Military Aviation News Archive
07/11/2013
American fighter pilots (air force, navy and marine) are largely in agreement that, while the F-22 is a superior air-to-air fighter, the new F-35 is a better, if still flawed, all-round combat aircraft. A lot of this has to do with technology.
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07/11/2013
The government is moving closer to acquiring 12 fighter trainer jets for the Air Force after the defense department’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) Wednesday approved the terms of reference for the project. Defense Assistant Secretary Patrick Velez said the terms of reference, which contain key details of the acquisition, would soon be forwarded to Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin for final approval.
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07/11/2013
Call me an aviation Luddite, but I do have a few questions about the latest Triumph of the Drone. Yes, landing on an airfield that’s moving at 35 miles per hour in the middle of the ocean is no mundane chore, no matter how easy U.S. Navy pilots make it look. And the fact that an X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS), the Navy’s prototype fighting drone, landed on the carrier USS George H.W. Bush off the Virginia coast today is a big deal.
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07/11/2013
New MiG-35 and Su-35 fighter jets will be delivered to the Russian Air Force in large numbers within the next three years, after resolution of some problems found during their final tests, Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov said on Wednesday. "There are problems with completion of the state order for these models," he said. "They will start to enter service en masse in the next three years, I think," he added, but did not elaborate.
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07/10/2013
Military installations and defense contractors are taking the brunt of the automatic budgets cuts mandated by sequestration. Why should we care? Washington has major bases and military suppliers such as Boeing. They contribute more than $13 billion to our economy, or about 4 percent of total gross domestic product. A July 2012 study by George Mason University projected that sequestration could cost our state 41,000 military-related jobs.
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07/10/2013
The first F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter ever to land at Cherry Point taxied up to Fleet Readiness Center East Tuesday morning. The stealth jet, Navy Bureau Number 168059, is only the second production model of the F-35B to be completed by manufacturer Lockheed Martin. It arrived at the FRC East maintenance and repair facility as the first F-35B to enter a modification program that officials have said would be vital to the maintenance of the entire fleet of fifth-generation aircraft.
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07/10/2013
At the Paris Air Show the Gripen folks, SaaB Group. very deliberately floated an interesting idea. Since the Gripen uses fly-by-wire technology and advanced avionics which virtually eliminate the need for a pilot during normal flight, why not take the software to the next step and turn the fighters into optionally manned aircraft that can be controlled by a pilot in another Gripen.
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07/10/2013
Israel Military Industries, one of the Jewish state's leading defense companies, has completed development of its long-range MARS precision air-launched rocket, which appears to have capabilities similar to the missiles the air force reportedly used to hit targets in Syria in May.
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07/10/2013
According to Channel 10, all of the squadrons employed aging planes and were scheduled to be cut in several years’ time anyway, due to high operation costs. “This is just the beginning,” a senior Defense Ministry official warned Tuesday. “We must stop burying our heads in the sand. The public does not understand that we are facing an earthquake,” he said, adding that the 2013 and 2014 defense budgets face a combined cut of nearly 8 billion shekels ($2.2 billion).
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07/10/2013
Prominent US senators on Tuesday called for the Obama administration to suspend all aid to Egypt — including military assistance — unless the interim government meets certain standards. The Egyptian military is heavily dependent on nearly $1.5 billion in annual aid it receives from the United States. But the military has come under increasing pressure after forcing from power former President Mohamed Morsi, then days later reportedly opening fire on some of his supporters.
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07/10/2013
The steady progress of smart rockets continues as area-fire 70-mm unguided rockets are upgraded into precision, laser-guided weapons that are a fraction of the cost and weight of existing missiles such as the Hellfire.
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07/10/2013
The future of electronic combat came into focus on Monday, and it looks like Raytheon will be leading the way. The Massachusetts-based technology company won a very tough competition to develop the defense department’s next airborne jamming system, defeating two other world-class teams. If Raytheon performs as expected, it will dominate the arcane world of electronic warfare for decades to come, generating many billions of dollars in revenues.
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07/10/2013
Without a lot of opposition from the U.S. Air Force, the ground support mission is being replaced by GPS guided rockets and artillery shells, as well as a growing assortment of guided missiles controlled by ground forces. The air force was never comfortable with the ground support (of ground combat troops) mission.
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07/10/2013
Russia’s new aerospace defense system will ensure guaranteed detection of enemy ballistic and long-range cruise missiles at blastoff, a top military official said Tuesday. General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov said the system would feature advanced information-gathering, data-processing and attack capabilities with an early-warning radar system to be deployed along the entire Russian border.
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07/09/2013
More than 650,000 people who hold civilian jobs with the Defense Department begin mandatory furloughs today. About 85 percent of the department’s nearly 900,000 civilians around the world will be furloughed one day each week over the next three months, according to the latest statistics provided by the Pentagon.
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07/09/2013
They may be civilians, but Air Reserve Technicians wear the Air Force uniform while at work.
The 10,400 Air Reserve Technicians are federal employees who must be in the Select Reserve to hold their jobs. Since 2007, they have been required to wear Air Force uniforms at work in both civilian and military status.
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07/09/2013
The Abbottabad Commission was charged with ascertaining the facts of what happened on the night of May 1, 2011, when the United States unilaterally launched a raid to capture or kill al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in northern Pakistan.
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07/09/2013
For decades the U.S. government has ladled billions upon billions in military assistance to countries that either don’t need it or use it to suppress popular uprisings. But all that money has bought very little in terms of genuine influence with the recipients, ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman writes.
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07/09/2013
South Korea's plan to buy 60 fighter jets has been temporarily put on ice as three competitors have failed to offer prices within Seoul's 8.3 trillion won (US$7.2 billion) budget, further delaying the replacement of its aging fleet.
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07/09/2013
The Iceland Fighter Meet 2014 (IFM14) will bring together fighter aircraft from NATO member Norway (F-16 Fighting Falcon), and from partner countries Finland (F-18 Hornet) and Sweden (JAS Gripen), to conduct a wide range of air defence-related flying activities. These will include air combat training between dissimilar aircraft types, defensive and offensive counter-air operations and high-value airborne asset attack and protection.
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07/09/2013
Russia may have vowed not to sell its arms to Pakistan, but India’s archrival is getting some key Russian/Soviet military equipment, surreptitiously through China, thereby jeopardising New Delhi’s defence confidentiality. One example of such Chinese arms sales, though they do not sell full equipment of Russian origin, is the aeroengines for Pakistan’s JF-17 combat aircraft for which Russia too has given its consent, much to India’s chagrin.
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07/09/2013
An Israeli F16 warplane crashed at sea on Sunday, July 7, due to an engine malfunction and Israel subsequently grounded all its F15 and F16 combat aircraft pending a review of the incident, a military spokesman said, according to Reuters. The pilot and navigator on board managed to safely bail out of the U.S.-made plane and a military rescue unit came to evacuate them by helicopter, the spokesman and Israeli media reports said.
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07/09/2013
Polish military inspectors will make surveillance flights over the territories of Russia and Belarus under the international Open Skies Treaty starting on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Polish experts will conduct the inspection flights on board an Antonov An-30B (Clank) aircraft between July 8 and 12, the statement said.
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07/09/2013
Sukhoi Su-30SM multirole fighter jets will be delivered to the Russian Air Force as fully equipped squadrons, rather than “piecemeal,” deputy commander Colonel Sergei Kobylash said Thursday. The Su-30SM is the latest development of the twin-seat Su-30 jet fighter family, a derivative of the long-serving single-seat Sukhoi Su-27, one of the air force's most important warplanes.
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07/04/2013
China's first group of five pilots and landing signal officers received their certifications in the latest sea trials of the Liaoning, the country's first aircraft carrier. The Liaoning finished its 25-day test and training mission on Wednesday and returned to a navy port in the east China city of Qingdao. During the training, pilots executed several continuous take-off and landing exercises, making China one of the few countries in the world that can train its own carrier-borne jet pilots.
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