Military Aviation News Archive
08/29/2013
In a groundbreaking deal, Russia is to deliver Mi-17 military transport helicopters to Cameroon, a spokesperson for Russian Technologies said Wednesday. The deal was signed by Russia’s state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport, which is part of Russian Technologies, and Cameroon’s Defense ministry at the MAKS-2013 International Air Space Show just outside Moscow.
Read More...
08/29/2013
Russia’s MiG fighter jet maker has signed two additional contracts with India worth a total $55 million, the corporation said Wednesday. They are part of a general contract with India’s air force. Under the first, $43 million contract, a servicing center will be established in India for maintenance and repair of Zhuk-ME on-board radars, MiG representatives said.
Read More...
08/28/2013
Small groups of men go about their work with quiet professionalism as sections of the plane’s fuselage start to take shape. This is early days in the return of the Hawk production line to BAE Systems for the first time in nearly six years. In a few months, however, there will be up to 200 men working on all aspects of the £18m plane.
Read More...
08/28/2013
An F-16C pilot killed in an April crash near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan was flying low and didn’t see the mountains in his flight path because of bad weather, according to a recently completed investigation. Capt. James Steel, 29, was navigating by sight, instead of using his instruments to navigate, according to the report, which was released Tuesday.
Read More...
08/28/2013
F-16 Fighting Falcons returned to Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, recently, and could be seen screaming across the skies above base as red- and blue-force aircraft. Guardsmen from the 162nd Fighter Wing, Arizona Air National Guard, located at Tucson International Airport, are currently visiting to train Republic of Singapore pilots on air-to-air maneuvers in the F-16.
Read More...
08/28/2013
A Swiss parliamentary committee Tuesday gave the green light to Switzerland's proposed purchase of 22 combat aircraft from Saab AB, helping clear the way for final political approval of a critical export order for the Swedish aero-defense group. A deal with Switzerland would mark an important win for Saab against its rivals and be financially important in its own right for the Swedish company.
Read More...
08/28/2013
Naval Academy graduate Bill Gigliotti knows the stereotypes people conjure up when he tells them he's a test pilot. "A guy with a flight suit," said Gigliotti, who also graduated from the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School, known as Topgun. "Throw a scarf around our necks, it's all glamorous and sexy. But that's a very small part of what our job is."
Read More...
08/28/2013
Russia is actively developing an unmanned sixth generation aircraft, said a former Air Force commander. Unlike NATO allies who will use American F-35 5Gs, self-sufficiency is an absolute must for Russia, said the commander, so 6G evolution is inevitable.
Read More...
08/28/2013
The administration of US President Barack Obama said Tuesday it has moved beyond the question of whether or not chemical weapons were used in Syria last week, and by whom, and is now working with other nations – though not Russia – to determine the appropriate response.
Read More...
08/28/2013
After nearly 90 Russians were evacuated from Syria on Tuesday, the emergencies ministry sent another plane for citizens willing to leave the war-torn country, a spokeswoman said.
“An Il-62 plane took off for Latakia. This special flight is for Russian and CIS nationals who had earlier expressed their determination to return to Moscow,” emergencies ministry spokeswoman Irina Rossius said.
Read More...
08/28/2013
Russia’s top diplomat disagreed with his US counterpart in a phone conversation about the situation in Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported Tuesday. In the conversation, requested by the United States, US Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Syria’s government was to blame for the use of chemical weapons in that country, but Lavrov rejected that viewpoint, the ministry said in a statement.
Read More...
08/28/2013
While the United States and Russia might be engaging in a war of words over Syria, Edward Snowden, adoption and gay rights, the differences are not stopping the two countries from joining together with Canada in an anti-terror exercise this week.
Read More...
08/27/2013
Saipan, which is 200km north of Guam, the most substantial US military base in the region, is to have an expanded airfield capable of receiving fighter jets and refuelling tankers and heavy-lift transport aircraft. About 700 support personnel are expected to be based on the 20km-long island, which has a population of 48,220 and is a member of the Northern Mariana archipelago administered by the US.
Read More...
08/27/2013
In 2012, the Department of Defense received $118 billion for weapons procurement. Next year, it will receive less than $100 billion — a lot less if the deficit-cutting mechanism called sequestration again kicks in. Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News revealed last week that sequestration could drag down budget authority for weapons procurement by another 16% from the administration’s already reduced 2014 request, to a figure somewhere in the mid-eighty billions.
Read More...
08/27/2013
The Defense Department may have to fire at least 6,272 civilian employees if automatic cuts known as sequestration slice $52 billion from its fiscal 2014 budget, according to a Pentagon planning document. Additional budget analysis is “likely to produce further reductions” as the services focus on shrinking their contract labor forces, according to a Pentagon “execution plan” obtained by Bloomberg News.
Read More...
08/27/2013
Prague expects to renew its lease on 14 Swedish fighter jets beyond 2015, outgoing Czech prime minister Jiri Rusnok said Monday. "The negotiations are at an advanced stage. The ball is actually in our court. The Swedes are awaiting our final answer to their recent offer," he told reporters. The new contract with Stockholm over the supersonic JAS-39 Gripen combat jets could be inked at the end of the year or in early 2014 by the new government, he added.
Read More...
08/27/2013
President Barack Obama faces the toughest foreign policy dilemma of his administration as he decides how to respond after concluding that Syria’s regime used chemical weapons against innocent civilians. Obama “believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people,” Secretary of State John Kerry said today.
Read More...
08/27/2013
India, seeking to build its first regional aircraft, is considering roping in local and foreign partners for the project, after spending more than two decades to build a smaller plane.
A study under review by a government panel favors tie-ups with equipment makers rather than purchasing engines and parts from them, Satish Chandra, head of aircraft program at National Aerospace Laboratories, a state-owned plane designer involved in the development, said in a telephone interview from Bangalore.
Read More...
08/27/2013
The Japanese Defense Ministry has scrambled its interceptors for the second time in four days in response to the approach of Russian military airplanes, local media said late Sunday.
Two Russian Il-38 anti-submarine patrol aircraft passed near Japan’s northern shores, though they did not violate the country’s airspace, the Japanese Defense Ministry said in a statement cited by Jiji newswire.
Read More...
08/27/2013
Russian designers are proceeding with development of an unmanned “sixth-generation” fighter jet, former Air Force chief Pyotr Deinekin said Monday. “The sixth generation of aircraft will most likely be pilotless. Naturally, we are actively working on this,” Deinekin said in an interview with RIA Novosti. Russia will probably not be able to skip a generation and will need to complete all of its fifth-generation projects, he added.
Read More...
08/27/2013
This new fleet order for Cirrus Aircraft follows an agreement between the governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, under the Saudi British Defence Cooperation Programme (SBDCP). The aircraft will provide primary flying training to the RSAF at the King Faisal Air Academy in Riyadh through the support of theUK's BAE Systems.
Read More...
08/26/2013
The Syrian government accused rebels of using chemical weapons Saturday and warned the United States not to launch any military action against Damascus over an alleged chemical attack last week, saying such a move would set the Middle East ablaze. The accusations by the regime of President Bashar Assad against opposition forces came as an international aid group said it has tallied 355 deaths from a purported chemical weapons attack on Wednesday.
Read More...
08/26/2013
Not since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 has Russia carried out a military maneuver like the “readiness test” that began on July 12. Demonstrating in front of the country’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation put on display an impressive series of exercises that provided audiences with a taste of its modern military power.
Read More...
08/26/2013
The increasingly bellicose statements on Syria coming from London and Washington will sharpen the focus of Monday's meeting of top US, British, French and other generals in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
Read More...
08/26/2013
Japan scrambled fighter jets on Sunday as a pair of Russian military planes flew along the nation's northern coastline, the defence ministry said. Two IL-38 planes flew along shorelines of Hokkaido, Aomori and Akita, facing the Sea of Japan (East Sea), but stayed away from Japanese airspace, the ministry added.
Read More...