Military Aviation News Archive
05/01/2014
European Union countries export a range of technology to China's military, according to public documents, research institutes and military analysts. Below is a selection of the weapons and dual-use goods that have flowed from EU countries to China in the past five years.
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05/01/2014
Although President Barack Obama went to great pains to state that a new defense agreement with the Philippines wasn’t about countering China, it’s unclear if he was able to pull off the balancing act. Obama encouraged China’s “peaceful rise” and emphasized partnership with Beijing while speaking Monday in Manila during the introduction of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.
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05/01/2014
The Israel Air Force shed some light on its fighter jet reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities, revealing on Tuesday that one of its F-15 squadrons frequently uses advanced, long-range cameras to photograph enemy targets without leaving Israeli air space. The Double Tail Knights Squadron, which flies out of Tel Nof Air Base, south of Rehovot, dedicates a significant amount of its operations to aerial intelligence gathering, senior members of the squadron said.
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05/01/2014
It wasn't looking good for the Growlers. The Boeing-made fighter jets, used to jam enemy radar, were left out of the Pentagon's budget for next year. And with spending strictly limited by a budget cap, the plane seemed headed for extinction. But in reality, the Growlers aren't dead yet. Like dozens of other programs, the EA-18G Airborne Electric Attack Aircraft, as they're officially known, have ended up on something called the "unfunded priorities list."
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05/01/2014
Even as the IAF awaits the induction of new fighters to retain its eroding combat edge, Air Marshal SBP Sinha took over as the new deputy chief of the force on Wednesday. An ace fighter pilot commissioned in June 1980, Air Marshal Sinha will have to steer all IAF modernization projects in his new assignment.
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05/01/2014
Any conversation about Australia's commitment to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter refers to it as a fifth-generation fighter aircraft. But what exactly is a fifth-generation aircraft, and why is it important? Both the Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Defence Minister David Johnston spoke of the JSF's "fifth-generation" capability as Australia now plans to buy a further 58 aircraft.
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05/01/2014
A newly formed Russian army helicopter brigade has begun training flights in the northwest of the country near the borders with the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia, a spokesman for the Western Military District said Wednesday. “Helicopters of the army aviation brigade of the Western Military District, based in the Pskov region, have begun regular training flights in the skies over northwestern Russia,” Col. Oleg Kochetkov said.
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05/01/2014
The delivery of two French warships to Russia will not be affected by the current EU sanctions imposed in light of the situation in Ukraine, French Permanent Representative to the UN Gerard Araud told RIA Novosti Wednesday. "At the moment they are not affected by the sanctions," he said, adding that the sanctions are only target individuals.
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04/30/2014
The Israel Air Force held a large exercise for fighter jets and combat helicopters in recent days to practice shooting down hostile drones. The drill is part of a series of training exercises designed to prepare pilots for the growing threat of the drones that Hezbollah and Hamas have.
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04/30/2014
Twenty-three nations, about 40 ships, six submarines, hundreds of aircraft and 25,000 people are participating in this year's Rim of the Pacific war games in and around Hawaii June 26 to Aug. 1, the Navy said. Details until now have been few, but Navy officials released some of the specifics of this summer's iteration of the world's largest international maritime exercise.
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04/30/2014
The US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is capable of combating China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, reports Huanqiu, the website of China's nationalistic Global Times tabloid. In a hypothetical aircraft carrier battle between China and the United States, the main fighter jets would include the United States' F-35C fifth-generation multirole fighter developed by Lockheed Martin and China's J-15 carrier-based jet developed by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation.
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04/30/2014
The fate of the A-10 close-air support platform has been the most contentious issue between the Air Force and Congress over the last six months. If comments made Tuesday are any indication, it’s a fight that isn’t going away. At a hearing called to discuss the future force mixture among active, Guard and Reserve components, Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh ran into an A-10 themed assault in the form of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.
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04/30/2014
There are no shortage of GoPro aviation videos online, but very few of them are of active combat squadrons in the US Navy. The VFA-27 Royal Maces, a squad of Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter aircraft, recently took to the skies with some cameras on-board. The video is of training exercises (not live combat), but it should give you an idea of how fighter pilots view the world strapped into a fourth-generation fighter jet.
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04/30/2014
Under an agreement signed by the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the countries’ air forces will launch joint air patrols in January. The initiative has been debated for several years, but was recently accelerated by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and related security concerns of the two governments, reported daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
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04/30/2014
Four French Air Force Rafales have deployed to Poland. The aircraft don’t sport the traditional tail markings and the reason may be their unit fough alongside the Soviets in WWII. At 09.40 GMT, four French Air Force Rafale “omnirole” jets landed at Malbork airbase in Poland, where they have been deployed to reinforce NATO and its allies presence around Ukraine.
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04/30/2014
This summer, two separate British air shows will host the overseas debut of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a next-generation fighter jet that is being billed as the most advanced warplane of its type yet developed. Two or three F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which are capable of taking off on a short runway and landing vertically, will make their first trans-Atlantic flights — from the United States to the United Kingdom — in July, officials from the U.K. Ministry of Defence said.
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04/29/2014
According to information available, in Romania military units are moving towards the eastern borders – a military echelon loaded with anti-aircraft guns, trucks and ground -to- air missile systems has moved via Bucharest towards the Black Sea port of Constanta. The military units are needed for conducting joint military exercises with the participation of the US servicemen and four American F-16 fighter jets, according to the Romanian Defense Ministry officials told newsmen.
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04/29/2014
The United States has a vested interest in maintaining the strategic status quo in the Asia-Pacific given that its position as a power in the region could be undermined should China succeed in changing the regional security landscape. As anxiety has grown about China’s intentions following an increase in tensions over the Senkaku/Dioayu dispute between it and Japan, and a host of territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
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04/29/2014
Moscow is ready to discuss military aspects of the crisis in Ukraine within the framework of the OSCE’s Forum for Security Cooperation, the Russian delegation to the Vienna talks on military security and arms control said Monday. However, the discussions should not be linked to chapter three of the Vienna document, which defines mechanisms for consultation and cooperation regarding unusual military activities, the ministry said.
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04/29/2014
The US Air Force (USAF) has received into service the first of 76 B-52H Stratofortress bombers to go through the Combat Network Communications Technology (CONECT) digital data suite upgrade. The aircraft was accepted during a ceremony at Barksdale Air Force Base (AFB), Louisiana, on 25 April after having gone through the nine-month upgrade at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex located at Tinker AFB.
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04/29/2014
On April 2, India’s outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, told a conference that: “As a responsible nuclear weapon state that remains committed to non-proliferation, India supports the idea of a nuclear-weapon-free world because we believe that it enhances not just India’s security, but also global security.”
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04/29/2014
Bulgaria's defense minister has announced job cuts in the army to free funds for the modernization of the armed forces. Angel Naydenov said Monday that the army will be downsized by 1,300 servicemen by the end of this year and called the purchase of new combat aircraft "the most urgent task" which should have government approval by mid-year.
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04/29/2014
Built in more than 11,000 examples and acquired by countless countries around the globe, the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 was introduced in several Arab arsenals in the early 1960s, becoming the most modern among the Soviet jets flown in the Middle East in that period.
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04/29/2014
Britain is dispatching four Typhoon fighter jets to patrol the airspace of Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, British media said Monday. They will perform their patrolling mission alongside with six fighter jets of the Polish Air Force and will serve as a replacement for six F15 jets of the US Air Force.
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04/29/2014
The Australian Government's mission to upgrade the defence force fleet of ageing aircraft with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been controversial since it began more than a decade ago. Australia formally began looking for options to replace its F/A-18 and F-111 aircraft in May 1999 with the creation of project AIR 6000 – New Air Combat Capability. Phase 2, a Project Definition Study, was to commence in the 2002/03 financial year with a final decision expected around 2005/06.
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