Military Aviation News Archive
04/11/2013
Western fighter jet manufacturers attended the 12th Langkawi Maritime and Aerospace (LIMA) exhibition in Malaysia, anticipating the launch of that country’s delayed Multi-Role Combat Aircraft program, but recent conflict has refocused attention on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, particularly maritime surveillance.
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04/11/2013
The US military has been hard hit by sweeping budget cuts, but has not lost its capacity to stand up to an attack by North Korea, defense officials said Wednesday. “We have every capability to deal with any action North Korea would take, to protect this country, and the interests of this country, and our allies,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said at a briefing on the Pentagon’s 2014 proposed budget.
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04/11/2013
Russia will complete the delivery to Brazil of 12 Mi-35 (AH-2 Sabre) attack helicopters worth $150 million by this fall, the head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) said on Wednesday. “As of today, nine helicopters have been delivered and the remaining three will be shipped in the fall,” FSMTC director Alexander Fomin said at the LAAD 2013 defense exhibition in Rio de Janeiro.
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04/10/2013
The U.S. Marine Corps is preparing to deploy an agile, rapid crisis response force to the Mediterranean with deployable combat power, air assets, sea-basing and maritime pre-positioning capabilities, Corps leaders said March 8 at the Sea-Air-Space Expo, National Harbor, Md. "This will give senior leaders some decision space. It can integrate with an MEU and augment or compliment fleet anti-terrorism support teams.
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04/10/2013
The U.S. Air Force plans to ground about a third of its active-duty force of combat planes — including a squadron based at Hill Air Force Base — and the U.S. Navy cancelled the rest of the popular Blue Angels’ aerobatic team’s season because of automatic federal budget cuts.
The Air Force said the stand down will cover fighters, bombers and airborne warning and control aircraft in U.S., Europe and the Pacific.
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04/10/2013
A fighter pilot killed in a jet that crashed Wednesday in Afghanistan has been identified by the Defense Department as Capt. James Michael Steel of Tampa, Fla. Steel, a 29-year-old F-16 pilot, was assigned to the 77th Fighter Squadron out of Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., a statement said.
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04/10/2013
The Boeing Family of Advanced Beyond Line-of-Sight Terminals (FAB-T) wideband communications program has entered a new phase by delivering the first two engineering development models to the U.S. Air Force. Able to perform nearly all FAB-T production terminal mission functions, the models will be tested through June under realistic operational conditions aboard aircraft and at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass.
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04/10/2013
The US Air Force has begun curtailing operations of about one-third of the active-duty combat aircraft following recent budget cuts, the Air Combat Command (ACC) said in a statement on Tuesday. “The stand down is the result of cuts to Air Combat Command's operations and maintenance account, which must be implemented in part by flying approximately 45,000 fewer training hours between now and October 1,” the statement said.
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04/10/2013
The United States is capable of shooting down a missile launched by North Korea but may opt not to depending on the threat presented by such an action, the top US military commander in the Pacific said Tuesday. “If the missile was in defense of the homeland, I would certainly recommend that action. And if it was defense of our allies, I would recommend that action,” Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of US Pacific Command, told the US Senate’s armed services committee.
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04/10/2013
The US Navy has unveiled a new ship-mounted laser cannon it plans to deploy next year in the Middle East near Iran that runs off of electricity and is capable of incinerating a drone and disabling small boats at an estimated cost of less than $1 per blast. “The future is here,” Peter Morrision, a laser technology program officer at the US Office of Naval Research, said in a statement this week, adding that the laser is capable of “revolutionizing modern warfare” in the same way that “gunpowder d
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04/09/2013
After a decade collecting dust, New Zealand’s mothballed combat wing has taken to the skies again – in the United States. The air force’s fleet of Skyhawks spent more than 10 years grounded after being decommissioned. Last year eight were donated to museums across the country, and one was sent to a museum in Australia. The remaining eight were snapped up US company Draken International for $7.9 million, including spare parts and engines.
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04/09/2013
A top Brazilian air force officer has publicly vented frustration over the four-year delay by the nation's government to sign a contract for 36 new fighter aircraft, and implicated the country's industrial base for prolonging the wait. The farewell address on 4 April by Maj Gen Carlos de Almeida Baptista - the former commander of the office that sets the requirements for combat aircraft - offers a rare window inside the feelings of the air force leadership over the ongoing F-X2 programme.
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04/09/2013
The F-35 Lighting was the first choice of the Australian air force. But several thunderbolts have struck the stealth aircraft, including the arrival of new generation Sukhois that are skewing the odds against the Australians.
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04/09/2013
Lockheed Martin, the giant U.S. defence contractor, is launching a cross-Canada publicity blitz to convince Canadians to buy its F-35 stealth fighter jet — but it's simultaneously raising the price by a hefty $20 million US a plane. Steve O'Bryan, Lockheed's vice-president for the F-35 program, said just 18 months ago that Canada would pay $65 million per plane. Now, O'Bryan tells CBC News the price is $85 million.
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04/09/2013
India and French firm Dassault Aviation on Monday decided to keep aside their sharp differences over contractual obligations and move ahead on the other aspects of the deal to procure 126 multirole combat aircraft for the IAF.
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04/09/2013
Two Hawaii-based F-22 Raptor fighter squadrons are ready for combat. Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is home to 20 F-22 Raptors. The Hawaii Air National Guard began the transition from F-15 Eagle aircraft to the F-22s in July 2010. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser says the two fighter squadrons have been cleared to be able to deploy all of their aircraft. The move is a step up from last November when the two fighter squadrons attained initial operational capability status.
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04/09/2013
The F-22 Raptor is what's called a fifth-generation fighter, making it the most advanced combat aircraft as of, well, right now. But around here, we don't care about right now, we're all about what's next. And this concept from Boeing of the F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter jet could be exactly that. We've seen some hints on Boeing's vision for the future of strike aircraft.
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04/09/2013
April 21 2013 marks a momentous day for MiG fighter aircraft in India as it completes 50 years of its relationship with the Indian Air Force (IAF). Built in 1956, the world’s most common fighter aircraft emerged from the shadows in 1962 when India announced that it would be buying the newly developed Russian jets.
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04/09/2013
A new precision-guided weapon that Boeing will provide to the U.S. Navy will fundamentally change anti-submarine warfare by incorporating technologies never before used on an anti-submarine weapon. Through a recently awarded $19.2 million contract, Boeing will design and build the High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon Capability (HAAWC).
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04/09/2013
Russia and Brazil will discuss the possibility of the joint development of an advanced surface-to-air missile system, Parana, at the LAAD 2013 defense exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, Russian state-owned defense firm Rosoboronexport said on Monday. Brazil is showing keen interest in Russian-made missile defense systems, a Rosoboronexport spokesman said, adding that negotiations were also underway concerning licensed manufacturing.
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04/08/2013
Senior sources said Foreign Office ministers have seen the plans, as tensions in the Korean peninsula reach their highest pitch in five decades. Last night a former US government official put the seriousness of the North Korean threat for the Pentagon as eight out of 10, “where one is strategic patience and 10 is political freak out”.
Britain has already sent a team of plain-clothes operators to South Korea from Joint Forces Headquarters in Northwood to make ground preparations for a mass ev
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04/08/2013
SUSPECTED Chinese fighter jets, reportedly Russian-made multirole SukhoiS, again intruded into Philippine airspace particularly over the Kalayaan Island Group (KIG) in Palawan in the middle of last week, the Navy said. The KIG has been constituted into a municipality under the province of Palawan. The intrusion happened a day before the opening of the 2013 Philippines-US Exercise Balikatan, where some 8,000 Filipino and American soldiers are participating. The exercise is going in Luzon.
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04/08/2013
A Su-27 fighter of the Air Force of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) crashed during the flight training on March 31, 2013, and two pilots were killed. In this regard, a military expert, who was interviewed, explained three main reasons for airplane crash and expressed that this crash of the Su-27 fighter was not due to the aging of the fighter.
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04/08/2013
A 24-hour continuous flight training conducted by various types of early warning aircraft (EWA) of an aviation division under the Air Force of the Chinese People's Liberation Army concluded successfully on the morning of April 3, 2013. Lv Jianqiang, commander of the aviation division, told PLA Daily that the training results show that PLA's airborne early warning combat force has formed all-time all-territory early warning combat capabilities.
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04/08/2013
Europe is becoming a hive of activity when it comes to helicopters, as armed forces take deliveries, switch types between services, make upgrades and place a few new orders as lessons are learned from Afghanistan. At the same time, in Germany, and possibly France, officials are also taking the knife to orders as budget cuts kick in.
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