czech Republic is to continue leasing Saab Gripen fighter aircraft for a dozen years under a government-to-government agreement signed Friday, Saab said. The air force of the Czech Republic flies 14 Gripen C/D jets under a 2006 lease from Sweden, which expires next year.
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05/17/2014
The V-22 Osprey's deadliest accident stemmed partly from "undeniably intense" pressure to show progress for the new tilt-rotor aircraft, according to the U.S. Marine Corps commandant. "As I reflect on the mishap I cannot ignore the charged atmosphere into which the pilots flew that night, carrying on their shoulders a critically important program," Gen. James Amos wrote two lawmakers in a look back at the crash in 2000 that killed 19 Marines.
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05/17/2014
A breaking news item reported by Al-Jazeera Channel earlier today, 16 May, confirmed that aircrafts were bombing locations belonging to Ansar Al-Shar'ah (Supporters of Shari'ah) and the 17 February Battalions in Benghazi. Previously, the Algerian Al-Khabar newspaper reported on 12 May that an Israeli website close to the security circles in Tel Aviv said that an American report had warned that Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi might use the pretext of terrorism along the Egyptian - Libyan borders.
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05/17/2014
More than 300 marines of the Russian Baltic Fleet conducted a training assault Friday on the coastline of a hypothetical aggressor in the Kaliningrad region, the fleet's press service said.
"We are practicing suppression missions on fortified coastal settlements of a hypothetical aggressor using naval firepower, landing operations on an unimproved shore, as well as warfare tactics with amphibious assault forces," the statement said.
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05/16/2014
The chief of China’s military warned Thursday that the United States should stay “objective” concerning China’s territorial disputes with its neighbors or risk damaging ties between the two countries. Speaking at the Pentagon alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, Gen. Fang Fenghui said China isn’t to blame for rising tensions in the region.
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05/16/2014
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is presenting its advanced unmanned systems this week at the 2014 Unmanned Systems exhibition taking place in Orlando, Florida. IAI will feature unique unmanned systems which allow area dominance over thousands of square miles, as well as innovative electro-optical capabilities for every mission – from air to sea.
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05/16/2014
Even against the backdrop of a clear blue sky, there is no doubting the sheer size of the Russian-built Mi-26 helicopter. But it’s only when the aircraft lands that observers are truly able to appreciate the magnitude of the helicopter, the world’s largest. Designed and built by Moscow-based Mil Helicopters, the Mi-26 stands roughly the same height as a three-story building and its rotors have the same span as the wings of an Airbus A320.
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05/16/2014
As part of an upgrade from the CH47-D, and the completion of unit training and activation of all 12 aircrafts, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Aviation Regiment General Support Aviation Battalion, 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, unveiled its newest Chinook, the CH-47F at an activation ceremony at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, May 13.
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05/16/2014
Enemies, innocent victims, and soldiers have always made up the three faces of war. With war growing more distant, with drones capable of performing on the battlefield while their “pilots” remain thousands of miles away, two of those faces have, however, faded into the background in recent years. Today, we are left with just the reassuring “face” of the terrorist enemy, killed clinically by remote control while we go about our lives.
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05/16/2014
Russell Carpenter owes his life to the ugliest warplane in the Pentagon fleet. When about 3,000 U.S. troops traveling on a dirt road in Iraq came under fire soon after the 2003 invasion, Carpenter, then an Air Force chief master sergeant, called for air support from the only fighter jet that could fly low and slow enough to tell friend from foe: the A-10.
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